sexuality

[pilots13]

Why does the Church view most all sexual acts as sinful? I hear the comments about sex can only be between a married couple and only be with the intention of procreation. My question is why did other sexual acts (masturbation, oral, etc) become such sinful things? Again, I’ve heard the comments about they are for personal pleasure. But so many things in life are just about personal pleasure, and many of those are not the intended use for that thing (example, grains are for food, but we use them to make alcohol). There is also the “Every sperm is sacred” argument (to steal a line from Monty Python), but female masturbation has nothing to do with wasting sperm or an egg, so why is that wrong?

I’m not looking to shoot down the Church’s teaching on this, just trying to understand why these things became such sinful things when they have been a “natural” part of humanity for it’s existence.

 

[InSearchofGrace]

OP, you are trying to understand why sexual acts became things when they have been a “natural” part of humanity for it’s existence?

Sex: The World’s Obsession by Peter Kreeft

*By its own admission, what our age finds most unacceptable in the Church’s perennial wisdom is her sexual morality. Almost every controversial issue dividing “dissenters” from the Church’s teaching is about sexual morality: fornication, contraception, homosexuality, divorce and most especially abortion.

The Church has always shared her Master’s holy unpopularity. But never before the “sexual revolution” did this unpopularity center almost exclusively on sex. In all eras and cultures, fallen man has never been very good at obeying any of God’s commandments. Man has always failed to practice what he preaches. But today he denies the preaching, the ideal itself, when it concerns sex.

Most other areas of traditional morality are still assumed to be rightful and attainable ideals. But traditional sexual morality is almost always assumed to be unhealthy and unattainable, and the Church is usually portrayed as obsessed with sexual morality. This obsession with sex is not the Church’s but the world’s. There is much more to the Church’s sexual morality than “just say no,” much more to the Church’s morality than sexual morality, and much more to the Church’s teaching than morality.

Each age has a different perspective. It seems incredible to most modern minds that, in the fourth century, the Church nearly endured a schism over the right date to celebrate Easter and did go into schism, in the eleventh, over whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father only or from the Father and the Son. Our Catholic ancestors would be just as shocked at our preoccupation with sexual morality as we are at their very different priorities.

We should not expect the Church’s teachings to coincide with “the wisdom of the world” (1 Cor 1:20) in any age or culture, for her teachings do not come from this world but from heaven, not from man but from God. Man has gone off the track set for him by God. Sin means separation from God — so God’s track has always appeared to fallen man as “a stone that will make men stumble and a rock that will make them fall” (1 Pet 2:8), just as Christ himself did. We should expect that. Chesterton said, “I don’t need a Church to tell me I’m wrong where I already know I’m wrong. I need a Church to tell me I’m wrong where I think I’m right.”*
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[1ke]

Why does the Church view most all sexual acts as sinful?

Because the Church proclaims what God has revealed. This is God’s truth regarding our sexual faculties and their purpose.

I hear the comments about sex can only be between a married couple and only be with the intention of procreation.

Not exactly.

Our sexual faculties are for the unity of spouses in marriage and the procreation of children. That is their purpose. Each at of intercourse must be ordered to unity AND procreation. One does not have to have the intention to procreate. Marital intercourse is ordered to procreation if it is completed in the way God designed it. Even if the couple is past child bearing years, they share the marital embrace in a holy and ordered way when they engage in a completed conjugal act.

My question is why did other sexual acts (masturbation, oral, etc) become such sinful things?

They did not “become” sinful. They are sinful. Because they are a misuse of God’s gift of sexuality. The sexual faculties are for the unity of spouses and procreation. They are not for any other purpose. Foreplay is not wrong in the context of preparing for a completed marital act between spouses. Acts that are done as a replacement of intercourse are a misuse of God’s gift of sexuality.

Again, I’ve heard the comments about they are for personal pleasure.

That is not why these things are wrong. God made sex pleasurable. Between spouses in an ordered way, sex is supposed to be pleasurable. however, it is the misuse of our sexual faculties in placing that pleasure above or outside of its intended purpose that are wrong.

There is also the “Every sperm is sacred” argument (to steal a line from Monty Python), but female masturbation has nothing to do with wasting sperm or an egg, so why is that wrong?

“Every sperm is sacred” is NOT a Catholic teaching. Don’t attempt to get your theology from Monty Python. This is absolutely NOT the basis of Church teaching.

Masterbation is wrong because it is a disordered use of the genital organs.

I’m not looking to shoot down the Church’s teaching on this, just trying to understand why these things became such sinful things when they have been a “natural” part of humanity for it’s existence.

Sex certainly is a natural part of our human existence. God designed our sexuality for a purpose. Through the sin of Adam and Eve, Original Sin, man turned away from God and found disordered ways to use his sexuality. But, God gives us his commandments to guide us and help us turn away from sin. These disordered uses of our sexuality didn’t “become” sinful. They have always been sinful. Man, at different times in his history, has been more faithful and less faithful to God’s commands. Right now, we live in a culture that does not want to listen to God and his Church. We have a culture that says it is “not wrong” and that we should do whatever we want. That is not God’s way and has never been God’s way.

 

[preferanonymous]

“Our sexual faculties are for the unity of spouses in marriage and the procreation of children. That is their purpose. Each at of intercourse must be ordered to unity AND procreation.”

Hey 1ke, how do you know this? How do we know what God’s design is, even if we thought there was one?

 

[Newbie2]

“Our sexual faculties are for the unity of spouses in marriage and the procreation of children. That is their purpose. Each at of intercourse must be ordered to unity AND procreation.”

Hey 1ke, how do you know this? How do we know what God’s design is, even if we thought there was one?

Genital organs have two functions:

1. In the service of the urogenital system, i.e. to serve as a conduit to remove waste from the body.

and

1. For procreation.

How do we know this? Reason. Genitals are not playthings. If the Almighty made a “pleasure organ” that was purely for pleasure, he would have not attached a procreative function to such an organ.

 

[preferanonymous]

Genital organs have two functions:

1. In the service of the urogenital system, i.e. to serve as a conduit to remove waste from the body.

and

1. For procreation.

How do we know this? Reason. Genitals are not playthings. If the Almighty made a “pleasure organ” that was purely for pleasure, he would have not attached a procreative function to such an organ.

You say we know this by reason. What is your argument that this is the case? Isn’t, by the way, a function of the organs also pleasure? The human being is capable of considerable evil. Would you say that if human beings were meant entirely for good, the Almighty would not have given us the ability to do evil? How do we know which possible functions constitute orderings?

 

[CatholicTrekkie]

You say we know this by reason. What is your argument that this is the case?

Because it is self-evident. Physically, your sexual organs have many functions, among which are sexual pleasure, procreation, and waste disposal. Obviously, it follows that this is what the sexual organs are meant for, what they were “designed” to do. Your sexual organs weren’t designed to pump blood or to think. That’s what your heart and brain do, respectively.

Isn’t, by the way, a function of the organs also pleasure?

Of course, no one is denying this.

The human being is capable of considerable evil. Would you say that if human beings were meant entirely for good, the Almighty would not have given us the ability to do evil?

You’re treading in “The Problem of Evil” territory, which is a whole other topic.

How do we know which possible functions constitute orderings?

Refer to my first thing. A specific function is made for something. In other words, a function is ordered for a specific purpose. We know the functions of the reproductive organs. Therefore, we know what they are meant to do. The sexual organs function to provide sexual pleasure, eliminate waste, and to procreate. Therefore, the sexual organs are ordered towards sexual pleasure, the elimination of waste, and procreation.

 

[preferanonymous]

An intention in mentioning the evil issue was to point out that it might be said that one your view every ability constitutes a purpose, yet there seem to be abilities which are contrary to one another such that, it might be argued, no identification of purpose is possible. Why is it a whole other topic? It seems to me one could argue, for example, that a biological function of a human male is to spread his seed and have as many sexual partners as possible. Does this mean its his purpose? One’s hand, for example, might have the function of masturbation. Does this mean that it is made for this? How do we understand which possible functions constitute what an organ was made to do?

 

[1ke]

“Our sexual faculties are for the unity of spouses in marriage and the procreation of children. That is their purpose. Each at of intercourse must be ordered to unity AND procreation.”

Hey 1ke, how do you know this? How do we know what God’s design is, even if we thought there was one?

In addition to reason and natural law, previously mentioned, God has revealed disordered uses of our sexual faculties as sinful via Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.

 

[preferanonymous]

1ke, I am not sure what rational and natural law arguments you gave. You did write:

“Our sexual faculties are for the unity of spouses in marriage and the procreation of children. That is their purpose. Each at of intercourse must be ordered to unity AND procreation. One does not have to have the intention to procreate. Marital intercourse is ordered to procreation if it is completed in the way God designed it.”

I suppose I wanted to know how you knew they were ordered in such a way. How do you know for example, that human males spreading their seed as much as possible by having multiple sexual partners is not a part of God’s design? Biologically speaking, one might say that human men are perhaps more ordered to this than they are toward monogomous relations. It seems we see multiple patterns of behavior in nature and I suppose I am wondering how you weed out which functions constitute orderings and which ones don’t. Is it not odd that, if human beings have what might be said to be a tendency toward evil (original sin), one at the same time would look at the biological tendencies of human faculties to determine what is good?

 

[pilots13]

I guess what I’m trying to figure out is why was it ever deemed bad? Masturbation has been a part of humanity for it’s entire existence. There are references to it in every culture on earth. Jesus never spoke of masturbation being a sin. From there references are either in the old testament (the old covenant) or from people like Paul, who may be a good just man, and a founding father of the Church, but he is not the word of God himself, or Christ himself.

I guess I just can’t wrap my head around how or why sex has become so demonized. I’m by no means endorsing sleeping around or anything like that. But something like masturbation isn’t going to create life (sperm itself can’t create life, and women don’t release eggs), it doesn’t harm others around you, and it doesn’t stop people from procreating when they do go to do so.

 

[Catholicpotato]

I guess what I’m trying to figure out is why was it ever deemed bad? Masturbation has been a part of humanity for it’s entire existence. There are references to it in every culture on earth. Jesus never spoke of masturbation being a sin. From there references are either in the old testament (the old covenant) or from people like Paul, who may be a good just man, and a founding father of the Church, but he is not the word of God himself, or Christ himself.

I guess I just can’t wrap my head around how or why sex has become so demonized. I’m by no means endorsing sleeping around or anything like that. But something like masturbation isn’t going to create life (sperm itself can’t create life, and women don’t release eggs), it doesn’t harm others around you, and it doesn’t stop people from procreating when they do go to do so.

You are coming at it from the wrong angle. Masturbation and rape have been part of humanity for its entire existance… see, the argument does not hold. Jesus never spoke of lots of sins not being sin, that is why he established a Church to guide.
Morality is not defined by what does or does not harm people around you. masturbation harms your relationship with God and that is worse than any pain you could inflict on anyone. And I assert that it does hurt others. Talk to wives who have problems with a husband’s chronic masturbation, or the girls in the porn industry that are someone’s sweet baby daughters…

 

[grandfather]

If we look around us, read the news, observe behavior of our fellow humans and ourselves we notice that sexual behavior can become very deviant and depraved. There is no need to give examples, but just in the last year there have been stories about a football coach, a NY congressman, the French head of the International Monetary Fund and numerous others that can only cause most people to wonder how do humans become so sick in the area of sexuality.

So when you think about the Church’s teaching that give guidelines or norms of what behavior is healthy and what is not it may seem to be pretty narrow, expecially in these times when our culture is pareticularly licentuous. What is the norm in society the Church condemns. Where does the Church get such a seemingly stringent view?

Jesus said if you even look at your neighbor’s wife in lust you have already committed the sin of adultery.

He also said that His Church would be a sign of contradiction in the world.

He told His apostles to go to all the nations of the world and teach what He taught them.

The Church only teaches that which God has revealed. It is a take it or leave it proposition. If you don’t like it or accept it you are free to do what you will and bear the consequences.

People to not become debauched and depraved suddenly. It grows on them. The illness has a beginning, when you first let darkness in, when you first use any faculty for some purpose for which it is not made.

The purpose of sex in nature is obvious. It is for procreation. But we are also spiritual creatures. Our spiritual health and life is connected to what we do with our bodies, the dwelling place of our souls. If we do vile things we become spiritually sick. Again, this is undeniable when we look around us.

 

[Patavium]

If we look around us, read the news, observe behavior of our fellow humans and ourselves we notice that sexual behavior can become very deviant and depraved. There is no need to give examples, but just in the last year there have been stories about a football coach, a NY congressman, the French head of the International Monetary Fund and numerous others that can only cause most people to wonder how do humans become so sick in the area of sexuality.

So when you think about the Church’s teaching that give guidelines or norms of what behavior is healthy and what is not it may seem to be pretty narrow, expecially in these times when our culture is pareticularly licentuous. What is the norm in society the Church condemns. Where does the Church get such a seemingly stringent view?

Jesus said if you even look at your neighbor’s wife in lust you have already committed the sin of adultery.

He also said that His Church would be a sign of contradiction in the world.

He told His apostles to go to all the nations of the world and teach what He taught them.

The Church only teaches that which God has revealed. It is a take it or leave it proposition. If you don’t like it or accept it you are free to do what you will and bear the consequences.

People to not become debauched and depraved suddenly. It grows on them. The illness has a beginning, when you first let darkness in, when you first use any faculty for some purpose for which it is not made.

The purpose of sex in nature is obvious. It is for procreation. But we are also spiritual creatures. Our spiritual health and life is connected to what we do with our bodies, the dwelling place of our souls. If we do vile things we become spiritually sick. Again, this is undeniable when we look around us.

Thank you!!! When I speak of what happened to me when I let myself fall into sexual sin, people just laugh (even some believers). Trust me, Sexual sin can destroy you, it is better to follow the commandments. God did not make the commandments to punish us, but to help us!!

 

[preferanonymous]

I guess what I’m trying to figure out is why was it ever deemed bad? Masturbation has been a part of humanity for it’s entire existence. There are references to it in every culture on earth. Jesus never spoke of masturbation being a sin. From there references are either in the old testament (the old covenant) or from people like Paul, who may be a good just man, and a founding father of the Church, but he is not the word of God himself, or Christ himself.

I guess I just can’t wrap my head around how or why sex has become so demonized. I’m by no means endorsing sleeping around or anything like that. But something like masturbation isn’t going to create life (sperm itself can’t create life, and women don’t release eggs), it doesn’t harm others around you, and it doesn’t stop people from procreating when they do go to do so.

Hi pilots13. An argument against masturbation being bad might take the form of what might be known as the perverted faculty argument. The idea might be that the end of the sexual organs is procreative (though not solely so perhaps). To actualize an end constitutes a flourishing act which is good and should be chosen. To act in a way that is not consistent with this end is not to flourish, and to thus do what is bad. Since masturbation is not in accord with the end of the sexual organs, it is an action that is bad.

One might say this embodies the argument of the ‘old’ natural law and could be called teleological- it seems, at least, to work with the assumption of a biological end and infers this as the organ’s purpose constituting a moral end such that to deviate from this purpose constitutes a wrong action.

It is this sort of idea I am trying to argue against because I do not think it is rationally satisfying and thus might cause many honest Catholics to reject the teachings of the Church. There is another tradition of natural law however, the new natural law, which tries to understand the sexual morality without the sort of teleogical assumptions I tried to describe. Elizabeth Anscombe, John Finnis, Germain Grisez, Robert George, Patrick Lee, and William May might all be said to fall under this tradition. Perhaps the most important piece written in this group about sexual morality is Elizabeth Anscombe’s Contraception and Chastity. There is an essay by Jenny Teichman in a book entitled Intentions and Intentionality which I felt helpful in getting at the essay. I would urge you to have faith in the truth and that consider these sorts arguments, after careful study, might give you the sorts of answers you might be seeking.

 

[preferanonymous]

To say that things are undeniable or obvious is not to give an argument. One might argue that human beings have many different biological functions such that a further standard would be needed to say which one constituted their purpose. Even if one did identify the biological purpose, it does not seem that it would be necessarily morally wrong to choose against it. The perverted faculty argument, it might be argued, has been rejected by none other than Pope John Paul II. See Veritatis Splendor, #48. To put forward these sorts of arguments, it seems to me, is to do an injustice to the depth and power of truly Catholic philosophy with respect to these moral issues.

 

[grandfather]

Thank you!!! When I speak of what happened to me when I let myself fall into sexual sin, people just laugh (even some believers). Trust me, Sexual sin can destroy you, it is better to follow the commandments. God did not make the commandments to punish us, but to help us!!

The readers here might want to read the story of Saint Maria Goretti AND her murderer Allesandro. His story is one of out of control lust, denying his crime, confessing his crime after a spiritual experience, going to prison, finding mercy and forgiveness and living out his life as a penitant. He stood next to Maria’s mother at her cnanonization.

What is interesting is what he said near the end of his life. He pleaded with people to avoid the sin of arousal in lust via pornography. He begged people to avoid it.

Also people might read about Ted Bundy the serial rapist murderer who was put to death. He tells of how it all got started.

Our society tells us sexual licentuousness is harmless and religious teaching is wrong.

It insists this even as the world grows more and more depraved.

There is pleasure in sin for a season.

 

[Patavium]

The readers here might want to read the story of Saint Maria Goretti AND her murderer Allesandro. His story is one of out of control lust, denying his crime, confessing his crime after a spiritual experience, going to prison, finding mercy and forgiveness and living out his life as a penitant. He stood next to Maria’s mother at her cnanonization.

What is interesting is what he said near the end of his life. He pleaded with people to avoid the sin of arousal in lust via pornography. He begged people to avoid it.

Also people might read about Ted Bundy the serial rapist murderer who was put to death. He tells of how it all got started.

Our society tells us sexual licentuousness is harmless and religious teaching is wrong.

It insists this even as the world grows more and more depraved.

There is pleasure in sin for a season.

Yes INDEED!!!. I am evidence of that!. I opened my door to a “little sin” and it opened it completely to the Devil, and it destroyed me. God SAVED ME. I refuse to fall again!.

I do not know WHY as humans we seek so much and presume so much to understand God completely and everything HE has ASKED US TO DO.

BELIEVE GOD, if you DO NOT TAKE HIS WORD then YOU DO NOT BELIEVE IN HIM.

Or even LOVE HIM

[BIBLEDRB]John 14:15[/BIBLEDRB]

The LORD is GOODNESS. He has lay down the rules MORE THAN ONCE. He has also told of the consequences. You have FREE WILL. You decide: Repent or Ignore.

God Bless

 

[John21652]

Hi pilots13. An argument against masturbation being bad might take the form of what might be known as the perverted faculty argument. The idea might be that the end of the sexual organs is procreative (though not solely so perhaps). To actualize an end constitutes a flourishing act which is good and should be chosen. To act in a way that is not consistent with this end is not to flourish, and to thus do what is bad. Since masturbation is not in accord with the end of the sexual organs, it is an action that is bad.

One might say this embodies the argument of the ‘old’ natural law and could be called teleological- it seems, at least, to work with the assumption of a biological end and infers this as the organ’s purpose constituting a moral end such that to deviate from this purpose constitutes a wrong action.

It is this sort of idea I am trying to argue against because I do not think it is rationally satisfying and thus might cause many honest Catholics to reject the teachings of the Church. There is another tradition of natural law however, the new natural law, which tries to understand the sexual morality without the sort of teleogical assumptions I tried to describe. Elizabeth Anscombe, John Finnis, Germain Grisez, Robert George, Patrick Lee, and William May might all be said to fall under this tradition. Perhaps the most important piece written in this group about sexual morality is Elizabeth Anscombe’s Contraception and Chastity. There is an essay by Jenny Teichman in a book entitled Intentions and Intentionality which I felt helpful in getting at the essay. I would urge you to have faith in the truth and that consider these sorts arguments, after careful study, might give you the sorts of answers you might be seeking.

Attempts at distinguishing between “old” and “new” Natural Law is to forget that the so called “new” Natural Law is still very much predicated on both the teleological and ontological conceptualisations of human nature and what it is to be “human”. The “new” natural law arguments are perhaps a little more refined in light of the “new” knowledge we possess since the days of Aquinas. People tend to gravitate towards Aquinas’s conceptualisations because (a) he is awfully famous (b) because he tackles certain aspects of human beingness in colourful and explicit ways, albeit in high middle ages language (c) and because he has made judgements which are still basically sound, even without recourse to modern, or “new” knowledge.

The so called “new” Natural Law philosophers simply built on what Aquinas made explicit. One must remember, also, that most of these “new” Natural Law thinkers wrote at a time when Utilitarianism was at a peak of acceptance in political and moral wchools of thought. They went directly against the common trend. Finnis, for example, is almost utilitarian in his approach to making the human agent responsible for judging actions as right or wrong by using a sort of Natural Law calculus that weighs up harm done to other necessary human goods by an action chosen and ‘intent’ is a major component in making the moral descision. I find his reasoning a little onerous and it would be difficult to teach ordinary people to behave in the manner he proscribes in the milieu of ordinary living.

The most compelling so called “new” Natural Law thinker is Elizabeth Anscombe, whose deeper analysis of contraception is brilliant and enlightening. She proved Paul XI to be correct in his deliberations and he based his Humanae Vitae on “old” Natural Law.

Natural Law, both “old” and “new” is normative, prescriptive and proscriptive, Ontological and Teleological and it is, above all else, Deontological. Nothing much has changed, except for a deeper analysis of the underlying reasons for the deontology of ethical behaviour.

 

[1ke]

1ke, I am not sure what rational and natural law arguments you gave.

I was not referring anything I wrote on natural law and reason. Others already mentioned it. I felt no need to repeat.

I suppose I wanted to know how you knew they were ordered in such a way. How do you know for example, that human males spreading their seed as much as possible by having multiple sexual partners is not a part of God’s design?

Because God has told us otherwise in Divine Revelation.