I never mentioned oral, manual or anal sex. They are not permitted “instead” of intercourse. They could be a prelude to intercourse, but not replace it.
Please don’t misquote me. I never mentioned oral/manual stimulation. I meant a level of physical activity that does not become overly stimulating to climax or temptation to climax in an illicit way.
Fixed it in the original post. I was attempting to make your statement here more specific. I don’t believe I stated anything that went against what you had down, but I’m sorry if I misread what you wrote.
No problem, I guess my first post was worded awkwardly. I didn’t mean to imply that other forms of penetration were permitted as an alternative to intercourse. I meant a “lighter” form of physical contact.
without getting to graphic.NFP is abstainence. It is periodically abstaining from sexual activity when you are fertile. If it weren’t abstainence, it would be a contraceptive act. I’m not talking about nor am I refuting the legitmate usage of periodic abstainence for the sake of regulating births.
And I’ve read all these documents. Every document I’ve read indicates that the Church is affirming that one of the purpose of sexual activity is the bonding (the unity) of husband and wife. I have a whole book that has articles about Humanae Vite. We have copies of Humanae Vitae with commentary. It was only till I saw people advising people on this forum that I even got introduced to the fact that people were interpretting “unitive purpose” to mean sexual intercourse itself “the one flesh union.” I mean its like saying the purpose of intercourse is intercourse. Or the purpose of a fork is a fork. The purpose of eating is chewing and swallowing.Not to discredit you or anything, but you are shooting down anything that is/comes across as someone’s opinion, yet your whole topic is based on your own opinion.
I am assuming now that you are looking for the Church’s definition of “unitive”. I don’t know where to find the short and concise definition of that. But there are MANY documents that can be read and put together into a crystal clear picture of what the Church believes that to be. *Humanae Vitae *plus *Casti Connubii *plus Familiaris Consortio plus the *Allocution to Midwives *plus the Catechism, plus any others I have not read yet or that I missed and all the writings of the early Church Fathers that are so easy to mis-understand…add these all together and you will see a clear picture of what the Church calls the unification of the spouses.
Or, just read that book that Mary Gail recommended.
Ok, so basically you are first arguing for a less strict interpretation of Humanae Vitae because you acknowledge that oral and manual stimulation may be necessary to get to the point where real intercourse is possible. Yet if you take the Pope’s overly literal meaning (without taking into consideration how sexual activity works), it does indeed sound that these behaviors would indeed be immoral because they are not procreative or unitive (assuming the overly strict definition of unity meaning intercourse).
Just by its very nature to climax intentionally outside of intercourse is thwarting the procreative process. It’s the sin of Onanism.
That’s exactly the question that people who engage in homosexual activity pose.
That’s exactly WHY they boiled it down to those things. It’s a warm, safe blanket that covers every type of sex that does not include “insert tab A into slot B and repeat”. This is also why the Church can never go back on this in any way. If they do, the whole house of cards comes tumbling down and apparently you will have people having sex with goats and picnic tables on a regular basis. Unfortunately, they make no distinction between people who have gay sex for money and married couples expressing their love for one another in a sacramental relationship and they think we are too stupid to tell the difference- so it has to be boiled down to the most mechanical and basic of functions.
A marriage where one or both parties intend to contracept can be annulled, so the sacramentalness or sacramentality (or whatever the correct term is) of the marriage is at the very least questionable.
the Church, through Her wisdom, realizes that the sexual act between husband and wife is sacred, because it allows us to enter into God’s creative realm.I don’t think this is true. As long as the couple is open to life in general, the marriage is valid. Intending to contracept at some point or not fully understanding the Church teaching regarding the practice doesn’t make a marriage invalid.
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to see it this way no matter how hard I try. I find it limiting, frustrating, unnatural, mechanical and pre-meditated. Knowing exactly how it’s going to go down every single time gets a little irritating. So does having to be totally abstinent with your own spouse if you simply cannot afford another child. Then there’s the fact that couples who just don’t like kids that much or only want 2 or 3 are demonized as if they are monsters because they just don’t get the same joy out of a huge family as some other people. The whole thing doesn’t allow at all for different personalities or preferences regarding the sex act itself or even family size.No LaSainte,
The sacred cannot be profaned. Sex is not just an intensely pleasurable act and as long as it’s consensual, all things go. We are created in God’s image and likeness. We have an immortal soul.
God could have chosen another way for us to procreate that was not as intensely intimate. Some other creatures can procreate through parthenogenesis. Yet he gave us this awesome gift.
Sex is sacred, The Church has never allowed the profanation of anything holy.
It has nothing to do with picnic tables, though you do have a vivid imagination.
What the heck? Homosexual acts are not ordered toward procreation by their nature, as such they are immoral. All sexual acts between husband and wife are ordered toward procreation even if intercourse is taking place. One thing leading to another is not just a thing that occurs within a particular instance. It spans days. That’s why when you’re courting, toeing the line is dangerous. You always tend to go a little bit further the next time even if you started out pretty innocently.
I agree with the first part. I disagree with the last. You are assuming that the only sexual difficulty couples can have is premature ejaculation. There is delayed ejaculation and there is vaginismus among other things. In my marriage, we’ve dealt with both. The treatment for vaginsmus was very difficult for me to adjust to all the Church’s teaching. We did our best adjusting it but in the end some of those adjustments lead to sexual problems dysfunctions in my husband. We finally had to come to terms with the fact that we were already under a lot of pressure and had to follow the program as presented to us. In doing that, my husband regained most of his ability. We still have issues and he no longer thinks that his issues are the result of my vaginismus. But ultimately if we want to have successful intercourse, we learned we had to stop pressuring ourselves to do it perfectly. Sex can’t be forced, it has to be surrendered into and that means you can’t be nitpicking about how you climax. To tell him he can’t because he failed to do it through intercourse is a punishment and a rejection. If anything that is against my marital vows. I have to accept him regardless of his imperfections. Its not giving yourself fully to the other person if you’re attitude is “all or nothing.” Its like telling someone in the special olympics that what they did means nothing because its not the real olympics.
The Church disagrees. NFP involves both abstinence and sex during the infertile period.
Homosexuality is actually addressed in the Bible. Many of the other issues are based on what I refer to as “Sola Tradition.”