Marital Relations, what is allowable?

[Mirror_Mirror]

Fr. Larry Richards says that “anything is permissible in the marital act as long as it ends with the husband finishing inside his wife, as long as the acts are not degrading to either person.”

Spoken like a man who has never had to please a woman ~ in or out of bed.
The marital act is not complete until both parties have achieved sexual fulfillment. The idea implicit in the above quote is that the marital act is finished when he is finished. This attitude is exploitive and abusive in nature.

Again, I am going to have to come back to this for you proof of the statement that “The marital act is not complete until both parties have achieved sexual fulfillment.” Please provide some documentation that the Catholic church holds this to be true. I am thinking that you cannot, but please I would be willing to read that. Trust me I have read a lot about the Catholic church’s stand on marriage, sex within marriage, NFP, contraception an have never, ever read anything that says this.

Now when you say “The idea implicit in the above quote is that the marital act is finished when he is finished” is a misinterpretation by YOU. You are reading that out of the quote. The quote is saying that inside a marital act anything is “allowed” by the Catholic church as foreplay leading up to intercourse as long as it does not degrade either spouse. That is what the statement says and you seem to think that it means that only the husband is to “get off” and that is all there is. NO. Again you are putting your own spin on the quote. The quote that I posted was in direct reference to the original poster’s question “Marital Relations, what is allowable?” and this is the answer.

But now you have taken it upon yourself to twist the quote into your own interpretation to serve your purpose. Never once did I say, nor did the quote, that this is exploiting a woman.

Any man who does not see to the sexual pleasure of his spouse is sexually exploiting her and is guilty of serious sin against the Sacrament.

Again, your opinion or teaching of the Catholic church?

Not to put too fine an edge on it, if a person thinks that it’s finished because he/she is finished, he/she is guilty of rape at every sexual encounter in which this is the practical norm.

According to the CCC:

2356 Rape is the forcible violation of the sexual intimacy of another person. It does injury to justice and charity. Rape deeply wounds the respect, freedom, and physical and moral integrity to which every person has a right. It causes grave damage that can mark the victim for life. It is always an intrinsically evil act. Graver still is the rape of children committed by parents (incest) or those responsible for the education of the children entrusted to them.

I am not sure if your “definition” of rape coincides with the Catholic church. Again we are talking about consentual sex between a husband, not sex that is forced upon the other.

The location of the penis at the moment of the woman’s orgasm (and trust me, the woman is not going to have an orgasm if hubby is doing something that turns her off) is of no concern to anyone but the parties immediately involved. That includes the parish priest, the spiritual director, the bishop, the pope, and God.

Again, as I mentioned before, this is a concern of God’s

The point is that sexual pleasure in marriage is something that must be worked out by honest communication between partners. It takes time and effort, but it is time and effort well spent.

Finally something that we agree on, as does the church in the CCC:

The acts in marriage by which the intimate and chaste union of the spouses takes place are noble and honorable; the truly human performance of these acts fosters the self-giving they signify and enriches the spouses in joy and gratitude." Sexuality is a source of joy and pleasure:

The Creator himself . . . established that in the [generative] function, spouses should experience pleasure and enjoyment of body and spirit. Therefore, the spouses do nothing evil in seeking this pleasure and enjoyment. They accept what the Creator has intended for them. At the same time, spouses should know how to keep themselves within the limits of just moderation.

“do nothing evil in seeking this pleasure” = do nothing degrading.

No one has the authority to tell you what is or is not acceptable. This is an area where mutual agreement between husband and wife is the only criterion.

Again, your support for this is? The Catholic church that we as Catholics believe to be just and holy has that right given to them by Jesus Christ himself. Last time I checked the church did not give husbands and wives the freedom to make up the rules…God does that for us.

 

[searching06]

It’s not so much about what one thinks when engaging in the act (I don’t think one’s in the disposition to ponder philosophical or theological questions with a clear mind) as about one’s general attitude when it comes to talking about it. It is how the act is regarded, I think, so it’s not enough to pay the price. At the same time, it doesn’t make much sense to pretend it’s exclusively a duty or something like that. What I keep stressing over and over is that the pursuit of pleasure must never take precedence over unity or procreation and that the idea that pleasure is intrinsically tied with the aspects of procreation and unity doesn’t make it right to focus on the pleasure as a pleasurable sensual sensation and forget about the spreading of life or about the necessary unitive aspect and purpose. Part of the fact that sex is not a chore is that procreation and unity are not chores. If the pleasure is understood in the context of procreation and unity, then the understanding of that pleasure is correct. When the pleasure is regarded autonomously, then happens something which you oppose: separating the pleasure from the act. In this case, it’s not depriving the act of pleasure but rather pulling the pleasure out of the act (and therefore the right context) and making it a separate concern, which it is not.

This is also what makes it necessary to remind that God made sexual intercourse pleasurable. He did not make sexual intercourse so that we could experience sexual pleasure. Remember that He could have made the same kind of sensation “experianceable” in a thousand different ways, yet He chose to attach it to a unitive and procreative act.

In short, I’m not arguing against pleasure. I’m arguing for the proper understanding of that pleasure. In fact, I dare assume that the pleasure grows when it’s more properly understood. That is, when it’s not understood as an autonomous sensation but when it is regarded within the context of the unitive and procreative act.

Of course not! The spouses may well lack the intellectual capacity even to grasp the philosophical part of it without a tremendous headache and still better understand it with their actual lives than many an educated philosopher. I would say that they need to have the spirit of self-donation. The spirit of union and, yes, the spirit of procreation. They don’t need to know who Aquinas was for that. But when they are focused on pleasure alone and when they think of it primarily so that everything else gets trumped, the attitude becomes self-serving and not self-donation. Excessive focus on one’s own rights or expectations from the act is not healthy, I think. Especially if the pleasure is regarded in a more physical way. We need to be masters of our “urges” and drives, not slaves of them. We need to serve God first, spouse next, not self foremost. “Serve” cannot be understood as “service” merely. Additionally, our attitude should never imply that pleasure is the purpose of the act rather than, or in addition to, union and procreation - we cannot live in a state in which our theology says one thing but our behaviour says another. It’s fine when we want to experience the union and make ourselves open to life - which brings joy and pleasure - but it’s not fine when the joy is reduced to a sensual pleasure coming from a sequence of movements which makes our hormones happy, while things like children or marital union are relegated to the realm of abstract philosophy that shouldn’t come in the way of our enjoying ourselves and has no bearing on real life. See my point? I suppose this is something everyone will agree with, but yet I feel it’s something which is somehow lost in this thread.

**One of your best posts **- and you hit on the cause of much of the discension, especially mine: “It’s fine when we want to experience the union and make ourselves open to life - which brings joy and pleasure - but it’s not fine when the joy is reduced to a sensual pleasure coming from a sequence of movements which makes our hormones happy, while things like children or marital union are relegated to the realm of abstract philosophy that shouldn’t come in the way of our enjoying ourselves and has no bearing on real life.” :

Your posts come across as black/white, all or nothing - that you automatically assume couples are after pleasure only or first and do not understand Church teachings, or your points for that matter. My whole contention is that many/most couples do understand and it is not a sequence of decisions, and no one knows what is in their hearts or minds at the time except them and God.

 

[chevalier]

Your posts come across as black/white, all or nothing - that you automatically assume couples are after pleasure only or first and do not understand Church teachings, or your points for that matter. My whole contention is that many/most couples do understand and it is not a sequence of decisions, and no one knows what is in their hearts or minds at the time except them and God.

Let us be either cold or hot but not lukewarm. Heard this somewhere? It can’t be denied that in the modern culture there’s way too much preoccupation with sex, as well as the whole culture is hypersexualised. Additionally, sex is objectified and viewed from the perspective of pleasure. In such conditions, it’s by no means redundant or superfluous to point out certain crucial things - especially if they seem to be somewhat discounted. While it’s a good thing that it’s being pointed out how John Paul II and other theologians have spoken out about the honorability and liceity of the marital act, two things must be pointed out: 1) that it was already St. Paul who called marriage honourable, 2) that neither John Paul II nor anyone made new moral allowances. Therefore, while the perspective might have changed, it’s not like there’s been a sexual revolution in the Church. This must be remembered.

You seem to equate my speaking out against the overemphasis on pleasure with condescension. That is not true. The focus on pleasure is incompatible with the spirit of the teaching of the Church - it goes in a different direction altogether. Say whatever you will about my manner of presenting this, but you cannot invalidate the substance. And that is precisely my aim: that the substance is not diluted. Once again: pleasure itself is not wrong. Surprisingly, however, it is not good, either. Pleasure itself is morally neutral and its moral evaluation depends on the morality of the act which causes it. This means pleasure from the marital act is fine, but thing is, it’s not the pleasure what marital act is about (or for) and marriage itself is not about (or for) that, either. The teaching of the Church insists that union and procreation are the goals. Pleasure is a feature and a fine one and I certainly wish all the most of it to whomever is licitly engaging in it, but it’s not a goal on par with the creation of new life or with cementing and celebrating the union. I have a problem with pleasure being elevated beyond its stature, not with the idea that it’s good and right or desirable. Call this condescension if you like, but what label will you give the Church teaching then?

You seem to call my posts good when they seem to promote the advancement of pleasure philosophically and theologically, while bad if they point out the pleasure’s subordinate position within the design of the act.

Some suggested reading:

ewtn.com/library/MARRIAGE/MORMAR.TXT

If the document in general doesn’t seem to clear anything up, I’ll choose specific quotations.