Matt Fradd's Blog, page 57

C.S. Lewis on Lust, Women, and Masturbation

C.S. Lewis (1898 – 1963)

Here are three beautifully worded, eye-opening quotes from C.S. Lewis on Lust, women, and masturbation. I usually share them in my talks on pornography. Powerful stuff.

Lust

“Lust is a poor, weak, whimpering whispering thing compared with that richness and energy of desire which will arise when lust has been killed.”

- The Great Divorce

Women

“We use a most unfortunate idiom when we say, of a lustful man prowling the streets, that he “wants a woman.” Strictly speaking, a woman is just what he does not want.

He wants a pleasure for which a woman happens to be the necessary piece of apparatus. How much he cares about the woman as such may be gauged by his attitude to her five minutes after fruition (one does not keep the carton after one has smoked the cigarettes).

Now Eros makes a man really want, not a woman, but one particular woman. In some mysterious but quite indisputable fashion the lover desires the Beloved herself, not the pleasure she can give.”

- The Four Loves

Masturbation

“For me the real evil of masturbation would be that it takes an appetite which, in lawful use, leads the individual out of himself to complete (and correct) his own personality in that of another (and finally in children and even grandchildren) and turns it back; sends the man back into the prison of himself, there to keep a harem of imaginary brides.

And this harem, once admitted, works against his ever getting out and really uniting with a real woman.

For the harem is always accessible, always subservient, calls for no sacrifices or adjustments, and can be endowed with erotic and psychological attractions which no woman can rival.

Among those shadowy brides he is always adored, always the perfect lover; no demand is made on his unselfishness, no mortification ever imposed on his vanity.

In the end, they become merely the medium through which he increasingly adores himself…After all, almost the main work of life is to come out of our selves, out of the little dark prison we are all born in. Masturbation is to be avoided as all things are to be avoided which retard this process. The danger is that of coming to love the prison.”

- Personal Letter From Lewis to Keith Masson (found in The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 3)

Do you struggle with porn? Here are five essential approaches to living a porn-free life.

Pamela Anderson: I was molested and raped as a child

When I was about thirteen years old, I came home from a trip to Adelaide (the big city three hours from where I lived) with my friend and his Mum.

What did I buy in the big city? A huge block mounted picture of a completely naked Pamela Anderson.

I have no idea why my Mum’s friend helped me buy this, and I have even less idea why I thought my Mum would let me keep it! She nearly had a heart attack when she saw it hanging on my bedroom wall.

A few weeks later I was on my way back to Adelaide with Mum and Dad … and Pamela. Riding in the trunk. wrapped in a blanket. About to be returned.

Justifying Evil

Like all porn users, I needed to justify the evil I was committing. Aristotle talks about this in his Ethics, if I remember correctly. In order to commit a bad action we must first convince ourselves that  it is a good one.

Well that’s what I and every other porn user had/has to do in order to use porn. One of the most common ways porn users do this is by pretending to themselves that those in the porn industry, those “porn stars,” are actually raging nymphomaniacs who love sex. This is false. As false as the “fact” that Hulk Hogan is a real wrestler who really won 6 (is it?) WWE championships.

Former porn performer Shelley Lubben, with whom I spent this past weekend at the Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation, dispels that myth here.

The Latest With Pamela Anderson

Well, a few days ago at the launch of a charity for “animal rights,” Pamela gave a speech. A speech that was transcribed to her blog. Here’s some of what she said:

I did not have an easy childhood–

Despite loving parents-

I was molested from age 6-10 by my female babysitter-

I went to a friends boyfriends house – while she was busy. The boyfriends older brother decided he would teach me backgammon which led into a back massage which led into rape- my first heterosexual experience. He was 25 yrs old- I was 12-

My first boyfriend

in grade 9 decided it would be funny to gang rape me

(with 6 of his friends)

Needless to say I had a hard time trusting humans-

I just wanted off this earth.

May God have mercy upon my soul for my objectification of this woman and my contribution to an industry that chews up and spits out deeply wounded women like Pamela. Have you intentionally viewed porn? May God have mercy on you too.

Join me in praying for Pamela Anderson. Hail Mary …

6 Rules Before Naming Your Catholic Baby

The following post was written by my friend, Todd Aglialoro, who gave me permission to repost it here.

The other day I read a charming GQfeature on the do’s and don’ts of naming babies in the modern world. As someone who has had this privilege seven times over, and who likes to gripe about how the culture is going to hell, I took a specially keen interest in it. And I could not disagree with its major premise:

Seemingly rational people are naming their kids Baylynn, and Daxx, and Nirvana. Ethans are becoming Aythans. Marys are becoming Jazzmins. Wannabe elitist parents keep trying to one-up each other, as if a uniquely horrible name serves as some kind of guarantee against little Aston Martin growing up to be merely ordinary. Soon we’ll be staring down an army of Apples, and the entire country will collapse upon itself.

Now, I’m guessing that there aren’t many Jazzmins running around Catholic homeschool co-ops, or sitting in the front pew with mantillas on. But when it comes to baby-naming, we Catholics have our own temptations, and pitfalls to avoid. And so we need our own rules. Let me propose a few:

1. Meet the new names, same as the old names.

In a classroom full of Baylynns and Apples, former standbys like Mary and John are now unusual, if not downright subversive. Think of the opportunities when you take your daughter on a play date to her friend Linoleum’s house and you get asked if “Mary” was like, a family name or something. What a chance to evangelize! Or mess with their heads. Either way.

2. Curb the impulse to saddle your newborn with the most obscure saints’ name you can find.

But maybe your taste in saints’ names runs to the more exotic. This is a special temptation for parents with even a little training in theology or history. Fine, but be careful.

True, St. Artaxes is a wonderful example of an early witness for the Faith; yeah, Quadragesimus  was a shepherd who raised a guy from the dead; but the momentary satisfaction of re-introducing these names to the world by attaching them to your offspring is not worth the grief Artaxes will feel going through life with people thinking he was named after a minor deity from Scientology, or that you will suffer every time you have to spell out young Quaddy’s full name when you sign him up for soccer.

We have a wide range of names available to us, new parents. But if you absolutely must dig down deep into Butler’s so that the world will know your little daughter is under the patronage of Queen St. Kundegunda of Poland, hey, that’s what middle names are for. But that brings us to another rule.

3. Go easy on the middle names.

A common tic of Catholic families that I have noticed (and have demonstrated myself) is to introduce or refer to their children by all their names. Instead of, “This is my oldest, Bill, his sister Sarah, and little Henry here just turned one,” we get, “Here’s Joan Clare Marie, her brother John Paul Aquinas de Sales, and I believe you’ve already met Michael Augustine Loyola Chesterton. We call him ‘Kolbe.’”

The middle name is a wonderful place to stash more obscure saint names or testaments to personal heroes (I’ve done it). And the temptation can be strong to keep the music going: One more heavenly patron can only be a good thing, right? Not to mention, you worked hard to make that baby and keep him alive; the least he can do is be a sort of walking billboard for your spiritual and historical interests.

But moderation, moderation. There’s a fine line between jolly plenty and wretched excess. Leave some names for the rest of us.

4. Get a good night’s sleep before you sign anything.

My wife and I once failed to heed this and ended up giving one child a middle name after a character from a Broadway musical. We’ve all since agreed to pretend we didn’t.

5. Call him Ishmael?

Some Catholic parents don’t feel the need to give their eldest son middle names after each and every one of the Martyrs of Agaunum (first name: Steve). They prefer to go digging into the Old Covenant.

I admit that this has always puzzled me a tad. Once I heard it plausibly asserted that the practice of giving Old Testament names is a particularly American and Protestant one. Without a canon of saints, without the living presence of Christian history around them, New World Protestants marked out their own tradition with a slew of Jemimahs and Jebediahs.

I don’t know if that’s true, but it is true that names like Jacob and Noah, Abigail and Hannah, consistently find their way near the top of annual American baby-name lists. (Then again, so does “Madison,” a girl’s name that started out as a joke in the 1984 Tom Hanks film Splash. Who knew?)

There’s no absolute reason, I suppose, why Catholics ought to avoid Old Testament names. We honor Jacob, David, and the rest for the part they played in salvation history. But if it’s true, as I hear anecdotally, that once upon a time it was expected for Catholics to go with saints’ names and only saints’ names (with some priests even refusing to baptize children without one), well, I can understand why. To me it makes sense to want to shine the brightest light on those models of faith who knew and lived for Christ by name.

6. For God’s sake, don’t name your child “Todd.”

There was no such saint, or prophet, or patriarch. And it rhymes with “odd.” Other kids will figure that out.

This article was written by my friend Todd Aglialoro and was originally posted on Catholic.com

5 Things to Know and Share About Sex Trafficking

Click to download free ebook

1. What is sex trafficking

Sex trafficking is a subset of human trafficking  and has been defined by the 2013 Trafficking in Persons Report as a “severe form” of trafficking in which “a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion.”

2. How Big is the problem?

Big! Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children conservatively estimates there are at least 100,000 US children per year used for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. Steve Wagner, former director of the Human Trafficking Program at the US Department of Health and Human Services, estimates this number is closer to a quarter of a million kids per year.

“The only way not to find this problem in any city,” says Allen,” is simply not to look for it.”

3. Is there a link between porn and sex trafficking?

Indeed there is. To quote Laura Lederer, former Senior Advisor on Trafficking in Persons for the U.S. State Department,  “Pornography is a brilliant social marketing campaign for commercial sexual exploitation.”

Porn is marketing for sex trafficking both directly and indirectly: directly because online and offline hubs for trafficking use pornographic images to draw the buyers, indirectly because of porn’s influence on the culture.

A key ingredient to the success of commercial sex is the belief that people (women especially) are sexual commodities, and Internet pornography is the ideal vehicle to teach and train this belief.top the demand Catherine MacKinnon of Harvard Law says, “consuming pornography is an experience

of bought sex” and thus it creates a hunger to continue to purchase and objectify, and act out what is seen. For some, this means objectifying their wife, girlfriend, or acquaintances. For others, this means turning to the world of commercial sex.

4. What are some organization that are seeking to combat sexual trafficking and help those who are trafficked?

There are a number of great organizations doing great work in this area: 

Global Centurion; International Justice Mission; Shared Hope International; Destiny Rescue, and Children of the Immaculate Heart.

5. What can I do to fight sexual trafficking?

Here are three simple action steps you can take immediately to begin fighting sex trafficking:

1. Get serious about overcoming your own tendency to sexually objectify others through pornography. Learn the steps to take now.

2. Download and read the free ebook, Stop the Demand: The Role of Porn in Sex Trafficking, then use social media to your advantage to share it with as many people as you possibly can.

3. Give to help rescue and rehabilitate victims. You can Sponsor a rescued child through groups like Destiny Rescue or International Justice Mission.

Most of the content of this post was taken from a new ebook we’re offering for free at Covenant Eyes entitled, Stop the Demand: The Role of Porn in Sex Trafficking. Download and share now!

6 Ways to Protect your Kids From Porn

I’d like to begin this post with a warning from the U.S Justice Department:

“Never before in the history of telecommunications media in the United States has so much indecent and obscene material been so easily accessible by so many minors in so many American homes with so few restrictions.”

If that sounds about right, it will be sobering to consider that it was written in 1996—before wireless broadband, before iPads, before selfies and sexting. Before pornography took over twelve percent of the Internet, with more than 25 million sites today raking in over $5 billion a year. Before it was considered common practice, as it is today, for porn consumption to begin with a first encounter around age 11 and go on to radically shape the ideas that teens and young adults

have about sexual intimacy.

Now, before you tell me that there’s no way your child is looking at porn, consider this: Porn is made, not by back alley perverts peddling nude photos to dirty old men, but by multimillion dollar companies that have a vested interest in getting kids—your kids—into porn when they are young.

Two week ago I was contacted by a prominent leader in the Church. He told me that his teenage son just confessed to him that he had been looking at porn regularly for the past year. The man said to me, “I talk to parents all the time about why it’s so necessary that they protect their children, that they get accountability and filtering software, but I never did.” You might be surprised at how many times I hear that from people who should know better.

So here are five things that you need to start doing if you want to protect  your children from porn:

1. Educate Yourself

Educate yourself about the dangers of pornography. If you aren’t convinced that porn is harmful, you won’t be motivated to protect your family from it. Here are three free resources that can help. 1) A free ebook on up to date Pornography Statistic , 2) Bishop Loverde’s recent pastoral letter on pornography, Bought with a Price, and 3) a great article by Dr. Donal L. Hilton, Jr. on how porn affects the brain, Slave Master: How Pornography Drugs and Changes Your Brain.

2. Talk To Your Kids About Porn

Talk to your children about pornography. One former pornographer, Martin Daubney, after having researched how pornography affects the minds and lives of children, wrote this:

“Like many parents, I fear that my boy’s childhood could be taken away by pornography.

So we have to fight back. We need to get tech-savvy, and as toe-curling as it seems, we are the first generation that will have to talk to our children about porn.

We have to tell our kids that pornographic sex is fake and real sex is about love, not lust. By talking to them, they stand a chance. If we stick our head in the sand, we are fooling only ourselves.”

One way you can learn how to talk to your children, in an age-appropriate way, about the dangers of pornography is by getting the book, Good Pictures Bad Pictures: Porn-Proofing Today’s Young Kids. 

3. Put Protections in Place

You need to put all the proper protections in place. You need to use technology to your advantage to block access to pornographic images. There are places online children (or anyone for that matter) have no business going to, and there are technological ways to prevent children from accidentally or purposely finding these places.

When I meet parents and speak to them about the destructive nature of pornography, I never ask them if they have internet filtering and accountability software on their computers, phones, and tablets. I ask them what internet filtering and accountability software they use. In other words, it’s if you want to protect your kids from porn, filtering and accountability is not an option, it’s a necessity.

4. Know Exactly Where They Go online

Parents need to access accurate information about what your kids are already doing online. You need to be monitoring all the places your kids go online, all the choices they’re making. This is what distinguishes accountability software from filtering. Filtering blocks the bad stuff but it doesn’t tell you where your kids went online, or what they searched for. Accountability software does.

5. A Regular Reminder to Talk to your Kids

It’s not enough to know that you should talk to your kids about pornography, or even how you should do it. You need a regular reminder to do so. A kid’s time on a computer tends to be out-of-sight-out-of-mind for most parents. It’s easy to let weeks or months go by without a single conversation about what kids are doing online. So we need to have a built-in reminder because it is so easy to forget.

Steps 2-5 can be accomplished by downloading Covenant Eyes. Covenant Eyes has a great filter but its claim to fame is that it invented accountability software.

What is accountability software? Here’s how it works: Once you sign up to Covenant Eyes, it asks you to enter the email(s) of an accountability partner. Since you’re installing this for your children, you would be the accountability partner. You may then choose to receive a complied report once a day, once a week, once a month; you decide. From that point on, if your children visit any websites they shouldn’t, you’ll know about it. Learn more by watching this short video:

6. Speak to Other Parents

Finally, would you ever allow your kids to play at a friends house whose Dad kept piles of porn about the place? Of course not. And yet if the parents of your child’s friend do not have the proper protections in place on their own computer, game consoles, phones, etc. then there’s a strong chance your child will be exposed to pornography. I personally will not allow my child to play at friends house who does not have good filtering on all devices.

Once Saved Always Saved?: A Socratic Dialogue

The following is a discussion between Justin (the Catholic) and Sam (the Protestant) about eternal security. Read my other Socratic dialogues here.

Sam: One thing I find genuinely heartbreaking about Catholics is that you all seem so frightened of Hell. I wish you knew—and I know this sounds patronizing; I don’t mean it to be—that salvation is a free gift of God; that you don’t need to earn it.

Justin: Sam, I appreciate your concern, and I know you’re sincere, but let me assure you, The Church has always understood that salvation is a free gift. To paraphrase St. Paul, “by grace we have been saved through faith; and this isn’t our own doing, it is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8).

Whatever gave you the idea that Catholics thought otherwise?

Sam: So why are Catholics so afraid of Hell?

Justin: Which Catholics are you referring to? Me?

Sam: Well, I don’t know. I don’t know you that well. I’m thinking of my grandma.

Justin: Your Catholic grandma had an inordinate fear of Hell, therefore all Catholics have an inordinate fear of Hell. You do realize what a hopelessly bad inductive argument that is, right? That would be like me saying, “my friend Bob is a Methodist; my friend Bob is asian; therefore all Methodists are asian.”

Sam: That’s the third time you’ve used the word “inordinate.” Why?

Justin: Oh, I just mean “excessive.”

Sam: I know what you mean, but you’re implying that there is a fear of Hell that isn’t excessive.

Justin: That’s right.

Sam: So you think a Christian can lose his salvation?

Justin: Yes. You don’t?

Sam: No! Look . . . Read here. What does it say here. Verse twenty nine.

Justin: “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand” (Jn. 10:29).

Sam: The “them” he’s referring to is his sheep. Are you not a part of the flock of Christ, Justin?

Justin: I understand what it refers to, Sam, and I wholeheartedly assent to it! Yes, Amen! No one is able to snatch us from the Father’s hand! As Paul says in Romans . . . Here, I’ll use mine, it has tabs. Easier to find . . . “For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Amen, alleluia! (Rom. 8:31).

Sam: And yet you believe that we can be snatched from the Fathers hand? You believe that we can be separated from God.

Justin: I agree, of course, that nothing can snatch us from the Father’s hand, but let me ask you this, Sam, where does it say that we cannot jump from the Fathers hand?

Sam: Well it doesn’t. It implies it.

Justin: Implies what? That we don’t have the freedom to reject Christ after we’ve accepted him? Do you not think that’s a possibility?

Sam: No, because as St. Paul says—you just quoted it—nothing can separate us from the love of God. The Father will not disown his children.

Justin: Sam, notice what Paul does not say in that verse. He does not say, “neither fornication, nor idolatry, nor adultery will be able to separate us…” Do you think that by committing those sins, it’s possible for a person to separate himself from Christ?

Sam: No. As I said, what perfect Father would disown his own child?

Justin: But in his first letter to the Corinthians, chapter six, he explicitly states that those people who commit these things—fornication, idolatry, and so forth—will not inherit the kingdom of God. Do you think Paul was mistaken? And yes, of course our heavenly Father would not abandon or disown us; that’s not the question. The question is, can we disown the Father, and I think the Bible makes it clear that we can.

Sam: Paul is talking about the unbeliever, not the Christian. And yes, those who have are unbelievers will not, cannot inherit the kingdom of God. But turn with me to first John. Here, John is writing to Christians, he writes: “I write this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.” So Justin, do you know that you have eternal life?” (1 Jn 5:13).

Justin: Well that depends on what you mean by “know.” If you mean, “are you morally certain that you have eternal life?” The answer is yes!

Sam: What do you mean, what do I mean by “know”? And what do you mean by “moral certainty?”

Justin: When a person knows something to be true he may be absolutely certain or he might be morally certain. By morally certain I mean I have a high degree of certainty but that certainty is not absolute. There’s a great book you have to get. It’s called Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Ludwig Ott. In it he explains that “the impossibility of the certainty of faith, however, by no means excludes a high moral certainty supported by testimony and conscience.” But though I’m morally certain of my salvation, I’m absolutely certain that I, and you, can lose that eternal life. Why? Because of the testimony of Sacred Scripture.

Look, I see that look on your face, but understand that I’m in good company. St. Paul, when considering his own standing with the Lord writes, “I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me” (1 Cor. 4:4). Catholics, like St. Paul (who, of course, was a Catholic also), leave the judging ultimately to God. He is the judge. Not you. Not me. Him.

Sam: Show me one place in the Bible where it says a Christian can lose his salvation.

Justin: I’ll show you a few if you’d like. If I can show you, will you humbly change your mind?

Sam: Yes. It’s truth I’m after, not winning debates for their own sake.

Justin: I’m glad to hear it. Let’s see here. In Romans 11:22, St. Paul, writing to the Christians at Rome, says, “Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you too will be cut off.”

In 1 Timothy 5:8, St. Paul says that even sins of omission—that is, sins we commit by failing to do something as opposed to sins of commission where we sin by actively doing something—can cut us off from the life of God. He writes, “If any one does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his own family, he has disowned the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” Notice he’s not talking to unbelievers here, he’s talking about people who have faith. If they didn’t, they could not disown it.”

Sam: Perhaps he’s talking about those who subscribe to the faith, the externals if you will, but haven’t been regenerated by the Spirit.

Justin: You’re serious? You think Paul meant “if you fail to do this you’ve disowned the “externalities of religion?” . . . What about in 1 Timothy :19 where…

Sam: You’ve come prepared…

Justin: Hey, I’m debating a Baptist, of course I came prepared. In 1 Timothy 1:18-19 Paul says to Timothy, “wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting conscience, certain persons have made shipwreck of their faith.” Do you think he’s referring to externals here to? that people make a shipwreck of their empty acts of piety?

Sam: Okay, I see your point. People can make a “shipwreck” of their faith, I agree. That doesn’t mean true Christians can lose their salvation though.

Justin: Man you’re talented at avoiding the obvious. If it’s truth you seek, abandon the traditions of men, the traditions of your protestantism and accept what the word of God plainly says. St. Paul says that the one who disowns the faith is “worse than a unbeliever” (1 Tim. 5:8). Do you think unbelievers will inherit the kingdom of heaven?

Sam: No, of course not.

Justin: And yet you think that those who are worse than unbelievers can inherit the kingdom of Heaven?

Sam: Perhaps Paul was using hyperbole. He also said in Galatians that he wished that those who were pushing circumcision would mutilate themselves (Gal. 5:12) but I doubt he meant that.

Justin: My head hurts.

Sam: Well this is complicated stuff.

Justin: No, it hurts because for the past five minutes I’ve been beating it against a brick wall.

Sam: . . .

Justin: Forgive me. That wasn’t cool. It just seems to me that your performing meta gymnastics to get around the obvious.

Sam: I’m not sure if you need more or less caffeine.

Justin: Probably more. Sorry.

Sam: I forgive you, brother. Look. I’ll consider the verses you’ve mentioned. My thing is. I don’t know. You’ve raised some good points. Props for being Biblical about it. Look, I gotta get going, any other verses I should reflect upon?

Justin: Um, how about 2 Peter 2:20. St. Peter writes, “For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first.”

Please don’t tell me Peter isn’t referring to Christians here. Not only is does this verse make that plain, he begins his letter,”to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours in the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. (v 1). God’s gift of salvation is free, but we must endure; our Blessed Lord speaks plainly “he who endures to the end will be saved.”

Sam: Okay. Thanks Justin. See you next week?

Justin: Sounds good. 

Sam: Let’s continue to pray for each other.

50 Book Giveaway!

We’re giving away 50 copies to 50 different people!

We’re giving away fifty copies of Good Pictures Bad Pictures to fifty different people. Enter below.

For eight years, Martin Daubney was the editor of the British lad mag Loaded—very similar to Maxim or VHM in the US, except with more nudity.

Daubney had heard some of the hype that porn might be damaging the minds of young people so he set out to investigate it for himself.

By the end of his exploration, his mind was forever changed.

“Like many parents, I fear that my boy’s childhood could be taken away by pornography.

So we have to fight back. We need to get tech-savvy, and as toe-curling as it seems, we are the first generation that will have to talk to our children about porn.

We have to tell our kids that pornographic sex is fake and real sex is about love, not lust. By talking to them, they stand a chance. If we stick our head in the sand, we are fooling only ourselves.”

“We are the first generation that will have to talk to our children about porn.” Chilling words, but right on the money!

How To Do It

So how on earth does one begin to broach the topic of porn to their kids? Here’s an amazing resource that will help with that, It’s called Good Pictures Bad Pictures: Porn-Proofing Today’s Young Kids. 

I was sent this book a few weeks back by Kristen Jenson (one of the authors) to review.

I began reading it with the intention of endorsing it. After the first page I forgot about that and began reading it for my own edification.

It’s terrific. It’s an easy and effective way for parents to begin an empowering conversation about the dangers of pornography and give their young kids a specific plan of action to use when they are exposed to it (that’s right, when, not if, when). 

Read More About The Book
It only takes a few taps on a mobile device for a curious young child to find an endless supply of deviant, hard-core, and addicting pornography—all for free.

Unfortunately, many young kids are being exposed to pornography without the slightest clue that it can damage their developing minds. Good Pictures Bad Pictures is a comfortable, read-aloud story about a mom and dad who teach their child what pornography is, why it’s dangerous, and how to reject it.

Using easy-to-understand science and simple analogies, this ground-breaking book engages young kids to porn-proof their own brains. The 5-point CAN DO Plan teaches kids how to avoid the brain-warping images of pornography and minimize the troubling memories of accidental exposure that often tempt kids to look for more and lead them into a dark and destructive addiction.

To stay safe in the digital age, kids must install an internal filter in their own brain. Good Pictures Bad Pictures shows them how. Parents will appreciate this resource to porn-proof their kids because it makes a difficult discussion easy and empowering.

How? By teaching kids simple concepts about the brain and the process of addiction, and by giving them a specific strategy for keeping safe from the poison of pornography.

I was so impressed that I wrote to her, thanked her for writing it and asked if she’d like to do a giveaway on my site? I was expecting her to say, “sure, how does 5 copies sound?” Instead she said, “Do you think 50 would be okay?” “Ah, yes. I think 50 would be okay!” Learn more about the good work Kristen and Gail are doing by visiting and subscribing to their site.

Check out the short promo video for the book:

Enter The Raffle Below. The Raffle ends in a week. The winners will be randomly selected and then emailed for their addresses.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Confession: A Socratic Dialogue

The following dialogue concerns the warrant Catholics have for thinking the sacrament of confession Biblical. You can read my other Socratic dialogues here.

Sam: Why do you confess your sins to a man instead of God?

Justin: I confess my sins to both.

Sam: Why?

Justin: Because the sacrament of confession, established by Christ, is the ordinary way in which a person is to be forgiven of serious sin after baptism.

Sam: Don’t you think that God is powerful enough to forgive you without the mediation of a priest?

Justin: Of course I do.

Sam: Then why do you confess your sins to a priest?

Justin: Er … because the sacrament of confession, established by Christ, is the ordinary way in which a person is to be forgiven of serious sin after baptism?

Sam: Seriously?

Justin: I guess I just don’t see the problem. What is your objection, exactly?

Sam: The idea that a sinful man can forgive someone’s sins is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit!

Justin: Okay, see what you just did there was make an impassioned assertion, not an argument. Are you saying It’s blasphemous to think a sinful man can forgive someone’s sins, Catholics think that a sinful man can forgive someone’s sins, therefore the sacrament of confession is blasphemous?

Sam: Yes that’s what I’m saying.

Justin: Then it seems your argument is not with me, or even with the Church, but with our Blessed Lord.

Sam: Nope. I’m pretty sure it’s with you and your heretical church.

Justin: Sam, if our Blessed Lord wanted to give sinful men the ability to forgive sins, what more would he have to do than to say to sinful men, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” That’s from John chapter twenty, verse twenty three.

Sam: I know where it’s from, but you misunderstand the verse, don’t you?

Justin: Do I?

Sam: Yes! Jesus was saying to the apostles, go preach the gospel! It is the gospel, the good news that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (Jn: 3:16) To accept this gospel is to have one’s sins forgiven. To reject it is to be “condemned already” (Jn 3:18).

Justin: I find it funny, Sam, that you often accuse me of not taking Jesus at his word, and yet here you are saying to me, “When Jesus told the apostles that if they forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; and that if they retain the sins of any they are retained. What he meant was, If any one accepts the Gospel that you preach they will be forgiven, but if they don’t they will not.” But Sam, that’s not what he said, is it? And I if my options are following you or following the word of God, I’m going to follow the word of God.

Sam: That’s absurd. I’m not asking you to follow me. I’m asking you to accept the authority of the word of God, but in order to do that you have to first read the Scriptures in context. Remember, a text with context is …

Justin: … is often a pretext for a prooftext, yes, you’ve said that before. So why don’t we read the verse in it’s context, Sam. Our Lord appears to the disciples after his resurrection; shall we start at verse twenty one?

Sam: Just finding it now…here it is. Sure, verse twenty one; I’ll read it “So Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.’”

Justin: K, stop there for a moment. Why did the Father send the son?

Sam: 2 Corinthians 5:19 says that it was to reconcile the world to himself.

Justin: Amen!

Sam: See now you just sound silly. I’m the Baptist. I say “Amen!” You Catholics are supposed to say, “Corinthy-what?”

Justin: Ha! Now that’s gonna leave a mark.

Sam: I’m just joking.

Justin: I know, I know. Okay, so Jesus who was sent to reconcile the world to the Father is now sending the apostles do to the same.

Sam: Yes, by proclaiming the Gospel.

Justin: Indeed! And this gospel includes the sacrament of Confession, but keep reading.

Sam: Show me one place in the Bible where the word “sacrament” is used?

Justin: Show me one place in the Bible where the word “Bible” is used? Or “trinity”? Or “Incarnation”? You won’t find those words but that does not thereby make them illegitimate. Keep reading.

Sam: “And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’.

Justin: K. So we know something significant is happening here, right? The only other time God ever breathed on someone in Sacred Scipture is when he breathed the breath of life into Adam.

Sam: Yes, he’s giving them the Holy Spirit

Justin: uh-huh.

Sam: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

Justin: You see, Sam. I agree with you. Only God can forgive sins. The Catechism acknowledges this is chapter 1441.

Sam: You know I’m never gonna look that up, right?

Justin: Oh stop, of course you will. You’re going to make a great Catholic. Let me finish. The Catechism states: “Only God forgives sins. Since he is the Son of God, Jesus says of himself, ‘The Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins’ and exercises this divine power: ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ Further, by virtue of his divine authority he gives this power to men to exercise in his name” (CCC 1441).

I think you should take Jesus at his word. He’s giving his disciples the power to forgive and retain sins. And how are they to know which sins to forgive and which to retain? By hearing their confession of course!

Sam: You’re hanging your entire argument on one verse?

Justin: So what if I am? Is this verse not the word of God? But let’s look elsewhere if you like. This sacrament was prefigured in the Old Testament. We only need to look to the beginning of Genesis where we see God asking to Adam, Eve, and Cain, “where are you?” And, “what have you done?” He is eliciting from them a confession. Not because he was unaware of what they did, but because they were …

Sam: … Yes but this proves my point, doesn’t it? We are to confess directly to God. No where in the Old Testament do you see God telling men to confess to men.

Justin: Yeah, look, I’m sorry; you’re wrong.

You need to read Leviticus, chapter five; And Numbers, chapter five. In that Leviticus chapter we read that “the priest shall make atonement for him concerning his sin” after he publicly confesses it. See, Sam, You’re setting up a false dichotomy. You’re saying either a man can confess to God or he can confess to men. What I’m saying, what the Bible teaches is that God has given this power to men! I know you don’t like that. I know it goes against everything you’ve been taught, but it’s what the Bible teaches.

I invite you to meditate upon Matthew, chapter nine. There we see that the crowds glorified God, who had given such authority—the authority to forgive sins—to men. It comes from God. As St. Paul said, “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor.5:18).

Sam: So if I’m a Catholic, and I’ve committed what you call a serious sin, or a mortal sin, and a priest doesn’t get to me in time to hear my confession, according to you I’ll go to Hell.

Justin: No. If the man is truly repentant then God can forgive him. Remember what I said earlier, the sacrament of confession is the ordinary way a person is forgiven of serious sin after Baptism. We are bound to this Sacrament, but God isn’t. Let me ask you a question. If your Mother got cancer, could God heal her?

Sam: Of course!

Justin: Okay. But does that mean that you wouldn’t send her to a doctor?

Sam: No, I would.

Justin: Because ordinarily we are healed through the mediation of a doctor. This doesn’t mean God can’t heal us directly. The same thing applies to this wonderful Sacrament Christ has established. Though he can forgive us our sins when we are truly sorry, perfectly contrite, that doesn’t obviate the ordinary means he established by which we can have the assurance that our sins are forgiven.

Sam: Where can I learn more?

Justin: Well, you could start with that Catechism that you said you’d never read. Starting with paragraph 1422. Catholic Answers have a great tract that recounts and documents how the earliest Christians after the apostles all accepted the sacrament of confession. Oh, and check out this short video:

 Read my other Socratic dialogues here.

Confession: A Socratic Dialouge

The following dialogue concerns the warrant Catholics have for thinking the sacrament of confession Biblical. You can read my other Socratic dialogues here.

Sam: Why do you confess your sins to a man instead of God?

Justin: I confess my sins to both.

Sam: Why?

Justin: Because the sacrament of confession, established by Christ, is the ordinary way in which a person is to be forgiven of serious sin after baptism.

Sam: Don’t you think that God is powerful enough to forgive you without the mediation of a priest?

Justin: Of course I do.

Sam: Then why do you confess your sins to a priest?

Justin: Er … because the sacrament of confession, established by Christ, is the ordinary way in which a person is to be forgiven of serious sin after baptism?

Sam: Seriously?

Justin: I guess I just don’t see the problem. What is your objection, exactly?

Sam: The idea that a sinful man can forgive someone’s sins is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit!

Justin: Okay, see what you just did there was make an impassioned assertion, not an argument. Are you saying It’s blasphemous to think a sinful man can forgive someone’s sins, Catholics think that a sinful man can forgive someone’s sins, therefore the sacrament of confession is blasphemous?

Sam: Yes that’s what I’m saying.

Justin: Then it seems your argument is not with me, or even with the Church, but with our Blessed Lord.

Sam: Nope. I’m pretty sure it’s with you and your heretical church.

Justin: Sam, if our Blessed Lord wanted to give sinful men the ability to forgive sins, what more would he have to do than to say to sinful men, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” That’s from John chapter twenty, verse twenty three.

Sam: I know where it’s from, but you misunderstand the verse, don’t you?

Justin: Do I?

Sam: Yes! Jesus was saying to the apostles, go preach the gospel! It is the gospel, the good news that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (Jn: 3:16) To accept this gospel is to have one’s sins forgiven. To reject it is to be “condemned already” (Jn 3:18).

Justin: I find it funny, Sam, that you often accuse me of not taking Jesus at his word, and yet here you are saying to me, “When Jesus told the apostles that if they forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; and that if they retain the sins of any they are retained. What he meant was, If any one accepts the Gospel that you preach they will be forgiven, but if they don’t they will not.” But Sam, that’s not what he said, is it? And I if my options are following you or following the word of God, I’m going to follow the word of God.

Sam: That’s absurd. I’m not asking you to follow me. I’m asking you to accept the authority of the word of God, but in order to do that you have to first read the Scriptures in context. Remember, a text with context is …

Justin: … is often a pretext for a prooftext, yes, you’ve said that before. So why don’t we read the verse in it’s context, Sam. Our Lord appears to the disciples after his resurrection; shall we start at verse twenty one?

Sam: Just finding it now…here it is. Sure, verse twenty one; I’ll read it “So Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.’”

Justin: K, stop there for a moment. Why did the Father send the son?

Sam: 2 Corinthians 5:19 says that it was to reconcile the world to himself.

Justin: Amen!

Sam: See now you just sound silly. I’m the Baptist. I say “Amen!” You Catholics are supposed to say, “Corinthy-what?”

Justin: Ha! Now that’s gonna leave a mark.

Sam: I’m just joking.

Justin: I know, I know. Okay, so Jesus who was sent to reconcile the world to the Father is now sending the apostles do to the same.

Sam: Yes, by proclaiming the Gospel.

Justin: Indeed! And this gospel includes the sacrament of Confession, but keep reading.

Sam: Show me one place in the Bible where the word “sacrament” is used?

Justin: Show me one place in the Bible where the word “Bible” is used? Or “trinity”? Or “Incarnation”? You won’t find those words but that does not thereby make them illegitimate. Keep reading.

Sam: “And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’.

Justin: K. So we know something significant is happening here, right? The only other time God ever breathed on someone in Sacred Scipture is when he breathed the breath of life into Adam.

Sam: Yes, he’s giving them the Holy Spirit

Justin: uh-huh.

Sam: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

Justin: You see, Sam. I agree with you. Only God can forgive sins. The Catechism acknowledges this is chapter 1441.

Sam: You know I’m never gonna look that up, right?

Justin: Oh stop, of course you will. You’re going to make a great Catholic. Let me finish. The Catechism states: “Only God forgives sins. Since he is the Son of God, Jesus says of himself, ‘The Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins’ and exercises this divine power: ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ Further, by virtue of his divine authority he gives this power to men to exercise in his name” (CCC 1441).

I think you should take Jesus at his word. He’s giving his disciples the power to forgive and retain sins. And how are they to know which sins to forgive and which to retain? By hearing their confession of course!

Sam: You’re hanging your entire argument on one verse?

Justin: So what if I am? Is this verse not the word of God? But let’s look elsewhere if you like. This sacrament was prefigured in the Old Testament. We only need to look to the beginning of Genesis where we see God asking to Adam, Eve, and Cain, “where are you?” And, “what have you done?”

Sam: Yes but this proves my point, doesn’t it? We are to confess directly to God. No where in the Old Testament do you see God telling men to confess to men.

Justin: Yeah, look, I’m sorry, you’re wrong.

You need to read Leviticus, chapter five; And Numbers, chapter five. In that Leviticus chapter we read that “the priest shall make atonement for him concerning his sin” after he publicly confesses it. See, Sam, You’re setting up a false dichotomy. You’re saying either a man can confess to God or he can confess to men. What I’m saying, what the Bible teaches is that God has given this power to men! I know you don’t like that. I know it goes against everything you’ve been taught, but it’s what the Bible teaches.

I invite you to meditate upon Matthew, chapter nine. There we see that the crowds glorified God, who had given such authority—the authority to forgive sins—to men. As St. Paul said, “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor.5:18).

Sam: So if I’m a Catholic, and I’ve committed what you call a serious sin, or a mortal sin, and a priest doesn’t get to me in time to hear my confession, according to you I’ll go to Hell.

Justin: No. If the man is truly repentant then God can forgive him. Remember what I said earlier, the sacrament of confession is the ordinary way a person is forgiven of serious sin after Baptism. We are bound to this Sacrament, but God isn’t. Let me ask you a question. If you’re Mother got cancer, could God heal her?

Sam: Of course!

Justin: Okay. But does that mean that you wouldn’t send her to a doctor?

Sam: No, I would.

Justin: Because ordinarily we are healed through the mediation of a doctor. This doesn’t mean God can’t heal us directly. The same thing applies to this wonderful Sacrament Christ has established. Though he can forgive us our sins when we are truly sorry, perfectly contrite, that doesn’t obviate the ordinary means he established by which we can have the assurance that our sins are forgiven.

Sam: Where can I learn more?

Justin: Well, you could start with that Catechism that you said you’d never read. Starting with paragraph 1422. Catholic Answers have a great tract that recounts and documents how the earliest Christians after the apostles all accepted the sacrament of confession. Oh, and check out this short video:

 Read my other Socratic dialogues here.

Sex-less America?

This article was transcribed from a talk I gave at the 2013 Catholic Answers Apologetics Conference. You can purchase the audio here.

This article could be summed up in two lines (or a tweet, depending upon your age): “Men are men and women are not men. Women are women and men are not women.”

The degree to which this sounds discriminatory or sexist (or even hateful to you and me) is a good indicator to the degree in which we have been influenced by a small but incredibly influential movement in our country today that wants to say that sex—by which I mean maleness and femaleness—is not something objective but rather a mere social construct that has no basis in reality. Sort of like what side of the road you drive on, or what objects you use for currency.

These people want to say that sexual orientation is a continuum, and maleness and femaleness are arbitrary bookends. So a man can self-identify as a woman, and should be allowed to, that’s fine; and woman can self-identify as a man, and that’s fine.

I’d like to give three examples of this crisis we’ve seen in America, and then I want to suggest three approaches to answering this crisis in our personal lives and with our friends. So let’s look at some of these things that are going on.

Three examples of the crisis

1. Genderless bathrooms. In August 2013, California enshrined certain rights for transgendered students in kindergarten through twelfth grade, so that if you’re in a public school, and you’d like to use the bathroom, and you’re a male who thinks he’s a female, that’s okay; no one can stop you. Now, I don’t know about other guys, but when I was fifteen years old, I would have loved that rule. Whose silly idea was this?

2. Boy in a prom dress. Tony Zamazal was a senior in 2013 at Spring High School in Texas. He approached his school and said because he self-identified as a female, he would like to go to the prom in a dress, please. And the school said, well, no, you have to wear the standard tux like all the other men. Tony went home and, as he said, began ranting about it on Facebook. It was picked up by the American Civil Liberties Union, which contacted the high school and said its stance was unconstitutional. The school backed down, and Tony went as a lady. Or so he thought. Now, I don’t say that mockingly—I’m not denying that he feels that way. What troubles me more is that when ABC News covered this story, it lied. It said things like, ‘She’s so happy that she can go in what makes her comfortable.”

3. Lesbian moms and the boy who’s a girl. Third example, you may heard of a couple of years ago. Pauline Moreno and Debra Lobel, a lesbian couple who lives near San Francisco, adopted a boy, and at the age of three, they say, he started to self-identify as a girl. So now he’s thirteen and he’s been on hormone blockers for years so he doesn’t go through puberty and develop into a man, then he can get a sex-change when the time is right.

How did we get here? One, we rejected God. And as the Vatican II document ‎Gaudium et Spes states, “For without the creator, the creature would disappear, when God is forgotten, the creature itself grows unintelligible” (GS 36). Second is the breakdown of the family. I like the way Jay Budziszewski puts it in his book The Meaning of Sex. He says wrongheaded sexual ideologies undermine families, and ruined families generate a readiness to accept wrongheaded ideologies.

So how can we respond to this crisis? I want to give three responses: the scientific, the philosophical, and the pastoral. Now obviously this is a gigantic topic, and we’re just skimming the surface, but I hope as you encounter people who self-identify as a different sex—though you should know they’ll use the word gender to make sex seem more fluid, more changeable—or if you’re dealing with people who sympathize with this, I hope this will be a help to you.

The scientific response

It’s important to understand that in promoting the truth about the human person, the Church is on the side of science when it says that it’s impossible for a person to change his sex. The brains of the sexes are intrinsically different: Male brains are different from female brains. This affects many aspects of our behavior. How we handle stress, how we dress, how we navigate; it even affects our sight. Men and women not only see the world differently metaphorically, we actually see differently due to the differences in our retinas. 

In a Cambridge University study, researchers noted that women were much better at picking up on facial cues than men. They studied 102 day-old babies to see if there was a difference in the length of time they looked at a face, at a social object, and at a mobile, physical-mechanical object. The male infants showed a stronger interest in the physical-mechanical mobile, while the female infants showed a stronger interest in the face. The results clearly demonstrate that sex differences are in biological origin.

These differences also affect how we hear: Women hear better than men. In 2005, neuroscientist Larry Cahill published an article called “His Brain, Her Brain” in Scientific American. He writes, “Over the past decade, investigations have documented an astonishing array of structural, chemical, and functional variations in the brains of males and females.” He goes so far as to say this raises the possibility of developing sex-specific treatment for conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, and depression.

The philosophical response

A couple of months ago I was standing in line at the San Diego airport and I overheard a man and a woman having a chat. They clearly had just met, and he said, “Oh, my wife’s pregnant, too.” She said, “Oh, wonderful, what’s the sex?” He said, “Well, we’re not going to raise it as a blue baby or a pink baby, we’re going to raise it a yellow baby.” I thought maybe he meant the kid had jaundice. One of my babies was a yellow baby, too—he had to be under lights at the hospital. But what this man meant was that he wasn’t going to impose the social construct of sex upon his child. Whether his child self-identified as a male or a female was up to him/her.

What would happen if I began to explain these neurological differences to this man? Perhaps he would say what a lot of people have said: “Fine, there are differences in the bodies and brains, but I’m not defined by my body.” The idea that we are not our bodies, we are merely mimes somehow, souls in a machine, is wrongheaded. As the Church teaches, we are body-soul composites: one being made of two types of stuff, both equal personal and equally a part of whom we are. 

Think of the absurdities that result if you say, “I’m not my body.” That would mean that when you kiss your child goodnight, you’re not actually kissing your child, you’re manipulating the husk that is not you to kiss the husk that’s not your daughter. 

In logic there’s a tactic called argumentum ad absurdum, where you assume your opponent’s false position is true, and then you follow it to its logical conclusion, which hopefully shows him that it is absurd.

And so we could say, “Why stop at sex? If we’re not defined by our bodies, why should we impose the social construction of ‘species’ upon our children?” If we can say, “Well, he looks male, but he’s apparently female,” we can say with equal logic, “Well, he looks human, but he says he’s a panther” or “a parrot.” You might think I’m being ridiculous, but do a Google search on species dysphoria or species identity disorder, and you’ll see that’s this isn’t as ridiculous to some as you’d imagine.

Someone might say, “Haven’t you heard of aphroditism, or Klinefelter syndrome, or Turner Syndrome, where the sex of someone is ambiguous?” Yes, but surely the tiny number of anomalous cases doesn’t do away with the huge majority of cases where a person’s sex is normal and easy to determine. That would be like saying that because there is a rare genetic disease called progeria that produces rapid aging in children, people can self-identify whatever age they want. 

The pastoral response

How should we respond to people who believe that one’s sex is what one makes it? With great love, compassion, and sympathy. I hope you don’t misunderstand me: I’m not criticizing these people, I’m criticizing the logic behind the mindset. But I don’t doubt for a moment that there are people who feel that they’ve been placed in the wrong body.

Let me quote to you from an eleven-year old boy who self-identifies as a girl. He calls himself Sadie. He wrote a letter to his school:

The world would be a better place if everyone had the right to be themselves. Including people who have a creative gender identity and expression. Transgendered kids like me are not allowed to go most schools because the teachers think we are different than everyone else. The schools get afraid of how they will talk with the other kids’ parents, and transgendered kids are kept secret or told not to come there anymore. Kids are told not to be friends with transgendered kids, which makes us very lonely and sad. When they grow up, transgendered adults have a hard time getting a job because the boss thinks the customers will be scared away and so forth.

So, obviously, we need to love these people. But loving does not entail lying to the person. We need to say it’s because I love you that I need to speak truth to you—and it might hurt, and you might call me a hater, but you have to know that I have your best interests in mind.

I would suggest that if you come across a man who self-identifies as a woman, you should ask him a question: “When you say you’re a woman, what do you mean?” He might say, “Well, I’m attracted to other men.” Okay, so you’re attracted to other men—but that doesn’t make you a woman. He might say he likes what girls like. Okay, full disclosure, I like some things girls like too. I don’t like sports. He might say he identifies with the female form, that he likes it and wants it as his own. Well, okay, you need to understand that men’s and women’s bodies are different, but that doesn’t mean unequal, and they’re both good, and you need to rediscover the goodness of your own sexuality.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it this way:

In creating men “male and female,” God gives man and woman an equal personal dignity. “Man is a person, man and woman equally so, since both were created in the image and likeness of the personal God” (Mulieris dignitatem, 6).Each of the two sexes is an image of the power and tenderness of God, with equal dignity though in a different way  (CCC 2334-35).

Men and women are different, and thank God for that. 

Further Reading

Looking for further reading? Here are some good books and articles to get you started:

Books

The Meaning of Sex by Jay Budziszewski 

Why Gender Matters by Leonard Sax (Doubleday: New York, NY, 2005)

Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 2331-36

Articles

“His Brain, Her Brain” by Larry Cahill, Scientific American, May 2005

“Gender-Specific Gene Expression in Post-Mortem Human Brain: Localization to Sex Chromosomes,” the National Institutes of Health

“Empowering Parents of Gender Discordant and Same-Sex Attracted Children,” Michelle Cretella, principal author, American College of Pediatricians (April 2008).