Looking back on a good weekend

That was a very good weekend. It was really nice to go out in my rubber shirt. As my wife said, you realise that, when all is said and done, it is not a very big deal. It's just made of rubber - if anyone were to comment on it we would say, "Yes, it's nice isn't it?"

Anyway, back to cotton yesterday (Sunday) as my son was back home. Went to the Sacrament of Reconciliation (confession) in the afternoon. I have never felt the need to confess my liking for rubber, as I do not feel that it is sinful. It is what you do with it that could make it sinful. Non-Catholics may have a problem understanding "the sin thing" - believe me, we all do!. This is my "take on it:

I believe that we are all sinners and, of course, that God knows this. One of the reasons that confession is now called reconciliation is that it is the act of my acknowledging my sins and saying to God, "Yes, you know and I know what I have done - with your help, I will try to be better." With regards to what constitutes "sin", it's clear that behaviour can be sinful. In the general act of contrition we also speak about sinful thoughts. I sometimes link this with something I heard years ago, "To think it is to do it." I can understand that very well when I think of "big" sins like murder, but what about lustful thoughts? Well, there's no getting away from it - they are sinful. Catholic theologians seem to have sorted out their ideas about greater ans lesser sins - it makes sense that thinking adulterous thoughts is a lesser sin than commiting adultery. But, I reckon we all have things like lustful thoughts (or other thoughts that are less than pure!) so we are all sinners. What this means (amongst other things) is that I have no right to pass judgment on others (part of what the story of Jesus and the adulteress is about)

So, how does that affect my thinking about rubber? First of all, rubber obviously is not, in itself, sinful. The fact that my wife and I enjoy it is not sinful. I think that if either of us were diminishing ourselves in some way (e.g. I was demanding that my wife did something she were not happy doing) then we would be moving into sin. When I look at women dressed in rubber on the Internet, I am sinning, I think. But, what's the difference between that and looking at pictures of my wife dressed in rubber? There are some interesting thoughts that arise from this. One of the arguments against pornography is that it tends to objectify women, and this may be a difference here. I know my wife and when I look at her photo I think of her as a person. When I look at an image of a rubber-clad woman on the Internet it is simply to titillate myself - I do not consider her as a person. Hence, I am diminishing her.

I must think about this more.