There is no need to imply some wrong purpose on my part. I have no wrong purpose.
Who says it’s sexual affection? That is an extremely modernist view of making out. Making out’s cultural significance may be sexual in today’s “everything is erotic!” culture, but it doesn’t have to be. And cultural significance is completely irrelevant for an activity that is only going to be performed in privacy.
. I trust my choice of girlfriends that I will pick someone who is honest and upfront with me about how a lack of sexual affection will make her feel. As I have undergone this exact situation with a girlfriend before, with no sexual affection whatsoever, I know I can do it. And I know there are others who can. It is a nice middle ground between celibacy and a sexual relationship that both addresses moral concerns and satisfies the human need for close intimacy.I believe that what you have proposed is unworkable in all but the smallest minority of persons. Every culture that I know of treats intimate touching as, at minimum, directly linked with sexual affection. On the surface it looks like a loop hole, rather than an attempt at growth in holiness.Who says it’s sexual affection? That is an extremely modernist view of making out. Making out’s cultural significance may be sexual in today’s “everything is erotic!” culture, but it doesn’t have to be. And cultural significance is completely irrelevant for an activity that is only going to be performed in privacy.
I am talking about using non-sexual affection and living intimately in a manner not aimed in the way of a married couple with no intentions for and no gain of sexual release. You may not be able to personally understand that, but you should not be projecting your own view of making out onto someone else. Making out is not sexual at all to me, and I am not the only person who feels this way.
As for your previous post’s question, I addressed this in my other thread, but I will do so again here. I exist, and I refuse to believe there isn’t someone else like me who exists. There are women who won’t be okay with not having sex, but we won’t be dating then
Also, yes to both questions. I think this is workable for both homosexuals and heterosexuals, though I’d imagine the vast majority of heterosexuals would prefer a path leading to marriage vs. a romantic friendship with no marital aim.
Well, perhaps the question ought to be about the tendencies of different pleasures (enjoyments) in a larger schema of our lives. I had a theory about this many years ago, with respect to a certain thing that I enjoy. I could see exactly how a person might live indulging this enjoyment in a moderate way, and I considered the action itself good – or at least not bad. (I certainly considered the enjoyment good). But whenever** I myself **tried to indulge in this enjoyment, I always found that it either (a) made me want to stay doing that particular thing forever, or (b) made me want to sin, because certain sins were the only thing that I could imagine as being comparable to the pleasure I was experiencing.
When people have strange quirks such as the one you describe and suggest some others may have, they should be addressed to a theologist or Priest to deal with your own unique situation… not proposed as a good path for people with same sex attraction overall.Who says it’s sexual affection? That is an extremely modernist view of making out. Making out’s cultural significance may be sexual in today’s “everything is erotic!” culture, but it doesn’t have to be. And cultural significance is completely irrelevant for an activity that is only going to be performed in privacy.
I am talking about using non-sexual affection and living intimately in a manner not aimed in the way of a married couple with no intentions for and no gain of sexual release. You may not be able to personally understand that, but you should not be projecting your own view of making out onto someone else. Making out is not sexual at all to me, and I am not the only person who feels this way.
As for your previous post’s question, I addressed this in my other thread, but I will do so again here. I exist, and I refuse to believe there isn’t someone else like me who exists. There are women who won’t be okay with not having sex, but we won’t be dating then
Victorian England treating intimate touching as a base premise of any two female friends, whether single or married, with no sexual meaning attached to it. So there is one culture which did not treat intimate touching that way. It has no inherent meaning (unlike sex), nor is it sacred (unlike sex), nor is it unique to marital relations (unlike sex).
What you describe would not be acceptable. I have made that point already.
What does what occurred in Victorian England have do to with the morality of intimate touching? Sounds like an ad populum fallacy.
You write a good post, but yet! You ignore my premise posted earlier that the dividing line is based on the individual person. For some people, making out cannot be licit because they cannot see it or change their view of it in/to a non-lustful light. They might be capped at kissing. Others might not be able to even kiss. Still others may have to stay romantic friendship-free. When we include the larger umbrella of behavioral lines, depending on the individual nature of the two people involved, we encompass many more people than if we stick specifically discussing French kissing.
This appears to be nothing more than two close girlfriends living together…roommates, if you will.Who says it’s sexual affection? That is an extremely modernist view of making out. Making out’s cultural significance may be sexual in today’s “everything is erotic!” culture, but it doesn’t have to be. And cultural significance is completely irrelevant for an activity that is only going to be performed in privacy.
I am talking about using non-sexual affection and living intimately in a manner not aimed in the way of a married couple with no intentions for and no gain of sexual release. You may not be able to personally understand that, but you should not be projecting your own view of making out onto someone else. Making out is not sexual at all to me, and I am not the only person who feels this way.
As for your previous post’s question, I addressed this in my other thread, but I will do so again here. I exist, and I refuse to believe there isn’t someone else like me who exists. There are women who won’t be okay with not having sex, but we won’t be dating then
Also, yes to both questions. I think this is workable for both homosexuals and heterosexuals, though I’d imagine the vast majority of heterosexuals would prefer a path leading to marriage vs. a romantic friendship with no marital aim.
You specifically said:
I immediately brought up a culture that did not treat it that way to show you the relativism inherent in discussing non-sexual actions. Queasiness around any non-sexual intimacy arises from a Puritan influence, not from Truth itself.
Because our culture calls any commitment between two unrelated people to take care of each other and support each other a “relationship.” It is significantly easier to explain your relationship as a “relationship” than to enter into a twenty minute discussion on the nuances of a romantic friendship. It is also an easy word to use to describe the relationship, though perhaps not the most accurate from a Catholic standpoint. There is no assumption of sexual activity on the part of a relationship in our culture. There is no assumption of chastity either, but there is certainly no assumption of sexual activity.
Because I find women physically and emotionally attractive, and because I do not find men physically or emotionally attractive. Pretty simple answer actually.
But sex is not love. The Church has an issue with sexual relationships between people of the same sex, not with love.
This is why Catholics don’t advocate breaking into people’s bedrooms and excommunicating them.
I don’t think that can be what L is. If lust is only wrong because it is impossible to moderate, then anyone who could moderate their desire- anyone who didn’t want to do the same thing forever- would never end up lusting. There’s no way that’s the case. Certain things are lust, regardless of how we feel about them and regardless of whether we are able to stop.
Indeed. Besides which, claiming that the two must necessarily go hand in hand flies in the face of everything SMGS has said here.
I don’t think that’s what SMGS is suggesting. She wants someone to support, touch, and be close to- surely that’s not all marriage is? Marriages produce children and create families. A relationship like this wouldn’t do that. To me, it sounds more like an especially close friendship. In theory, there isn’t a sexual element.
You’re right that this can’t be THE thing that makes lust wrong. But it might be one of the things.
Well, the question isn’t whether you would find it boring after a while – that’s the case with any activity, and the case with the case I gave. My point is that you wouldn’t ever want THAT PARTICULAR PLEASURE to cease – you wouldn’t want the way it makes you feel to cease. So suppose I love doing playing video games, for example. If I play long enough, I won’t experience the same pleasure; I’ll get bored. But if I found a “perfect half hour” of playing video games, and I wanted (and was willing) to stay in that half hour forever, this would be idolatry. It would be something I was not willing to moderate.
Well, I don’t think we’ve got the theoretical basis to address SMGS’s claim yet. Addressing your point, though, I do not believe that she said one way or the other whether it was easy to moderate the sort of activity she’s talking about. It’s easy to keep it from going to the “next level”, but that’s not moderation. I might make video games an idol, even if I never play violent or pornographic games.
I do agree that gays and lesbians (in committed relationships, anyway) have love in their hearts when they have sex with each other. However, this does not mean the sexual acts can be approved. The actions are damaging to the soul, even if there are no temporal consequences, and our goal as Catholics is to lead people to Heaven, not lead people to maximum Earthly pleasure or expression of love.
This is not a popularity contest. If they think that, it does matter? doctrine is not dependent of the whims of a decadent culture.