Well said Alexa ... you are quite correct. It is about time we realised that being brain washed into believing sex is dirty and bad is terribly stupid.

We have a longer history than just current history. It's been a long 2006 and six years and much has changed in that time.

"Why We Love", Helen Fisher.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805069135/103-0170049-0515046?v=glance&n=283155

Basically, three drives - physical attraction, romantic love, long-term relationship love.

All operate independently. Romantic love is normally for one person at a time, the others can be for many people concurrently. As such, men can be romantically in love with their mistress and relationship in love with their wife.

Honestly, the whole Church thing is pure bunk. God created everything? Heaven and hell after you die? if it wasn't so widely believed, it'd be regarded as another crackpot belief, up there with UFOs behind comets.

Ok, so here's how I see it. I agree with you Alexa. Sex is a good thing. I dont know why it was ever related to a dirty act...maybe because of the positions, I dont know. But what I do know is, isnt it funny, how people automatically use the church as a means of support to back up their theory, only when they want to? And other times, they just disregard what the church says. Now, I'm not saying I agree with everything the church says, but I was just thinking how as humans, we do that...

As an interesting thought/aside in response to:
"I’m sure in a perfect world love between married people can go on being erotic. But out in the real world? Why does it happen so infrequently? Are we as human being simply not trying hard enough?"

You may find interest a somewhat interesting answer from the biochemistry involved in love as discussed in a recent article (Last month I beleive) in National Geographic. It seems that the passionate chemical response we first develop in love seems to have about a 4 year shelf life. Also in that state your brain is similar to that of a person with OCD. It is an interesting and informative read.

As an interesting thought/aside in response to:
"I’m sure in a perfect world love between married people can go on being erotic. But out in the real world? Why does it happen so infrequently? Are we as human being simply not trying hard enough?"

You may find a somewhat interesting answer from the biochemistry involved in love as discussed in a recent article (Last month I beleive) in National Geographic. It seems that the passionate chemical response we first develop in love seems to have about a 4 year shelf life. Also in that state your brain is similar to that of a person with OCD. It is an interesting and informative read.

Having been raised Catholic, I know firsthand how fucking long it takes to get over the guilt they feed ya. It's why I write about sex now, too. It's just awful how much the frickin' Catholic church has repressed sex over the years.

But this is becoming a bit of a departure from what I was raised with, that sex was for procreation. Now all we need is for them to accept that birth control is a good thing. God knows they're still trying to keep Africa from using condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS.

Why does it happen so infrequently? Probably because it involves a LOT of effort.

My wife and I are one of the rare "married yet erotic" couples you described, but getting to that point involved numerous discussions over the years, a lot of Q&A about what does & doesn't work. These conversations are sometimes awkward and the fears of rejection and embarrassment always lurk. There's a bit of emotional risk involved, and unless you're confident in the relationship, the fear could keep you from taking that risk.

So if we've passed the test of still acting like horny newlyweds after 6+ years, it's only because we've put in a lot of study time :-)

My mentor in the (Methodist) ministry once told me that "laws are for the lawless."

By it, he meant that the laws created by Man or "God" are really meant to prevent humankind from acting upon its most selfish desires which ultimately lead to degradation or self-destruction. Mind you, I have many issues with the Catholic Church and most of the so-called religions practised today. Still, I cannot find fault in the line of thinking that seeks to promote balance between our desires and some sort of self-discipline.

To give an example from your post, I think that married men who visit your services are in fact, reducing the connection to their sexual selves down to a transaction. It does commoditize the human existence. Whether that is bad, good, or otherwise is up for debate. What is usually clear is that the decision to do anything other than work at improving the marriage indicates a fundamental deprioritization of the relationship for other things. It also creates a line of thinking that undermines (I think) the real value and depth possible in human relationships.

The last point is underscored by my experience with a close friend who frequently used escorts (no, not the "oh it's me pretending that I have this friend" sort of friend, but a real friend.) He used the common explanation for using them (busy banker with no time/energy/patience to maintain a girlfriend.) What eventually happened is that every relationship began to center on some transactional value. This line of thinking even crept into our friendship, at which point we nearly lost it.

So, I think the Pope has some good ideas here. It's the implementation of the dogma that runs afoul of my sensibilities.