Marital sex in later years

[1ke]

Sodomy includes:

oral sex
anal sex
contraceptive sex/
masturbation/
onanism
bestiality

And again, no one is suggesting any of these acts. These are completed acts that replace intercourse.

Foreplay is not a completed act, it is the intimate kissing and caressing that prepares the couple for intercourse.

If you are trying to assert that a man or woman cannot kiss, touch, and caress intimately then you are asserting something the Church doesn’t teach.

 

[YoungCatholicGuy]

Where in an offical catholic vatican document does it state Sodomy is permissable as foreplay, or that sodomy that doesn’t reach completion, is ‘not sodomy’ because it wasn’t completed?

The catechism states: sodomy is grave matter, a mortal sin under the three conditions.

 

[iwritebooks]

I would think oral ejaculation is somewhat at odds with procreative purposes?

Sexual pleasure exists before you climax! The climax is simply the climax of sexual pleasure. The whole of sexual expression should be pleasurable or you’re doing something wrong. This is why I keep saying that by this logic, if you’re engaged in sexual activity at all, it’s immoral to stop.

Sexual expression doesn’t always lead to his full expression. And the big thing is to recognize the difference between thwarting an end of sex and nature just not taking you there. And your reasons for stopping also matter. How much warning you have ahead of time before you stop matters. It’s one thing to be interrupted by a crying child or a house fire. It’s quite another to know that you don’t have time for sex.

There are no clear absolute rules with this. It’s all a matter of continuing to communicate about your needs, taking the other’s hurt seriously, and reflecting on the full meaning of sex and authentic charity.

 

[1ke]

Are you asserting that touching your spouse intimately is sodomy?

Please prove that it is. The ball is in your court to prove Catholics cannot touch their spouses intimately with hands or mouth, not mine to prove the opposite.

 

[1ke]

I don’t think anyone here is arguing that stopping is wrong, or sinful. Spouses can canoodle all they want and it doesn’t have to lead to sexual intercourse. Or if they intended to have sex and had to stop, or decided to stop, that’s not sinful either.

What is sinful is acticities where climax happens outside of intercourse where there was no intention to have intercourse. When you intend to avoid penetrative intercourse and seek climax another way from the outset— that is wrong. (and I’m not talking about an oopsie, where it happens prematurely and you then aren’t able to finish or a husband loses his erection, etc— unintentional isn’t a sin).

 

[iwritebooks]

You are overthinking it.

Not really. My point in criticizing people for overthinking it is that they’re looking for a specific set of behaviors that is always sinful. You’re arguing that the fullness of sexual expression is the only manner in which sexual expression is not intrinsically evil.

And that’s just not how sex works. That isn’t even what the woman’s body preaches. The woman’s body is not like the man’s. Only in an exclusive look at what happens when the man sexually climaxes and where his organ is designed to go, do you reach the conclusion of where the man is designed to climax.

The woman’s body does not share an inverse of this. Her body speaks to a much larger vision of sexual expression. In fact, women used to be presumed to be the ones with the stronger sex drive than men. It seems only as society started getting very specific in having labels for every sexual act with a number of continual restrictions, did women move into the stereotype of being less sexual than man.

We need to give an honest look at how sex actually naturally works to really understand what the natural law would be preaching rather than cling to Aquinas’s faulty logic rooted in his ignorance of how the female body works and his inability to see sex as a loving act rather than one solely rooted in lust but justified by the need to procreate. Because that is his vision.

His theory of there being a natural law is not what I’m arguing against, but where he gets biology wrong, his theology becomes perverse. We can see that sexuality as a whole is ordered toward procreation, not just in its specific activity but in how sexual expression leads to the desire to engage in intercourse (especially in regards to frequency).

I would say that it is wrong to view manual and oral as masturbation. If they are used to redirect oneself away from intercourse out of a fear of the procreative purpose of sex, than they are contraceptive acts and should be treated as contraceptive acts. And likewise if a man is simply using his wife sexually to get off, even if he’s engaging in coitus, he is guilty of masturbation still.

 

[Sophie111]

I have no idea what you are trying to say.
The question of this topic is the permissability of oral instead of vaginal sex.

I do know that male climaxing in a way not in itself suitable for the generation of offspring is objectively and gravely disordered.

 

[GospelOfMatthew]

Simple answer: sexual acts that do not lead to ejaculation are fine AS LONG AS THEY ARE PART OF THE BROADER REPRODUCTIVE ACT (vaginal sex). Ejaculaution must only be vaginally. Oral stimulation or manual or other kind are fine as long as there is no ejaculation.

The comments of sodomy don’t make sense and should be removed from this thread for irrelevance. Sodomy references completing the act, ejaculation. Oral sex by using the term sex includes ejaculaution. That’s why I write oral stimulation. This isn’t even a point to be argued, Christopher West, Trent Horn, and JPII say oral stimulation WITHOUT EJACULATION is fine.

There is no other argument to be had, this is the answer

 

[iwritebooks]

I don’t think anyone here is arguing that stopping is wrong, or sinful. Spouses can canoodle all they want and it doesn’t have to lead to sexual intercourse. Or if they intended to have sex and had to stop, or decided to stop, that’s not sinful either.

What is sinful is acticities where climax happens outside of intercourse where there was no intention to have intercourse. When you intend to avoid penetrative intercourse and seek climax another way from the outset— that is wrong. (and I’m not talking about an oopsie, where it happens prematurely and you then aren’t able to finish or a husband loses his erection, etc— unintentional isn’t a sin).

I know you’re not saying that it’s a sin to not stop. But we disagree on why it’s not sinful to stop. But you’re indulging in reductionism in order to create clear lines of what is allowed and not allowed. But focusing exclusively on behavior, not not actually caring about the person. You’re just priding yourself in “I didn’t engage in this sinful activity.”

Morality is a lot less clear than that. It isn’t an external law where you get brownie points for obeying the letter of the law. That’s the whole criticism Christ gave the Pharisees and why he’d tell people “You’re guilty of adultery if you divorce and remarry”, “I tell you not to be angry.” and “if you look at a woman with lust in you’re eye you are committing adultery in your heart.”

He doesn’t make these statements to makes us scrupulous and neurotic. He makes these statements so that we stop seeing ourselves as morally superior to people who sin in ways greater than ourselves. These criticisms of us are meant to humble us, to trample our spiritual pride. Sin is not a mere violation of the law. If you’re only concern is “Did I willfully violate this particular law” your looking only for mortal sins. You’re failing to recognize sin as a symptom of the fact that you are sick and in need of a divine physician. That by Christ’s wounds we are healed. Indeed, you are sick and lust infects your sexual expression even if you are married and obey the letter of the law perfectly. You are so sick with sin your conscience is a bit blind to when you’re sinning. You do not know what you do.

You must be humble to enter Heaven. You must accept that the spiritually poor are blessed. The spiritually wealthy will have more expected of them and will be given the opportunity to enter Heaven last. The more we are given, the more the devil will tempt us to pride. Pride is a lot harder to overcome than than lust. And I certainly expect that much of our Purgatory will be having to endure standing at the doorway of Heaven, in some sense, and enduring watching those we judged having shorter Purgatories than us. God will humble us through that. And it’ll either turn our hearts to stone or soften our hearts so that we recognize our unworthiness and fully appreciate when we are the last to enter, the last ones He turns to and invites in.

 

[iwritebooks]

I have no idea what you are trying to say.
The question of this topic is the permissability of oral instead of vaginal sex.

I do know that male climaxing in a way not in itself suitable for the generation of offspring is objectively and gravely disordered.

By that logic, he should never climax if his wife is in fertile, after she’s gone through menopause, when she’s breastfeeding or pregnant. And by extension, your logic says that if he can’t climax, she can’t either. So this would restrict sexual activity to only being performed during the fertile period during the reproductive years.

I would agree with you that him intentionally climaxing outside the woman to satisfy his lust while avoiding pregnancy is a contraceptive act. I would also say that husband and wife need to be sensitive about how they go about abstinence during the fertile time. How you approach abstinence can be a rejection of the unitive meaning of sex out of a rejection of the procreative meaning. In some sense, the core is mutual consent, but the opposite of mutual consent is not “Well, if he agrees to abstain but otherwise I must submit to have sex.”

The ideal of abstinence is that both parties recognize the abstinence is a part of sacrificial love and only go so far in their sexual expression during the fertile time in a way that is mutually respectful so that there isn’t as much of a sense of rejection.

This is tough because we are fallen people and we can feel rejected when we shouldn’t. But viewing the lines of "Well, so long as we don’t seek climaxes in an immoral manner we’re in the good.

And mind you, there are other situations where the answer to sex is no. So even outside of prudently avoiding pregnancy, how one lets down their spouse …well not even sexually…I guess this applies to how you negotiate all your needs in marriage…really matters. Our fallen nature will have these rejections be less perfect when we’re newly married than after we’ve grow in virtue enough to love each other better.

When you marry, you should be aimed not at perserving love as it was on your wedding day, but you should be able to say “I love you better today than I did before and I will continue to advance in virtue to love you better tomorrow.”

It’s reductionistic to tell a couple who can’t physically engage in coitus that sexual climaxes are not allowed. It’s absolutely no different than telling an infertile couple that they’re off the table as well.

 

[iwritebooks]

JPII say oral stimulation WITHOUT EJACULATION is fine.

JP II never said that. In fact, in Love and Responsibility, he says that man should work on learning to delay his climax and wait for the woman, because the moral idea is that man and woman climax together through vaginal intercourse. He then gives as a moral concession that if the man is not able to hold off his orgasm to wait for his wife, out of a sense of justice, he is permitted to bring his wife to climax AFTERWARD through another means. He says this is not manditory though and based on whether or not she wants to. She can decline.

At no point does he say that the woman is permitted to climax within the entire context of the sexual act. JP II assumed that upsuck theory was correct and had merely read that women who are denied sexual climaxes lose their desire for sex in the long run. That is literally his only concern.

Christopher West and others who have allowed for a broader allowance are simply applying a somewhat updated rule on it based around the fact the fact that upsuck theory was disproven and women can experience multiple orgasms. Some of these apologists still hold the view, though, that the moral ideal is simaltaneous orgasm through vaginal intercourse. Overall, they consider this the height of a truly reciprocal expression of sexual love. There’s this presumption that when a climax is experienced alone, the sexual act is less reciprical. I don’t believe this is the case.

 

[Sophie111]

By that logic, he should never climax if his wife is in fertile, after she’s gone through menopause, when she’s breastfeeding or pregnant.

I really have no idea what logic of mine has led you to this strange statement. Can you explain what it is you think I am saying?

 

[Sophie111]

It’s reductionistic to tell a couple who can’t physically engage in coitus that sexual climaxes are not allowed.

You really are all over the place here.
This is a completely different topic.
And the issue in any case is not what you pastorally tell people. Its simply ascertaining what is objectively disordered or not.

It is objectively true that a male seeking sexual climax outside of coitus is disordered…with the female their is leeway on the matter if it is related to a well ordered male climax.

Outside of the above…whether it is personally sinful, whether pastorally a couple should be told its off the table, whether they should be told they cannot marry if impotent…these are all different matters. You have assumed they are all lock-stepped judgements…they arent.

 

[iwritebooks]

You really are all over the place here.
This is a completely different topic.

I think you’re getting confused because we’re discussing similar topics in two different posts. This particular post is about whether an elderly couple who cannot physically engage in coitus must deprive themselves of ever experiencing climaxes for the rest of their marriage.

 

[Sophie111]

Sophie111:

You really are all over the place here.
This is a completely different topic.

I think you’re getting confused because we’re discussing similar topics in two different posts. This particular post is about whether an elderly couple who cannot physically engage in coitus must deprive themselves of ever experiencing climaxes for the rest of their marriage.

I am answering the clear question in the original post.
Is oral sex permissible under any circumstances in the Catholic Church.

The short answer is no.
The long answer is no.
However given the circumstances presented it is very likely venial personal sin…but really, concrete cases are not the business of outsiders. The couple should be guided to see a priest who may well provide pastoral advice to mitigate the seeming hardness of an objective analysis.

 

[1ke]

It’s reductionistic to tell a couple who can’t physically engage in coitus that sexual climaxes are not allowed.

It’s not “reductionist” it is church teaching. Each act must be per se ordered to both unity and procreation.

It’s absolutely no different than telling an infertile couple that they’re off the table as well.

It certainly is. Because an infertile couple can engage in intercourse that is per se ordered to both unity and procreation.

 

[1ke]

This particular post is about whether an elderly couple who cannot physically engage in coitus must deprive themselves of ever experiencing climaxes for the rest of their marriage.

And there is an answer to that question— the answer is that we may not seek climaxes apart from intercourse.

So if one cannot have intercourse, and knows it, one cannot seek to replace intercourse with masturbation: manually or orally stimulate oneself or one’s partner to climax.

 

[iwritebooks]

Pastoral advice doesn’t exist especially in sexual matters. I know this because I’ve faced sexual dyfunction. I’ve been facting an existential crisis with my faith since getting married 8 years ago because the sexual messages I received both contributed to my development of this sexual dysfunction and constantly leaning on "Well I’ve read every document there is on this subject and no one will rubber stamp the only opinion that has allowed me to progress in overcoming this problem as much as I have.

I’m sorry, this is crap. And at this point I’m surprised my faith as lasted this long.

My sister, ended up going through severe post partum depression and had to be hospitalized. She is so terrified of having sex that using contraception is the only way she can relax enough to even remotely have sex. Even though I told her she could be on the pill to deal with her cycle problems and shouldn’t worry about being relieved about not having to worry about NFP, the reality was she knew she was looking for an excuse to be on the pill and felt guilty about it. So she went to her priest. Her priest told her I was wrong and that no menstrual problem ever justifies the pill and basically scolded her out. He showed absolutely no sympathy for her mental health, the fact that she’s been in the hospital for suicide watches or any of it. She now can’t even step into a Catholic Church without having a panic attack.

No one gives pastoral advice. And why don’t they give it? Well, because they’re all busy feeling prideful for their level of personal sacrifice in having a family larger than is prudent. Because, guess what Casti Conubii introduced? The idea that there is a grave moral reason for some couples to prevent pregnancy and that there may thus be a moral mandate to abstain if such a grave situation exists. The document introduces the concept of marital chastity, that married people are called to sexual self control too. It also denied the argument that having sex during naturally occuring infertile periods (pregnancy, breastfeeding menopause) was a moral concession only to prevent masturbation. Humanae Vitae further extends this teaching of chastity in marriage by mandating that we express our sexual love prudently and deliberately, and not out of blind passion and a lack of self control. How strictly we practice NFP is dependent upon the demands of prudence. A lack of chastity is not an excuse for imprudent sexual activity. Gone is the idea that marriage exists as remedy for lust, as a way to avoid sexual sin.

This reductionist view is just a way of denying how sinful we actually are and it results in a ton of spiritual pride in those who reject contraception convince themselves that any lack of chastity is resolved by believing sex in marriage is only sinful if the man’s semen doesn’t end up in the right place.

 

[Sophie111]

Pastoral advice doesn’t exist especially in sexual matters.

Oh please stop this already.
You know nothing. The Vademecum is a clear example.

That you live in a conservative region (likely the US) is the issue not Church teaching.

The solution is not to gainsay clear Catholic Teaching on what constitutes objectively disordered sex.

The solution is a good grasp of our teaching on unfreedoms, conscience and the internal forum if you repeatedly face unconsidered paint by numbers “pastoral” advice from poorly formed Pastors.

 

[ahs]

You’re arguing that the fullness of sexual expression is the only manner in which sexual expression is not intrinsically evil.

I don’t recall saying anything like that. (Can you quote the pertinent verbiage from me?)

And that’s just not how sex works. That isn’t even what the woman’s body preaches…

And now you are off on another tangent.
You really are overthinking this. And not only that, but reading the rest of your responses, you are contradicting your simple answer to me earlier, and you are now trying to argue (using words in the thousands now?) that it IS okay for a couple to have oral sex to completion, in order to express “love”. (Except, since that would be a sin, it isn’t really love at all…because true love does not cause us to lead our spouses into sin).