No I don’t find it excessive - it is all the other hairsplitters who solemnly declare that masturbation is wrong under any circumstance, (what, even to bring the wife to completion?), and other restrictions that would appear to be their personal opinion rather than the ruling of the church.
The members of the church are turning sex into a thoroughly rule ridden performance that is getting distasteful. 3 rules is enough, without getting into sub-clauses and corollaries.
So what if the kids have interrupted you for an hour or two, the hubby has climaxed before the interruption, and the wife would still like completion? Would a 55 minute gap be acceptable, but not a 65 minute gap? Does the poor woman have to wait until her hubby is able to get another erection and go for full sex again? OR can the married couple use their discretion and complete the session with the fulfillment of the wife? Without having to go to confession, feel guilt, or any of the other emotional manipulations that the lay people on this forum seem to want to pile onto them?
Do you remember how angry Jesus got with the Jews of his time, with their hairsplitting over every little rule? To glean some corn on the Sabbath while walking through a field, but running your hand over one corn stalk was as big a sin as spending the day working. They had got as far as deciding how many steps you could take after getting out of bed before you could wash your hands and face.
I feel that many people in the Catholic church are at the same stage of nit-picking as those Jews were. Lighten up!!!
I generally agree with you that people can get into endless hairsplitting and impose their own personal beliefs on other Catholics and turn sex into a “dirty” “rule-based” thing. Catholics are certainly free to have the personal opinion (and follow it) that ever manually bring a wife to completion is wrong, but they are not free to claim that that is church teaching binding on all Catholics (it’s not).
Sex between a husband and wife is a wonderful gift from God and should be experienced and enjoyed in a loving, self-giving spirit without guilt, or shame or being “scrupulous” about defining every supposed corollary of every supposed rule.
That’s why, in response to the OP’s original question, I tried to just lay out the three concrete “rules” that the Church has about sex between a husband and wife, which are really just concrete clarifications of the Church’s teaching that sex is designed by God to be both unitive and procreative.
With regard to your specific question about “how long is too long” (55 minutes, 65 minutes), like with most aspects of the wonderful business of living our daily lives in whatever vocation we are called to, the Church gives us general principals to follow, and it is up to us in our discretion and judgment to follow that as best we can. 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 60 minutes? There is no “right answer.”
However, I don’t think it’s really that big of a moral dilemma, anyway.
From personal experience, it certainly happens that during sex, the husband climaxes. For whatever reason, the wife does not climax and then one hour, two hour passes, and the subject comes up about satisfying her. If an extended time period has passed, and there is a question about whether “it is within the same context” the couples attitude can just be, let’s have sex again (i.e., “start a new sex act”).
Then, the husband can pleasure her with the intention of “completing the sex act” right afterwards. Often, if a husband and wife have just had sex two hours ago, the husband may not “feel” ready for sex again two hours later (just basic biology), but as long as the husband and wife go into with the intention of that happening, no problem. In many circumstances, even if the Husband does not “feel ready” for at first, going through the process of loving and pleasuring your wife physically will “get him in the mood again” and he will be ready again right afterwards. If, as sometimes may happen, he still just is not biologically able to for whatever reason, no problem. The husband and wife were open to it during that sex act, and is just didn’t happen. No problem, move on. There is no reason to become overly scrupulous or legalistic about it. As you rightly point out, sex should not be legalistic.
Sorry to describe in this such graphic, “legalistic” detail, but as a lawyer (and a convert), I at first felt like you did and found the Church’s rules to be complicated and hard to understand. In general I knew what the principles were, but there was not a lot of guidance on these specific questions that come up. After reading more about the Church’s teaching, I think keeping those three simple, basic rules (plus, the obvious, don’t insist on anything your spouse is not comfortable) in mind (also remembering that, as a wise priest told me, “with the intention of” is a critical part of the “rules”) has just removed the scrupulosity, guilt, legalism, of sex. In fact, from personal experience, the Church’s teaching in this area has really opened up our marriage, communication, and sex life in a truly wonderful and profound way.
), so I don’t know why female orgasm following male orgasm wouldn’t be.