Define masturbation

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Tybourne said:
The Catechism also states that in weighing up the moral status of the act, we must take into account the developmental stage and level of anxiety of the person concerned.
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This is the case for all sins, not just masturbation.
 
twoangels said:
Ok so the Catechism says that masturbation is the deliberate stimulation of genitals to derive sexual pleasure.

Ok I pointed this out in another post that it says sexual pleasure. It does not say sexual climax. Meanwhile I have seen countless people say that couples who engage in sexual behavior while abstaining from intercourse are morally ok so long as they do not masturbate. However are you really going to try to argue that a teenage boy fondling himself but stopping short of a climax is not guilty of masturbation?
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My understanding is that unless the purpose of the stimulation is to prepare each others body for intercourse (with the genuine intent that intercourse takes place and the husband finishes inside his wife’s vagina) then it is sinful.

So if you stimulate yourself, or each other in any way simply for the sexual pleasure resulting from that stimulation it is masturbation (or mutual masturbation) full stop - and therefore sinfull regardless of how far it goes.

I think where many of us struggle is when despite our ‘best intentions’ the full act cannot be completed, for example due to the husband’s failure to become sufficiently errect, premature ejaculation, or where for one reason or another penetration is difficult Which shouldn’t be a sin, but often feels like one especially for the husband if he climaxes.

There is also the question of whether stimulation which goes beyond that needed to allow intercourse to take place, or which goes on beyond the point where procreation has been made possible is justified.
 
SusanneT said:
My understanding is that unless the purpose of the stimulation is to prepare each others body for intercourse (with the genuine intent that intercourse takes place and the husband finishes inside his wife’s vagina) then it is sinful.

So if you stimulate yourself, or each other in any way simply for the sexual pleasure resulting from that stimulation it is masturbation (or mutual masturbation) full stop - and therefore sinfull regardless of how far it goes.

I think where many of us struggle is when despite our ‘best intentions’ the full act cannot be completed, for example due to the husband’s failure to become sufficiently errect, premature ejaculation, or where for one reason or another penetration is difficult Which shouldn’t be a sin, but often feels like one especially for the husband if he climaxes.

There is also the question of whether stimulation which goes beyond that needed to allow intercourse to take place, or which goes on beyond the point where procreation has been made possible is justified.
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Sex is meant to be unitive as well. It is only natural to want to make sex as unitive as possible in the course of completing the procreative intent. We are not machines and should not attempt to make ourselves machines. X amount of stimulation is all that is needed to achieve X objective…
 
Corpus_Cristi said:
Personally, I believe the Catechism’s definition to be lacking. This isn’t universal, but there are erogenous zones on the body, some sensitive enough to induce orgasm without any stimulation to the genitals whatsoever. What of those? (I don’t want to be too graphic, so I’m using my better judgment and not saying exactly which ones).
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Well, if you’re inducing orgasm by stimulating non-genital parts of your body, then you are (albeit indirectly) stimulating your genitals by stimulating those other parts.

Kinda like when you scratch a dog’s tummy and so induce it to move its hind leg.

Make sense?
 
Stimulating the genitials with the intention of deriving sexual pleasure. The act doesn’t have to be done to completion i.e. orgasm. An incomplete act would suffice as long as the intent to derive pleasure through stimulation existed.
 
SusanneT said:
My understanding is that unless the purpose of the stimulation is to prepare each others body for intercourse (with the genuine intent that intercourse takes place and the husband finishes inside his wife’s vagina) then it is sinful.

So if you stimulate yourself, or each other in any way simply for the sexual pleasure resulting from that stimulation it is masturbation (or mutual masturbation) full stop - and therefore sinfull regardless of how far it goes.

I think where many of us struggle is when despite our ‘best intentions’ the full act cannot be completed, for example due to the husband’s failure to become sufficiently errect, premature ejaculation, or where for one reason or another penetration is difficult Which shouldn’t be a sin, but often feels like one especially for the husband if he climaxes.

There is also the question of whether stimulation which goes beyond that needed to allow intercourse to take place, or which goes on beyond the point where procreation has been made possible is justified.
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Sorry just to add surely a couple who engage in sexual activity whilst abstaining (say because they practise NFP) are masturbating, whether the contact is genital or otherwise even if the husband (or wife - I guess) doesn’t get close to a climax. Because (presumably) they are doing it for sexual pleasure - with no intention or wish to have proper intercourse.

I know that we’re not machines, there’s no set level of stimulation needed to allow intercourse to take place and shared pleasure is part of the unitative process. But surely the primary purpose and the climax of the sexual activity (in the full sense of the word as I guess we all know the actual orgasm has to take place then) is supposed to be the act of (potentially) procreative intercourse, not other forms of un-related stimulation (e.g. oral sex), even if these arn’t taken to orgasm. I didn’t put that well and I don’t really have a lot to go on, but what I mean is surely a man who spends half the night being stimulated in other ways but manages not to ejaculate until (for a few seconds) he inserts his penis into his wife - has go well beyond the true purpose of stimulation into masturbation.

Also once the acct has taken place I can’t see how any further actual stimulation (as opposed to affection) isn’t then masturbation.
 
Modern Catholic Dictionary:

MASTURBATION. Direct stimulation of the sex organs outside of sexual intercourse. The self-stimulation can be physical, by means of some external object, or psychic, by means of thoughts and the imagination. It is a grave misuse of the procreative faculty and when done with full consent and deliberation is a serious sin. The sinfulness consists in setting in motion the generative powers while preventing them from achieving, their natural, divinely intended purpose. (Etym. Latin manu, with the hand + stuprare, to defile oneself.)
 
thistle said:
Modern Catholic Dictionary:

MASTURBATION. Direct stimulation of the sex organs outside of sexual intercourse. The self-stimulation can be physical, by means of some external object, or psychic, by means of thoughts and the imagination. It is a grave misuse of the procreative faculty and when done with full consent and deliberation is a serious sin. The sinfulness consists in setting in motion the generative powers while preventing them from achieving, their natural, divinely intended purpose. (Etym. Latin manu, with the hand + stuprare, to defile oneself.)
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Thanks – what I don’t understand is that some people (even on this very conservative forum) seem to think that as long as at some point in the proceedings a couple have it in mind to have intercourse and don’t use contraception, then there is a presumption that any and all forms of sexual stimulation; mutual or self administered, genital or otherwise is acceptable.

Whereas it seems to me that this definition and the very strong pronouncements the Church makes against the sin of masturbation, make it clear that the presumption is very much the other way round. Stimulation aimed at inducing sexual pleasure is sinful UNLESS the activity is strictly in the context of it’s intended purpose, to prepare the couple for and engage in intercourse. Of course sexual pleasure (mental or physical) is necessary for that end (as foreplay to induce the husband’s erection or to ‘prepare’ the wife to receive him) and it is acknowledged as having the secondary benefit of enhancing the unitive aspect of the act, but surely it cannot ever be the object of the activity ?

Sorry it’s difficult to discuss this without indelicacy (and to be honest I don’t really know what it is typical for couples to get up to !) but I assume that this does legitimise whatever is needed by way of foreplay to get the couple going (within limits – for example I don’t see how the use of pornography could ever be acceptable) and acts to increase pleasure (for example to enhance sensation for the wife) as long as these take place during intercourse. But I don’t see how ‘extra’ activity aimed (I guess) at enhancing the pleasure of one or other party along the way is acceptable, if it goes well beyond what could be considered as as foreplay, surely oral sex for example is “direct stimulation outside intercourse” ?

More importantly for many couples is where that leaves those who are not deliberately avoiding intercourse (say with NFP) but who, for one reason or another are unable to achieve it. I assume that once they can no longer in conscience believe that their intimacy will be able to proceed to intercourse, they are called to abstain completely ? Since if they do not they are guilty of masturbation.
 
I have read through most of these arguments. But the one question that I have seen been avoided (forgive me if I did indeed miss it), is for said “poor woman.” It is known that very few women even experience an orgasm with intercourse. Now, as an RN student (and this is not secret knowledge), I will tell you that the human female has an organ specifically designed for orgasm that is equivalent to the male sex organ. This female organ serves absolutely no other purpose than for pleasure. This is a medical fact. Understanding this (and I am asking not out of sarcasm, but as a Catholic wife and mother), my question is as follows:

Is is morally wrong for a woman (or for her husband) to stimulate this organ to the point of climax at any point during the marital act? (Understanding that the stimulation of this female organ has absolutely no affect either for assisting or inhibiting the procreative act). If of course said stimulation is a grave sin, then if a woman does not have an orgasm during the actual marital act of intercourse, then it is right and just that a woman never experience an orgasm and leave this sexual pleasure for men only?😦
 
Scytha said:
I have read through most of these arguments. But the one question that I have seen been avoided (forgive me if I did indeed miss it), is for said “poor woman.” It is known that very few women even experience an orgasm with intercourse. Now, as an RN student (and this is not secret knowledge), I will tell you that the human female has an organ specifically designed for orgasm that is equivalent to the male sex organ. This female organ serves absolutely no other purpose than for pleasure. This is a medical fact. Understanding this (and I am asking not out of sarcasm, but as a Catholic wife and mother), my question is as follows:

Is is morally wrong for a woman (or for her husband) to stimulate this organ to the point of climax at any point during the marital act? (Understanding that the stimulation of this female organ has absolutely no affect either for assisting or inhibiting the procreative act). If of course said stimulation is a grave sin, then if a woman does not have an orgasm during the actual marital act of intercourse, then it is right and just that a woman never experience an orgasm and leave this sexual pleasure for men only?😦
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I had read Christopher West’s interpretation and he said it was ok. However, there is a lot of controversy around him (I only just recently read about how he used to be involved in a cult of sorts - there was debate about whether or not it was an actual “cult” - and though that doesn’t necessarily mean one is incompetent to teach Catholic theology, it does give me pause at least), and if you read #10 in this article, it would seem to refute his ideas and say that no, stimulating your wife to orgasm AFTER the sexual act is not ok. catechism.cc/articles/marriage-bed.htm So, from what I’m reading, it would be ok if he stimulated his wife DURING sex, is that what you get from the article? If anyone knows of the validity of this site, please share. It was just something I happened to find. Thanks!

Update: I did some digging about that site (www.catechism.cc) and apparently there is controversy around that as well, so I don’t know! I haven’t yet found an official Church teaching on the matter. Anybody else know where to look? Thanks again!
 
Is is morally wrong for a woman (or for her husband) to stimulate this organ to the point of climax at any point during the marital act? (Understanding that the stimulation of this female organ has absolutely no affect either for assisting or inhibiting the procreative act). If of course said stimulation is a grave sin, then if a woman does not have an orgasm during the actual marital act of intercourse, then it is right and just that a woman never experience an orgasm and leave this sexual pleasure for men only?
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I’m guessing that based upon the question you leave at the end, that you may already know the answer to this. No, sexual pleasure and climax is not something that should be left to men only. Won’t verify it now, but there’s a stat out there that 70% of women can’t climax via intercourse, so it’s the loving thing for a woman’s husband to bring her to climax by other means, such as oral and manual stimulation.

Maybe someone else could jump in here, but it’s my understanding that she may “help” herself reach climax if it’s during marital relations and her husband is present. It’s better though, that her husband help bring her to climax though. It would be more of a unifying act if the husband directly assists his wife in her orgasm.
 
Then we get into the question of when exactly surrounding the marital act that this form of masturbation is allowed and not a mortal sin. It seems that we get into an debate of when the actual marital act actually ends; what if her husband has completed? Is it a sin to do this thing after? How long after? Do you see this arguments getting crazy-gray? So then masturbation by definition in the Catechism is only a mortal sin (with accepting of matter an form as any sin would be) but also allowing it for a female if it is in “x amount of time post the climax of her husband,” and then at “x amount of time becomes a sin.” That kind of explanation is craziness. Humbly, I do not think that I agree with your answer as I do not see it compatible with the reasoning if the Church on this issue, much less the Catechism.
 
Furthermore, is it not seen that her actions are “selfish” in what she would be doing herself? The very reason that she may do this even in the marital act is because she seems to raise herself to climax. Where of course her husband is strictly guided as how he must achieve his at the building of the family only. Is not her desire to do this herself during the “sexual encounter” still for selfish means?- the very intent, and for that, the only intent that would otherwise condemn her for maturbating any other time? Remembering of course that she has no seed to spill.
 
I haven’t read through this whole thread so your question might have been answered. It is okay for the man or even the woman in the context of sexual intercourse which is open to life, manually bring her to orgasm (in the case where it is not achieved during intercourse) and this can happen before or after sexual intercourse, but must be in that “episode” if you will - the larger context being non-contraceptive sexual intercourse.

When the aim is for her to achieve this on her own or during contraceptive intercourse, it is considered masturbation or mutual masturbation.
 
There is also the question of whether stimulation which goes beyond that needed to allow intercourse to take place, or which goes on beyond the point where procreation has been made possible is justified.

If you mean can the woman continued to be stimulated after intercourse has taken place, the answer is yes, she can be in the context of that encounter, even if it happens after sexual intercourse is completed.
 
I guess that I am just having trouble with the idea of this unifying the couple. In my situation, this is not something that my husband is going to embark on and I suppose I was just wanting to make sure that I was not sinning as I have in the past gone to confession over this thinking that it was wrong. Thanks for your comments.
 
Masturbation is masturbation regardless if one achieves climax. It’s the act.
 
Wait, now I’m confused. If I climax before my wife, would I be allowed to keep going in order to make her climax?
 
twoangels said:
Ok so the Catechism says that masturbation is the deliberate stimulation of genitals to derive sexual pleasure.

Ok I pointed this out in another post that it says sexual pleasure. It does not say sexual climax. Meanwhile I have seen countless people say that couples who engage in sexual behavior while abstaining from intercourse are morally ok so long as they do not masturbate. However are you really going to try to argue that a teenage boy fondling himself but stopping short of a climax is not guilty of masturbation?
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Masturbation does not require orgasm to be reached. With or without orgasm stimulation of the genitals for sexual pleasure is a sin of grave matter.
 
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