Well, this has gone the way of every single other CAF thread like this. What amazes me is that, even though it is always with different people, the roles are
always the same. There’s:
(1) The youngish, loyal Catholic who says, briefly, “Nothing against pre-marital affection, dude, but you’re going too far. Put on the brakes.”
(2) The middle-aged self-styled canon lawyer who quotes nineteen verses of the Catechism, two pages of canon law, and a passage of Aquinas, only to reach the conclusion, “According to the infallible moral teachings of the Holy Catholic Church and the powerful arguments of the Greatest Philosophical Minds the World Has Ever Seen, you may be going too far… but on the other hand you may not be.”
(3) The older Catholic, probably catechized pre-Council, who doesn’t really know all that much about official Church teachings or how to discuss them, but, by God, she was
taught good social mores by her nuns, and she
watches more EWTN than the rest of her diocese combined, and she
is going to tell you that French kissing, or plain kissing, or hugging, or touching, or (in extreme cases)
looking at your girlfriend is
probably a mortal sin and
definitely grave matter and
you are in danger of hell! These users can almost never cite an actual doctrine directly supporting their position, but instead make elaborate, spun-out extrapolations from very basic teachings they learned in grammar school, based on a thousand unrecognized presuppositions, and label their extraordinary conclusions “plain homespun common sense, like Mother Angelica taught it to us.”
(4) The atheist (or liberal Protestant), who is on CAF because Catholic thinking simultaneously annoys and intrigues him, and because he has a lot of free time and wants to spar a little with his intellectual peers. The atheist invariably says something like, "Just go ahead and do it and leave those Victorian moral shackles behind! It
feels good man! The atheist (or liberal Protestant) also, in 100% of cases, is “shocked,
shocked!” that there is anyone like #3 in this establishment, asks how it’s possible that anyone could still live in that “medieval morality,” and, in criticizing #3, manages to deride the entire system of Catholic morals and the natural law.
At this point, the thread descends into a free-for-all, as the first two groups defend themselves against #3’s charges of promiscuity and sin, while #3 accuses everyone of ganging up on her (which is actually true, because
nobody wants to be seen siding with the prudes, even when the prudes are occasionally right), and #4 makes some sweepingly broad statements that divide the members of groups #1 and #2, who scramble to side with either group #3 or group #4. Then everyone commences a grand search for Church documents, historical evidence, studies on the effectiveness of abstinence-only education, and – the Holy Grail of these discussions – an actual, concrete line that can be drawn between “appropriate” and “inappropriate” in a dating relationship. (Such lines are, of course, completely mythical.)
Now, I’ve played all four roles at some point in my membership here, so don’t think I’m personally criticizing any particular user. But the overall pattern of these threads is both absolutely predictable and absolutely
useless to the OP. Isn’t there
some way we can give a comprehensive answer to this question, an answer that gives the Church teaching
as well as several different but equally valid
prudential interpretations of that teaching? And could we all give up on the idea that there is a firm, bright, clear behavioral line that dating people should not cross – a line that is the same for all relationships in all cultures at all points in the relationship? The Church’s own teaching on modesty concedes that much of modesty is culturally relative.
And, when we write that answer, could we save it and repost it for all these threads, thus saving everyone a lot of time and energy?
Incidentally, to the OP, my thoughts:
As a rules lawyer, I can say with reasonably high confidence that you and your girlfriend are crossing the line with your “genital thrusting.” To me, it sounds like dry humping. It sounds like
direct stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. Depending on whether it actually is pleasurable or not,
Antrim (this thread’s resident #3) could even be right: even if neither of you orgasm, this could actually be mutual masturbation, and that has to stop immediately. You did the right thing by asking. Now that you have full knowledge, however, you have to stop or confession may be a very awkward experience next time you visit.
And as a prudential judgement from this young, loyal Catholic who
loves French kissing, your post set off a hundred alarm bells in my head. You have gone beyond the bounds that any version of modesty permits. You have entered territory that involves direct sexual pleasure (rather than the indirect sexual pleasure provided by kissing and hugging). It’s great that you two are planning to get married, but right now you need to put the brakes on and dial back your physical relationship. (And don’t worry about the flame going out. If you get bored of kissing before your wedding day, you’re doing it wrong!)
