Article III: On Accessory Acts Connected with Copula

947. Notions. - Besides copula itself, there are also acts more or less connected with it, which occur among spouses in carnal commerce; these can be reduced to a threefold species:

a) acts ordered to exciting nature toward the conjugal act, or to moving the flesh for this purpose;

b) acts harmful to the conjugal act, or against the ordination of nature, as pollution in oneself or in a voluntary cause, and sodomy improperly so called, or a proximate occasion of these;

c) acts which are neither ordered to conjugal copula nor harmful, and are called beside generation, for example to act for pleasure alone, to touch oneself uselessly.

948. Principles. - Hence three principles can be established:

A. Whatever is done according to the due end and generation, or is necessary or useful for the conjugal act, is licit.

B. Whatever is done beside the end, but not against generation, does not exceed venial sin.

C. Whatever is against the due end, the generation of offspring, is gravely illicit and participates in the malice of adultery or of violated fidelity.

From these principles it can be judged how spouses can sin by excess, and the following conclusions are already understood.

949. Principle I. Concerning imperfect venereal acts between spouses present to one another: Venereal acts are licit which are ordered to having conjugal copula or to completing it once had. - Therefore:

1° Imperfect or impudent acts are licit, such as looks, touches, kisses, embraces, likewise conversations, even altogether base ones, etc., exercised between spouses present to one another in order to copula now to be had, insofar as they conduce to its being performed more perfectly, more delightfully, and more easily; for they are a preparation and beginning (or even complement) of this act as of an end; and if the end is honorable, so also are the means naturally ordered to it. Provided diligence is used lest seed be emitted outside the vagina, nor consent be given to pollution that might arise by chance.

2° Likewise they are licit, with a certain restriction, for fostering or preserving mutual love which is necessary for matrimony and copula, especially if here and now there is some grave and proportionate reason, for example grave suspicion of infidelity or of inclination toward another person to be avoided, the necessity of furnishing a special sign of love, the cutting off of the beginning of adulterous lust, the altogether urgent petition of the other party, etc.; and this reason ought to be the graver as the danger of pollution is greater. But the restriction is this: provided the acts are not of themselves and altogether proximately provocative of satiative delight or pollution, or equivalent to pollution itself, nor is there danger of consenting to it if it should ever follow; therefore, where spouses notice that the danger of pollution is proximately present, they must cease from the acts.

3° But if here and now there is no reason, so that spouses here and now cannot or do not wish to complete copula, and they seek those acts for their own sake and intend pleasure alone, they are illicit because in the intention of the agent they are not ordered to their natural and due end: per se only venially, because there is only an excessive or disordered use of a licit thing; - also gravely if there is proximate danger of pollution or of complete venereal delight.

4° Among imperfect acts is to be numbered the beginning of copula made by penetration of the vagina in such a way that union is broken off before satiative delight has place or is proximately going to have place either in the man or in the woman. This union is called "reserved copula" or carezza or "copula in the oriental mode," and it is licit under the same conditions and restrictions as was said under number 2°. Nevertheless priests, according to the warning of the Congregation of the Holy Office of June 30, 1952, "in the care of souls and in the direction of consciences are never to presume, either of their own accord or when asked, to speak in such a way as if from the part of Christian law there were nothing to be objected against the 'reserved embrace.'" For although reserved copula, even if it is prolonged or frequently repeated, is of itself not illicit, not even venially, nevertheless it exposes spouses to danger lest they indulge too much in sexual pleasure sought for its own sake and intemperately, and fall, if not into the practice, at least into the onanistic mentality according to which in conjugal life the primary end of matrimony, namely the procreation and education of offspring, does not have its due importance and value.

In the preceding, the matter concerns truly impudent touches; for modest and honorable ones are licit even with danger of pollution, provided some reason is present and danger of consent is absent; - on the contrary, truly base touches exercised with a third person are gravely illicit.

950. Principle II. Concerning imperfect solitary venereal acts when the other party is absent: Imperfect venereal acts exercised solitarily are per se at least venially illicit. - The reason is that imperfect solitary acts, exercised when the other party is absent, are done for pleasure alone, unless perhaps in certain circumstances they are useful for preparing future copula, nourishing the sexual appetite, obtaining arousal, etc. Therefore they are per se illicit: mortally, if there is proximate danger of pollution or of satiative delight, or of consent to it; otherwise at least venially, because, according to many, they are not opposed to the essential order of marriage, but, by reason of the conjugal state, of themselves naturally are referred to licit matrimonial copula, which nevertheless here and now is excluded; according to many others, on the contrary, always mortally, because, since spouses per se do not have a right over their own body, those acts are of themselves the beginning of pollution, nor do they bespeak an order to copula, except sometimes by reason of special circumstances. This last opinion S. Alphonsus says is to be urged in practice, not imposed.

1. Yet it is permitted to observe that imperfect acts of themselves are not against nature nor according to nature, because of themselves they bespeak nothing such. Hence in the case it is the same as if spouses present to one another exercise those acts and do not wish to complete copula.

This is to be understood of external acts. For morose delight concerning copula had or to be had with one's own spouse, or desire of it, because they concern a licit thing, are not sins, unless there is danger of pollution: for then they are a mortal sin; or unless someone should cling to them altogether uselessly and idly: for then they are venial. Delight or desire concerning acts venially evil is a light sin; concerning acts forbidden under grave obligation it is mortal.

951. Principle III. Concerning venereal acts, whether solitary or mutual, had with danger of pollution or satiative delight: Imperfect venereal acts, exercised solitarily or mutually with proximate danger of pollution or of separate complete satisfaction, are of themselves gravely evil. - The reason is that they are terminated in luxury against nature, or include its proximate danger, to which to expose oneself is sinful; and thus they are directly against the very primary end of the organs destined for generation and of marriage itself, and consequently gravely evil.

952. Concerning certain acts preparatory to copula or accompanying it:

1° To begin copula in an undue vessel, for example in the posterior vessel or in the mouth, with the intention of consummating it in the vagina; likewise to touch the posterior vessel with the genitals or to lick them with the mouth, are not mortal, provided the outpouring of seed is guarded against and sodomitical affection is excluded, which nevertheless will easily be present if the aforesaid things are not done in passing but endure for some time; indeed, if they are sought as the sole means and preparation of the due act and there is a sufficient reason, for example because otherwise someone cannot be excited, they are not a sin.

1. For an incomplete act of itself is not against nature, nor according to nature, but abstracts from both, as was said.

2° A woman can, by touches either of her own or of her husband, excite herself to having satiative and perfect delight, and thus immediately complete copula after the man has sown seed within the vagina; on the contrary, this would be illicit if the man in an onanistic mode had sown seed outside the vagina, because then there would be no copula apt for generation, and consequently no common act to be completed; whence, if it were done, there would be a solitary sin.

3° Nor would it be licit for the man to continue the act if the wife has withdrawn herself, because it would be nothing but useless pollution.

4° Whether a wife can seek perfect pleasure immediately before the man's sowing of seed, theologians dispute. It does not seem illicit, at least if the man penetrates her before she is calmed. This will be done without mortal sin, and when a reason is present, even without venial sin, if on account of lesser warmth in the very congress she cannot be moved and otherwise experience complete delight, or if the man himself can scarcely be excited and complete copula otherwise than by seeing the excitation of the wife; for it seems to suffice that in the conjugal act both spouses morally experience together the heat of pleasure. Nevertheless one must endeavor that physical simultaneity also be present, because it is more fitting to nature and to health, and more fosters pleasure and love.

5° A wife does not sin, at least mortally, who deliberately restrains commotion, distillation, and complete delight, because they are not necessary for copula and generation, and therefore she is not the cause that the seed of the man is wastefully deprived of its end. Nevertheless she would be reprehensible if she did this from anger or aversion toward her husband, and she should be exhorted also in this to show herself ready, so that she may please the man and foster the union of love.

953. Observation. - Imperfect venereal acts, since from their nature they are not licit except in order to copula, are illicit for those to whom seeking or also rendering copula is absolutely prohibited: thus, for example, by reason of a vow or permanent impotence.

Nevertheless this is not to be understood of all touches, looks, or kisses: for such acts are of themselves licit in marriage, because it belongs to a spouse to exercise them upon the body of the consort, which is his own; nor are they of themselves and necessarily venereal, but only when venereal delight is sought in them, or they include a danger of this kind. Thus, however, they are forbidden to those to whom copula is altogether forbidden.