Sexual Purity

[Theresa]

Can you be sexually impure within marriage?

-absolutely.

 

[Krystina661]

Sex between two consenting, uninhibited, and educated (use protection unless they know enough about the other's past and wish to have a child) people is a beautiful thing.

I agree with that..

 

[Seeking...]

Sexual purity isn't something that matters to me at all and it is a subject I will not even bring up with my children (should I have any). It assumes too much.

I was a virgin until I was 25, but that didn't make me more moral. In reality - I was chaste because I feared being intimate enough physically or emotionally with anyone to risk being hurt. So as far as I'm concerned - I wasn't living a full life then. I was trying to build relationships while I was also building walls.

Sexual purity also assumes that the end goal is marriage for people - but some people should probably never get married. That doesn't mean that they should never have an intimate relationship.

I believe that respect (for yourself and your partner), personal responsibility, and an intimacy that comes from caring for and knowledge of each other is neccesary for a healthy sexual relationship. Whatever happens between two consenting adults is their business and is as "pure" as they need it to be.

 

[Rev. Smith]

Many people have excluded intramarital rape from the list of sexual immorality, because they've gotten so attached to the "sexual immorality means sex outside of marriage" idea that they don't consider the problems this leaves them with...

Because it doesn;t create a problem - rape is not a "sex" crime, except that it uses sex as the assault weapon. Rape is assault, and is always sinful - in marrage and out.

 

[seebs]

Because it doesn;t create a problem - rape is not a "sex" crime, except that it uses sex as the assault weapon. Rape is assault, and is always sinful - in marrage and out.

I believe this to be an oversimplification; attempting to make rape purely non-sexual seems to be just as wrong as trying to think of it as purely sexual. The phrase "sexual assault" seems very precise.

But it is still sexual, and it is a kind of sexual immorality.

 

[stillsmallvoice]

Hi all!

Theresa posted:

stillsmallvoice,

That was a great post, thank-you. As a Catholic we agree on almost all of those points.

You're welcome.

I have found that orthodox Jews & pious Catholics agree on a great many points vis-a-vis morality, ethics, etc.

flicka asked:

Can you be sexually impure within marriage?

I'll have to (waffle a bit?) and refer back to my original post:

On a more...mechanical...note, technically, a husband & wife can do pretty much whatever they like together. However, a husband and wife should always keep Leviticus 19:2 in mind, “Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel and say unto them: 'You shall be holy; for I the Lord your God am holy.” Even during sexual relations, especially during sexual relations, a couple must keep in mind this positive injunction to be holy.

Rev. Smith posted:

rape is not a "sex" crime, except that it uses sex as the assault weapon. Rape is assault, and is always sinful - in marrage and out.

We would agree completely. Like I said in my first post: "...non-consensual heterosexual acts (even in the context of marriage) are inherently sinful at all times and in every context."

Be well!

ssv

 

[bliz]

On another thread there was considerable discussion about what one could and could not do and still remian a "virgin". I am so glad that this discussion is on sexual purity because the focus on virginity has young people in particular thinking - some of them sincerely and some of them with smarmy grins on their faces (or so I imagine!)- that anything goes before or outside marriagexcept sexual intercourse. Somehow in focusing on what's been where we have lost the big picture.