Catholic rules on sex

myname2006

What is the official church teaching on sexual activity? Does the church regard oral sex and masturbation before marriage as taboo? I ask because my girlfriend is a strict catholic and i want to know what the churches teaching is on this.

Sorry for not posting this in Personal Issues but i am looking for the religious teaching only, not relationship advice. I feel i will get a better and more comprehensive response here. Thanks guys.

Boston

If she is a devout catholic, then surely her priest should be her first stop.

myname2006

wow. You're a great help. Thanks very much.:rolleyes:

If anyone here can help me out, i would appreciate it. Thanks.

Nevyn

Basically only sexual acts that are preformed between two people who are married with the express intent of concieving are child are allowed.
Anything else is fornication and a mortal sin.

OSiriS

Does the church regard oral sex and masturbation before marriage as taboo?

I actually had a priest teaching us sex-ed in school, and it was his opinion that they were perfectly normal and natural acts which were deemed taboo by society, not the church. The church has never to my knowledge approved of sex outside fo wedlock however.

Stark

The Church's teaching on sex outside marriage being a sin dates back to when it was believed that each sperm contained a tiny but fully-formed human being. Therefore if you masturbated or had sex without the intention of conceiving, you were committing murder by "spilling the seed".



There's no real call for that stance nowadays though the Church stills teaches chastity, ie: to respect yourself, not be promiscuous etc.

BrianCalgary

I'm not an expert on what the RC church teaches today. But the Biblical teaching is that sex is to be an activity to be enjoyed within the context of marriage only. It is God's gift to mankind to complete the intimacy within a marriage.

robindch

> What is the official church teaching on sexual activity?

The RC church's official dogma -- "teaching" if you prefer -- is that penetrative sex exists only for the purposes of producing kids and should only ever happen between one man and one women, both of whom are married to each other. In 1995, the Vatican did produce ~21,000 words of what's in and what's out, so to speak, and this document can be found on the Vatican website:

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/family/documents/rc_pc_family_doc_08121995_human-sexuality_en.html

Masturbation is only mentioned twice, once as an instance of "immorality" and once more at, ahem, greater length as "a very serious disorder" (the original biblical backup comes from the unfortunate Onan whom god killed for refusing to inseminate his dead brother's wife -- see Genesis 38:9-10). Anyhow, since the relevant section in the Vatican's document refers to masturbation as a "selfish vision of sexuality", I presume that the document is referring to auto-eroticism only, rather than mutual simulation which isn't mentioned at all.

While the document is very heavy on "moral"s, mentioning them a pleasing 73 times, I couldn't find any mention of oral sex, so it's a mystery as to what they think about it. Bill Clinton did memorably, if slightly oddly, suggest that oral sex wasn't sex.

Anyhow, the <cough> upshot of all of this is that the Vatican doesn't seem to have much to say about mutual masturbation or oral sex and, given that it's excessively concerned with all matters sexual and has a tendency to obsess about them, I'd imagine that their omission means that they're ok with both of these. Not sure if your gf is going to swallow that, though.

Nevyn

Not sure if your gf is going to swallow that, though.

/cackles

Look there is confession and absolution but when you confess and ask to be forgiven you do have to mean it and your are pomising to try never do those things ever again.......

Asiaprod

robindch wrote:

Not sure if your gf is going to swallow that, though.

You really should think of becoming a comedian, you would be very good.:)

metrovelvet

robindch wrote:

>

Not sure if your gf is going to swallow that, though.

Does she then have to wait an hour before receiving communion if she does?

larryone

I've always thought that a large part of the motivation for religious laws, etc was medical. Cut down on sexual promiscuity, and less infection is spread through sexual contact. It makes sense. This is where alot of the laws originate, and they grow and develop from there. The idea that illness comes from sin, etc.... so this illness spreads through sexual contact => sexual contact outside of marriage is sinfull...

Akrasia

I think the main reason for the Churches atitude on Sex is that they want to promote marriage and the nuclear family, and If you're only allowed to have sex in marriage then lots of horny young men are going to want to get married.

staple

It may be more helpful to think about the attitude of Catholics to sex than to seek the rule book. Here's my interpretation: Love is primary, sex is secondary. Sex is a mode of expression of love. Love is not understood as a mere side-effect of sex; rather sex is a way of expressing the experience of that ultimate togetherness which is called love (to paraphrase Viktor Frankl). Presumably you love your girlfriend and want to express that love physically; The Catholic Church expects you to have a love that is deep enough to want to spend your whole life together before you do that. I think that extends to all forms of sexual pleasure.

If you do want the 'rules', I don't think you'll get a fuller answer than the link posted above by Robindch.
The catechism might be slightly more succinct.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P85.HTM
and it looks like masturbation is specifically out.
The principles are there in the catechism:
"Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes."
Sexual union and procreation go together: "the spouses' union achieves the twofold end of marriage: the good of the spouses themselves and the transmission of life. These two meanings or values of marriage cannot be separated without altering the couple's spiritual life and compromising the goods of marriage and the future of the family.
The conjugal love of man and woman thus stands under the twofold obligation of fidelity and fecundity."
[Sexuality] "becomes personal and truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of one person to another, in the complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman."

I don't think comments like this do justice to Catholics: "it's excessively concerned with all matters sexual and has a tendency to obsess about them". We live in a society obsessed with sex, as a look at any of our cultural outlets will show. The Catholic Church's teachings differ from the dominant ideology and this has ramifications across lots of social areas. It's the difference from the norm that attracts lots of attention to Catholic teaching in this area; the church responds to the obsession in society more generally.

robindch

> I think the main reason for the Churches atitude on Sex is that they want to
> promote marriage and the nuclear family, [...]

That's the proximate reason. The ultimate reason is because the church wants to promote and sustain itself, and one of the safest ways of doing that is to piggyback on the concern/obsession that most normal humans have for sex.

> [...] and If you're only allowed to have sex in marriage then lots of horny
> young men are going to want to get married.

Yep, that's about right, and note that when you get married in a church, not only do you have to sign up to produce kids in the church's religion, you also got to appoint godparents to oversee the religious instruction of any resulting kids.

Susan Blackmore also suggested, half tongue-in-cheek, that many religion's prohibition of auto-eroticism may have evolved in order to help force sexually frustrated young guys into marriage, and consequently, into propagating the religion.

staple

The reason for the church's attitude to sex is the belief in the existence of God and that he has revealed himself through the Bible, tradition, and to each individual in prayer. The teachings of the Church are derived from those sources. Some Christians interpret revelation differently.

I think the OP's question of what the church teaches has now been answered. Would the atheism forum be a more appropriate place to proffer anthropological and sociological explanations of why such beliefs exist? I really can't see what can productively come from theists and atheists discussing this further.

larryone

Exploring the origins of the belief in order to understand it more? I think exploring why a belief exists is of importance. Take for example the Catholic belief in "The Assumption of Our Lady". How Mary died is not discussed anywhere in the bible, the idea (that she didnt die a physical death and that her physical body flew up into heaven) first came about nearly 600AD. Pope pius the 12th made it official truth after centuaries of the tradition of this idea being carried through heresay and word of mouth. Now all catholics are supposed to believe it. Until I explored the origins of this belief I really didnt understand why it existed. Now I know. What can productively come from discussing these things? Understanding.

Sorry for having waverred off topic there.

staple

The persistent trend on this forum is towards denial of Christian and specifically Catholic beliefs, not understanding them. I would say someone interested in understanding Catholic beliefs would seek answers in Christian writing; someone interested in claiming Catholicism is false would seek answers from atheists. Some say they want to understand, but don't they just want to understand why we are wrong? Do they come open to the possibility of the existence of God, and of their spiritual selves reaching towards Him?

I say to understand Catholic teaching on sex you have to understand the Catholic teaching on love. Others say to understand Catholic teaching on sex you have to understand how the Catholic church is a cynical conspiracy.

It is a shame that it seems to fall to me to explain Catholicism, since I have done no theology and v little philosophy. I wonder where all the Catholics have gone?

Regarding the assumption, more information is here:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02006b.htm
http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p123a9p6.htm
Belief in the assumption seems to come from post-biblical tradition, as Larry One has said. I'm sure others will correct me here, but as I understand it, Catholics do not believe that revelation stopped with the Book of Revelation; God did not just stop talking in 90AD (or whenever); He continues to reveal Himself to us. Through the church we try to sift out the truth from the diverse experiences of revelation. As I say, I hope some better educated Catholic can put that better.

Those websites give the sources re. assumption and I'm sure anyone interested can seek the reasons for the belief from the writings of Pius XII, Paul VI, St John of Damascus etc. If, on the other hand, you don't accept the truth is in the Bible, or that tradition is valuable, then you probably won't want to do that.

Apologies for bad tempered tone: hungry.