Intimacy after menopause

[Jack]

I was asked (I won’t mention by whom) if any of the Catholic Church’s restrictions concerning intimacy between husband and wife change after the wife’s menopause because pregnancy is then no longer possible. Being open to conception is then a non issue.

Apparently, older couples often cannot have conventional sexual intimacy to orgasm because of physical or health impairment. When this happens, would such couples be permitted to achieve orgasm by other than conventional intercourse? The Catechism is silent on this question. Can anyone help?

 

[Viki59]

My understanding is that the marital act must finish with a climax in the usual way, in order to be open to life. It doesn’t matter whether the couple is still fertile or not (look at Abraham and Sarah). I believe a couple might use imaginative methods of foreplay to assist them, but must end with normal sexual intercourse.
God bless.

 

[dylanschrader]

My understanding is that the marital act must finish with a climax in the usual way, in order to be open to life. It doesn’t matter whether the couple is still fertile or not (look at Abraham and Sarah). I believe a couple might use imaginative methods of foreplay to assist them, but must end with normal sexual intercourse.
God bless.

I think this is accurate.

The act must be objectively open to life, even if it does not seem possible that conception would take place given the age of the couple, infertility, or other things.

 

[1ke]

Being open to conception is then a non issue.

These kinds of statements are why it is so important to accurately state church teaching. Church teaching is not just that a couple must be “open to life” in a general way.

Church teaching is that each act of intercourse must be unitive and procreative-- that means a completed act of vaginal intercourse that is unaltered (ie, contracepted).

When this happens, would such couples be permitted to achieve orgasm by other than conventional intercourse?

No.

The Catechism is silent on this question. Can anyone help?

No, the Catechism isn’t silent on the issue. Stimulating someone to orgasm outside of vaginal intercourse is masterbation. And, the Catechism is quite clear on that.