LJN, first of all, it’s great we’ve been able to get over the long tracts of posting. I’m going to follow your example and keep it short. Also, apologies for my stingy remarks from last night. They weren’t needed. I think I went too defensive on some of my positions, as well, and so some of my logic wasn’t fully reliable. Now let me address your last post, please.
In fact, it’s not about X minutes or Y inches. Looking for such objective standards is looking for an abstract. It has more to do with science than with life. We don’t need that to be good people. My point is that there are some things that are still not made invariably fine just because we’re married. That we have a general right to something, doesn’t mean we’re free to do with it as we please. This is true about the more mundane rights, such as property, as well. In case of marriage, it’s never fine to treat the spouse with less respect than he or she deserves, without charity, or in utilitarian terms. It won’t be fine even if both spouses treat each other that way with mutual consent. I am not saying which acts are those because it’s not about the physical acts as it is about the mental and moral attitude and any act can be an expression of that attitude, and thus bad. This is why I had reservations about a blanket statement that passionate kissing was always okay as long as people were married. There is nothing that intent or particular circumstances couldn’t make from good or neutral into bad and therefore with every act we need to look at intent before we say it’s good - and there are no acts which are blanket-ly fine.
As for Victorian mentality, these days, we have a general problem with our culture separating not even sex (as you later say, the culture is permeated with sex), but the mere physical part of it - and sometimes not even the act but simply the “sensation”, from everything else. To the point that if an orgasm pill were invented, many people would forget about real sex. It’s important not to fall victim to that and not put the “venereal pleasure” or “sexual stimulation” (hey, it’s not my fault we don’t have any better names for it) on an autonomous level. I think one side of it is when people would go for some quick stimulation as in a quick fix, but without bothering with the full intercourse because it takes some time and it’s physically exerting compared to some other things that stimulate sexually. Passionate kissing - if by passionate you mean very passionate and sexual - could be just one of the ways in which that could be achieved. This is why I think we can’t make blanket statements like, “passionate kissing is always okay in marriage,” without adding that nothing is okay if it doesn’t come within the bigger picture.
As for NFP, of course not, one doesn’t need to move out! But at the same time, they shouldn’t engage in activities that make it even harder. If just being around each other is a powerful sexual stimulus, then making out for 15 minutes is not a good idea.
Next, when you said, “you can never objectify your spouse,” I understood you were saying that marriage made objectification impossible. If you were in fact saying that you are never allowed to objectify your spouse, there’s no disagreement and nothing to talk about, so let’s move on.
I think by now we agree that if you’re aroused for too long, you should finish it. We’re coming back to your comment about taking the 15 minutes more and finishing it, which is the natural thing to do. Same as one doesn’t walk around hungry on purpose when one’s not fasting, one doesn’t walk around “needy” if he isn’t abstaining for a good reason. To build up arousal without intention of finishing it feels somewhat wrong and to build up arousal with an intention of
not following through with intercourse comes close to contraception or interrupted intercourse. Simply kissing wouldn’t even make me think of it, but a heavy make-out session could perhaps have such an effect. It does matter what we define as passionate kissing here. What I understand by passionate kissing doesn’t fall there. But some people understand passionate kissing in such a way it can include a heavy make-out session, which could fall there. Mind you that from my point of view, the whole discussion started with a general statement that passionate kissing between spouses could never be wrong in any circumstances. Point is - if you are going to have problems after doing it, you don’t do it because it would be imprudent to do, and if you want just some sex, but not a full act, then that’s wrong (e.g. deliberately unfinished intercourse is wrong).
As for the people with a high sex drive, again, not sinning is done by resisting temptation or by avoiding it and in both cases sin is not committed.
And as for the last part, the same thing could be said about intentionally engaging in highly stimulating activities
when one doesn’t intend to finish or cannot finish in a reasonably close time.
Therefore I frankly don’t know all that well which act causes with intensity of sexual arousal. What I know is that it’s never fine to engage in lust and while lust is defined as wanting to possess the other person, lust is also defined as inordinate craving for pleasures of the flesh. Theologians, up to recent times, have agreed that lust is possible in marriage and is wrong. Therefore, walking around in the state arousal, as a deliberate choice would be either somewhat lustful, or it would possibly lead to it, as we will agree that a desire that would preclude e.g. productive occupational work would qualify as inordinate. This kind of intensity of unsatisfied desire is not arrived at in all people through the same actions because people have varying sex drives. Therefore there’s no single act that would do it for everyone, unless it’s an act that would do it for every person because it’s so intense that for no person would it be insufficient to awake strong carnal desire. Normally, kissing is not that act, however, in some situations, it could be. Therefore I objected to a rather blank statement that nothing could possibly be wrong about it. There could, although not in the case of most people in most situations.