Understanding sex

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MaxtheDog

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I’m new to catholic theology and have a few questions.
  1. Can a couple have sex and understand they’re not using each other or being lustful towards one another and not be married?
  2. Why can’t sex be an act of love without being married?
Thanks for everyones help in advance. 🙂
 
Hi Max, welcome to the forum.
  1. By “understand” do you mean “rightly believe” or “intend” or something else? It is a little unclear.
  2. There can certainly be many kinds of good desires expressed, some even selfless. The problem is that the act belongs to a certain objective order (viz., “not up to us”) which is being violated, and involving someone in that inordinate act causes to lead that person away from their natural purpose as a human being. This is an order put into our nature (viz., “what we are as humans because we are humans”) by God, and to contradict that order therefore violates His will for us. So a bad act like this is then a frustration to our natural purpose (which is called “happiness”) and our supernatural purpose that God has attached to our natural purpose by His free gift (which is called “beatitude” or “Heaven”). And no, “feeling happy” or “feeling satisfied” is not a sufficient condition for “happiness,” since we can immediately point out at a minimum that such feelings are always fleeting, never certain, and are sure to end with death. What we need is something that will last without fear of loss, and which will satisfy every appetite that we have. This is those two purposes or “ends” when combined, with the latter (Heaven) being the perfection of the former (happiness).
Does this help?
 
MaxtheDog said:
I’m new to catholic theology and have a few questions.
  1. Can a couple have sex and understand they’re not using each other or being lustful towards one another and not be married?
  2. Why can’t sex be an act of love without being married?
Thanks for everyones help in advance. 🙂
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To understand sex you must understand its purpose. Can you share what you understand the purpose of sex to be?
 
MaxtheDog said:
I’m new to catholic theology and have a few questions.
  1. Can a couple have sex and understand they’re not using each other or being lustful towards one another and not be married?
  2. Why can’t sex be an act of love without being married?
Thanks for everyones help in advance. 🙂
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They can think that they are not using each other but they have a false understanding of God’s purpose of sexual love.

If I’m not mistaken even the Jews before Jesus believed you had to be married to have sex. It follows the natural law, where a mother and father raise a family in a commited environment, for the good of the family and society, and also will not spread disease.
 
MaxtheDog said:
I’m new to catholic theology and have a few questions.
  1. Can a couple have sex and understand they’re not using each other or being lustful towards one another and not be married?
  2. Why can’t sex be an act of love without being married?
Thanks for everyone’s help in advance. 🙂
Click to expand...
This simple question falls under the topic of the “theology of the body” – what did God intend for humanity from the beginning.

One-night stands and affairs are not what God intended, as a covenant (total giving of oneself to another). Such were given the designation as fornication, adultery, immorality, etc. Animal “magnetism” is not human love.

The Bible, God, and the Church view sex outside of marriage as illegitimate, lacking in the total lifelong commitment that God intended. It is simply using another person for your “needs.” And, sex is to be totally open to the creation of children – otherwise one is not giving of oneself in totality to a lifelong commitment.
 
So even if I’m in a very committed relationship with someone I love with all my heart, I still can’t have sex because I’ll be using her and it won’t have anything to do with love because we’re not married?
 
MaxtheDog said:
So even if I’m in a very committed relationship with someone I love with all my heart, I still can’t have sex because I’ll be using her and it won’t have anything to do with love because we’re not married?
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Marriage is the statement of that commitment. If you’re that committed, why not get married?

And if you aren’t ready to get married yet, why do you think you’re ready to have sex?
 
MaxtheDog said:
So even if I’m in a very committed relationship with someone I love with all my heart, I still can’t have sex because I’ll be using her and it won’t have anything to do with love because we’re not married?
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Again, what is the purpose of sex?
 
I would not say it has “nothing to do with love,” but even so, even if there is love, there is still a holding back of that whole commitment of self to which the sex act is ordered. In this way, even though there may be some good present, the act and relationship becomes disordered and inhibited from its true purpose of complete union between man and woman and towards new life and child rearing. Sex needs to be within that full, unrestrained, uninhibited commitment in a couple. Or, since we’re not all perfect, it at least needs to be ordered in such a way towards that type of commitment and unity – that is, within marriage. To have sex but to hold back from that type of commitment does result in mutual using of each other, even if a degree of love is present.

And it should be stated love is not feelings but an act of the will. It is willing the good of the other.

Sorry for giving just the highlights. This deserves a longer post.
 
MaxtheDog said:
So even if I’m in a very committed relationship with someone I love with all my heart, I still can’t have sex because I’ll be using her and it won’t have anything to do with love because we’re not married?
Click to expand...
Okay… Again… having “nothing to do with love” is not the issue. The issue is contradicting an order established by God to lead us to natural fulfillment and eventually to a supernatural union with Himself in Heaven. When we contradict that order, we choose to love something created more than God, which is contrary to friendship with Him. If God is not your friend, then you do not spend eternity with Him. He gives us what we want at the end of our life: Himself, or not Himself.

Which is the greatest commandment in the law? Love God with your whole heart, mind, and soul. AND THE SECOND IS LIKE IT: love your neighbor as yourself. We can love other people to the detriment of our love of God. This is what can occur in these situations… one wants physical and psychological union with another human being MORE than he wants spiritual union (friendship) with God. This is a bad plan.

You may want to engage with the responses you are getting rather than asking more questions. For instance, you could ask about what this “order” is like, why is it there, what are its parts, etc.
 
pensmama87 said:
Marriage is the statement of that commitment. If you’re that committed, why not get married?
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What if two people want to get married but are unable to? It might be because their government forbids interracial marriage (such as in South Africa, all the way to 1985), or it might be because their government has sent all the Priests to prison camps (such as in the USSR).
 
BornInMarch said:
What if two people want to get married but are unable to? It might be because their government forbids interracial marriage (such as in South Africa, all the way to 1985), or it might be because their government has sent all the Priests to prison camps (such as in the USSR).
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If that’s the situation the OP is in, I am somewhat astonished that premarital sex is the concern he has, not the oppressive regime he lives in. 🤷
 
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