Marital sexual relations

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MasterHaster said:
If a couple is infertile why does it matter where the seminal fluid is deposited?
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I haven’t seen this discussed by any authoritative writer, but it seems the theology of the body makes the answer clear. Conjugal love is to express the total self-gift of each to the other: husband to his wife in his masculine way, wife to her husband in her feminine way.

For the husband, his semen - which carries the potency for life - signifies/expresses that total self-gift. That gift must be given into the center of life of his wife. The climax, for the husband, expresses within him the complete self-emptying which confirms his complete self-gift to her.

To consider the above and then “feel free” to dispose of the semen in an unworthy way, ought to be troubling.
 
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@tafan2 The OP did not specify what occurred before ejaculation. If he withdrew, how could that be defined as masturbation?
 
Cirdan_XII said:
I’m reaching an age…
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If you are old enough for this to be an issue, as I am also, you’re old enough to decide these sorts of things on your own using some common sense.

If you do want an outside opinion about the question, get your answers from a Priest, not some random people on the internet.
 
Ok, we agree it is gravely wrong. We don’t have to agree on the precise definition of the term masturbation. My definition comes from the traditional term Onanism

Dictionary : ONANISM

ONANISM Theological term for contraception. The name is derived from Onan, son of the patriarch Judah. When Judah asked Onan to marry his (Onan's) brother's widow, in order to raise up progeny to his brother, Onan frustrated conception.
www.catholicculture.org www.catholicculture.org
 
We do ourselves a disservice by trying to find loopholes with Catholic sexual ethics.

Especially in the case of a woman performing oral sex, one should ask: would our Blessed Mother, the Holy Virgins, all of our great female Saints approve of a woman performing such an act, regardless of whether or not it is just foreplay? It is an act contrary to the dignity of a woman.
 
The Catholic Answers main site has answered this question before. @(name removed by moderator) previously supplied the link earlier in this thread.

The only part of the Catholic Answers article that appears questionable, i.e. may be formally undecided but implicitly unapproved by previous Saints and teachings, is the sentence claiming that the husband may manually assist his wife before or after he finishes the act. Otherwise, the CA article makes clear that oral sex is not allowed in any circumstance.
 
The gravity of sin depends on other factors, this is a question only for your Confessor.
 
It is so very simple.

The marital act is to take place within the bonds of a valid marriage, between only the spouses, and ordered toward procreation. No need for a book that contains only one sentence.
 
That’s subjectively speaking, but the gravity for this sin is objectively grave.

Subjectively speaking if one doesn’t have full knowledge that some act is a sin, then they have not committed personal sin.
 
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I thought onans sin was considered sin because he didnt obey the command of laying with his dead brothers wife. So the mistake was inclined towards disobedience.

One of the prophets knew that his offspring would disobey God and thus chose not procreate. This angered God and he was to die until he repented and procreated did God extend his life.
 
Each act is to be ordered toward procreation. Plain, simple. It does not matter if there is fertility or not, in fact, there are only a few days each month for a few years of her life that any woman is fertile.
 
I agree a one sentence book is pretty useless but a booklet that explains the Churches understanding of WHY certain acts are considered outside of Catholic theology would help many married people understand why they can’t do X or how they can licitly do X. Judging by the many questions, it seems to be something that would be helpful. JMHO, though.
 
It’s not very easy to find clear information on the topic. The CA article puts it must succinctly. This is one of those questions where 10 different people will all give you different answers. I am not an expert or the definitive authority by any means, but from everything I’ve watched, seen, or read on the topic, that article sums up the general consensus from what I can tell.
 
This is the same source for the Jewish prohibition on self abuse and ejaculating outside the woman during sex. The sin is compounded by Onan’s disobedience.
 
Blessed11 said:
My wife and I are devout Catholics in our late 50’s. During sexual relations, if the male ejaculates outside of the vagina by an intentional act, is this a sin. If so, is it a mortal or venial sin?
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My advice - don’t seek sensitive advice in an on-line forum. As you see, you will get a lot of arguments, compounded by judgmentalist attitudes and insensitivity. I know it SEEMS like the anonymous nature is a more comfortable way of getting advice, but you are not really getting advice or counsel. Talk to a real person, like a priest or spiritual adviser. Don’t make important decisions based on internet posts.
 
When you read these traditional teachings it basically seems to boil down to a very mechanical act in which the man must do his business as quickly as possible, deprive the woman of any pleasure, and get out… all the while fighting against his nature to ensure he doesn’t enjoy it too much. I exaggerate a bit, but that’s how a lot of the medieval teachings on sex come across… sex is a necessary evil, but always an evil. This whole body of teaching seems to be at odds with St JPII’s theology of the body.

Honestly… if we follow some of these medieval teachings literally, why bother? If sexual mortal sin is almost as likely within marriage as without… makes celibacy look a lot more attractive.
 
Many women will be in pain, or at a minimum never enjoy sex, if manual stimulation is out… as some of these traditional teachings suggest. So yes, it does seem to reduce sex to a mechanical act that is all about the man doing his duty as “cleanly” and efficiently as possible without “too much” enjoyment.

Again, this does not seem to be what St JPII taught. I wonder how much we should lean on these teachings. It seems gnostic ideas of sex (and the physical) as an evil are sprinkled throughout traditional Catholic teaching on sex prior to the 20th century. Was it St Augustine or another Father who said that a man sins at least venially every time he has sex with his wife…?
 
As I read that article, I find more (natural) prudential advice, and psychological considerations, than profoundly considered theology. I will continue to believe that the final conclusions on matters not specifically based on matters of the Faith, in this area of marital expression, are rightly formed by the couple after due prayerful consideration - while always keeping open to new insights from the Holy Spirit.
 
  1. Sex acts which by their nature are “proximate danger of pollution” are always immoral, regardless of your intention of doing that act/ your intention to not spill the seed. No more does the intention to not commit adultery permit you to put yourself into proximate danger of adultery, than does the intention to not spill the seed justify putting yourself into proximate danger of spilling the seed.
  2. Proximate danger of pollution is not based on “intentions” it is based on “will this act have a chance of spilling the seed at any point in my marriage (if practiced with any regularity)?” Just like you do not want to commit adultery at any time in your marriage, so too you do not want to spill the seed at any time in your marriage. Doing an act which, time to time, or even only rarely, could result in spilling the seed, is too many failures. It is “proximate danger of pollution.” Period. Therefore, from this condition alone, intercourse other than sexual intercourse is always a mortal sin.
  3. These acts are proximate danger by their very nature, regardless of whether pollution actually occurs. According to St. Alphonsus, it is the nature of these acts that make them proximate danger of pollution, regardless of whether the chances of pollution are small or large for any particular individual, it is still proximate danger for everyone. So even if we determined there was no chance of pollution for a particular individual (how could we know this with any certainty?), every time the couple engaged in these immoral acts as “foreplay”, it would be a material mortal sin each time.
  4. How on earth could you determine that the chance of pollution over the entirety of your marriage was small? If you made it 10 years without pollution, it could just very well be that you got lucky in the first 10 years of your marriage. But will you mess up in the next 10 years? Like I keep saying, if we do not want a single adultery, then we also do not want a single Crime of Onan. Also, even if you made it all 50 years of your marriage without messing up, how do you know that the chance of pollution could not still be high? Perhaps if you were able to repeat your fifty year marriage many times, say 100 times, then still, in 30 out of 100 of those life-long-repeat marriages you would spill the seed at some time in the marriage (and 70 times you’d never spill the seed). So it is invalid to say: I took a gamble, made it through fifty years of my marriage never spilling the seed, therefore I did not repeatedly commit proximate occasion of mortal sin every time I performed intercourse in a manner other than coitus. Simply, morality is not based on an after the fact evaluation, but rather is based on the nature of the act you chose. Did you will an act that was proximate danger of mortal sin by its very nature? If you did, then each time you did so, you committed a mortal sin, even if you never ended up spilling the seed throughout your marriage. Since it is possible you just got lucky for the duration of your marriage, but would not get so lucky if you repeated your marriage again, these acts were still indeed proximate danger of mortal sin.
 
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