Is it wrong to send suggestive pictures to your spouse?

[Greenfields]

If there’s distance especially not a good idea…24 hour thing goes out the window and purity is in danger.
Danger is in objectifying and not keeping real respect.

 

[TheLittleLady]

Only take a photograph (digital, Polaroid, artists sketch) that you want anyone to see. Even if your spouse keeps it in their breast pocket, someday, that photo will be found by your kids when they clean out your things if nothing else.

 

[LoyalViews]

This could also be true, however the ladder effect does exist. I agree though, a priest is the best one to consult.

 

[Anesis]

I would say yes and for two reasons. The first being that by doing this, you are treating your body like a sexual object and putting it into his mind that it’s something to lust after. Lust is wrong, even in the context of marriage. Marital sex is supposed to be an expression of your love based on Christ’s vision for marriage.

The second reason is: the Internet is forever. Nothing is ever private and while you may think you’re sending a private email or text to your spouse, hackers are everywhere and you’re running a huge risk of unintentionally finding your photos in the hands of people you do not want to have them or even worse, on some website that collects hacked “suggestive” (and more) type pics. My husband is an IT director for a large corporation so internet security is a huge deal in our family.

 

[vincentleo]

I would say that if I’m sending (or wanting to send) suggestive pictures to my spouse then my mind is not in the right place to begin with.

Here is something to consider. The behavior of the moral virtue of chastity is virginity. This means that “virginal behavior” is the way to practice the virtue of chastity, whether one is married or not. For the unmarried, this is a continuous state of shunning any impulse that would engage the sexual function of the body.

For the married, there is the intimacy between the spouses. But, really, it is still pretty much the same as for the unmarried: the majority of our time is spent doing other things where the same rule of chastity (shunning any impulse that would engage the sexual drive) applies. This is what we call “chaste marriage”.

The point is: if we are spending time thinking about things like this during the day, we are not practicing the virtue of chastity, and as a result are likely engaging in a form of lust (immoral and therefore sinful).

The Church Fathers (Gregory of Nyssa and St. Augustine are two that come to mind) are a good source for learning about how we should view sexual intimacy morally.

Leo

 

[phil19034]

@seeking_answers101

I’m a man, and I’m assuming you are female. I’m going to answer it from my perspective as a man who has struggled with porn, lust, etc.

– I would say it’s wrong because you are objectifying yourself and potentially causing your spouse to objectify you. When looking at sexy pictures (even of one’s spouse) it often removes the imagination, emotion, etc from the man. He will often focus all his attention on one part of the picture, which will lead to lustful thoughts and perhaps sexual sin.

Also, over time, it can cause him to become a selfish lover due to sexual addiction to lust.

If a spouse wanted to do something to make her husband look forward to an special evening together, simply saying something (even something sexy) would be much better because it would trigger more of an emotional response instead of a purely lustful response.

I pray I’m making sense.

God bless!

 

[twf]

If you’re constantly suppressing every sexual impulse or desire even when married, how are you to maintain healthy desire for your spouse in order to successfully procreate?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I think the viewpoint expressed by the poster discussing “chaste marriage” goes back to St Augustine having a dim view of sex in general, which carried over into the idea that sex even in marriage should not be thought about.

Catholic teaching today doesn’t embrace that view for married couples. It’s okay and healthy to feel sexual desire for your spouse. Obviously you don’t want to be obsessing over it to the point where you get distracted at work or can’t manage your urges when spouse isn’t around, but you don’t have to put every sexy thought of them out of your mind. You just have to be prudent. Taking dirty photos of your self in order to share with your spouse is likely not prudent because they can leak.

 

[vincentleo]

Well, really…the sexual impulse can’t be destroyed, as if we could ruin healthy sexual desire by not acting on sexual impulses that arise. Don’t worry about that

Also, I know it might sound like semantics, but I think “suppress” is not the right term to use, because that kind of sounds unnatural. To shun is to just ignore it, or set it aside for later.

Really, it is the same thing we do for anything else, morally. If we have trouble sinning because of anger, the answer to that is to control the impulse towards anger (this is the virtue of meekness)…you don’t let it control your actions - you ignore it.

 

[JimG]

the Internet is forever.

I agree. Never send anything over the internet that you do not wish to be available forever. It will be residing in a foreign hacker’s server among other places, and will come out again when you least expect it.