A Traditional Catholic... with a boyfriend?

[BHL_20]

Completely irrelevant. You are also barred from being alone in a locked room with another man, but that does not mean a single woman (or man) would also be barred from such. By nature of being in a vocation, you have volunteered to put a high number of restrictions on your behavior that are not placed on the behavior of a single person. A single gay man can be in a non-sexual, platonic relationship with another man just as a single straight woman can be in a non-sexual, platonic relationship with another man. However, a married woman (or man) or a priest or nun or brother, etc. cannot by virtue of their vocation.

That’s actually highly incorrect. Asexuals often refer to their romantic partners as “boyfriends” or “girlfriends.” Many people who are not asexual also engage in non-sexual relationships with each other. There is nothing immoral about doing so, because they are not dating in the Catholic sense, only in the American culture sense of companionship.

In the example that was given, Corki didn’t just talk about married people. She also made the point that if anyone has a non-sexual, romantic relationship with a family member, it would be wrong. The sexual act isn’t the sole sinful action one can take in any non-marriageable relationship.

 

[BHL_20]

I don’t understand the companionship argument. Many people don’t get married until their 30s or 40s, or maybe even not at all. I know it may be difficult for them sometimes, but having friends still manages to fulfil most of their emotional needs.

 

[SMGS127]

I don’t understand the companionship argument. Many people don’t get married until their 30s or 40s, or maybe even not at all. I know it may be difficult for them sometimes, but having friends still manages to fulfil most of their emotional needs.

Many people don’t get married, but they still have boyfriends/girlfriends until then. Very, very few people that are not in Church vocations go until their 40s without having had a boyfriend or girlfriend.

 

[Corki]

As a married woman, there is nothing inherently immoral about being in a locked room with another man. Depending on the circumstances, it may be imprudent, but I am certainly not “barred” from doing so by virtue of my married state. I am “barred” from dating men outside of my marriage.

We all have restrictions on our behavior. Immoral dating is one of those things that is a restriction on everyone’s behavior.

The “American cultural sense” of dating is more than mere companionship. Dating involves attraction, romance and potential.

 

[garyo49]

I often hear people claim that they’ve never seen discrimination against divorced people, but if they become one they quickly change their tune.

It is possible to have a meaningful and deep relationships without sex. While sex can certainly be quite enjoyable I do not think it meaningfully improves a relationship.

I wasn’t talking about having sex. I was talking about the desire to get married. Also I agree that it is possible to have a relationship without sex, but realistically how often do you think that happens? For most people you are making out in the moonlight and then “it” happens.

 

[Thomas_White]

In the secular world and in psychology there is the concept of emotional infidelity. Emotional infidelity does not involve physical intimacy. It occurs when one partner in a relationship develops a significant interest in a third person–in a heterosexual relationship this third person would be a person of the opposite gender–and shares personal things with that person. It involves an emotional but non-sexual attachment to that third party. This could be a friend, someone at work or someone the person chats with on the Internet in a non-intimate way. Emotional infidelity, though not adultery and not involving physical intimacy, frequently results in divorce. It can be as insidious to a marriage as adultery.

Is emotional infidelity a sin?

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

Whether it’s a sexual relationship is largely irrelevant. It’s still immoral to call another man his “boyfriend” and to opine that homosexual relationships are not sinful. It is immoral to be in a romantic relationship with a member of the same sex even if it isn’t, or isn’t yet, sexual.

Why, why is it immoral for a man to call another man his boyfriend? We better tell women everywhere that they can’t call another woman their girlfriend because that’d be immoral.

Words like “boyfriend” and “significant other” might have had a purely platonic meaning in decades past but in current language have a connotation of a romantic attachment rather than just a close friendship. It is highly unlikely, to the point of being nearly implausible, that someone would choose to refer to his own relationship like that if all he means is a good friend.

Don’t forget the historically popular term “bully” for a man to refer to his BFF which came from a Dutch word for lover.

 

[Thomas_White]

In the secular world and in psychology there is the concept of emotional infidelity. Emotional infidelity does not involve physical intimacy. It occurs when one partner in a relationship develops a relationship with a third person–in a heterosexual relationship this third person would be a person of the opposite gender–and discusses and shares personal things with that person. It involves an emotional but non-sexual attachment to that third party. This could be a friend, someone at work or someone the person chats with on the Internet in a non-intimate way. Emotional infidelity, though not adultery and not involving physical intimacy, frequently results in divorce. It can be as insidious to a marriage as actual adultery, most often as perceived by the spouse.

Is emotional infidelity a sin? This is a serious question, and I don’t know the answer. So much concerning marriage in the Church concerns conjugal relations, and it is the very problem (adultery) in the eyes of the Church when divorce and remarriage occurs. In prior Canon Law at least, marriage was essentially a contract concerning conjugal relations. So what about emotional infidelity?

 

[Halligator]

I’m male. When I was in jr and high school, I was a quiet, spiritual kid. I got teased a lot for my stuttering, and got in many fights with my teasers. I, too, considered becoming a priest – another cause for teasing. (Who ever heard of a stuttering priest?)

I hung out with friends, male and female, in small groups but mainly one-on-one. My parents always assumed I was “dating” when I paired off with a girl who was my friend. There was never anything sexual happening, but my parents still encouraged me to confess to our local priest. I went, both because our priest was very funny, and because I had other sins to be forgiven.

I likewise hung out one-on-one with male friends. There was no sex involved there, either. But it was another source for teasing. “We always knew you were q***r,” was the most popular.

The truth was, I lead a boring asexual life until I met my wife and we married. I was 22, probably one of the few who waited that long for sexual pleasure.

There are lots of people like me, who crave the psychological closeness of personal relationships, but never permit any physical or sexual expression of that closeness.

So quit thinking everybody else (hetero- or homosexual) only wants sex from a relationship.

 

[lylehoa_13]

Have you ever encountered a practising homosexual who also, except for that, is a largely faithful Catholic?

My head hurts at the thought. But, yes, such things exist. I feel rather confused, and yet I feel like I should have known people could or would do this.

My question is, is this homosexual Catholic, living in a life of sin and yet still largely Catholic in culture and to some degree religion - is he any better off than those who feel they can no longer be Catholic because they are “homosexual”?

Or am I just overreacting? Is it really no less strange than the liberal nuns who advocate for women’s ordination and the “pro-choice Catholics” whom some bishops will not excommunicate?

I’m just having trouble believing what I’ve heard. But I am absolutely sure I heard from the same mouth a male Catholic with a relative fervour for the Church - who also is a man with a boyfriend.

My head hurts.

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[Corki]

Why, why is it immoral for a man to call another man his boyfriend? We better tell women everywhere that they can’t call another woman their girlfriend because that’d be immoral.

It’s not immoral for a man to call someone his “boyfriend” if they are indeed just pals but it would be asking to be misunderstood. It is immoral for a homosexual man to have a boyfriend - a male that he is in a relationship with that is more than just being a friend.

The term is just an artifact of modern language. Women call their women friends “girlfriends”. Men do not call their male friends “boyfriends”. They call them “buds” or best friends or something similar. Women who are referring to other women they hang out with that way are not usually also declaring themselves as homosexual. The person referenced in the OP was.

Words have meaning and that meaning is sometimes fluid. If I say that I have a very gay friend, I might mean that he is lively and fun to be around. But I would be very naive to not expect that some, if not all, of the people who hear me say that are going to think I mean he is homosexual. That’s the predominant meaning of the word in today’s lexicon.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

It’s not immoral for a man to call someone his “boyfriend” if they are indeed just pals but it would be asking to be misunderstood. It is immoral for a homosexual man to have a boyfriend - a male that he is in a relationship with that is more than just being a friend.

Okay, what other than the sex it is immoral?

The term is just an artifact of modern language. Women call their women friends “girlfriends”. Men do not call their male friends “boyfriends”. They call them “buds” or best friends or something similar. Women who are referring to other women they hang out with that way are not usually also declaring themselves as homosexual. The person referenced in the OP was.

None of those terms convey a deep relationship and so they go to boyfriend which conveys a level of commitment and love.

Words have meaning and that meaning is sometimes fluid. If I say that I have a very gay friend, I might mean that he is lively and fun to be around. But I would be very naive to not expect that some, if not all, of the people who hear me say that are going to think I mean he is homosexual. That’s the predominant meaning of the word in today’s lexicon.

Personally in that case I’d have used the word vivacious instead of gay anyway.

Here’s the thing, boyfriend is as close as modern English words go to what they mean and thus it gets used, besides, the word doesn’t imply a sexual relationship except for the people who see scandal everywhere.

 

[BrassAnkles]

It’s not immoral for a man to call someone his “boyfriend” if they are indeed just pals but it would be asking to be misunderstood. It is immoral for a homosexual man to have a boyfriend - a male that he is in a relationship with that is more than just being a friend.

The term is just an artifact of modern language. Women call their women friends “girlfriends”. Men do not call their male friends “boyfriends”. They call them “buds” or best friends or something similar. Women who are referring to other women they hang out with that way are not usually also declaring themselves as homosexual. The person referenced in the OP was.

Words have meaning and that meaning is sometimes fluid. If I say that I have a very gay friend, I might mean that he is lively and fun to be around. But I would be very naive to not expect that some, if not all, of the people who hear me say that are going to think I mean he is homosexual. That’s the predominant meaning of the word in today’s lexicon.

 

[SMGS127]

None of those terms convey a deep relationship and so they go to boyfriend which conveys a level of commitment and love.

Here’s the thing, boyfriend is as close as modern English words go to what they mean and thus it gets used, besides, the word doesn’t imply a sexual relationship except for the people who see scandal everywhere.

Exactly. 100% nail on the head.

At its core, all “girlfriend” or “boyfriend” means is “exclusive mutual caretaker” in American lexicon. Despite the fact that most people with a girlfriend or boyfriend sleep with them nowadays, there is no sexual necessity, and, in fact, no one at all, heterosexual or homosexual, should be having sex with their girlfriend or boyfriend. Sex has a very clear purpose that is limited to married couples. Caretaking for another person is not.

 

[Corki]

Okay, what other than the sex it is immoral?

When it comes to homosexuality, behaviors that are based on one’s attractions to the same sex that in a heterosexual person would be ordered toward the opposite sex. Noninclusive of actions such as PDAs, dating, entering a civil union, holding themselves out to others as a couple.

If it is an activity that a homosexual person does with all of his/her friends regardless of sex and regardless of attraction, it is probably not immoral.

 

[SMGS127]

When it comes to homosexuality, behaviors that are based on one’s attractions to the same sex that in a heterosexual person would be ordered toward the opposite sex. Noninclusive of actions such as PDAs, dating, entering a civil union, holding themselves out to others as a couple.

If it is an activity that a homosexual person does with all of his/her friends regardless of sex and regardless of attraction, it is probably not immoral.

But as with everyone else who suggests what you just said (with the exception of a civil union, which no one has suggested on this thread), they have no papal evidence to back it up, only their personal feelings on the subject .

I have no problems with gay couples – the one person of my friends who is open to me about her sexual life knows my feelings about the subject. On the other hand, most of my gay friends aren’t, and I assume the most charitable assumption for each of them, just as I do with my heterosexual friends when they are in relationships, even though most of them have a very promiscuous history.

Sexual immorality – heterosexual or homosexual – is the sin here, not merely being someone’s boyfriend or girlfriend and caretaking for them.

 

[Corki]

None of those terms convey a deep relationship and so they go to boyfriend which conveys a level of commitment and love.

That’s the point. My closest friend is a homosexual man I have known since high school. We have a level of commitment and love that is more than any of my other friends - male or female - other than my husband. I would never call him my boyfriend because “boyfriend” conveys something more - something that is not just a friendship, no matter how deep that friendship might be.

 

[Corki]

Sexual immorality – heterosexual or homosexual – is the sin here, not merely being someone’s boyfriend or girlfriend and caretaking for them.

No, sexual immorality is not THE sin, it is A sin. It is not the only sin. Being a caretaker is not a sin. Having a same sex boyfriend or girlfriend in a relationship that is exclusive and romantic is.

 

[SMGS127]

Having a same sex boyfriend or girlfriend in a relationship that is exclusive and romantic is.

Please post a defense, supported by papal evidence, that an exclusive, non-sexual, relationship of caretaking between two members of the same sex is immoral merely because they call each other their “boyfriends” or “girlfriends.” There was a 1000-page thread about this very issue where people were completely unable to defend their position and just spouted it off as fact with no evidence. If you are so confident in your position, surely you can find some comment about it somewhere from some papal statement.

 

[Kurisu35712]

Please post a defense, supported by papal evidence, that an exclusive, non-sexual, relationship of caretaking between two members of the same sex is immoral merely because they call each other their “boyfriends” or “girlfriends.” There was a 1000-page thread about this very issue where people were completely unable to defend their position and just spouted it off as fact with no evidence. If you are so confident in your position, surely you can find some comment about it somewhere from some papal statement.

I understand the importance of connotation in regards to word usage, but honestly, in cases like this, it should really matter less what they individuals are calling each other vs. what they’re actually doing. The connotation of boyfriend/girlfriend really implies nothing more than an exclusive relationship. Can it imply a sexual one? Yes. But it doesn’t necessarily, and we should not assume that it does.

Using the word boyfriend or girlfriend does not immediately render a relationship immoral. Personally, if I were in a chaste homosexual caretaking relationship, boyfriend isn’t the word I would use to describe it, but frankly, there isn’t a word in English that accurately communicates that kind of relationship, aside from maybe caretaker. But caretaker implies some sort of medical issue, so even that is inaccurate.