Bad Vibrations in Wisconsin

Here’s the news story: fifty-year old Linette Servais has sung in the choir for thirty five years. She played organ for the St. Joseph Catholic Church in New Franken, Wisconsin. She also organized the annual picnic and photographed children during their First Communion services. But Father Dean Dombroski discovered that Servais was also selling sex toys and other products at home parties. As a result, Dombroski relieved Servais of her church duties.

The Pure Romance website is pretty tame for a sex site. It’s more Avon than Penthouse, featuring smiling (and clothed) ladies who apparently look so relaxed and happy due to the reasonably-priced lotions and toys found in the catalog pages. There are items like “Coochy”, a shaving cream designed especially for “down there”. And buzzy toys with cute girly names like “Spring Fling” and “Pretty in Pink”. And Linette Servais was one of the Avon-style ladies who sold Pure Romance products in-home.

Linette Servais is a cancer survivor. A brain tumor left her sexually dysfunctional, and she credits sex toys as key in helping her get her mojo back after medical treatment. Servaise claims that she “prayed over this a long time” and “feel(s) that Pure Romance is my ministry.'' She wants to help other women who have experienced similar dysfunctional problems.

Get a tableful of women together for cocktails, and you will soon know that various sexual dysfunctions are as common as dirt. Linette’s so-called “ministry” certainly has a market out there.

Father Dombroski sent a letter to his parish regarding Servais stating that “Linette is a consultant for a firm which sells products of a sexual nature that are not consistent with Church teachings. Because parish leaders are expected to model the teaching of our faith ... she could stay on as the choir director/organist or she could continue to be a consultant but she could not do both.''

I am curious… is the female orgasm consistent with church teachings?

I can speak personally as a girl-person about this: Orgasms are good. Orgasms are mysterious. Orgasms are a desirable state. Orgasms are vibrational transcendental perfect ecstatic events which are practically religious in nature. They make us think about heavenly things. Maybe orgasms can bring us closer to God. Orgasms are about love and peace. I never feel like picking up a handgun after an orgasm. I am not angry with anybody after an orgasm. Peace and love and butterflies and fluffy little clouds and…

… oh, wait. Sorry, Father Dombroski, were you saying something about “not consistent with Church teachings”? I got a little distracted there, thinking about that Big O which is like birth and death and a roller coaster and a day at the beach all rolled up in one… big…

...screw it, Fr. D., I am not going to dig around the internet to find scholarly evidence to argue with you about the sweet goodness of the female orgasm. Of course it’s a good thing, and of course any God who created vaginas and clitorises and G spots would want His little creatures to know how they work. And if you think that this is the Devil’s Work, I’m sorry, but I think that you’re dead wrong. I don’t need Wikipedia and Masters and Johnson to back me up. I swear on Eve Ensler’s personal copy of The Vagina Monologues that orgasms are good, they’re darned good. And God bless Linette Servais for helping women on their paths to physical enlightenment.

There’s real problems out there for the Church to worry about: paying off all the victims of child molesting priests, for instance, and trying to keep the diminishing church members from abandoning Mass altogether. But dismissing a godly woman from her religious duties just because she has discovered the power and joy of her own body and endeavors to share that wonderful secret with others?

The Church should be ashamed of itself.

NTD