Help!

[frogman80]

Oops… lost part of my post… here is an edit:

What is the difference between this (which you say is licit) quote:

jegow:

What I meant by these was the use of means such as the hands or thighs (i.e. rubbing, caressing or stroking) in order to cause arousal; in which case I attributed them to only if the lack of arousal occurs with the other partner.

…and using hands or mouth to cause arousal in spouse? It does not appear in this quote that you think these acts are MM.

 

[vluvski]

jegow,
You are seem knowledgeable regarding the CCC and Church documents like Humanae Vitae, but I’m surprised at the limited definition you provided for masturbation. You quote exactly what the CCC says, but the CCC is not a dictionary, nor is it a comprehensive resource on sexual ethics. Really, it is not even meant to be read like a book. Most people start with lighter reading with limited subject matter!

I can recommend a great book: Catholic Sexual Ethics: A Summary, Explanation, and Defense by Rev. Ronald Lawler, O.F.M. Cap., Joseph Boyle, Jr., and William E. May. The book bears both the Imprimatur and the Nihil Obstat, so there is little need for concern that material contained in the book is contrary to Catholic teaching. I especially like that this book provides some common counter-arguments we face when defending Catholic sexual ethics to skeptics and dissenters. Since you seem interested in doing just that, I’m sure you will appreciate this part, too!

Here is what the book says about masturbation:

excerpt from Catholic Sexual Ethics, the book
“Masturbation is the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs to the point of orgasm which is not a part of sexual intercourse. Thus understood, mastubation can be done either by a person acting on himself or herself, … or by one person acting on another. …The Church has rightly understood Scripture to teach that genital activity should take place only within marriage in ways that rightly express marital love.”

There is a lot more great information, but we can pretty much agree that masturbation is wrong so there is no need to quote the entire chapter now that the definition has been clarified. Here is what the following chapter says about “incomplete acts of lust.”

excerpt from Catholic Sexual Ethics, the book
“The Church has regularly taught in her ordinary teaching that all lustful acts (though not all acts of immodesty) are objectively gravely sinful. This is true not only of complete acts, acts which aim to complete sexual satisfaction through orgasm, but of all direct and deliberate acts of lust. Thus, solitary acts that would stir up sexual pleasure but not proceed toward complete sexual satisfaction, and acts of fondling or kissing aimed precisely at stirring up sexual arousal in oneself or one’s partner - even if one does not intend this to lead toward complete external sins – are objectively gravely sinful.”

Here the book references Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 154, a. 4 with the note “this is the standard reference for the common teaching of the manuals.”

Before I launch into my long-winded response to your entire previous post, I’ll call it a night and give you a chance to make any changes based on this new information.

 

[vluvski]

Here’s the motherload:

from Catholic Sexual Ethics, Chapter 7, Part V. pp. 172 (emphasis mine)
The Church’s teaching on contraceptive intercourse… applies… also to any acts done with the intention of preventing a complete genital act between spouses from being a potentially life-giving act. Thus, mutual mastubation, oral and anal sex, and similar acts in which orgasms are sought apart from natual intercourse, are gravely wrong.

The common thread among these illicit acts is specified as the seeking of an orgasm apart from natural intercourse.

continued
…Moreover, such acts between spouses are not properly ordered to the goods of married life even if they are not done with contraceptive intent.

In other words, you cannot engage is such acts for any reason even if you know the wife is infertile, even if you are already pregnant, even if you plan to have natural intercourse later that night.

continued (emphasis mine)
The Church’s teaching that natural intercourse open to procreation is the only legitimate form of complete sexual expression, even between spouses, **does not imply ** that mutual genital stimulation other than intercourse is forbidden for spouses as part of the preliminaries to marital intercourse.

[the book then provides a short paragraph with a bibliographical reference, and again, emphasis mine]

Marriage is a mutual commitment in which each side ceases to be autonomous, in various ways and also sexually: the sexual liberty in agreement together is great; here, so long as they are not immoderate so as to become slaves of sensuality, nothing is shameful, if the complete acts - the ones involving ejaculation of the man’s seed - that they engage in are true and real marriage acts

.
-Anscombe, Contraception and Chastity, pp. 21-22; see Ford and Kelly Marriage Questions, pp. 224-234, for a judicious discussion of the dangers of hedonism in this area.
But the qualification in this statement is important… Spouses are required to seek the moderation and self-restraint necessary to preserve their lovemaking from becoming the pursuit of the shallow and apparent good of isolated sexual pleasure, rather than the authentic good of human love, sexually expressed in shared joy.

 

[jegow]

Just when you thought this thread was getting crazy and fun I found something! Yup, that’s right. I found a document of Magisterial origin that mentions what we have been talking about – or at least what I have so poorly been trying to disprove. Yeah, the document says you’re right – I wasn’t. Here is what I found:

**The Foundations of the Doctrine of the Church concerning the ****Principles of Conjugal Life **

***Karol Cardinal Wojtyla and Others -***Translated by Father Roger J. Landry

The full citation of this article is “Les Fondements de la Doctrine de L’Église concernant les principes de la vie conjugale,” Analecta Cracoviensia, Societas Theologorum Polona Cracoviae Sumptibus Curiae Metropolitanae Cracoviensis, Polskie Towarzystwo Teologizczne, Krakow 1969, pp. 194-230.

“The multiple functions of the human sexual act are only safeguarded in the act that protects its proper relation to procreation, i.e., when its sexual structure (as an act of the “vis generativa”) is voluntarily protected. Since procreation can and must be governed by man and this act has different functions beyond purely biological ones, man can engage in acts that do not lead to conception,54 provided that their biological structure remains intact in its finality and its meaning.”​

54*Gaudium et Spes *50: “Marriage to be sure is not instituted solely for procreation.” This has always been the conviction of the Church. Never was the use of the conjugal right by sterile or elderly spouses understood as illicit. In the study Schema documenti de responsabilii paternitate, one finds the following passage: “The morality of the sexual acts among spouses takes its quality above all and specifically from the from the ordering of these acts in the fruitful life of the couple… and does not depend on the direct fecundity of each one of the particular acts” (I,II,2). The same thought is expressed by the authors of the Documentum syntheticum: “Conjugal acts which are unfruitful by intention (or are made unfruitful) are ordained to the expression of the union of love; that love attains its fulfillment in that fruitfulness which is accepted with responsibility beyond other acts of union which are incomplete in some way and which receive their full morality with their order to the fruitful act… Unfruitful conjugal acts constitute a totality with the fruitful act and receive a unique moral specification (III). It is difficult to make sense of this opinion. According to it, the sexual relationships of sterile spouse or of those who for serious reasons have been dispensed from the obligation to procreate, should be considered as deprived of their positive moral value; this would be a return to rigorism and would not respond to the teaching of the Church. On the other hand, a participation, or better, the moral unity of the unfruitful act with fruitful acts, necessarily demands a foundation. This foundation would be founded precisely and uniquely in the biological relation of the sexual act to procreation and therefore in the structure of this act which is essentially procreative (actus potentiae generativae), and sexual.

I again thank all of you for your patience (especially regarding any sarcasm) and for your informative posts; they have all helped. At his point in the game I am going to wait till my finals are over and then do some more reading on this and other topics because I clearly do not know everything, as you have seen.
Peace

 

[frogman80]

jegow:

Just when you thought this thread was getting crazy and fun I found something! Yup, that’s right. I found a document of Magisterial origin that mentions what we have been talking about – or at least what I have so poorly been trying to disprove. Yeah, the document says you’re right – I wasn’t. Here is what I found:

**The Foundations of the Doctrine of the Church concerning the ****Principles of Conjugal Life **

***Karol Cardinal Wojtyla and Others -***Translated by Father Roger J. Landry

The full citation of this article is “Les Fondements de la Doctrine de L’Église concernant les principes de la vie conjugale,” Analecta Cracoviensia, Societas Theologorum Polona Cracoviae Sumptibus Curiae Metropolitanae Cracoviensis, Polskie Towarzystwo Teologizczne, Krakow 1969, pp. 194-230.

“The multiple functions of the human sexual act are only safeguarded in the act that protects its proper relation to procreation, i.e., when its sexual structure (as an act of the “vis generativa”) is voluntarily protected. Since procreation can and must be governed by man and this act has different functions beyond purely biological ones, man can engage in acts that do not lead to conception,54 provided that their biological structure remains intact in its finality and its meaning.”​

54*Gaudium et Spes *50: “Marriage to be sure is not instituted solely for procreation.” This has always been the conviction of the Church. Never was the use of the conjugal right by sterile or elderly spouses understood as illicit. In the study Schema documenti de responsabilii paternitate, one finds the following passage: “The morality of the sexual acts among spouses takes its quality above all and specifically from the from the ordering of these acts in the fruitful life of the couple… and does not depend on the direct fecundity of each one of the particular acts” (I,II,2). The same thought is expressed by the authors of the Documentum syntheticum: “Conjugal acts which are unfruitful by intention (or are made unfruitful) are ordained to the expression of the union of love; that love attains its fulfillment in that fruitfulness which is accepted with responsibility beyond other acts of union which are incomplete in some way and which receive their full morality with their order to the fruitful act… Unfruitful conjugal acts constitute a totality with the fruitful act and receive a unique moral specification (III). It is difficult to make sense of this opinion. According to it, the sexual relationships of sterile spouse or of those who for serious reasons have been dispensed from the obligation to procreate, should be considered as deprived of their positive moral value; this would be a return to rigorism and would not respond to the teaching of the Church. On the other hand, a participation, or better, the moral unity of the unfruitful act with fruitful acts, necessarily demands a foundation. This foundation would be founded precisely and uniquely in the biological relation of the sexual act to procreation and therefore in the structure of this act which is essentially procreative (actus potentiae generativae), and sexual.

I again thank all of you for your patience (especially regarding any sarcasm) and for your informative posts; they have all helped. At his point in the game I am going to wait till my finals are over and then do some more reading on this and other topics because I clearly do not know everything, as you have seen.
Peace

Jesus said “Ask you and shall receive…” give thanks! (I know I am !!!)
You are a humble man. This is a great thread… don’t loose track of it. I will pray for you to do as good as you need to on your finals.

 

[Dmitri451]

jegow:

I again thank all of you for your patience (especially regarding any sarcasm) and for your informative posts; they have all helped. At his point in the game I am going to wait till my finals are over and then do some more reading on this and other topics because I clearly do not know everything, as you have seen.

jegow, thank you for posting that documentation! It is only after reading your more recent posts that I understood where the confusion was. I’m glad you persisted and did not simply give up in frustration.

 

[MacroTheeMay]

I would like to return to the football game. Now if there is only ONE game to be played, you might want to make the most of your opportunity. But since it is a SEASON, there are more games to be played.

Even with a climax by oral sex, the GAME tomorrow may be to show interest and appreciation, fondness, desire for new intimacy. LOVE is giving yourself to the other person, then why the need for a REFEREE?

 

[migurl]

jegow:

The act has two natures? In the definition it is said that the act has two significances, not natures. Just how beings can only have one nature so too with acts. I see the “significances” being called elements, to be easier. In fact, one could say that the nature of the act contains the two elements. To take an element out would end up making that act “unnatural”.

Do you believe that a couple who has sex when the wife has experienced menopause is sinful? Is it sinful for a steril couple to make love? Is it sinful for a couple practicing NFP to make love on the days when pregnancy is impossible? The answer to these questions is no, look it up in the CCC. Sex is not all about procreation and it is not all about unity. It is about both. Now, I understand how the idea of people having oral contact with someone elses “parts” seems sinful, but why? Is it because it’s in movies and on TV, portrayed as something dirty and juvenille? Perhaps. Think about this, Is it sinful to kiss your spouses toe? What about the calf, or the knee? The thigh? THe stomach, the back? Is it sinful to kiss your spouse on the elbow? No, it isn’t. What if the husband got very aroused by being kissed on the neck, and his wife continued to do this until he climaxed. THat would be sinful. If she touched him in any place or kissed him in any place until he climaxed it would be sinful. Now, the genitals are no different. What if a couple viewed eachothers bodies as a gift from God to be cherished,? So they kiss and caress eachother from head to toe in a loving and cherishing way, why are those “parts” so wrong to kiss or touch? Because society has a distorted view of sex, absent of God’s purpose. If a couple pleases each other and makes love it isn’t sinful as long as when the male climaxes he is in full union with his wife.
An example of ends justifying means would be masterbation, looking at pornographic images or having another person present, those kinds of htings are abnormal and wrong, but appreciating the body of your spouse is not wrong.
For support in the CCC about couples without children, look at section 1654. Also, see 2360, 2361, 2362 and it says directly that the offenses agaisnt the dignity of Marriage are adultery, divorce, polygamy, and free union. Go read that book by Christopher West, THEN come back and talk about this.

 

[vluvski]

MacroTheeMay:

I would like to return to the football game. Now if there is only ONE game to be played, you might want to make the most of your opportunity. But since it is a SEASON, there are more games to be played.

Even with a climax by oral sex, the GAME tomorrow may be to show interest and appreciation, fondness, desire for new intimacy. LOVE is giving yourself to the other person, then why the need for a REFEREE?

As far as being a single game in a season, the only way to WIN the game is for the male to climax in the appropriate place. Why would anyone choose to lose any particular game, even if they do have an entire season?

A referee is only necessary because some players insist on playing unfairly, or they simply don’t know the rules. God gives us instructions through the Church, because everyone knows it’s a heck of a lot more fun to play the game fairly by the rules than to think you won when in reality you cheated.

 

[Mirror_Mirror]

jegow:

Just when you thought this thread was getting crazy and fun I found something! Yup, that’s right. I found a document of Magisterial origin that mentions what we have been talking about – or at least what I have so poorly been trying to disprove. Yeah, the document says you’re right – I wasn’t. Here is what I found:

**The Foundations of the Doctrine of the Church concerning the ****Principles of Conjugal Life **

***Karol Cardinal Wojtyla and Others -***Translated by Father Roger J. Landry

The full citation of this article is “Les Fondements de la Doctrine de L’Église concernant les principes de la vie conjugale,” Analecta Cracoviensia, Societas Theologorum Polona Cracoviae Sumptibus Curiae Metropolitanae Cracoviensis, Polskie Towarzystwo Teologizczne, Krakow 1969, pp. 194-230.

“The multiple functions of the human sexual act are only safeguarded in the act that protects its proper relation to procreation, i.e., when its sexual structure (as an act of the “vis generativa”) is voluntarily protected. Since procreation can and must be governed by man and this act has different functions beyond purely biological ones, man can engage in acts that do not lead to conception,54 provided that their biological structure remains intact in its finality and its meaning.”​

54*Gaudium et Spes *50: “Marriage to be sure is not instituted solely for procreation.” This has always been the conviction of the Church. Never was the use of the conjugal right by sterile or elderly spouses understood as illicit. In the study Schema documenti de responsabilii paternitate, one finds the following passage: “The morality of the sexual acts among spouses takes its quality above all and specifically from the from the ordering of these acts in the fruitful life of the couple… and does not depend on the direct fecundity of each one of the particular acts” (I,II,2). The same thought is expressed by the authors of the Documentum syntheticum: “Conjugal acts which are unfruitful by intention (or are made unfruitful) are ordained to the expression of the union of love; that love attains its fulfillment in that fruitfulness which is accepted with responsibility beyond other acts of union which are incomplete in some way and which receive their full morality with their order to the fruitful act… Unfruitful conjugal acts constitute a totality with the fruitful act and receive a unique moral specification (III). It is difficult to make sense of this opinion. According to it, the sexual relationships of sterile spouse or of those who for serious reasons have been dispensed from the obligation to procreate, should be considered as deprived of their positive moral value; this would be a return to rigorism and would not respond to the teaching of the Church. On the other hand, a participation, or better, the moral unity of the unfruitful act with fruitful acts, necessarily demands a foundation. This foundation would be founded precisely and uniquely in the biological relation of the sexual act to procreation and therefore in the structure of this act which is essentially procreative (actus potentiae generativae), and sexual.

I again thank all of you for your patience (especially regarding any sarcasm) and for your informative posts; they have all helped. At his point in the game I am going to wait till my finals are over and then do some more reading on this and other topics because I clearly do not know everything, as you have seen.
Peace

Thanks for keeping an open mind and for being willing to look into this issue. I am glad that you have found what you were looking for…seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you…it was fun, frustrating at times, but fun nonetheless.

What shall we discuss next?

God’s blessings to everyone and MERRY CHRISTMAS.

 

[jegow]

migurl:

Do you believe that a couple who has sex when the wife has experienced menopause is sinful? Is it sinful for a steril couple to make love? Is it sinful for a couple practicing NFP to make love on the days when pregnancy is impossible? The answer to these questions is no, look it up in the CCC. Sex is not all about procreation and it is not all about unity. It is about both. Now, I understand how the idea of people having oral contact with someone elses “parts” seems sinful, but why? Is it because it’s in movies and on TV, portrayed as something dirty and juvenille? Perhaps. Think about this, Is it sinful to kiss your spouses toe? What about the calf, or the knee? The thigh? THe stomach, the back? Is it sinful to kiss your spouse on the elbow? No, it isn’t. What if the husband got very aroused by being kissed on the neck, and his wife continued to do this until he climaxed. THat would be sinful. If she touched him in any place or kissed him in any place until he climaxed it would be sinful. Now, the genitals are no different. What if a couple viewed eachothers bodies as a gift from God to be cherished,? So they kiss and caress eachother from head to toe in a loving and cherishing way, why are those “parts” so wrong to kiss or touch? Because society has a distorted view of sex, absent of God’s purpose. If a couple pleases each other and makes love it isn’t sinful as long as when the male climaxes he is in full union with his wife.
An example of ends justifying means would be masterbation, looking at pornographic images or having another person present, those kinds of htings are abnormal and wrong, but appreciating the body of your spouse is not wrong.
For support in the CCC about couples without children, look at section 1654. Also, see 2360, 2361, 2362 and it says directly that the offenses agaisnt the dignity of Marriage are adultery, divorce, polygamy, and free union. Go read that book by Christopher West, THEN come back and talk about this.

Wow, you must have read all my posts because I talked about a lot of those. Many of your questions are impertinent to the discussion that this thread has undertaken. I suggest you go to other threads that involve the morality of those other acts then you can come back. Second, I found a document that bettered my understanding of this discussion and so I said in post 144 that I was wrong to say the things that I said. Does this mean that I understand it 100 %? No. But either way I am allowed to post on this and any other thing that I may not understand to try and better my understanding of it. Sometimes I think that I am in the right and as I found out I was not this time. I read the articles in the CCC that you point out and they really don’t have anything to do with where this thread was going. I would actually say that reading CCC 2363-2369 may give you a better understanding of what I was looking for in regards to the Church’s stance on the permissibility of oral sex and where that fits into conjugal love.

 

[migurl]

I read a few of them and I am glad you found something to help you out. I too have found myself inccorrect on issues and it is nice to know that peple can be gracious about being incorrect and being right as well

 

[jegow]

migurl:

I read a few of them and I am glad you found something to help you out. I too have found myself inccorrect on issues and it is nice to know that peple can be gracious about being incorrect and being right as well

THANX

 

[trth_skr]

migurl:

… In a catholic marriage when the couple is making love almost anything goes as long as the point is to end with the marital union (that is open to life) …

Whips and chains? Mirrors on the celing? pornographic images? video cameras? sex toys? large vibrating eggs? blow-up dolls?

Mark
www.veritas-catholic.blogspot.com

 

[steveandersen]

vluvski:

As far as being a single game in a season, the only way to WIN the game is for the male to climax in the appropriate place. Why would anyone choose to lose any particular game, even if they do have an entire season?'quote]

tactics…sometimes you have to save your star player for the big game

sometimes there is a pre-season or exhibition match

and since both players in this game are on the same team is there such a thing as a loss?

 

[deb1]

trth_skr:

Whips and chains? Mirrors on the celing? pornographic images? video cameras? sex toys? large vibrating eggs? blow-up dolls?

Mark
www.veritas-catholic.blogspot.com

I suppose this is a subject for another thread.

 

[vluvski]

steveandersen:

vluvski:

As far as being a single game in a season, the only way to WIN the game is for the male to climax in the appropriate place. Why would anyone choose to lose any particular game, even if they do have an entire season?'quote]

tactics…sometimes you have to save your star player for the big game

sometimes there is a pre-season or exhibition match

and since both players in this game are on the same team is there such a thing as a loss?

That’s why the football analogy, like any other, eventually breaks down. There is no “Big Game” when it comes to sex within marriage. EVERY game is the big one!

The husband and wife should be on the same team. Except in cases where one insists upon contraceptives while the other disagrees, they pretty much are.
Perhaps it would be helpful to take the hedonistic, carpe diem approach and say the couple always wins as long as they love eachother and enjoy what they’re doing, regardless of whether it is within the guidelines for Catholic morality.

The issue then becomes that the couple must choose who their coach is.

Are you playing for God or for Satan? Your call.

 

[migurl]

deb1:

I suppose this is a subject for another thread.

I agree, besides, this topic is only addressing OS, I wasn’t intending my post to mean EVERYTHING, just everything we have been discussing, such as kissing, caressing, massaging and OS in the context we have established. Those things brought up about pornographic material etc. Is never right, not even in marriage. The difference b/w OS and those things is that the Church has not granted an exception to married couples that allows them to look at such material, it is always a sin and it says that in the CCC. I thnk we should all read that CHristopher West book then talk about all this.

 

[MarianRose]

As Director of Faith Formation I was asked what our Catholic veiw on oral sex with in a marriage was? Please help! Sources to quote would help tremendously

 

[Lapsed]

This issue is thoroughly discussed here.

It’s not exactly a clear cut issue and there are diverse opinions.