So, I don't like staying in hotels, especially alone. I feel like a target for the devil--not because I'm looking to be unfaithful, or am uncomfortable being alone, but because these spaces tend to hold for me a kind of uneasy spiritual air of everything that ever happened there, like a house that has been smoked in for thirty years where the smell of stale smoke and tar stains on the wallpaper just never really get out.
I'm very sensitive to my environment, as well as inter-personal energy. It sounds strange, but within five minutes of meeting someone new, I almost always either feel repelled or attracted by them; that is, if they have good energy, conversation is engaging and I feel at ease; if I pick up on an uneasy energy, or a disingenuousness, I shy away. This all happens within a few minutes, like a weird Spidey sense, both with people and with places.
When someone decides to have an affair, seek out a prostitute, order porn on Pay-Per-View, hook up at a conference, or engage in self-abuse, many times it happens in hotel or motel rooms. The fact that such places serve as a kind of 'neutral territory,' a quasi-moral DMZ, makes them prime meeting space for potential indiscretions. You've heard the expression "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas," as if the geographic local or intoxication makes opportunities for indiscretion 'not count' somehow. But we do not live in a moral vacuum; they do indeed 'count' in the moral economy.
Even quote-unquote 'good' sex is shallow, empty, and an affront to human dignity when it is in violation of the moral law--that is, outside the sacred covenant of marriage. In affairs and indiscretions, people use one another--not only their bodies in a counterfeit way, but in the avoidance of responsibilities and suffering in their current situations. Affairs feed on fantasy, much like the strip club or any kind of engagement with a prostitute. Of course there can be emotional affairs that are a different (but no less hurtful) betrayal, even when they are not physical. But physical affairs carry with them a desperate kind of longing to escape--escape one's wife or husband, one's responsibilities, the drudgery of everyday life. They are addicting in the sense that they are exhilarating--sin always is in some degree.
But they can not, by definition, be self-sustaining. They rely on fantasy and escape and a kind of manipulation, even when consensual, because they are self-satisfying. And self-satisfying endeavors always end in dissatisfaction and even disgust eventually.
Whereas the pleasure and misplaced satisfaction in adulterous sex degrades over time, married sex--when it is chaste, open to life, self-emptying, and respects the dignity of the other--has the potential to improve and deepen over time, much like (if you'll excuse the cliche) a fine wine. Scripture admonishes us to "keep the marital bed undefiled" for good reason--sex within marriage is a kind of sacred communion, a mingling of flesh and spirit, that is so powerful that it has the potential to bring forth new life and new souls into existence.
But how can you have sex with the same person for ten, twenty, thirty years and not get 'bored?' How can precluding things like anal sex or oral sex or other aberrations not in accordance with Natural Law be creative? If sex within marriage was purely a physical act, that may very well be true. But anyone who has been married for some time knows that your relationship and communication is the barometer for your sex life. When you are sacrificing yourself for the good of the other, dying to self, communicating and serving one another's needs, sex tends to be 'good' in that it reflects this healthiness. It is mutually satisfying in that each partner does not feel used or exploited for secondary purposes.
Physical, non-verbal communication in the sexual act is deeper than any purely mechanical act could ever approach, and when you've lived with and known someone long enough that you can intuit their moods and anticipate their feelings, that gets communicated sexually in the bedroom via deference and fulfilling the other's needs. When selfishness enters in and is manifested sexually, the other person can usually tell. All without a word spoken.
The Church's wisdom in laying guidelines for sexual conduct, both outside of and within marriage, is only for our good. Monogamous, 'vanilla' sex gets scoffed at in the secular world, but the fact is sex is so much better, more fulfilling, without guilt or remorse, when it is operates chastely within marriage, as it is meant to be protected. Openness to life--removing the tightrope, so to speak in not using artificial contraception--lends itself to plenty of excitement and mystery. Chastity--keeping one's thoughts pure, and concentrating the sexual drive only on one's spouse--is a solid mortar for one's sex life, building a house with brick, not sand. It honors the Creator, and it honors the other. Precluding unnatural sex acts that are so often seen in pornography and mimicked by those that view it keeps things in Right Order--that is, in accordance with Natural Law. And the house is cemented together with love, a love that dies to self for the other, does not use or manipulate, a love that is modeled on Christ's relationship to his bride, the Church.
Adultery, fornication, masturbation,"hooking-up," sexual favors--no one ever leaves these encounters feeling deeply satisfied and fulfilled. They are an empty currency, devalued to the point of buying nothing but addictive self-satisfaction that always comes up short. It doesn't hold it's value, because it was never meant to...because God designed sex to be within marriage.
I'm not sure what any of this has to do with hotel rooms like the one I am currently typing in, but there is a reason we like to sleep in our own beds. It roots us to a place--a home--that we find safety and true rest in. It is reserved for intimacy, the kind of intimacy that cannot be bought or traded with sexual favors with strangers.When the marriage bed remains undefiled, love flourishes, and ages gracefully.
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