Sex and The Sacrament: What is the Purpose of Sex?

What this article is about

The goal of sexual intercourse is not pleasure, but union with God—best understood through the lens of the Eucharist.

What you will find in this article

• Why modern culture has reduced sex to pleasure—and why this is fundamentally disordered
• The connection between pornography, loneliness, and the misuse of the body
• A clear explanation of why pleasure is not the goal of sex, but a byproduct
• The three true purposes of sexual intercourse: procreation, unification, and sanctification
• How the Eucharist reveals the true meaning of the one-flesh union
• How to approach sexual union in a way that reflects Christ’s love for the Church

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Sex and The Sacrament:
What is the Purpose of Sex?

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What is having sex about?

Moreover, what is the purpose of sexual intercourse?
Could the Sacrament of the Eucharist help us understand “sex”?

I realize that these questions sound mindless.
Of course we know what sex is for.
But do we?

For instance, in 2025, pornography consumption has reached historically high levels, increasing nearly 100% since the year 2000.
Additionally, people are having less sex than ever.
“Sex” has been deferred to pixels and porn, digits and AI.
Hence, “among U.S. adults 18–35, about 87% of men and 28.5% of women view porn at least once a week.”

In other words, sex is about pleasure.

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We have been conditioned to believe that sexual intercourse can be:

Between Anyone

For example, ‘acceptable’ sexual acts can involve:
man and woman;
man and man;
woman and woman;
biological male “performing” as a female with a male or female;
a biological female “performing” as a male with a male or a female;
man and animal; woman and animal;
man and sex bot;
woman and sex bot.

Transactional

Notably, sexual acts are understood as an exchange of bodies—not persons.
Consequently, the spirit and the soul of the person are perceived as having no attachment to the body.
Therefore, the body can be used as a tool for bartering to derive emotional closeness, physical pleasure, and dopamine downloads.

Provides Pleasure

Fundamentally, the worldly pursuit of sexual encounters has been reduced to a single premise: to get pleasure.
According to Dr. Andrew Huberman, dopamine is the modern currency.
During a sexual act, the brain releases high levels of this hormone, affording momentary pleasure.
Consequently, sex is a primary vehicle to derive dopamine spikes.
According to Adam Lane Smith, the use of pornography provides a dopamine spike that is 21x that of having sex with a human being.

It’s Fun

For example: Buck Angel, a biological female who “performs” as a transgender male, debated with Charlie Kirk regarding transitioning and sex.

Charlie asked Buck, “What is sex for?”
Buck responded, “For fun.”
As a result, Charlie said, “I get it. I’m married. But should we do something just because it is fun?”
Buck, realizing her faulty logic, responded, “Well… no…”

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How We Approach Sex Matters

While sexual intercourse can be fun and pleasurable, I argue and believe that it is never to be transactional.
Furthermore, the sexual act is to be between a man and a woman within the context of marriage.

Now, if you are a staunch Catholic who adheres to the Church’s teaching (which is Christ’s teaching) regarding sexual acts, marriage, and God’s design for it, you may be tempted to stop reading here.
Additionally, if you are not a believer in Christ, or a proponent of the Church’s vision of marriage, you also may believe that this is Christian spiritual rhetoric and polemics—and again, be tempted to close down this post.

Hang on.

The way we are approaching and having—or not having—sex is hollowing us out.
We are using more porn than ever, having less actual sex than ever, are lonelier than ever.
Additionally, we are experiencing higher rates of anxiety, depression, and suicidality.
There is a connection.

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Is Pleasure the Goal?

When a thing is used according to its design, that thing and the person using that thing thrive.
Conversely, when a thing is used in non-accordance with its design, typically that thing becomes damaged and eventually inoperable.

For example, if I use a car to drive, I achieve the purpose for which the car is made.
However, if I use the car as a boat, I not only damage and drown the car, but also risk my life.

Again, when I use a hammer to pound a nail, I fulfill the task without harm to me or the hammer.
However, if I use a banana to pound that nail, I destroy the banana, and the project remains unfinished.

The purpose and the means to fulfill that purpose matter.
Indeed, the two are inseparable.

The postmodern culture believes that pleasure is the goal and that having sex, using our bodies, or using porn are the means to derive that pleasure.
But what if pleasure is not the goal?
More precisely, what if pleasure is the wrong goal?

When we pursue pleasure for pleasure’s sake, we drown the car, we destroy the banana, we do severe damage to our souls.
What if pleasure is the consequence or benefit associated with pursuing or achieving the proper goal?

I understand that what I just said is considered a “sin” by post-Christian society.
Indeed, according to the secularist, there is no greater good than pleasure.
However, why is it that when we pursue pleasure for pleasure’s sake we are never satisfied?

For example, ask any porn, drug, gambling, or alcohol addict if they are ever satisfied.
They never are.
Nor will they ever be.

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The Thing and the Purpose of a Thing

Creatures (anything created, whether it be a drug or a person) are limited, changing, and finite.
Consequently, when we attempt to derive an unlimited amount of pleasure for the purpose of obtaining infinite happiness from a creature, that creature fails us.

Creatures shift.
They are prone to fads, trends, and therefore change.
Therefore, a creature that changes cannot afford unchanging, unlimited happiness.

The Creator (God) is unlimited, unchanging, and infinite.
St. Thomas Aquinas refers to God as the Summum Bonum, the highest good, the ultimate goal or purpose in life.
God is beatitude—happiness Himself.

Additionally, St. Thomas Aquinas also says that God is the unmoved mover.
Specifically, every object that moves had to be moved by something else.
As a result, everything that is movable is changing and limited.
Whereas the first and primary mover that cannot be moved is immovable, unchangeable, and the infinite source of movement.

This is God.

How to Obtain Unchanging Happiness

In other words, God, who is happiness, does not change and is infinite.
If my goal is God, then my happiness will remain constant, immovable, unshakable.

Accordingly, if my goal is to derive pleasure from a changing, trending, fleeting, finite creature, my happiness will be fleeting, changing, finite, and limited.

The world views pleasure as the goal and sex as the means to it.
Consequently, the body is the means to the sex, which is the means to the pleasure.
Hence, the soul is separated from the body.

For this reason, the world is miserable.

Why?
Because both carnal pleasures, and the creatures involved in sexual acts, are limited, changing, and finite.

Furthermore, God designed conjugal union with a purpose.
Indeed, God created sexual union as a means to achieve our ultimate purpose: union with Him.

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The Three Goals of Every Sexual Act

St. Thomas, in his Shorter Summa, says that it is impossible for God, who is good, to create something for an evil purpose.
Furthermore, he says that everything that God creates has a singular purpose: to be assimilated into the Good (God).

Hence, God created you to be good and to be assimilated into Him that you may experience eternal goodness and bliss for all eternity.

Subsequently, every aspect of our lives is intended to be used by God to lead us to the Ultimate Good.
Therefore, God created sexual intercourse to be good and lead us to Him who is good.

Indeed, sex (conjugal union with one’s spouse) is a sacrament (sign) that directs us to the ultimate and eternal union with God.
Hence, every aspect of a good and proper sexual act has been designed by God to reflect and reveal God and our union with Him.

God created the sexual act to fulfill three “minor” purposes for the ultimate purpose of living in union with Him:

Procreation

One purpose of conjugal union is to create human beings.
To give souls to God.
Consequently, the marital vows are a promise to receive children lovingly from God and to raise them for God.

Unification

Another purpose of the one-flesh union is to bond the married couple emotionally, psychologically, physically, and spiritually.
Hence, the marital vows speak of “fidelity” and “till death do us part.”

Sanctification

Furthermore, by means of aligning sexual drives and desires, through engaging in sex and abstaining from sex, the couple discovers both self-restraint and self-giving.
Indeed, by engaging and abstaining, by being a gift sexually to the other, or refraining when the other is not able, are highly sanctifying.
In other words, the couple learns to love like God.

As a result, all three purposes prepare the couple for their ultimate purpose: union and communion with God.

Notice that none of the goals of the sexual act is to derive pleasure.
Pleasure is a side benefit associated with the pursuance of the threefold goal of procreation, unification, and sanctification.

In other words, God gave us the incredible gift of deriving emotional and physical pleasure from sexual intercourse.

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The Pleasure and Pain of Sex

However, God does not remove the benefit of pleasure when we do not have sexual intercourse according to His plan.
As St. Paul says, “The gifts and call of God are irrevocable.” (Rom 11:9)

Therefore, people can and do separate the sexual act from its ultimate purpose.
Hence, they divorce God from the pleasure and make the pleasure their god.

Yet, God does allow every person who has sexual intercourse outside the proper context and purpose of a sacramental marriage to undergo the pain, anguish, and heartache that is a product of not “having sex” according to His plan and purpose.

Sure, it is fun while it is happening.
Not always, though.
Especially for the person being used by another.

However, post the sexual act, the pain, regret, and personal anguish set in.

For example, many men immediately after using porn experience the common phenomenon of the “shame cycle.”
Furthermore, 1 in 3 women say that they regret their first sexual experience.
Research indicates that women often report higher frequency and intensity of regret regarding premarital and casual sex.

Indeed, we have turned the good of sex into something bad.

The emotional and psychological post-sex pain is a consequence of not having sex according to God’s plan and purpose.

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How Should We Have Sex?

We’ve heard the phrase, “Short-term pain, long-term gain.”
Conversely, we can achieve short-term gain (pleasure) and long-term pain.

In other words, we can approach conjugal union God’s way, which may involve short-term sacrifice, but will inevitably lead to long-term unification between spouses.

Conversely, we can approach sex as the world does: to derive short-term pleasure and eventually live in an enduring personal hell of regret and anguish.

Believe it or not, we learn how to have sex from God.
Additionally, God reveals to us how to have sex from Christ.

What?
How do we learn to have sex from Christ, who did not have sex?!

Christ gives us the sacrament of the Eucharist as the means for us to understand what true union between spouses is.

Therefore, we can analyze the nature of the Eucharistic sacrifice and its liturgical context to learn how to achieve a better, more lasting conjugal union.

I realize that this sounds insane.
Indeed, words like these can come off as hyper-polemic, cultish, or over-spiritualizing the sexual act.

Bear with me.

What I am about to share with you can transform your experience of the one-flesh union with your spouse.
This is not hyperbole.
Nor is it exaggerative.
This is real.

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The Logic of Sex

Marriage is the primordial sacrament.
This means that marriage is the first sign God created to reveal and reflect who He is.

Indeed, God said, “Let us make man in our image and likeness.”
Consequently, “He made them male and female; He created them.”

God is self-giving love.
God made man and woman to give themselves to one another.
Hence, by doing so, they become one flesh.

Consequently, their union reflects and reveals God, who is eternal self-giving love.

Furthermore, “the husband leaves his parents and cleaves to his wife and the two become one flesh, and this is a great mystery, I mean in reference to Christ and His Church.”

Therefore, the one-flesh union is a sacrament, an efficacious (grace-transmitting) sign of Christ’s union with His Bride, the Church.

Indeed, as St. Pope John Paul II says, “The linking of the one flesh union of marriage with the union of Christ and the Church is the most important point of the whole text (Eph 5), in a certain sense, the keystone.”

Again,
“It is of special merit [that St. Paul] brought these two signs together and made of them one great sign—that is, a great sacrament.”

Additionally, John Paul says,

“The text of Ephesians 5… appears as the compendium or summa, in some sense, of the teaching about God and man which was brought to fulfillment by Christ.” (LF n. 19)

In other words, Ephesians 5, which outlines marriage between a man and a woman, provides a window into understanding God and His union with us.

Conversely, we can look to Christ and His love for the Church, particularly in the Eucharist, to understand how to achieve union in marriage.

Spousal sexual intercourse is a glimmer and foreshadowing of our eternal union with the Divine Bridegroom.
Christ’s gift of Himself as Bridegroom to His Bride, the Church—particularly in the Eucharist—is the prototype for spousal conjugal love.

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Sex and Sacrament

How do we “have sex” in order that the conjugal act becomes a sign that reveals Christ’s union with His Bride, the Church?
More specifically, how do we have sexual intercourse in a way that is fueled and empowered by divine love?

Presentation of the Gifts

The liturgy of the Eucharist commences with the presentation of the gifts of the bread and wine.
The Church, the bride, offers these gifts to the priest, who is a symbol of Jesus, the Eternal Bridegroom.

In a similar way, a wife offers herself as a gift.
Indeed, she offers herself freely, without coercion, without reservation, to her husband, who is analogous to the eternal Bridegroom.

Furthermore, the husband does not demand that his wife offer her gift.
He grants her the freedom to freely give herself to him.

Indeed, as Solomon says so poetically, “A garden locked is my sister, my bride, a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed.” (Song of Songs 4:12)

Solomon, in a most poetic way, is stating that the lover understands that his bride, the woman, is a person created for “her own sake.”
Hence, he refuses to enter her garden uninvited.
Indeed, he will not break down her door.

The True Offering

Furthermore, he resists coercing or manipulating her into surrendering the gift of herself.

This is highly important.

If the sexual bond is to be authentic, real, and lasting, the character of the act must be freedom and gift.

Trust is the foundation of every great marriage.

Therefore, when a husband demands that his wife have sex with him or forces her to do so, he undermines the very trust that bonds their relationship.

Hence, for now, he will “get what he wants.”
However, eventually, she will despise and disrespect him.

When a wife freely offers herself to her husband as a gift, this heightens his level of self-respect and confidence.
He becomes certain that his wife truly loves him.
Therefore, he knows that he is worthy of love.

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The Altar of the Bed

John Paul II said that it is through the one-flesh union between a man and wife that the couple can come into contact with the “great mystery” of Christ’s union with His Church.
Therefore, he concludes that “conjugal life becomes, in a certain sense, liturgical.”

The Eucharist is the sacrifice of thanksgiving offered upon the altar.
Conjugal union is the spouses’ prayer of thanksgiving—for one another, their union, their love, and the love of God which they represent.

Consequently, the marriage bed can be rightly understood as an altar upon which spouses offer their bodies to one another and to God.

Hence, St. Paul says, “Offer your body as a holy and living sacrifice unto the Lord; this is your spiritual worship.” (Romans 12:1)

Subsequently, the altar of the bed becomes the place of sacrifice upon which the spouses offer themselves freely to one another.

Two Ways Spouses Offer Themselves Sexually

A spouse offers oneself upon the altar of the bed in one of two ways:

First, to be a free and total gift to the other for the purpose of allowing the two to experience being loved by means of the one-flesh union.

Second, to overcome any lustful tendencies by abstaining from the sexual act when the other spouse is unfit to do so.

For example, years ago, my wife’s OB told her that if she were to become pregnant, she could hemorrhage.
Consequently, Kim and I had prolonged periods of abstinence, which afforded me the opportunity to offer myself for her on the altar of our bed.

By offering myself for Kim and to God, God granted me the grace to overcome my lustful tendencies.
Indeed, by offering myself for Kim, I became a sacrificial offering to God.

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This Is My Body, Given for You

Contrary to the world’s understanding of sex as being an exchange of bodies, the Church proclaims that couples are to exchange their entire persons.

Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loves the Church.
Christ loves the Church by offering Himself—His Body—particularly in the Eucharist, for her.

By means of engaging in sexual union or abstaining, a husband is communicating with his body what his spirit believes: “This is my body given for you.”

However, the spirit of self-offering must be animated by disinterested love.

In other words, the husband overcomes all self-interest while making every attempt to please his wife.

If a husband truly loves his wife, “it is necessary to insist that intercourse must not serve merely as a means of allowing his climax…
The man must take the difference between male and female reactions into account…
so that climax may be reached by both… and as far as possible occur in both simultaneously…
The husband must do this not for hedonistic, but for altruistic reasons.” (Love and Responsibility, Karol Wojtyla, p. 272).

Disinterested Love

Furthermore, disinterested love demands a certain level of self-mastery and willingness to love the other for their own sake.

“Man is precisely a person because he is master of himself and has self-control.
Indeed, insofar as he is master of himself, he can ‘give himself’ to the other.
And it is this dimension—the dimension of the liberty of the gift—which becomes essential and decisive for the ‘language of the body’ in which man and woman reciprocally express themselves in the conjugal union.” (John Paul II, Theology of the Body)

Consequently, a husband should not demand sex from his wife.

Indeed, there is a current cultural phenomenon among those with hyper-fundamentalist traditionalist sentimentality.
They boast of invoking the marriage debt as a means to guilt their wives into having sex with them.

Such men demand that their wives have sex with them on demand.
They refuse to consider their wife’s emotional, psychological, and physical condition.

Hence, in the name of Christ, they demand what Christ does not.

Christ offers His body for His bride’s benefit rather than demanding that she offer her body to gratify His disordered desires.

Little do they know that if they were to:
1. Begin to set the pace of self-giving love—by defeating lust in their own heart

2. And loving their wives disinterestedly—

3. Their wives would be far more likely to engage in sexual intercourse with them.

Communication in marriage is more effective than coercion.

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The Two Become One Flesh

Often, we relegate and reduce the Holy Eucharist to being a “spiritual gift.”
However, the Word who became flesh forever has a body united to His divine nature.

Hence, in the Holy Eucharist, Christ not only offers His spirit to His bride, but also His body.

Why?

Jesus wants our union with Him to be whole and complete.
We are soul-body beings.

Therefore, our Lord gives us His body and His Spirit to our body that our body may receive His Spirit.

Indeed, He wills that the two—Christ Himself and we, the bride—become one flesh with Him.

Therefore, He gives us His body and spirit that we may give our body and spirit to Him.

John Paul II famously said that the Eucharist is the sacrament of the Bridegroom and the Bride.

Indeed, when spouses have sexual intercourse, they do not only exchange bodies, but rather the entire person—body and soul—with one another.

Hence, the two become one flesh.

This bodily and spiritual self-giving of spouses is a faint reflection and reminder of Christ’s self-giving love for His Church.

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Fruitfulness

Finally, the result of the total self-giving love of Christ to His Church, and His Church’s offering of herself to Him, is fruitfulness.

God wants us to bear fruit—fruit that will last.

Consequently, marital sexual relations, if they are to image the union of Christ and His Church, must always be open to fruitfulness, both biological and spiritual.

Conversely, if spouses choose to withhold their procreative powers during a sexual act, their union does not image Christ’s union with His Church.

In fact, a sexual act that is contraceptive in spirit is not a reflection of God’s self-giving love, but rather the selfishness found in hell.

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A Wife Who Desires Sexual Union With Her Husband

Men, as we exercise a husband’s headship let us learn from Christ’s example.

Jesus offers Himself to His bride without coercion, manipulation, or force.
He sacrifices Himself in His Body for His Bride that she may experience His love.

Consequently, for the last two millennia, the Bride of the Church has desired to give herself in full return to the Bridegroom.

Indeed, the more that we offer our bodies in sacrifice for our wives, the more that our wives will be willing to offer themselves to us in return.

And the two will become one flesh—and this is a sacrament of Christ and His Church.

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