No awareness of mortal sin in the moment - am i still accountable?

[funkAYE]

I masturbated briefly the other night but not to the point of ejaculation. This happened as i was trying to fall asleep. In the moment i wasnt cognizant of the bad aspects of my actions i just kind of acted without processing catholic principles and whatnot throughout. I stopped once i was like i shouldnt be doing this.

I’m wondering if this was mortal sin. I feel like I might be in the clear because one of the criteria for mortal sin is that

It must be committed with full knowledge (and awareness) of the sinful action and the gravity of the offense.

And in the moment i wasnt commiting it considering these things at all, they did not come to mind and i just acted on instinct at the moment.

This made me think considering many times in the past when i masturbated i didnt think about the gravity of the sin and i wasnt thinking about sin at all. I was just acting on feeling and nothing more throughout the whole act. So like, does that mean it wasnt a mortal sin in that case?

At times i masturbated and did think this is a sin i shouldnt be doing this but did it anyways, and in this case it is obvious that it was a mortal sin, but when i am literally not thinking about it, i am wondering if is still a mortal sin? Hopefully you guys can provide me with some clear logic in this matter. Thank you.

The earlier situation mentioned is just frustrating because like currently i am not masturbating and had a long streak but it pains me to think that this short spurt of sexual activity where there was no thought involved or sexual climax could potentially still be considered a mortal sin. What do yall think about this?

I feel like people are going to say if you had prior knowledge of the sin then even if you didn’t think about it in the moment you are still committing a mortal sin because that knowledge is somewhere inside me somewhere. But this doesn’t really makes sense to me since you could legitimately commit a sin without the knowledge crossing your mind.

 

[AdamP88]

I masturbated briefly the other night but not to the point of ejaculation. This happened as i was trying to fall asleep. In the moment i wasnt cognizant of the bad aspects of my actions i just kind of acted without processing catholic principles and whatnot throughout. I stopped once i was like i shouldnt be doing this.

It’s possible it wasn’t a mortal sin as tiredness can be an exception. I would still mention it in confession though.

But this doesn’t really makes sense to me since you could legitimately commit a sin without the knowledge crossing your mind.

Do you drive? One can drive and not be thinking about the knowledge of driving the car. It comes automatically. If you play sports, the players in most sports don’t constantly think about the knowledge needed to play. They just react to the situation.

The laws of a country are the same. You could get into a fight and kill somebody without the knowledge of the fact that there is a law prohibiting that behaviour crossing your mind. It doesn’t make you less culpable.

 

[St_Francis]

I think in the instance you describe, since you stopped when you realized what was happening, that it would not be considered a mortal sin. As soon as consent was presented, you refused to consent.

However, so much better to discuss this with a priest in the anonymity of the Confessional than a bunch of laypeople in the anonymity of the internet