Mutual Masturbation Within Marriage - A Debate I'm Having

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='Veridicus' date='15 February 2010 - 11:13 AM' timestamp='1266250404' post='2057540']
That does raise a question worth pursing while Raphael and other's who are well read are posting on this topic. Would mutual masturbation with the intent of getting 'close to climax' and then 'finishing properly' be permissible if the female had dyspareunia and couldn't handle her husband for very long without experiencing profound pain?
[/quote]
In that context, I believe it would be moral, however undesirable (I think everyone would admit to that).

[Thy Geekdom Come]

Someone was pointing out to me elsewhere that my argument seems like needless legalism. Christ got onto the Pharisees about placing heavy burdens on others that kept them from God. So here's my response to that:

God made man in His image, male and female. Sexuality images God. A part of salvation is theosis, wherein a person becomes more like God. Sin disfigures man and makes him less like God. Therefore, we must strive to reflect God and be more like Him in all things and avoid sin. This includes morality, and since our sexuality images God in a special way, this particularly includes sexual morality. God is one and three. He is diversity in unity. In sex, a man and a woman come together and give themselves in love, the way that the Father and Son give themselves in the Holy Spirit. Two become one: unity. From that unity, children naturally come forth: diversity. In each of those children is an indelible stamp of their parents' unity. Each child looks like a mixture of the parents: unity in diversity. The children and parents, though different, are all one: diversity in unity. The family is an image of God. Sexuality is the foundation of the family. If we abuse sexuality, we blaspheme God and mar His image in ourselves.

To remove either unity or openness to life from sexuality, even with good intentions, is to use sexuality for something lower than its natural goals. This is why mutual masturbation, which takes place outside of unitive and procreative sexual intercourse, is immoral. The Church teaches against this because the Church wishes couples to experience the goodness and chastity of marital relations as they are meant to be, in order to draw them closer to Christ. God loves us and wants no less for us than the very best. Mutual masturbation cannot accomplish the very best of sex for us. Instead, it prevents us from having true sex and replaces it with a counterfeit.

The Church's teachings on sexuality are not constricting, but liberating. Mutual masturbation keeps us from being able to experience all the joys of sexuality and its fruitfulness.

We are images of God. If we know who God is, we know who we are. If we know who we are, we ought to act accordingly.

[HisChildForever]

[quote name='Raphael' date='15 February 2010 - 11:15 AM' timestamp='1266250542' post='2057542']
In that context, I believe it would be moral, however undesirable (I think everyone would admit to that).
[/quote]

How would that be undesirable?

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='HisChildForever' date='15 February 2010 - 11:32 AM' timestamp='1266251553' post='2057551']
How would that be undesirable?
[/quote]
Obviously more desirable than the alternative, but still undesirable compared to all that sex is meant to be.

[Veridicus]

[quote name='HisChildForever' date='15 February 2010 - 10:32 AM' timestamp='1266251553' post='2057551']
How would that be undesirable?
[/quote]

I would say it is undesirable because it lacks the intimacy achieved by vaginal intercourse. In this scenario, penetration is the necessary but unpleasant (since the wife has dyspareunia) conclusion of the manual stimulation .

Edited February 15, 2010 by Veridicus

[HisChildForever]

[quote name='Raphael' date='15 February 2010 - 11:35 AM' timestamp='1266251751' post='2057554']
Obviously more desirable than the alternative, but still undesirable compared to all that sex is meant to be.
[/quote]

Hm, I agree that it would be unfortunate for the married couple but in my opinion, it's more unfortunate that the wife has to experience such physical pain.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='HisChildForever' date='15 February 2010 - 01:29 PM' timestamp='1266258567' post='2057585']
Hm, I agree that it would be unfortunate for the married couple but in my opinion, it's more unfortunate that the wife has to experience such physical pain.
[/quote]
That's what I said. It's unfortunate that they can't experience pain-free sex, but given the circumstances and the fact that the object of the act described is moral (although not in itself terribly desirable), then what was described seems better than trying to have very painful intercourse.

[mommas_boy]

I agree with many of the sentiments expressed in this thread. I believe masturbation to be different in nature from foreplay, and that foreplay is, in itself, often necessary for the marital act to take place, or for climax to be achieved by both members. I believe both of these are honorable intents.

[Slappo]

[quote name='HisChildForever' date='15 February 2010 - 10:29 AM' timestamp='1266258567' post='2057585']
Hm, I agree that it would be unfortunate for the married couple but in my opinion, it's more unfortunate that the wife has to experience such physical pain.
[/quote]

The pain of the wife would be undesirable for both husband and wife if the husband loved her. No husband wants his wife to be in pain (nor wife her husband), therefore it is undesirable both for husband and wife that those are the circumstances in which they can have intercourse.

[havok579257]

ok maybe i am not thinking right, but i thought a couple could have "crazy hang from the raftors sex" as long as the man ended properly. i thought as long as you are open to life and unative, then its ok(obviously with in reason of course). meaning mutal stimualtion or oral stimulation si fine just as long as the man ends right and the act is unative for the spouses. is this not right?

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='havok579257' date='15 February 2010 - 03:37 PM' timestamp='1266266278' post='2057606']
ok maybe i am not thinking right, but i thought a couple could have "crazy hang from the raftors sex" as long as the man ended properly. i thought as long as you are open to life and unative, then its ok(obviously with in reason of course). meaning mutal stimualtion or oral stimulation si fine just as long as the man ends right and the act is unative for the spouses. is this not right?
[/quote]
Read the whole thread. Mutual masturbation is defined as genital stimulation occuring [i]outside[/i] of sexual intercourse.

[havok579257]

[quote name='Raphael' date='15 February 2010 - 03:40 PM' timestamp='1266266423' post='2057607']
Read the whole thread. Mutual masturbation is defined as genital stimulation occuring [i]outside[/i] of sexual intercourse.
[/quote]

i did read it, but someone posted something about mutal stimulation to the point of near climax and then the man was only in the act of intercourse for a few moments and someone said that woulkd be morally permissable but not ideal. maybe i am misinterperating it.

[Veridicus]

[quote name='havok579257' date='15 February 2010 - 02:56 PM' timestamp='1266267390' post='2057615']
i did read it, but someone posted something about mutal stimulation to the point of near climax and then the man was only in the act of intercourse for a few moments and someone said that woulkd be morally permissable but not ideal. maybe i am misinterperating it.
[/quote]

I should have phrased it better. I meant genital stimulation within the context of the marital act. The difference in that post I was trying to emphasize was that rather than the foreplay being merely stimulatory it is actually the means of achieving climax with penetration only occurring near the last moment. I was discussing the moral extent to which stimulatory foreplay was allowed to go in the case of dyspareunia where vaginal penetration causes the female physical pain.

This was a much different context than the mutual stimulation within the context of intercourse that I was discussing prior to that post and I was trying to emphasize that difference.

Edited February 15, 2010 by Veridicus

[XIX]

[quote name='Raphael' date='15 February 2010 - 12:30 PM' timestamp='1266251433' post='2057549']
Someone was pointing out to me elsewhere that my argument seems like needless legalism. Christ got onto the Pharisees about placing heavy burdens on others that kept them from God.
[/quote]
If anybody is guilty of legalism, it's the person who claims that masturbating all day only to end up inside of the wife is [i]technically [/i]permissible.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='XIX' date='15 February 2010 - 07:20 PM' timestamp='1266279624' post='2057708']
If anybody is guilty of legalism, it's the person who claims that masturbating all day only to end up inside of the wife is [i]technically [/i]permissible.
[/quote]

I said that it would [i][b]seem[/b][/i] technically permissible, before going on to point out that it would still be immoral.

It is never moral to masturbate. As I pointed out, genital stimulation within the context of sexual intercourse is moral, but if it treats the wife merely as a sperm receptacle (as would the scenario you present), it is also immoral. This is because it objectifies her.

Regarding the scenario involving sexual pain, however, I think it's unlikely that this involves objectification, since the reason for having sex is clearly union and procreation, but this cannot be done without immense pain (except at the very end, since the act must end this way). I would argue that the man would be treating his wife with dignity and love, while still trying to engage in sexual intercourse with her (instead of substituting something else). This would be worlds away from two people spending the whole day giving one another sexual pleasure that is neither unitive nor procreative and then trying to fulfill the moral law by squeezing in a few minutes of sexual intercourse at the end. That would be mutual objectification. That is highly legalistic.

The law exists to free us. To fulfill the law with the intention of doing the minimum is not virtuous. However, the law also provides people in the pain scenario with a guide to understand what they may do. People in the pain scenario, I would argue, act virtuously by following the law. In a different set of circumstances, however, it seems the individuals give themselves over to vice.