Oral Sex To Completion Within Marriage

Catholic Living Family Life
#1

Hey,

Maybe this has been discussed in droves but I’ve not found a satisfactory answer yet.

I’m married, and I’ve got three kids, so there’s no real question about our general disposition towards life and conception.

That said, when I was younger, I always figured that once married, it was “anything goes”. I’m willing to reign that in a bit, but I feel that perhaps an insufficient distinction has been made regarding sexual acts between a licitly married couple vs. acts outside of marriage.

There is no sin if I give my wife an orgasm through oral stimulation [assuming for the time being that I then go ahead and finish with her, in her].

But why must all sexual acts be “sex” or “not sex”.

Her body and my body belong to eachother, and there is no harm in a playful teasing that does not lead to sex (“extended foreplay” over the course of the day/week).

So, why can’t I receive oral sex from her and finish without it being regular sex?

Onan’s sin was deliberately trying to not have children with his late-brother’s wife. He was not open to life - period. But that one example does not in my mind sufficiently seal the case that ALL actions where semen is spilled outside of the womb are immoral.

The best argument for that I can find is the slippery slope argument (Anscombe has a great piece on that here). But that’s not enough for me.

Why can’t I periodically - over the course of a marriage which is demonstrably open to life - have a few playful sexual acts which are not “sexual intercourse”, even though they lead to a mutual climax?

#2

Hi CredoEtMinor,

It’s not really meaningful to talk about a “marriage” being open to life. Openness to life is a function of the act, not of the people.

What’s meant by a sexual act being “open to life” is that it conforms to the end of the human sexual faculty (natural law tells us that goodness consists in using our faculties in a manner consistent with their respective ends). That end is procreation. Thus the sexual act must, at some point (barring accidents or some unanticipated inability to complete the act), include intravaginal ejaculation.

As you said, it is licit to bring one’s wife to orgasm through nonpenetrative means, since the female orgasm is more or less irrelevant to the procreative end of the sexual faculty. She can get pregnant without them; having them doesn’t guarantee pregnancy. That said, I’m reasonably sure that even nonpenetrative female orgasms still have to occur within the context of the greater sexual act – either as precursor to it or afterwards. Don’t quote me on that.

Hope that helps.

#3

The climax of the wife can happen “within the context of the marital act” (and only then)…thus can occur during foreplay or if not during act…then after the husband’s climax.

The Husband’s climax has a *necessity *to it in regards to the where and when. It must occur only during the actual the marital act in the actual union of husband and wife.

Got to go to bed…but that is some basics.

#4

I don’t know, why can’t you?

Seriously, is this in the Canon someplace?

Take an NFP class and learn when fertility is least likely or make it the second go 'round of the night.

A priest online who was a Canon lawyer once told me there is no reason whatsoever a husband and wife can’t have “a whomping good time in bed.” His exact words.

HOWEVER - your spouse has to be completely comfortable with the activity. Once you’ve made sexuality in marriage only about you, you’ve entered into sin no matter what position you are in.

#5

It’s in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. See “Matrimony: purpose” and then look up the sections on Marital Chastity, Fecundity, Fidelity, Offenses Against Marriage, Offenses Agaisnt Chastity…

Yes, you can have a “whomping good time in bed” so long as it results in the “act” being completed according to God’s natural Law (male ejaculation within the vagina). You can have foreplay, oral relations, etc…but the result must be intravaginal ejaculation in order for the act to be “ordered per se to” procreation.

#6

Thanks for the feed back.

What’s meant by a sexual act being “open to life” is that it conforms to the end of the human sexual faculty (natural law tells us that goodness consists in using our faculties in a manner consistent with their respective ends). That end is procreation. Thus the sexual act must, at some point (barring accidents or some unanticipated inability to complete the act), include intravaginal ejaculation.

My thoughts on this that I keep returning to are that – at the very least – before our over-sexualized culture made a big show about sex and talked about it all the time, I know that many couples regularly engaged in this action, and it just went on as a marital practice. Only when we started splitting hairs so as to avoide the “slippery slope” towards legitimizing homosexuality and contraception that discussion of oral sex came up, and with a puzzled look was consigned to the dustbin.

I’ve heard many modern catholic theologians speak in the same way about oral sex, yet I still find it hard to believe that a catholic couple who is as open to life as possible (read: the wife is presently pregnant, and couldn’t get any more pregnant) couldn’t legitimately engage in some non-procreative sex.

I don’t see that it voilates natural law. When St. paul gives the purposes of marital relations, he doesn’t say for children, but to keep the husband and wife from sinning by having non-marital relations, etc (I’d lump masturbation (alone) into that category). But there’s something about the husband and wife just freely exploring all they ways to pleasure eachother that seems sublime to me, and not at all contrary to divine intentions for sexuality, let alone natural law.

…still puzzled…

#7

Being relatively young and new to the Church, I can’t comment on how things used to be.

I can only say that, barring accidents, it’s clearly contrary to natural law for a man to ejaculate anywhere but in his wife’s vagina. Oral sex is licit as foreplay but not as, ahem, a conclusion.

I’ve heard many modern catholic theologians speak in the same way about oral sex, yet I still find it hard to believe that a catholic couple who is as open to life as possible (read: the wife is presently pregnant, and couldn’t get any more pregnant) couldn’t legitimately engage in some non-procreative sex.

Well, again, “open to life” is a property of the act, not the couple. It literally just means “conforming to the end of procreation,” i.e., involving at some point intravaginal ejaculation.

I don’t see that it voilates natural law. When St. paul gives the purposes of marital relations, he doesn’t say for children, but to keep the husband and wife from sinning by having non-marital relations, etc (I’d lump masturbation (alone) into that category).

But we don’t need St. Paul to tell us what the purpose of sex is. And we *do *need natural law to tell us what sin is.

Sin is the use of our faculties in a manner contrary to their respective ends. We eat because we need nourishment, and that’s licit because that’s the purpose of eating; but if we continue eating more than we need because we like the taste of food, that’s a sin – because our digestive faculty exists for the end of nourishment, not pleasure.

Likewise with sex. The sexual act is ordered toward procreation, and we know this because it’s how conception is achieved. The sexual act ends in ejaculation (for men, who are the transmitters of life in the sexual act) because that’s what necessary for conception to occur – but the act of ejaculation has nothing to do with achieving unity or closeness. Therefore the end of the sexual act is explicitly procreative. If its end is procreative, than we ought to have sex in a manner consistent with that end.

The act is pleasurable, certainly, but the pleasure is in service of the end of procreation, just as the pleasure of eating is in the service of the end of acquiring nourishment. It is not an end in itself, and treat it as an end in itself is a sin.

Hope that helps.

#8

I’ve read the various sections in the Catechism that are often recommended when this topic comes up, but I get the feeling that folks are reading & quoting something else too – some other book on it, perhaps something by Christopher West or someone like that?

And if we are talking about the opinion of theologians or lay Catholic apologists, does this always hold water magisterially?

I often think that we define acts within marriage with a line – such as if this or that is done then we’ve crossed a line. Rather, isn’t it a direction?

I’ve heard something similar about chastity when teens ask “how far is too far?” They’re looking for a magical line, when they shouldn’t be looking for a line at all but moving in the direction of purity. When they look for a line, they are moving in the direction of impurity.

Perhaps the same thing could be said for oral sex and other acts of extravaginal completion? If a couple is moving in the direction of being open to procreation, then what lines can be crossed? But if a couple engages in contraception or isn’t open to procreation, then their direction isn’t in line with Catholic teaching.

Just typing aloud. Forgive the muddle. :o

#9

It isn’t a matter or whether the wife is already pregnant or can get pregnant, it is a matter of the couple completing the marital act according to God’s design…“ordered per se to procreation”; otherwise it is not a marital act. If the couple engages “in some non-procreative sex” as you put it, then it is nothing more than mutual masturbation. The act must be completed as designed by God in order for it to fulfill the purpose of the act (fidelity and fecundity, together, inseperable). Non-vaginal ejaculation is not unitive at all (the fidelity aspect) nor can it be ordered per se to procreation (the fecundity aspect).

#10

The Catechism (which explains the Church’s official teachings) is crystal clear on this matter. Various Encyclicals are also crystal clear (Humanae Vitae, Casti Conubii, Familiaris Consortiio) as is Theology of the Body.

People often refer to the various theologians to further explain how the Church and the Popes came the conclusions that are in those Papal and Church documents. Sometimes that clarification is needed when people have a hard time accepting a Church teaching, regardless of how clearly stated it is in the Catechism.

#11

This topic is one of my husband’s number one concerns with Catholic teaching. He feels the exact same way you do, Credoetmiror. We haven’t exactly ‘resolved’ the situation. For me, after I brought the matter to prayer, heard all of my confessors’ answers, read through various Catholic articles, searched this website- I have accepted the Church’s decision, even if sometimes I wonder if it is not nit-picking. My husband, however, is still struggling and often gets angry at what he considers an intrusion into a pro-creative, pro- life relationship.

Perhaps Christopher West’s book may help you(if you haven’t read it already)- every person I asked about this topic referred me to it. It’s called Good News about Sex and Marriage: Answers to Your Honest Questions about Catholic Teaching. The author even admits that this particular question is probably the whole reason people pick up the book. Maybe it will help you see the situation from a different angle.

#12

spot.colorado.edu/~tooley/CatholicismOralSex.html

#13

EWTN Q&A ewtn.com/vexperts/showresult.asp?RecNum=503081&Forums=0&Experts=0&Days=2010&Author=&Keyword=marital+act&pgnu=2&groupnum=0&record_bookmark=59&ORDER_BY_TXT=ORDER+BY+ReplyDate+DESC&start_at=

#14

Such is regarding the general question of climax of wife and husband…to read that Priests thoughts on Oral stimulation…search the EWTN site.

#15

Here I found this one for you: ewtn.com/vexperts/showresult.asp?RecNum=511803&Forums=0&Experts=111&Days=2010&Author=&Keyword=oral&pgnu=1&groupnum=0&record_bookmark=24&ORDER_BY_TXT=ORDER+BY+ReplyDate+DESC&start_at=

(taken together with his other answer above)

#16

I just read the whole section. There’s nothing like that in there.

scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a6.htm#2354

#17

CCC 2351 - “Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes.”

CCC 2366 - “…it is necessary that each and every marriage act remain ordered per se to the procreation of human life.”

If the husband is receiving oral pleasure and ejaculates outside the vagina, that act was not ordered per se to procreation. Ordered per se to procreation means intravaginal ejaculation.

Also read CCC 2360 - 2372.

#18

That’s an interpretation. What did I tell him? Take an NFP class, do it on infertile days or the second time around. And you missed " and unitive." Which is why I told him the wife has to be completely supportive. This can be very unitive. It doesn’t say “or” unitive, you have to be isolated from both to be disordered.

Anyway, that’s my opinion, which is different from yours. Until some Bishop comes in here and says something definitive, that’s all we have.

#19

:rotfl:

The answer to such questions like “If my wife is already pregnant…” is chastity. Chastity is part of maritial life as it is in non-marital life.

#20

What the other person noted is the case.

Seeking or consenting the climax of the husband outside the phyiscal marital act is contrary to marital chastity and is sinful.

This is a constant in Catholic Moral Theology.