Chapter I: On the Non-Consummated Acts of Lust

The passages in this chapter are veiled. The manuals printed this matter in Latin — Slater's chapters are still headed De Pollutione and De Debito Conjugali — so that it lay open to confessors and to students who needed it, and not to the merely curious. Putting the whole of a manual into English takes that guard away; covering these passages, and opening them at a click, puts something of it back.

St. Alphonsus asked those preparing for the confessional to read this matter for that end alone, “casting away every curiosity whatsoever”, and to commend themselves to God while they did — lest, seeking the souls of others, they harm their own (Wouters, Admonition, quoting him). Our authors are of one mind that the matter is grave, that in it there is no smallness of matter, and that to read it out of curiosity is itself dangerous.

“How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done.”— Shakespeare, King John, IV, ii

Nothing is hidden: the covering is only here, on the page. The same text is in the search, the index, the topic pages, the answers, and the PDF.

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The non-consummated acts of lust are base looks, hearings or conversations, to which base readings are reckoned, base smells and tastes, and finally touches.

Non-consummated Acts of Impurity The Sixth and Ninth Commandments

Within this chapter

Article I: On Obscene Looksnn. 7–8
Article II: On the Adornment of Womennn. 9–12
Article III: On Base Conversationsnn. 13–15
Article IV: On Theatersnn. 16–18
Article V: On Base Smells and Tastesn. 19
Article VI: On Base Touchesnn. 20–21
Article VII: On Kisses and Embracesnn. 22–23
Article VIII: On Kisses and Embraces with Respect to Betrothed Personsnn. 24–26
Article IX: On Kisses, Embraces, and Other Touches with Respect to Spousesnn. 27–29
Article X: On the Nature of Base Touchesnn. 30–33
Article XI: On Dancesnn. 34–41