At what point is it considered Adultery/sinful?

  • Thread starter Thread starter ZoonCorp
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Z

ZoonCorp

Guest
I’m 18 years old, just so you get where I am coming from.

When is it sinful to fantasize about girls (or boys if you’re a girl)?
I I have heard that you can commit adultery in your mind as well. I can admit that I have seen a girl that I like very much, and that i sometimes fantasize about passionately kissing her face and neck. However, It’s not like I am being vulgar and feeling a sexual lust or desire, it’s just that I think she is very beautiful. When does it become too much, so to speak? I don’t want to be sinful because of something beautiful.

Also, I have another question. When is it sinful to think about sex? I have also thought about this a bit, but in a non lustful way (As far as I can tell). I thought about it as a marriage thing without actually feeling aroused, as a beautiful thing.

I don’t know if I am supposed to think about these things at all. Sure I am growing up and starting to think about a relationship all that, but there as so many temptations around us that it’s maybe for the best not to do that. 🤷
 
Finding people attractive and feeling sexual desire are entirely normal. For those called to the vocation of marriage, they are God’s means of uniting us.

“Fantasizing” about someone else is crossing a line in my opinion. The other person deserves more respect from you than to be imagined as an object of desire. Even if you think your imaginings are quite innocent, you don’t really have any right to use other people to fuel these fantasies. Attraction and desire can seemingly slide quite naturally into fantasies, but you need to resolve to control your thoughts in this manner. When you feel that you are fantasizing, try to move your thoughts on to something else.

But don’t stress too much about these things. Like I said, attraction and sexual desire are very natural. Just always try to keep them within the perspective of respecting others. If and when you get married, it will be far more important that you respect your wife than that you find her beautiful.
 
ZoonCorp said:
I’m 18 years old, just so you get where I am coming from.

When is it sinful to fantasize about girls (or boys if you’re a girl)?
I I have heard that you can commit adultery in your mind as well. I can admit that I have seen a girl that I like very much, and that i sometimes fantasize about passionately kissing her face and neck. However, It’s not like I am being vulgar and feeling a sexual lust or desire, it’s just that I think she is very beautiful. When does it become too much, so to speak? I don’t want to be sinful because of something beautiful.

Also, I have another question. When is it sinful to think about sex? I have also thought about this a bit, but in a non lustful way (As far as I can tell). I thought about it as a marriage thing without actually feeling aroused, as a beautiful thing.

I don’t know if I am supposed to think about these things at all. Sure I am growing up and starting to think about a relationship all that, but there as so many temptations around us that it’s maybe for the best not to do that. 🤷
Click to expand...
I do not think that is sinful at all what you feel.
Were you a mere animal, then you’ld do what you think right away.
As you are a person and a moral one, you put the reason first and catholic moral too. that is why you are putting the question.
But listen, you body was made by God to reproduce and sex will not keep quiet. Sex is, in God’s hands an instrument of creation.
But man sometimes does not want that way and the body does not keep quiet. Many times, before marrying, people have to spend an inordinate amount of time studying and putting off the sexual desires and the body does not keep quiet.
A friend of mine is pregnant after a first miscarriage. She said, you know, we marry late, have children late, and our body is late, we have more miscarriages nowadAus. She is a bilogy teacher.
In the old times, people married when they were 14/19 years old so htey have little time to dream. They went into action right away.
Nowadays, it is more complicated to follow the RCC rules in today’s changing times, families, society and so on.
Try to keep yourself in balance so as to try to keep your sexual life in balance. I would not advise you to meter the sins. If you feel that something is wrong, just ask God for forgiveness, kneel down before the lord and say you love Him and go ahead, dont dwell on the subject much more.
And find a loving girl. Good Luck…
 
Attraction and sexual desire are natural, but we cross a line when we willfully fantasize about it. One needs to will to not have the thoughts so as to not sin mortally.

One can admire beauty, but not desire to caress the person they are admiring.

Our Lord Jesus Christ said “He who looks at a woman with lust in his heart has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” That goes for women also.

In order for thoughts to be grievously sinful one needs to recognize the thought and let it goi.

We are surrounded with all kinds of temptations daily. Prayer and the Sacraments is how we fight the good fight to avoid sin.
 
A temptation is when a sinful idea or vision floats past your mind; sinful thinking is when you invite the thought in and entertain it.

I also recommend to my own children that they not even fantasize about conversations and such. What ends up happening is that you fall in love with the person you’ve made up in your head rather than the real person.

I think our imagination is more for imagining things like how you will act in certain circumstances, like if you realize you have been acting meanly towards someone and you “practice” behaving more nicely in your imagination.

(and of course you can imagine inventions, new songs, etc. Just be careful about romantic imagining.)
 
ZoonCorp said:
I’m 18 years old, just so you get where I am coming from.

When is it sinful to fantasize about girls (or boys if you’re a girl)?
I I have heard that you can commit adultery in your mind as well. I can admit that I have seen a girl that I like very much, and that i sometimes fantasize about passionately kissing her face and neck. However, It’s not like I am being vulgar and feeling a sexual lust or desire, it’s just that I think she is very beautiful. When does it become too much, so to speak? I don’t want to be sinful because of something beautiful.

Also, I have another question. When is it sinful to think about sex? I have also thought about this a bit, but in a non lustful way (As far as I can tell). I thought about it as a marriage thing without actually feeling aroused, as a beautiful thing.

I don’t know if I am supposed to think about these things at all. Sure I am growing up and starting to think about a relationship all that, but there as so many temptations around us that it’s maybe for the best not to do that. 🤷
Click to expand...
Something someone in another thread said has stuck in my head. They said anything you would not do or think about doing in front of your parents is sinful.
 
underacloud said:
Finding people attractive and feeling sexual desire are entirely normal. For those called to the vocation of marriage, they are God’s means of uniting us.

“Fantasizing” about someone else is crossing a line in my opinion. The other person deserves more respect from you than to be imagined as an object of desire. Even if you think your imaginings are quite innocent, you don’t really have any right to use other people to fuel these fantasies. Attraction and desire can seemingly slide quite naturally into fantasies, but you need to resolve to control your thoughts in this manner. When you feel that you are fantasizing, try to move your thoughts on to something else.

But don’t stress too much about these things. Like I said, attraction and sexual desire are very natural. Just always try to keep them within the perspective of respecting others. If and when you get married, it will be far more important that you respect your wife than that you find her beautiful.
Click to expand...
He’s not fantasizing about engaging in sex with them.

And what if the fantasy is basically you cuddling with them, perhaps being held?
 
Dakota_Roberts said:
He’s not fantasizing about engaging in sex with them.

And what if the fantasy is basically you cuddling with them, perhaps being held?
Click to expand...
The OP said he fantasized about “passionately kissing her face and neck”. It’s not sex, but it’s not something you’d do in front of your parents, to take thistle’s suggestion.

As for cuddles, it’s a bit of a grey area I would think. When you’re married, or perhaps even dating, there is a sort of implicit understanding that your spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend will think of you in that way, and you of them. But when you’re not married or dating, do you have the right to imagine any given person in such an intimate manner? If that person does not share similar feelings, how would they feel about being part of your fantasy? Is it treating them with due respect? If they knew, would they find it creepy?

It’s one thing to think “I’d like to get to know that person better and date them”, but it’s quite another thing to fantasize about intimate activities with them.
 
ewtn.com/expert/answers/dating.htm from a writer at EWTN theology department.

(One note though on this reading…I would note that when they say “as soon as he begins to enjoy…” under “pure intent”… it would mean before knowing consent…)

As to thoughts…yes we can sin by thoughts.

Yes one can commit mortal sins of thought.

Same criteria as other mortal sins. Grave matter, Full knowledge and complete consent.

Catechism:

1853 Sins can be distinguished according to their objects, as can every human act; or according to the virtues they oppose, by excess or defect; or according to the commandments they violate. They can also be classed according to whether they concern God, neighbor, or oneself; they can be divided into spiritual and carnal sins, or again as sins in thought, word, deed, or omission. the root of sin is in the heart of man, in his free will, according to the teaching of the Lord: "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a man."128 But in the heart also resides charity, the source of the good and pure works, which sin wounds.

Compendium issued by Pope Benedict XVI
  1. When does one commit a mortal sin?
1855-1861
1874

One commits a mortal sin when there are simultaneously present: grave matter, full knowledge, and deliberate consent. This sin destroys charity in us, deprives us of sanctifying grace, and, if unrepented, leads us to the eternal death of hell. It can be forgiven in the ordinary way by means of the sacraments of Baptism and of Penance or Reconciliation.
  1. When does one commit a venial sin?
1862-1864
1875

One commits a venial sin, which is essentially different from a mortal sin, when the matter involved is less serious or, even if it is grave, when full knowledge or complete consent are absent. Venial sin does not break the covenant with God but it weakens charity and manifests a disordered affection for created goods. It impedes the progress of a soul in the exercise of the virtues and in the practice of moral good. It merits temporal punishment which purifies.
Now of course… there is a difference between thinking with the needed precautions of say sexual actions in the abstract for a good reason such as the study of moral theology etc…and that which would be contrary to virtue.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top