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CuriousInIL
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I don’t think that’s right but I don’t have support for my thought. Do you have any support for yours? (Other than what you have stated.)
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fbl9
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Matrimony is a holy state, through which almighty God intends the propagation of the race. Actions in accordance with this purpose of matrimony are permitted to the married, but positively forbidden to the unmarried…pg 231, My Catholic Faith, A Manual of Rlegion,by the most reverend Louis Laravoire Morrow, Bishop of Krishnagar.revised 1958. The sin of the husband’s actions are sins against love.I don’t think that’s right but I don’t have support for my thought. Do you have any support for yours? (Other than what you have stated.)
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twoangels
Guest
Honestly, from these forums, I have gotten the impression that people interpret the “unitive” aspect of the sexual act to be specially referring to the physically unitive aspect of the act. However, whenever I read the Catechism on my own, I never interpretted the “unitive” aspect to be the physical act of intercourse. I always considered it to be the bonding that takes place between husband and wife when they engage in the act. I see no reason to interpret it otherwise, and I think the attempt to do so actually ignores that God made sex to strengthen the bond between husband and wife so that they can better serve their family.
In regard to your question though, sexual encounters between husband and wife are not all equal. Just as not every sexual encounter results in a pregnancy, not every sexual act will feel as unitive as it does other times. The same is true with the pleasure of the sexual act. The key is to acknowledge that pleasure in sex is good, that the unitive aspect of sex is good and that the procreative aspect of sex is good and never to pit one goal against the other and the tendency to objectify the other.
I also don’t think the unitive aspect is simply the immediate euphoria experienced during the sexual act. Sometimes that unitive aspect is not strongly emotionally felt but still comes to existance very strongly and can be felt in the rest of the daily life of being married. So overall I don’t think it is about mood, but simply about not objectifying the other as solely a means toward pregnancy. We need to respect that children are a gift from God, and as such we need to be willing to be a bit passive and thus appreciative always of the gifts God has given us. We should not be like a demanding child who thinks that if he just had more, he’d be satisfied. In the end, that child is never happy nor satisfied.
As such, again I don’t think it is about mood, but rather about not objectifying each other. When husband and wife come together they should focus on the love they have for each other and on making a total gift of self. If their minds are simply anxious with thoughts about whether they’ll get pregnant or not and with resentment over the fact that the act doesn’t seem to be working, than these attitudes will disunite them. They overall need to work on their attitudes and not use sex merely as a means to demand pregnancy from God. IVF and surrogate motherhood I would say are merely ways we’ve invented to get around how our discontent hearts might cause us to objectify each other. But objectively, these still divorce the procreative aspect from the unitive aspect.
In regard to your question though, sexual encounters between husband and wife are not all equal. Just as not every sexual encounter results in a pregnancy, not every sexual act will feel as unitive as it does other times. The same is true with the pleasure of the sexual act. The key is to acknowledge that pleasure in sex is good, that the unitive aspect of sex is good and that the procreative aspect of sex is good and never to pit one goal against the other and the tendency to objectify the other.
I also don’t think the unitive aspect is simply the immediate euphoria experienced during the sexual act. Sometimes that unitive aspect is not strongly emotionally felt but still comes to existance very strongly and can be felt in the rest of the daily life of being married. So overall I don’t think it is about mood, but simply about not objectifying the other as solely a means toward pregnancy. We need to respect that children are a gift from God, and as such we need to be willing to be a bit passive and thus appreciative always of the gifts God has given us. We should not be like a demanding child who thinks that if he just had more, he’d be satisfied. In the end, that child is never happy nor satisfied.
As such, again I don’t think it is about mood, but rather about not objectifying each other. When husband and wife come together they should focus on the love they have for each other and on making a total gift of self. If their minds are simply anxious with thoughts about whether they’ll get pregnant or not and with resentment over the fact that the act doesn’t seem to be working, than these attitudes will disunite them. They overall need to work on their attitudes and not use sex merely as a means to demand pregnancy from God. IVF and surrogate motherhood I would say are merely ways we’ve invented to get around how our discontent hearts might cause us to objectify each other. But objectively, these still divorce the procreative aspect from the unitive aspect.
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Ron_Conte
Guest
The unitive meaning includes the physical union in the bodily act of natural intercourse, as well as the interior act, in mind and heart, of consenting to that union as an expression of love. The unitive meaning admits of degrees, so that a husband and wife who engage in natural relations with some degree of selfishness, with lukewarm love for one another, have decreased the unitive meaning to some degree, but it is still present.
Unfortunately, there are examples of acts that are procreative, but not unitive: artificial procreation is certainly procreative, but of course this is not the fullness of the procreative meaning as God intends. Whenever any one meaning is absent in a sexual act – the marital meaning, the unitive meaning, or the procreative meaning – the other meanings are harmed, but not necessarily entirely absent.
Unfortunately, there are examples of acts that are procreative, but not unitive: artificial procreation is certainly procreative, but of course this is not the fullness of the procreative meaning as God intends. Whenever any one meaning is absent in a sexual act – the marital meaning, the unitive meaning, or the procreative meaning – the other meanings are harmed, but not necessarily entirely absent.
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