Female Impotence Questions

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andaloux11

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Hi, all.

Disclaimer: These questions deal with an adult topic, and they may be sort of graphic. I’m not trying to start an argument. These are just questions I don’t understand.
  1. Canon 1084 says that both male and female impotence is an impediment to a valid marriage, but what exactly would constitute female impotency? Some would say that being physically incapable of engaging in intercourse due to malformed female parts would, and others would even say that being incapable of orgasm would constitute impotency in women. I’ve seen answers at EWTN.com that seem to contradict each other with this. For example, see the following:
ewtn.com/vexperts/showresult.asp?RecNum=505363&Forums=0&Experts=0&Days=2010&Author=&Keyword=impotence&pgnu=1&groupnum=0&record_bookmark=17&ORDER_BY_TXT=ORDER+BY+ReplyDate+DESC&start_at=

ewtn.com/vexperts/showresult.asp?RecNum=523842&Forums=0&Experts=0&Days=2010&Author=&Keyword=impotence&pgnu=1&groupnum=0&record_bookmark=5&ORDER_BY_TXT=ORDER+BY+ReplyDate+DESC&start_at=
  1. There has been debate over the years over female orgasm (clitoral vs. vaginal), but there is evidence to suggest that women were meant to have vaginal orgasms triggered by the vagus nerve, which is near the cervix. This is said to benefit mental and physical health, and it has been suggested that falling short of this orgasm can possibly damage health since sex is supposed to have arousal, plateau, and orgasm phases. I read a study recently where the researchers believe that lack of a vaginal orgasm is a legitimate sexual dysfunction. The thing is, not all women can have vaginal orgasms, and some can only have them inconsistently. Would a woman be considered impotent if she had this condition? What if she only had a vaginal orgasm once? Would that prove that she is at least somewhat physically capable? Also, some women who have never had them with some partners have them with others, and sometimes, women who hadn’t previously had them have them years and even decades after sexual intercourse with a partner. That being said, if the capacity for vaginal orgasm is a requirement for marriage, how many years would have to go by before it was determined that lack of vaginal orgasm was a permanent condition?
If anyone is interested, here is the study I read relating to this:

web.me.com/ursulakhess/resources/BCHW2011.pdf
  1. Many women who cannot have purely vaginal orgasms can and do have clitoral orgasms, even during intercourse. Now, if women were meant to have vaginal orgasms, would it be immoral to have clitoral orgasms? I’ve read that some moral theologians do not think it is immoral for women to have orgasms through manual or oral stimulation even before or after sex so long as the husband and wife engage in intercourse, but would this violate the natural law since women were designed for vaginal orgasms?
  2. Some people have said that Kegel exercises can help vaginally anorgasmic women have vaginal orgasms. It’s also been said that using resistance devices are necessary. The thing is, exercising those muscles can be physically stimulating. Would that make doing it a mortal sin?
Sorry for all the questions, but these issues have been bothering me. Not to get too personal, but it hits close to home. 😦
 
Let’s start with this: Welcome to CAF! 🙂

Sex is only valid between a married man and a woman… And its for purely reproductive purposes…

If a woman is impotent there’s always adoption, Natural Family Planning, or NaProTechnology 👍

Generally other fertility treatments and devices (all of them actually lol) are wrong…

But all sex outside of marriage is wrong and sinful…
 
socialcath101 said:
Let’s start with this: Welcome to CAF! 🙂

Sex is only valid between a married man and a woman… And its for purely reproductive purposes…

If a woman is impotent there’s always adoption, Natural Family Planning, or NaProTechnology 👍

Generally other fertility treatments and devices (all of them actually lol) are wrong…

But all sex outside of marriage is wrong and sinful…
Click to expand...
Thanks for the welcome. 🙂

I understand all of that, but my question is more about what the Church means by female impotency, which is said to invalidate a marriage. With all due respect, I think that you are confusing impotency with infertility.
 
I think all this philosophizing about orgasms can prevent someone from having an orgasm. Sex is intended to be a pleasurable and strengthening activity for a married couple. If some new dimensions have to be added for both to be satsified then feel free, as long as it is between the husband and wife. Most important is for people to keep sex in perspective, a comedian once said getting married for sex is like buying an airlin company because you like peanuts.
 
andaloux11 said:
Thanks for the welcome. 🙂

I understand all of that, but my question is more about what the Church means by female impotency, which is said to invalidate a marriage. With all due respect, I think that you are confusing impotency with infertility.
Click to expand...
Modern Catholic Dictionary:

IMPOTENCE. Incapacity for marital intercourse. Impotence, unlike sterility, hinders the human act of generation, that is, the copula. Impotence that is prior to marriage and is permanent, whether on the part of the man or the woman, whether known to the other party or not, whether absolute or relative, invalidates marriage by the natural law. Absolute impotence prevents marital intercourse with all other persons; relative impotence prevents it only with a certain person or persons.
 
thistle said:
Modern Catholic Dictionary:

IMPOTENCE. Incapacity for marital intercourse. Impotence, unlike sterility, hinders the human act of generation, that is, the copula. Impotence that is prior to marriage and is permanent, whether on the part of the man or the woman, whether known to the other party or not, whether absolute or relative, invalidates marriage by the natural law. Absolute impotence prevents marital intercourse with all other persons; relative impotence prevents it only with a certain person or persons.
Click to expand...
That quote seems to imply that impotence would be the inability to engage in intercourse, which would mean that no procreation could possibly take place because the act couldn’t take place to begin with, but what I brought up in my OP is still relevant, I think. Science says that for men and women, complete intercourse is supposed to have arousal, plateau, orgasm, and resolution phases. If a women cannot have a vaginal orgasm, wouldn’t that possibly mean that she’s not capable of engaging in full intercourse as nature intended, even though she can physically take part in the act and even procreate? Likewise, in men, ejaculation and orgasm technically aren’t the same thing, though they often happen simultaneously. If a man could not ejaculate but could still orgasm, would that be considered impotency? That would be analogous to a women who could not ovulate; it’d have more to do with fertility than with impotency. If a man could not orgasm but could maintain an erection, would he still be considered impotent? If yes, then why wouldn’t the same standard apply to women? This is where it gets confusing, unfortunately. 😦
 
andaloux11 said:
That quote seems to imply that impotence would be the inability to engage in intercourse, which would mean that no procreation could possibly take place because the act couldn’t take place to begin with, but what I brought up in my OP is still relevant, I think. Science says that for men and women, complete intercourse is supposed to have arousal, plateau, orgasm, and resolution phases. If a women cannot have a vaginal orgasm, wouldn’t that possibly mean that she’s not capable of engaging in full intercourse as nature intended, even though she can physically take part in the act and even procreate? Likewise, in men, ejaculation and orgasm technically aren’t the same thing, though they often happen simultaneously. If a man could not ejaculate but could still orgasm, would that be considered impotency? That would be analogous to a women who could not ovulate; it’d have more to do with fertility than with impotency. If a man could not orgasm but could maintain an erection, would he still be considered impotent? If yes, then why wouldn’t the same standard apply to women? This is where it gets confusing, unfortunately. 😦
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With regard to a man its not confusing. If a man cannot get an erection he is impotent and incapable of sexual intercourse.
I don’t know how it works for a woman but I assume there is a physical condition preventing penetration.
 
What is your seeming hang up with orgasms? The question has been answered. Impotence in canon law is something very specific. In the case of a female it means inability to receive the male. It does not have anything to do with orgasm. Your question is answered, no need for paragraph after paragraph on what “science” or secular society says about the subject. It matters what the Church says about the subject.
 
socialcath101 said:
Let’s start with this: Welcome to CAF! 🙂

Sex is only valid between a married man and a woman… And its for purely reproductive purposes…

If a woman is impotent there’s always adoption, Natural Family Planning, or NaProTechnology 👍

Generally other fertility treatments and devices (all of them actually lol) are wrong…

But all sex outside of marriage is wrong and sinful…
Click to expand...
You have confused impotence, which is an impediment to marriage, with infertility, which is not. What you describe above-- in ability to conceive-- is infertility not impotence.
 
andaloux11 said:
Hi, all.

Disclaimer: These questions deal with an adult topic, and they may be sort of graphic. I’m not trying to start an argument. These are just questions I don’t understand.
  1. Canon 1084 says that both male and female impotence is an impediment to a valid marriage, but what exactly would constitute female impotency? Some would say that being physically incapable of engaging in intercourse due to malformed female parts would, and others would even say that being incapable of orgasm would constitute impotency in women. I’ve seen answers at EWTN.com that seem to contradict each other with this. For example, see the following:
ewtn.com/vexperts/showresult.asp?RecNum=505363&Forums=0&Experts=0&Days=2010&Author=&Keyword=impotence&pgnu=1&groupnum=0&record_bookmark=17&ORDER_BY_TXT=ORDER+BY+ReplyDate+DESC&start_at=

ewtn.com/vexperts/showresult.asp?RecNum=523842&Forums=0&Experts=0&Days=2010&Author=&Keyword=impotence&pgnu=1&groupnum=0&record_bookmark=5&ORDER_BY_TXT=ORDER+BY+ReplyDate+DESC&start_at=
  1. There has been debate over the years over female orgasm (clitoral vs. vaginal), but there is evidence to suggest that women were meant to have vaginal orgasms triggered by the vagus nerve, which is near the cervix. This is said to benefit mental and physical health, and it has been suggested that falling short of this orgasm can possibly damage health since sex is supposed to have arousal, plateau, and orgasm phases. I read a study recently where the researchers believe that lack of a vaginal orgasm is a legitimate sexual dysfunction. The thing is, not all women can have vaginal orgasms, and some can only have them inconsistently. Would a woman be considered impotent if she had this condition? What if she only had a vaginal orgasm once? Would that prove that she is at least somewhat physically capable? Also, some women who have never had them with some partners have them with others, and sometimes, women who hadn’t previously had them have them years and even decades after sexual intercourse with a partner. That being said, if the capacity for vaginal orgasm is a requirement for marriage, how many years would have to go by before it was determined that lack of vaginal orgasm was a permanent condition?
If anyone is interested, here is the study I read relating to this:

web.me.com/ursulakhess/resources/BCHW2011.pdf
  1. Many women who cannot have purely vaginal orgasms can and do have clitoral orgasms, even during intercourse. Now, if women were meant to have vaginal orgasms, would it be immoral to have clitoral orgasms? I’ve read that some moral theologians do not think it is immoral for women to have orgasms through manual or oral stimulation even before or after sex so long as the husband and wife engage in intercourse, but would this violate the natural law since women were designed for vaginal orgasms?
  2. Some people have said that Kegel exercises can help vaginally anorgasmic women have vaginal orgasms. It’s also been said that using resistance devices are necessary. The thing is, exercising those muscles can be physically stimulating. Would that make doing it a mortal sin?
Sorry for all the questions, but these issues have been bothering me. Not to get too personal, but it hits close to home. 😦
Click to expand...
What is the problem you are experiencing? Or are you just curious?
Are you a man or a woman?
 
I had to cut off your post because the post was too long.
  1. A woman who is “frigid” may have a medical or psychological condition – such as a hormonal imbalance, vaginismus (painful intercourse), of any number of conditions. Speaking with a medical doctor would be warranted. Also, depending on age, menopause can cause a lack of interest (decreased hormones) in sex and painful intercourse. There are bio-identical treatments that are safe. A doctor can help with that, one who work with bio-identicals if it’s a post-menopausal or hormonal problem.
  2. I didn’t read the article but I know this old debate.
The clitoris is the only organ that has no purpose other than sexual, unlike the male organ. I disagree with the debate over the quality of the vaginal orgasm as opposed to the clitoral orgasm, otherwise why would women have a clitoris at all?

Freud is to blame for this. Kinsey criticised Freud’s assumption that a clitoral orgasm was “adolescent” (causing a lot of women to feel inadequate), whereas Kinsey’s research believed that the clitoris was the main stage for orgasm. He also claimed that this led to a male construct of the female orgasm. Masters and Johnson agreed, as did the Mayo clinic and others. However, the purpose of penetration is that it gives the woman of feeling of fullness or being complete – and close to her partner, but the distinction between a clitoral and a vaginal orgasm is false because the vaginal walls have few nerve endings. Now, some are saying the so-called G-spot is a myth too.

The Clinical Psychology Review lists 26 definitions of orgasms. I think this debate has caused much concern and has done a disservice to women, making women think something is not right or absent when it may not be the case at all. Women were supposed to assume that they had to graduate from an adolescent into an adult orgasm. I think this is sad – that women should be made to feel inadequate because of a 1905 “study” that lives on today.
  1. Clitoral orgasms are not immoral or sinful if attained during the act of the martial union. I contend that women are not designed for vaginal orgasms. Since there are 26 definitions of orgasm, the vaginal response may be one physiological response – one of many. I would agree with the moral theologians about stimulation and it does not violate natural law because I don’t believe women are designed for vaginal orgasms only, if at all. Again, why would woman have a clitoris which is the only organ that has a sole sexual purpose and no other?
  2. Kegel exercise would not be a sin. It’s purpose is to strengthen the pelvic floor. It also prevents incontinence or bladder prolapse, a problem for some woman who have had children and for women who are post-menopause. These are legitimate medical conditions and to treat them or prevent them with exercise is not sinful.
 
I wanted to add that women are not usually referred to as “impotent.” Might you be unduly concerned about the female response – the physiology of it? Especially, if it’s based on a false theory?

I don’t see the impediment. Are you being overly scrupulous?
 
socialcath101 said:
Let’s start with this: Welcome to CAF! 🙂

Sex is only valid between a married man and a woman… And its for purely reproductive purposes…
Click to expand...
Actually, the Church say the primary purpose is reproduction (whether or not fertilization takes place or not, just the intent or openness be present) but the secondary is the union between the couple.
 
DaddyGirl said:
How is it defined in the case of the male?
Does anyone know?

And fyi, the OP is mostly quoting Catholic-related sources, not only that darn “secular” society over there on the other side of the river.
Click to expand...
From the New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law (edited by the Canon Law Society of America):

“Impotence is the incapacity of a spouse to perform a complete conjugal act. To be potent, a man must have a penis, be capable of maintaining an erection long enough to penetrate the vagina at least partially, and to ejaculate there; a woman must have a vagina and be capable of receiving the erect penis.”

There is considerable explanation surrounding the specific phrase found in canon law: “impotent to have intercourse” contained in the commentary. There are, in total, about two and a half pages in the commentary on this impediment. There is also a CDF decree from 1977 regarding male impotence.
 
andaloux11 said:
ewtn.com/vexperts/showresult.asp?RecNum=505363&Forums=0&Experts=0&Days=2010&Author=&Keyword=impotence&pgnu=1&groupnum=0&record_bookmark=17&ORDER_BY_TXT=ORDER+BY+ReplyDate+DESC&start_at=

ewtn.com/vexperts/showresult.asp?RecNum=523842&Forums=0&Experts=0&Days=2010&Author=&Keyword=impotence&pgnu=1&groupnum=0&record_bookmark=5&ORDER_BY_TXT=ORDER+BY+ReplyDate+DESC&start_at=
Click to expand...
These two do not contradict each other. They are answering two different questions.

The Church recognizes two types of impotence:
  • Organic - absence, malformation, or underdevelpment of genital organs rendering intercourse impossible
  • Functional - nervous or psychological condition that prevents the person from completing the act of intercourse (i.e. what some would call “frigid”) despite the possession of intact genital organs.
When the EWTN expert answered the questions, they answered correctly.

I think you misunderstood their answer. It has nothing to do with “enjoying” or “climaxing”.

Also, the commentary does give quite a bit of treatment to the topic of functional impotence as it relates to antecedence and perpetuity.
 
DaddyGirl said:
Oh…this is very upsetting.

Because what if they are “impotent” at, say, age 25…but get married, and are able to improve this down the road?!

And more specifically, how is a man or women to know they are impotent if they’ve never had sex?!
I knew a married man who could not ejaculate for years until he went into therapy and solved a few past issues, for example.
Click to expand...
The impotence must be permanent and irreversible, not curable. If it is curable, then it isn’t an impediment to a marriage.
 
@DaddyGirl

In addition to what Mary Gail 36 said in answer to this:
So what does it mean that the above can be an “impediment”?
If one of the couple cannot do the above, can they not marry? Or does it just mean they have grounds for an annulment if they choose?
Click to expand...
If it was known before a couple was married that there is 100%, no chance that they will ever be able to complete the act then yes it would apply then. The only case I can think of this being applicable though is if parts just were not even there to begin with.

A vast majority of the time it would be applicable after a couple was already married. They might get married knowing there was a small chance of success eventually or that there were possible cures that could fix the condition, and then come to realize later that there was no possibility. This would be cause for an annulment if the couple wished.
 
DaddyGirl said:
Ah, okay, got it.
It seems as though it’d be pretty rare that a marriage would be prevented, then. As long as the parts are there, there’s always a chance they can work even if doctors said no way.
I guess even if a man was paralyzed from the waist down, he would still be able to get married…because there’d still be a chance.

So, to be clear: If, say, the man was missing an integral part of his anatomy down there…then, he would not be allowed to get married in the Catholic church?

(But again, what is the process of this information being relayed? Does the priest ask this question of a couple beforehand?)
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No, I would hope that a man would relay that information to the woman before they tried to get married. If not and the woman found out afterwards, that would be cause for an annulment.

Someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but would impotency be cause to allow a couple to be married in a “brother and sister” relationship? I think I remember discussing this in another thread, but I cannot remember the answer. If so that might be an alternative path for someone who was impotent to choose from.
 
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