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This weekend held the wonder and joy of our Christian Sexuality workshop that we had to endure in order to get married in a Catholic Church. The following is an account of this story. Names have not been changed. Screw the innocent.

OK, for starters, this class was being held in some corner of St. Francis Hospital that was selected purely for the reason that it was the most difficult to find locale in the entire facility. We did arrive on time, by some stroke of miracle.

8:30 am
An Englishman named Jeremy is our host for the day. He looks somewhat a cross between Jesus, and 1960’s John Lennon. Imagine a skinny, Beatles-cut Jesus-beard Englishman, and you’re there. He opens up the seminar by reassurring us that he doesn’t care one way or another if we take to heart anything that he says today. I would like everyone to note this halfhearted qualification for the bilge he was going to force on us for the rest of the day. He did quite a good job at painting himself the normal guy, explaining that he (like most of us) used to be of the mindset that sex was just something that was fun to do, and that for much of his life he held the same thought about the Catholic Church and sex that most of us did. If it feels good, stop.

Most of this portion of his talk was tolerable and downright believable. He did a good job of making us feel like he was the average guy, with average guy thoughts and conceptions about how all of this crap should go down. I was just starting to really accept that he wasn’t going to feed me Catholic rhetoric all day. Whoa, was I wrong.

10:30 am
It begins. Jeremy begins to move into some of the commonly refuted areas of Catholic doctrine, mostly in the direction of contraception. Suffice it to say I was pretty boiled by the end of this section. One of my favorite quotes (or at least paraphrases)… “if you don’t use the NFP method and choose contraception instead, you have changed the fundamental rules that God laid down for sex, and therefore don’t have real love for your spouse.”

At this point, both Tasha and I realized that not only was this guy was full of crap, he was exhibiting all of the signs of attempting to brainwash the whole crowd. He was playing on the females in the audience, trying to convince them that their husbands-to-be don’t love them as a whole person if they don’t submit to Natural Family Planning, etc. We quite enjoyed surveying this guy’s technique, because he was obviously trained by priests and nuns and other evil underlords.

11:45
Lunch arrives. I briefly consider making a bolt for Arby’s, but the sandwiches they brought looked good enough. Tasha and I stayed, and actually lunch was the best part of the experience.

12:45
We are informed by Jeremy that things would wrap up early today. We are now subjected to an introduction to Natural Family Planning (which is NOT the Rhythm Method), and we are forced to listen to a parade of happy couples that came to tell us the joys of the NFP method. I don’t remember much of this part, except for a horrible woman that was the worst public speaker in History.

There was a couple that related having sex every day to their love of going to major league baseball games, and how it was good for them to take a break from going to games regularly, so it was more fun when they did go. None of them contended that NFP was not a lot of work, but they say after it becomes a part of the routine it isn’t so bad. I disagree. Anytime waking up at 6 am and taking your wife’s temperature, and then having her examine discharges every day is not my idea of a pleasant, easy to use system. They all claimed their 4-6 kids were all planned, but I tend to call this fact into question.

At this point my focus has turned to the evaluation sheets that were included in our pile of materials. I spent most of the conversations with these couples filling out my frustrations and complaints on this form. I rated them a 1 of 10 for effectiveness, and cited Lunch and Certification as the high points of the day for me. I complained about manipulative practices from Jeremy, and the fact that the whole NFP conversations should have been kept for the NFP classes that they offer. I told them I don’t plan to practice this stuff, and that is sucked that I was required to sit through this bilge.

At this point, Jeremy was back at the front of the room, telling us to fill out any questions on the provided 3 x 5 cards. The question that was asked was the same question from two different couples… what if we want to use the NFP method and my wife is fertile on our wedding night? What should we do? The enlightened answer from our host: do what you want. If you want a chance at a kid, go for it. If you don’t, wait a few days. Astounding.

2:00
We adjourn, grab our certificates, drop off our still smoldering evalutations, and head for the hills.

Anyway, there is really no way I can explain fully the horrors of this, but this was a pretty decent overview. I’m sure Tasha will help gloss over the parts I forgot, there were a few points when I was basically blinded with rage.