Where Did you Learn about Sexuality Morality in Marriage?

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I am a practicing catholic, educated in catholic schools, married to a catholic, and in my 50s. It may (or may not) be a surprise to readers on this forum to hear that I did not learn of the specific catholic teachings about what are acceptable conjugal acts, until recently. I did learn (at school) that masturbation and contraception were wrong. But I “assumed” that pretty much any loving act within marriage was fine.

I’m wondering how/when others learned of the specific teaching, viz. “every conjugal act must have the man finishing inside the woman”, and am posting a poll to solicit answers.
 
I learned here, lol.

I was Lutheran as a child, Pagan into my teens and 20’s, Atheist/Agnostic into my 30’s and didn’t find the Church until this year. I knew from hearing around that the man must ejaculate in the woman and masturbation was wrong, so I just assumed anything but intercourse was totally banned. Then I read a lot of threads and learned otherwise. It’s quite a relief! I was worried for a couple weeks there! I didn’t know quite how I was going to ask our Pastor or the Sister in charge of RCIA, but I was getting desperate enough to seriously think how I would bring up the subject. Thank you, CAF, you saved me some embarrassment.
 
If your answer to the poll is “Other”, it would be helpful if you could post to let us know the specifics (if you are willing to say of course).
 
I voted Other. I really don’t know where I learned it. Mostly from this site, probably. I knew masturbation was a sin, and premarital sex was a sin, but as for the rest of it (being properly ordered for procreation, etc.) I didn’t pay much attention before reading posts here. And I’ve been Catholic all my life and even had two years of Catholic school.
 
I voted “Other” as well. I worked it out on my own as a teenager, before I became Catholic. At least that’s the way I remember it, though I suppose it is possible that had heard Catholic teaching in some forgotten context and was influenced by it. It was over a decade ago now and my memory of the intellectual and moral journey is fuzzy and possibly corrupted by more recent projections onto those memories.
 
I went to an all boys Catholic school - I didn’t learn ANYTHING (moral) about sex there
My parents never went into details - they were incredibly vague
I never went to any programs at the parish -they didn’t exist
As a teen I was scared to death of confessing any sexual thought word or deed to a priest
University was a hedonistic quagmire, until I lived in an Opus Dei house for a year where half the inhabitants flogged themselves to mortify the flesh.

I learned by guess and by golly.:o
 
MJJean said:
I learned here, lol.
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Me too, lol. Actually, I got my first real insight into what the Church teaches about sex & marriage here, then read up elsewhere to get a better understanding of it. Talking about sex was taboo growing up, and the sex ed we got from our priest at my Catholic grade school was wrong and, quite frankly, bizarre. It was taboo again in high school and not discussed to any meaningful or orthodox degree in our pre-Cana class. Thankfully, once we put contraception behind us, I had enough of an inkling about what the Church taught from Monty Python and other comedians over the years that we didn’t do too bad a job until I got on here and started getting pointed in the right direction.
 
Most of it started from reading Christopher West’s book “Good News about Sex and Marriage” after my wife received it in RCIA classes. That lead my to read more about JPII’s theology of the body and eventually to the catechism, papal encyclicals, and some of the older church writings. I found I was less concerned about the what, but rather the why. Once I understood that pretty much everything else fell into place.
 
I learned from a book in a Catholic store I paged through to that section. Sorry can’t recall the name of the book.

Mary.
 
I went to a Catholic secondary school for a year, and in the last 6 months of the year we were taught sex education. And that has been the basis of my sexual life really. We were taught on the evils of abortion, contraception and fornication, among others.

However, phrases such as ‘unitive’ and ‘procreative’, I learnt them here 😃
 
Not for a long time. I voted “other” because parents never talked about it. At all.
 
Rau said:
I am a practicing catholic, educated in catholic schools, married to a catholic, and in my 50s. It may (or may not) be a surprise to readers on this forum to hear that I did not learn of the specific catholic teachings about what are acceptable conjugal acts, until recently. I did learn (at school) that masturbation and contraception were wrong. But I “assumed” that pretty much any loving act within marriage was fine.

I’m wondering how/when others learned of the specific teaching, viz. “every conjugal act must have the man finishing inside the woman”, and am posting a poll to solicit answers.
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Other- I learned from this site. It’s really amazing (and sad) how many people selected “other” instead of from their parents or from religious ed. 😦

I knew that sex outside of marriage was bad from an early age, because my religious leaders hammered that into me. Unfortunately, they often just shortened it to saying that sex was bad, and I ended up applying their ideas to all sex. I also applied them to much more than sex- in fact, I applied them to pretty much every romantic act you can think of. I don’t think I even understood the concept that sex could take place inside a loving relationship until I was around twelve or thirteen. I didn’t come to think that chaste dating relationships were OK until I was fourteen, and it was a completely secular manga that convinced me.

I became Catholic when I was almost fifteen. Then when I was sixteen I went to this site, self-consciously read every thread about sex that I could find, and therefore came across some actual knowledge. :o
 
Gordon_Sims said:
Me too, lol. Actually, I got my first real insight into what the Church teaches about sex & marriage here, then read up elsewhere to get a better understanding of it. Talking about sex was taboo growing up, and the sex ed we got from our priest at my Catholic grade school was wrong and, quite frankly, bizarre. It was taboo again in high school and not discussed to any meaningful or orthodox degree in our pre-Cana class. Thankfully, once we put contraception behind us, I had enough of an inkling about what the Church taught from Monty Python and other comedians over the years that we didn’t do too bad a job until I got on here and started getting pointed in the right direction.
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Wow! I got a chuckle out of the bolded. I didn’t know Monty Python existed until I was 24 and my husband introduced me. Its kinda scary to think good ole Monty Python was someones sex ed!
VanSensei said:
Not for a long time. I voted “other” because parents never talked about it. At all.
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My mom was great when it came to talking about sex and answering any questions. For that I am very grateful. The problem is that my mom was Protestant and did not teach sex as taught by the Church.

I learned about contraception and that sex was best when shared with someone you love, but still pleasurable when shared with someone you felt mere attraction toward. Basically, my sex ed from parents was anything goes as long as you’re being careful (condom to prevent disease and BCP to prevent pregnancy) and both parties consented.
 
“Other” = reading the Catechism on my own.

My parents didn’t do a bad job, but I didn’t fully understand the teaching until I basically taught myself from the manual. 🤷
 
I chose other also. I went to a Catholic grade school and high school in the '60s. They didn’t teach us much about the human body or sexuality. I learner more in college from books and magazines. Unfortunately I made the same mistake with my children.l didn’t teach them much. If I could do it over I would have taught them a little over a longer period of time and at a younger age.
 
I learned a little bit from my sister (She’s always been motherly to me) and the rest on here, as well as various other links on the internet.
 
Well, not a huge number of votes in (25 at this point), but a pretty interesting result so far I think!

Only a small minority learned the “proper form” of the conjugal act (as taught by the Church) in a structured way!

Perhaps this reflects the sensitivity of the subject. But it would seem appropriate that relevant written materials ought to be supplied, either in high school or in pre-marriage courses, that present and explain the teaching clearly.
 
We learned about it at school, in our religious education classes.
I think it was a little too early, I don’t remember the exact age, but definitely between 12 and 14. We couldn’t really understand it, and the way it was presented wasn’t really appropriate. We weren’t even thinking about sex in general, so it was just awkward and funny, completely useless, we just didn’t get the point at that time.
 
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