I was reading this thread because a question came to me as I was reading a portion of “Love and Responsibility”. But before I pose the question I feel compelled to address some of the responses here.
In a marriage bedroom there are only three people, you, your spouse and the Lord. The way some of these questions were answered, seemed to me like so much meddling by outsiders.
The Cathechism does say …“procreative and unitive”, most everyone here seems to concentrate primarily on the procreative aspect. By that definition, infertile couples, older couples, the sick or incapacitated in any way , and many others (not homosexual) are excluded.
If a married couple loves each other profoundly, and is open to the possibility of the miracle of life and God’s will within their marriage (no birth control) and chooses to use NFP or simply cannot have children, so long as they offer the gift of true love and self to their partners, whatever they do in their privacy is nobody elses busness. There is “proceative” but their is also “unitive”, and in a marriage, as long as it’s consensual it is not for anybody else to judge or pontificate on,
I agree, if a married couple uses oral sex alone and no other kind of sex for the purpose of not becoming pregnant then they are acting wrongly because they are not open to life.
But if a couple is open to life, and love, and it happens that on any given occasion they wind up having only oral sex, that falls under the definition of “unitive”. And the couple shouldn’t have to feel ashamed. A married couple’s private intimate life cannot and should not have to be so rigid.
Also for many couples while the wife is perfectly fine and able, the husband simply cannot normally complete the sex act inside his wife, for a miryad of reasons. They need to complete the sexual act in some other way outside their wife’s body. After they tried and tried quite often to complete the act the traditional way. So therefore in reality they are most definitely open to life. That is what is in their hearts. Some people in this forum say there are NO EXCEPTIONS. According to “Love and Responsibility” It would be selfish to receive so much love and satisfaction from your spouse, but not to try hard to make sure your spouse is likewise satisfied.
There are too many people in husbands and wives’ bedrooms.