It's the conversation no dating couple wants to have.

No, I'm not talking about the “what’s our relationship status” discussion.

I'm talking about pornography.
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Editor’s Note: Altcatholicah is commited to interfaith dialogue and fostering fruitful conversation about faith and gender. Here, Melissa Langsam Braunstein describes her Jewish perspective on a universal challenge for new moms.

The Israelites spent 40 years wandering in circles in the Sinai. Strong youngsters walked ahead, while the elderly, infirm, children, and their parents followed. After this year’s Passover family road trip, winding through the wilds of New Jersey’s back roads, I understand why. Everything simply takes longer with children, including travel. ()

It is the morning of Good Friday and I am walking in the sprawling, forested cemetery that surrounds San Miniato al Monte, the spectacular basilica dating back to 1018, which overlooks the city of Florence, Italy. Surrounds is the right word, because at San Miniato, the dead are everywhere. Tombs, headstones, private chapels, and funeral statuary, begin on the grounds in front of the Church and continue well into the landscape of cypress around the back. Graves are set out as something of an Italian garden, with formal walking paths and careful design. ()

So Conrad Black wants me to take birth control pills. Because I’m so un-modern for refusing to take a daily dose of cancer-linked, fertility-killing hormones that Conrad Black would, like the men who ensured birth control pills for men never happened, never consider taking himself. A pill that has resulted only in an uptick in unplanned pregnancies and catalyzed the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, especially among women. ()

They said he’d be one of several media-friendly papabili. He wasn’t. They said he’d be young. He’s almost as old as Cardinal Ratzinger was when he became Benedict XVI. They said he would be African. He isn’t.

They said if he wasn’t African, there was a good chance he’d be from North America. He’s from South America.

They said he’d give the Church another chance to re-evaluate its stance on matters such as gay marriage and women priests. He won’t. ()