Premarital sex

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Hi everyone
I’m not Catholic (or religious at all, in fact), but I’ve always been interested in faith and people’s beliefs. I have a question that’s been bothering me for a while and I’d be happy if you could shed some light over it. I really don’t understand why premarital sex is such a big sin. Or in other words, why everything that has to do with sex is considered impure. I searched online for some answers and couldn’t find anything satisfying. The only answer I came up with, that was more than “because God says so”, talked about lust and how one becomes controlled by it. However, I know many people who has been having premarital sex and none of them is seemed to be occupied with lust and sex all the time. In fact, it makes more sense that people who don’t do any sexual activities at all and constantly fight their urges, are more likely to be occupied with lust and sex. Or maybe I’m missing something here? Or maybe it’s something else? Anyway, I’d be more than happy to hear your thoughts and understand the logic (if there is one) and the reasons for those rules and restrictions.

Thanks a lot!
 
Incontinentia said:
Hi everyone
I’m not Catholic (or religious at all, in fact), but I’ve always been interested in faith and people’s beliefs. I have a question that’s been bothering me for a while and I’d be happy if you could shed some light over it. I really don’t understand why premarital sex is such a big sin. Or in other words, why everything that has to do with sex is considered impure. I searched online for some answers and couldn’t find anything satisfying. The only answer I came up with, that was more than “because God says so”, talked about lust and how one becomes controlled by it. However, I know many people who has been having premarital sex and none of them is seemed to be occupied with lust and sex all the time. In fact, it makes more sense that people who don’t do any sexual activities at all and constantly fight their urges, are more likely to be occupied with lust and sex. Or maybe I’m missing something here? Or maybe it’s something else? Anyway, I’d be more than happy to hear your thoughts and understand the logic (if there is one) and the reasons for those rules and restrictions.

Thanks a lot!
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It’s not the case that “everything to do with sex is considered impure.” It’s that sex is naturally reserved for marriage. In the context of marriage it’s perfectly holy. Outside that context it’s an act of desecration.

Sex is reserved for marriage because it is naturally ordered toward procreation. Now procreation results in the creation of new life and the incapacitation of the mother in pregnancy. This naturally requires some degree of continuing commitment, so that the woman can be cared for during her pregnancy and the child can be provided for during the formative years of his/her life – not just clothed and fed but provided with proper social and moral instruction. Because of this, the sexual act has a natural “language” of commitment – to have sex with a woman is to say, essentially, “I choose you to be the mother of my children.” To have sex outside of that commitment, then, is to lie with one’s body.

That’s a very very short answer. The theology is a lot more sophisticated than can be expressed on an Internet forum. I encourage you to do some reading of your own. Edward Feser’s The Last Superstition offers a full outline of Catholic moral theology and gives many examples involving sexual morality.
 
Incontinentia said:
However, I know many people who has been having premarital sex and none of them is seemed to be occupied with lust and sex all the time. In fact, it makes more sense that people who don’t do any sexual activities at all and constantly fight their urges, are more likely to be occupied with lust and sex. Or maybe I’m missing something here? Or maybe it’s something else?
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I’d say that’s a mischaracterization… maybe true for teenagers but not my general experience of more mature people.

I would say the people who are most occupied with lust and sex are generally people who (a) spend a lot of time trying to hook up, or (b) are really into porn. I would not characterize either of those groups as people who abstain from sex by choice. I would characterize those behaviors by a commodification of sexual activity and objectification of women, neither of which is particularly healthy.

To your larger question - I think it’s a little to convenient, a little to pat to think of this in purely negative terms. When you frame the question as you did, it becomes very easy to ridicule the concept. A general bit of advice, if you want to be intellectually honest, if you want to keep an open mind and learn things, be careful how you ask the question because if you ask the wrong way, then there’s no possible answer that makes any sense.

Monogamous sex within context of a marriage is really something very beautiful. Like everything that is beautiful, it’s hard to explain logically. Kind of like how it’s hard to explain to my kids that homemade mac ‘n’ cheese really is better than the kind with the cheezy orange powder.

I hope that helps!
 
It’s not that “everything about sex is sinful”, sex is seen as sacred and important, and not something that should be thrown around willy-nilly. Sex, as is seen in our view, naturally ordered to be done within marriage. And marriage is for those who want want companionship and to start a family, including being open to the possibility of having kids. Granted, not everyone is able to have kids, but stranger things have happened than someone who is supposed to be infertile happens to get pregnant.

And to put it in another way. If marriages were not what people make it out to be today (just for people who love each other and want to be devoted to each other), of which it is something more, and if it were cultural norm for sex to be kept within marriage, then think of the results. There would be practically no “unwanted children”, if any at all, because only those who were married would be having sex to be able to conceive children, and everyone that was getting married would have to be open to the possibility of having children. Contraception wouldn’t be wanted, abortions wouldn’t be wanted, and I think people would also have more respect for the lives of every human.

Just some thoughts to consider.
 
A quintessential question down through the ages…

We can probably devise a number of different answers here for why we believe as we do…As Catholics and Christians, at least some of this will obviously stem from our belief in the Sanctity of God’s Love and law. Jesus said:
He answered, “Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” (Mt 19:4-6)
One could certainly say that this does not speak directly to “marriage” as an institution, but it does speak generally to a monogamous and lifelong commitment.

Now the Church doesn’t simply spout rules for the sake of rules…She always tries to understand the meaning and purpose and foundations for these things, not only in theology, but in natural law. In this way she is better able to guide us. So - I will try to share what little I know on how this works.

Remember that at the time these things were formulated, God had already established how our bodies worked. Sex was and is designed first and foremost for procreation. That is it’s natural function. Certainly there are other things - enjoyments - attached to sex, but pro-creation is the reason we are built, naturally, as we are…
So - Sex produces children and children need care, protection, stability etc. Sex outside of marriage would not bring children into this caring stable and protective world.
Monogamy likewise has an advantage in the natural world by allowing for greater diversity in the genetic pool.

Marriage of one man and one woman then is the institution by which a couple commit, one to the other for life, for the purpose of raising up children in the natural order of things as designed by God.
It follows then that it is wrong to do things that are outside of this natural order as designed by God.

I’m sure I’ve done a lousy job of explaining this…But perhaps it will give you a notion of how the Church tries to understand and incorporate the fullest and most fundamental understanding of these things in her teachings.

Peace
James
 
So far, the prevailing reason my fellow Catholics have given all relate to a very important aspect of sex - procreation. And this is definitely true, but I want to propose another view that I think is also important to think about.

Entering into the sphere of sexuality by participating in the spousal act really does something to us. This sphere is essentially intimate and involves going into depths within our being. Therefore, this act isn’t (shouldn’t be) done with just anyone - it is personal and close to the heart.

There is a difference between embodying acts and instrumental acts. Instrumental acts are bodily acts that don’t have any intrinsic or necessary connection with a spiritual meaning. Embodying acts, however, have two dimensions to them - the physical act and the expression of the spiritual act. Sex is an embodying act. We do the physical act to express the spiritual act - love. Sex is meant to be exclusive mutual self-donation. It can be argued that it is not true love if you’re not totally committed to each other. Therefore, performing the physical act without expressing the spiritual act is really lying.

All of the above has certain implications:
  1. In sex, we give not only our bodies, but ourselves
  2. There is something sacred about this sphere. Something belongs to God in it. The truest core of the person is involved. The sphere of sexuality belongs to God in a special way. In a way God guards this inner core of ourselves.
  3. One can/may not enter casually into this sphere. Meaning, one may try to enter casually into this sphere, but he cannot no matter how hard he tries. Once the act is performed, it has touched his inner being.
  4. The one that relates to this question the most: marriage is required as the context of entering into this sphere. Spouses give themselves totally in a way that creates a very deep bond. Marriage is the only appropriate context for this unconditional giving. It is the only vow that guarantees total acceptance and commitment, and that makes sex legitimate.
OK, I got this all from my last couple classes when we talked about sexuality and the spousal act. It makes sense to me.

To sum this up, I think saving sex for marriage has to do with providing the proper context for total commitment creating a deep bond. If you have sex without being married, there’s always the chance that you will be creating a deep bond that speaks as though you are totally committed to each other, but leaves open the possibility of “moving on” in life, meaning that you are more or less lying to each other by performing the act. Sex creates such a deep bond that it is only meant to be performed between two people who are totally committed to each other unconditionally.

Does this make sense? For everything except the last paragraph, I admit I kind of just regurgitated some class notes. One more comment - Catholics hold that sex has two purposes - procreation and unity. Everyone else commented on procreation, and I think my post has to do with the other aspect - unity. So now there is elaboration on both aspects of the Catholic view.
 
Guys,
thank you so much!
It was very interesting and enlightening to read all the answers.

Bobby Jim, by no means I’m trying to provoke or showing disrespect. The question is phrased the way it is *because * I don’t know much about that aspect in life. And in addition of not being a native speaker, I guess it can come off not very elegant, unfortunately.

Two follow up questions for you
  1. If I understand right, married Catholic have sex only for procreation. That means, not using birth control and not having sex for “fun”?
  2. What about masturbation (before marriage or after the wedding)? Is it a legit way to enjoy the physical benefits without having the spiritual / procreation obligation?
Thanks again!
 
Incontinentia said:
Two follow up questions for you
  1. If I understand right, married Catholic have sex only for procreation. That means, not using birth control and not having sex for “fun”?
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Not exactly. The Church recognizes one of the benefits of the sexual act is the drawing closer of the couple through the act. It is a most intimate sharing even when it does not result in pregnancy.

Using artificial means of preventing pregnancy is a sin as it disorders the sexual act by frustrating the possibility of the act’s naturally ordered end. Being aware of a woman’s fertile and non-fertile time, and then practicing abstinence from the sexual act during a fertile period is the approved (i.e. non-sinful) method of family planning.
Incontinentia said:
  1. What about masturbation (before marriage or after the wedding)? Is it a legit way to enjoy the physical benefits without having the spiritual / procreation obligation?
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No, masturbation (at any time) is a perversion of the sexual act that denies the procreative end of sexual release. It is considered a grave matter and is intrinsically evil (always a sin).
 
Incontinentia said:
Two follow up questions for you
  1. If I understand right, married Catholic have sex only for procreation. That means, not using birth control and not having sex for “fun”?
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No, that’s not what anyone said. To say that sex is ordered toward procreation and that the sexual act should reflect this simply means that, when sex is had, it should be had in a manner consistent with its procreative end, which means noncontraceptive marital intercourse terminating in intravaginal ejaculation.

Now for obvious reasons, sex also has a unitive component. That unitive component derives from its procreative aspect, i.e., because sex binds the couple together and so makes it easier for them to discharge their obligation to raise children resulting from their union. But the unitive is subordinate to the procreative for that very reason – i.e., if it weren’t intrinsically procreative, it wouldn’t be unitive. So yes, you can have sex for unitive reasons (i.e., love, passion, fun), but it must always retain that procreative function.
Incontinentia said:
  1. What about masturbation (before marriage or after the wedding)? Is it a legit way to enjoy the physical benefits without having the spiritual / procreation obligation?
Thanks again!
Click to expand...
No, masturbation is off the table for the same reason fornication and contraception is – the sexual faculty is naturally ordered toward procreation, so its proper use is noncontraceptive, marital, intravaginal ejaculation.
 
Incontinentia said:
Guys,
thank you so much!
It was very interesting and enlightening to read all the answers.

Bobby Jim, by no means I’m trying to provoke or showing disrespect. The question is phrased the way it is *because * I don’t know much about that aspect in life. And in addition of not being a native speaker, I guess it can come off not very elegant, unfortunately.

Two follow up questions for you
  1. If I understand right, married Catholic have sex only for procreation. That means, not using birth control and not having sex for “fun”?
  2. What about masturbation (before marriage or after the wedding)? Is it a legit way to enjoy the physical benefits without having the spiritual / procreation obligation?
Thanks again!
Click to expand...
1 and 2 can be answered by stating that it is Catholic teaching that sex has to be ordered toward both the unity of spouses and procreation. You can’t have one without the other. So, married Catholic couples can have sex “just for fun”, but still have to be open to the possibility to life. And not to be inappropriate, but this is how I was conceived, according to my father at least. Neither I nor my siblings were planned.

Anyways, but because of these two requirements, this is why contraception is considered wrong, because it affects both the unitive and procreative aspects. It affects the procreative aspect for obvious reasons, but it affects the unitive aspect also because by not allowing for the possibility to create new life together, it prevents the couple from truly being able to give 100% of themselves to each other during sex.

So, continuing this further, masturbation is considered sinful and disordered because it takes away from the unitative aspect since it satisfies one’s self. Mutual stimulation is okay as a form of foreplay, but must end with the man “finishing” inside of the woman (aka. intercourse). Since men typically finish earlier than women, it is usually discouraged for the man to receive external stimulation since it can result in “finishing” outside of the woman.
 
Incontinentia said:
Guys,
thank you so much!
It was very interesting and enlightening to read all the answers.

Bobby Jim, by no means I’m trying to provoke or showing disrespect. The question is phrased the way it is *because *I don’t know much about that aspect in life. And in addition of not being a native speaker, I guess it can come off not very elegant, unfortunately.

Two follow up questions for you
  1. If I understand right, married Catholic have sex only for procreation. That means, not using birth control and not having sex for “fun”?
  2. What about masturbation (before marriage or after the wedding)? Is it a legit way to enjoy the physical benefits without having the spiritual / procreation obligation?
Thanks again!
Click to expand...
I’ll do my best to help explain. 🙂
  1. No this is not at all true. The Catechism explicitly states that God intends sex to be peasurable and in the Papal Encyclical Humanae Vitae all Catholics are encouraged to take on responsible parenthood. In other words, to use their prudence to determine whether or not they should have children and if trying to avoid to use abstinance, whether complete or periodic (ie NFP). Now, sometimes people find it difficult to understand why the Church says it is ok to use NFP but not ABC’s because you are still aiming for, and acheiving the same result, no children. The thing is that the Church has 3 different factors to consider when determining the morality of an action, the ends, means, and circumstances. The end of avoiding children is not in itself sinful, given the right circumstances (ie it would be prudent to avoid children) then this intent is perfectly moral. The difference between ABC’s and NFP comes in in the means used. With NFP (esssentially just abstinance) one respects the nature of sexuality because one does not do anything to distort or alter it, with ABC’s one actively distorts and alters ones sexuality. So, to sum up, yes, it is perfectly fine to have sex because it brings you and your spouse together, it is perfectly fine to enjoy sex, and it iss perfectly fine to have sex without having children (sex while infertile) so long as you aren’t doing anything to your sexuality to distort it and disorder it. The church does not teach that you have to always want or try for a child every time you have sex. This is a mistaken idea going around and has no basis in what the Church actually teaches.
  2. No, because it is a way of distorting and disordering ones sexuality. Through it you are seeking physical pleasure while at the same time divorcing that physical pleasure from the context within which God placed it, the complete and unitive self-giving of sexual relations with ones spouse, to whom one has comitted themselves unconditionally. So, this would fall into the same category as ABC’s, in thatit is also a way of distorting the meaning and order of sexuality. There is nothing wrong with the pleasure of sex, in fact its a very good thing, but it belongs in a certain context and to take it out of that context is to distort the importance and meaning of what sexuality is truly supposed to be.
I hope that helps. 🙂
 
Let’s suppose I walk into a diner, sit at the counter and order a meal. The guy next to me has just finished his meal and the waitress takes his plate, silverware and glass, puts my meal on them and serves me. Understandably I would have a fit. But this is exactly what people do when they have premarital sex (this is an illustration so please don’t waste my time by dissecting it into literal comparison) . Now suppose my wife and I are eating and she offers me a bite of her dessert on her spoon. No problem, in fact I encourage spousal dessert sharing. It is a supreme act of love to honestly say to your spouse that you loved them enough to be faithful to them before you met. Finally, our souls only find completion in our relationship with God. Sex outside of a life-long commitment is man trying to find completion on his own, outside of God’s mandate. Imagine the one thing you need to keep going in life. If a natural disaster struck your community, widespread death and destruction, you would say “As long as I have (blank) I’ll be ok.” Whatever it is, a couple of friends, your parents, spouse, children, money, weapons, you can face anything as long as you have that. First of all, premarital sex won’t be that thing. So how important is it really? Second, my one thing is God. If I lose everything I’ll always have God. I may be hard pressed, but never crushed; I will grieve, but never despair. If my wife dies before me, being celibate until I marry again is something I will willingly do, even if it is difficult. This may be hard for a non-Christian to understand, the world has held up sex to the the be-all-end-all of human existence and many have bought it. Incidentally, my wife is not only the only woman I have ever had sex with, she is the only woman I have ever kissed.
 
DaddyGirl said:
But there are thousands of men and women who continuing-commit to each other without getting married. Who love each other and stay together and take care of their children together, providing all that you say.

If that is the main reason for not having sex without marriage…and yet, many couples do, indeed, accomplish this without getting married…then…perhaps the equation of sex and marriage is not needed by everyone?

If many are able to feel and act upon and express the same commitment to the one they love and their children without it?
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Once upon a time that sort of relationship was called natural marriage or common-law marriage or something like that, recognizing that indeed there is a similarity.

The Catholic Church recognizes marriage as a sacrament, as an outward sign of God’s action in our lives. But the Church also teaches that the priest or deacon who officiates is there as an official “witness”; the bride & groom are the actual ministers of the sacrament. Or as one priest put it, if you’re not married going down the aisle, you’re not married when you come back up either.

Not that I’m suggesting people shouldn’t get married in church, or that a “long-term committed relationship” is automatically equivalent to a marriage. People are not robots; we are sentimental and emotional and value symbols and signs and stories. Hence we distinguish some relationships as “marriage” and others not. Different societies do it in different ways; for example in Mexico, you find a lot of people who are officially married by the state but not in the Church, or vice versa, or both, or neither, but they and their friends and relations will commonly consider themselves as married regardless, and the priests don’t give them grief over it, until they come to the US or some American relative wants them to be a godparent to their child and then there’s a huge mess over whether or not they are validly married and whether or not they need to abstain from sex and communion until they get it fixed.

Americans and British historically have tended to be much more letter-of-the-law about these things. Which leads to an odd sort of crisis. Nowadays everything is up in the air; it’s like we collectively have not moved past that stage in childhood where you ask “why” about everything, and then when you get the answer you ask “why” again, and again, and again, until your exasperated parents give up and say “I don’t know!!!” And things that used to make sense now seem silly and hard to justify except with hand-wavy and flowery arguments, and people can always point to a bunch of counterexamples and anecdotes about so-and-so who have been living together for 23 years now, and look at their beautiful children, don’t tell me their relationship is any less sanctioned by God than so-and-so who spent $20,000 on their wedding and then were divorced within 2 years. And so it goes… there’s a whole lot of hand-wringing and angst over what is marriage, and perhaps it is because we are looking to laws and things written on paper to define it, when rather like the new covenant, it is to be something written on our hearts, and should be obvious rather than murky to figure it out.

Edited to add: the problem being, that when you’re young and “in love” is exactly the wrong time to decide that you really do share a bond that will be a lifelong committment where you will raise kids and be happy and be together til the end of time. Kind of like that song by Meatloaf. So maybe we have marriage as a way of keeping kids from making stupid decisions? Except as I was saying, now grownups want to act like kids.
 
DaddyGirl said:
But there are thousands of men and women who continuing-commit to each other without getting married. Who love each other and stay together and take care of their children together, providing all that you say.

If that is the main reason for not having sex without marriage…and yet, many couples do, indeed, accomplish this without getting married…then…perhaps the equation of sex and marriage is not needed by everyone?

If many are able to feel and act upon and express the same commitment to the one they love and their children without it?
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This is a good example of how the perversion of language in the modern age has made it difficult to express Catholic moral teachings.

We speak of people “committing” themselves to a project and thus conclude that “commitment” is nothing more than resolution or sentiment. This is obviously, though, not what I meant. Sentiment comes and goes, yet the duties attendant on procreation persist, so what is needed is obviously something a good dealer firmer than resolution – something that binds, even when resolution fades.

Indeed, what I meant by commitment is not merely something that, in practice, is not broken. I mean something that, in principle, cannot be broken.
 
There’s a lot of philosophy involved. If you come from a presupposition that human beings are a complex bag of accidental chemical reactions that evolved from freak circumstances of energy (name removed by moderator)uts reversing the usual entropic outcome of progressively simpler molecular structures over time, then catholic teaching on the meaning of human sexuality will be bizarre to you at best.

But if you start with a belief that human beings are lovingly designed by a Creator and that we are a union of body and soul, both of which reflect the image of our Creator, then things quickly start making sense. Sexual intimacy is far deeper and more complex than a mere good feeling (ala a nice steak or a well needed muscle massage). Sexual intimacy was designed to be a physical manifestation of a deeper union of a husband and wife, one which holds the nearly divine power to bring forth new life. Out of love and mercy, God gave sexual intimacy a power to bind two people together, to help form a bond that will withstand the trials and difficulties of life. When it is something the couple shares together that they have not shared with anyone else, it is a POWERFUL bond.

When people misuse that gift via fornication and/or adultery, they damage the power that bond has to hold a marriage together through hard times. Every time you have a new ‘partner’ you reduce your very capacity for a genuine, full and lasting marriage. God is merciful and can bring healing to wounds. But that’s hardly a call for intentionally wounding oneself, is it?
 
DaddyGirl said:
For many people, love and firm commitment and feeling and devotion cannot be broken. That may not be how you feel for yourself, and that’s okay. You may need you need something more than that. Some people do. People are different.
But for many others, those feelings and thoughts and sentiments are strong enough to withstand all, and stand the test of time.
Hallelujah for that!
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Again, this sort of “commitment” is not the sort demanded by the nature of the human sexual faculty, so repeating that that’s what some people have isn’t particularly helpful.
 
If you argue simply sex as pleasure, sex used primarily for acts of lust are harmful to those who commit it, even within a marriage. Let’s not pretend we’ve seen less heartaches, heartbreaks, and broken families since the 1960s sexual revolution.

If someone argues that premarital sex offers the same commitment as one in a marriage, simply put, sex outside of marriage is not the ideal environment for a consummation of love. Over the years, there have been plenty of findings to show that it is simply better to wait until after you’re married to begin having physical relations. There have been some findings to the contrary, though one of them included something as stupid as ‘Well, we seem to have lost the statistics for cohabitation vs marriage acts because everyone cohabits now’ or something to that effect.

The Catholic Church is not arbitrary when it says premarital sex is a mortal sin. It’s because it is a rejection of God’s will, the God who is ultimately Love itself, and the consequence of such rejection are real issues such as break ups, single parenthoods, abortion, and other atrocities linked with sexual deviance.

Here are several links over the last few years which show how premarital consummation is stunted compared to a chaste marriage:

Cohabitation vs Marriage: 26 Research Findings
Marriage still the best way to play happy, healthy family, study says
Living Together First Doesn’t Make Marriage Last, study says
The downside of living together before you get married
Does living together before marriage make you more likely to divorce?
The Downside of Cohabiting Before Marriage
Want the secret to a happy marriage? Don’t have sex before the wedding
Why living together before marriage is a bad idea (Infographic)
 
DaddyGirl said:
When we say “premarital sex” we don’t necessarily mean with different partners…it can be with one partner for the rest of one’s life, just not married (yet, or ever).
In that instance, it’s not like using someone else’s silverware, is it?
As we have said…it is possible for lifelong commitment to exist without getting married.
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Nope, even that is sinful precisely because it still causes damage to the souls involved. Think about it, you can wave you hands all you want, but bodies speak a language that makes some words irrelevant. When the couple demonstrates with their bodies the fact that they are willing to have relations with someone whom they have not explicitly promised to have a sacred lifelong bond with, the other person HEARS that message loud and clear.

Some things are just lawyer-proof. God’s laws are among them. Search for loopholes at your own peril.
 
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