Article — Wouters, Manual of Moral Theology
Article II. On Place and Manner, or Position
Before you read this chapter
This chapter sets out plainly what the moral law permits and forbids to husband and wife. The authors wrote these pages for two readers only: for priests and those preparing for the confessional; and for those engaged to be married, or married, who have true need to understand the nature and obligations of marital relations. It is not reading for anyone else, and it is not reading for curiosity — the authors say so themselves, gravely and with one voice.
St. Alphonsus begged even his own students not to read this matter except for its one lawful end, “casting away every curiosity whatsoever”, and to commend themselves to God while they read, lest in learning to help other souls they harm their own (Wouters, Admonition). If you have no true need of these pages, the safe and virtuous course is to go back: what is written here is for a state of life, not for wondering about.
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As regards place, it is enough to note that it ought to be profane and secret. One who has intercourse in a church sins gravely, unless necessity urges (St. Alphonsus III, 458). One who would have intercourse before others would give grave scandal.
I. The natural position is that spouses have intercourse lying down, and that the wife be beneath and supine, that is, with her face turned toward the husband, the husband lying upon her. It is unnatural when intercourse is done sitting, or standing, or from behind in the manner of beasts, or from the side, or with the husband beneath (St. Alphonsus VI, 917).
II. Obligation of the natural position. The unnatural position is rather commonly held in itself as unlawful, because it imports some inversion of the order indicated by nature. This, however, is in itself only venial, because it does not pervert the substance of the act, which of itself remains apt for generation. Nor does it become mortal because perhaps part of the semen will certainly or probably perish, since this is judged to happen by accident; and that is not called grave if the act itself is ordered to generation, for which the smallest part of semen suffices (St. Thomas, In IV Sent., dist. 31, exposition of the text at the end; St. Alphonsus VI, 917).
III. Excusing causes. A just cause excuses from the natural position, for example the stoutness of the man, the weariness of the woman, the coldness of the spouses, if, namely, they are more excited by an unnatural position, foul breath, the danger of abortion to be guarded against, etc. (St. Alphonsus, loc. cit.).
Note. If penitents accuse themselves of intercourse had from behind, in practice it will be doubtful whether they mean quasi-sodomitic intercourse, that is, in the preposterous vessel or in the anus, or only intercourse performed in an unnatural position. In order that this be clear, it is enough to ask whether they proceeded in such a way that generation could have followed. If generation could have followed, insemination took place in the right vessel, that is, in the vagina; otherwise, in the preposterous vessel, in which case unnatural lying together took place (n. 57).