SEX AND MARRIAGE

Patrick Lee

Professor of Bioethics

Franciscan University of Steubenville

                                                                       

            In this paper I will defend traditional sexual morality.  By traditional sexual morality I mean, basically, the position that sexual acts are objectively morally right only within marriage.  Very often people have the impression that traditional sexual morality is based on a kind of contempt of the body, and that nowadays, after the days of sexual liberation, we have a healthier appreciation of the body and of the fact that we are bodily beings.  I will argue, on the contrary, that the truth of the matter is close to just the opposite.  The conclusions of traditional sexual morality when understood correctly, are based on the truth that we are bodily beings, albeit of a special sort, rational and free bodily beings.  I will argue that the denial of traditional sexual morality is most often implicitly based on viewing the body as outside the self, and as a mere extrinsic tool of the self, viewed as a concsiousness or some sort of non-bodily subject of experiences. 

            The central question in sexual ethics is, under what conditions is a sexual act morally right?  To propose an answer to this question I will first explain briefly what marriage is, then how sexual acts should function, within marriage, and then argue that sex acts can be objectively morally right only within marriage.  After that I will briefly consider a very objection to the position set out. 

 

I. Sex and Marriage

            First, on what marriage is and how sexual acts can contribute to marriage.  There are three main views of what marriage is. First, some thinkers have held that marriage is an institution which is merely an instrumental means in relation to procreation.[1]  On this view, marriage is essentially a contractual union, and its extrinsic purpose is the conceiving and rearing of children. 

            A second view, certainly more popular these days, is that marriage is essentially a friendship, procreation is an extrinsic addition, and sexual acts are extrinsic symbols or expressions of love or of the couple's personal communion. On this view there is no intrinsic or essential relationship between marriage and procreation.  A couple may wish to have children, and having children may even be viewed as contributing to their marital relationship.  But procreation is not viewed as intrinsically linked with marriage.  As a consequence, on this view there is no reason why "marriage" could not include same-sex marriage.

            The third view of marriage, the traditional view, is the one I defend.  On this view, marriage is the community formed by a man and a woman who publicly consent to share their whole lives, in a type of relationship oriented toward begetting, nurturing, and educating of children together. This openness to procreation, as the community's natural fulfillment, distinguishes this community from other types, and makes sexual intercourse within it appropriate. 

            Every society has some manner for determining the ways and the contexts in which children come to be and are raised.  This a necessity.  For, it is both desirable and inevitable that children come to be.  The question for society, and for people who engage in acts (sexual acts) by which children might come to be is the following.  What should society, and those who engage in sexual acts do to provide a suitable environment in which children might come to be and flourish? 

            The answer is that those couples who perform sexual acts should first form a community that will be dedicated to providing an environment in which children can flourish if they come to be.  State-run organizations, business enterprises, even communes (groups composed of sexual partners) are not the groups most suitable for the raising and educating of children.[2]  In virtually every society it is recognized that the best arrangement for bearing and raising children is to ensure that the parents themselves in some way form a society oriented to bearing and raising children (this is true of polygamous societies as well, though I argue that polygamous marriages violate the equality of man and woman in marriage and are not, in the end, most suitable for raising children).  Thus, by “traditional view of marriage” I mean the view that marriage is intrinsically linked to bearing and raising children, and this view is traditional not just just in our Judeo-Christian culture but in virtually every culture.  Marriage is the community formed by a man and a woman who publicly consent to share their lives, in a type of relationship oriented toward begetting, nurturing, and educating of children together.  Even though this or that particular marriage may not result in children, marriage is the sort of relationship that would be fulfilled by bearing and raising children together. 

Moreover, sexual acts have a tendency, in most people at least, to create a strong feeling of bonding and an expectation of a deeper, non-instrumental relationship.   And the desire to have children is often, and naturally, an outgrowth of a romantic love between and a man and a woman.  When they love each other they naturally tend to desire to form a life together, and (often) to have children together.[3]  Thus, marriage is the society whose distinctive purpose is the provision of a stable and protective environment not only for bearing and raising children but also for romantic love, a love that is itself intrinsically linked to bearing and raising children.  Rightly understood, marriage has a two-fold end—one end with two aspects, marital communion and procreation.[4]

            How should this society—marriage—be related to this end or goal of bearing and raising children?  Reflecting on this question one can see that marriage is a unique and complex society.  The relation of marriage to the goal of bearing and raising children cannot (or should not) be one of simple means to end.  Marriage is not a mere contractual union like that of a roof-repair company, where the activity of the group is simply instrumental to an extrinsic end or goal, with the result, also, that once the end is achieved the reason for the unity of the group has also ended.  To view the marriage as merely instrumental is to denigrate the union of the man and the woman.[5]

On the other hand, marriage is intrinsically linked to bearing and raising of children.  Marriage is both a personal communion between a man and a woman that is in itself good, and not a mere means toward bearing and raising children; but at the same time it is the type of community which must be formed so that if children come to be, then they come to be in an environment suitable for their flourishing.  So, marriage is oriented to bearing and raising children in a somewhat indirect way:  the point of the marriage is the community of the man and the woman, but, it is the sort of community that is naturally fulfilled by bearing and raising children.  Because of its orientation to procreation and the personal communion of the spouses the good of marriage requires a sharing of whole lives (that is, an open-ended, all-inclusive unity), permanence, and exclusivity.[6]  Thus, if a married couple do not have children for some reason, their marriage is fully a marriage and remains good in itself (which is difficult to maintain on the first view), but also lacks its natural fulfillment (which is denied on the second view).[7]

            Now, to how sexual acts should function within marriage.  This is the key, I think, to the whole issue of sexual ethics.  In this type of community, that is, marriage, sexual intercourse is not merely an extrinsic symbol or a pursuit of pleasure. In sexual intercourse between a man and a woman (whether married or not), a real organic union is established. This is a literal, biological point. Human beings are organisms, albeit of a particular type.[8]  For most actions, such as sensation, digestion, walking, and so on, individual male or female organisms are complete units.  However, with respect to one function the male and the female are not complete, and that function is reproduction. In reproductive activity the bodily parts of the male and the bodily parts of the female participate in a single action, coitus, which is oriented to reproduction (though not every act of coitus actually reproduces), so that the subject of the action is the male and the female as a unit.[9] Coitus is a unitary action in which the male and the female become really biologically one.[10]  Moreover, in marital intercourse, this bodily unity is an aspect of, the biological matrix of, the couple's more comprehensive, marital communion.[11]

            When a couple chooses to form the kind of community distinguished by its openness and orientation to procreation, then the biological unity effected in sexual intercourse has a continuity with their community.  In sexual intercourse they unite (become one) precisely in that respect in which their community is defined and naturally fulfilled.  So, this bodily unity is not extrinsic to their emotional and spiritual unity.  The bodily, emotional, and spiritual are the different levels of a unitary, multi-leveled personal communion.  Therefore, in such a community sexual intercourse actualizes the multi-leveled personal communion.  The sexual intercourse of spouses is not an extrinsic symbol of their love, or a mere means in relation to procreation.  Rather, their sexual intercourse embodies, or actualizes, their marital communion.  In that way the chaste sexual intercourse of husband and wife instantiates a basic human good:  the good of marital union.         

            It is certainly true that there are unions or arrangements in the first two senses—contractual unions in the first case, and friendships in the second case.  In some societies men have viewed their wives only as mothers of their children, and have sought romantic relationships elsewhere (as on the first view).  Also, many couples today regularly perform sexual acts together, but view their relationships as having nothing inherently connected to procreation (as on the second view).  Both of these types of relationships have at times been called "marriage."  But these societies or arrangements are fundamentally distinct form the intrinsic good of marriage. 

            In the first two types of relationship, sexual acts are extrinsic to the personal communion of the couple.[12]  Only in the third type, only in marriage as a one-flesh union of spouses, is the sexual intercourse part of, or constitutive of, the personal bodily communion itself.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

II. Sex and Pleasure

            Now I turn to the question of whether sexual acts outside marriage are objectively morally right.  One view of the sexual act is that it is morally right just because it is pleasurable, and provided it does not violate health, honesty or liberty.  This is the hedonistic view of sex, or the Playboy philosophy of sex—the basic value in sex, according to this view is pleasure. 

            However, to see why this view is mistaken we must understand how pleasure is related to what is genuinely good.  I propose two points on how pleasure is related to the good.  First, pleasure is not just by itself a genuine good.  It is, or it should be, as it were, icing on the cake.  It is good only if it is attached to an activity or condition that is already good, good in the sense of fulfilling or perfective.  Consider, for example,  sadistic pleasures.  One does not wish to say that Smith’s sadism was bad but at least he got pleasure from it.  Rather, when one takes pleasure in an inappropriate object, the pleasure itself is bad.  So, it cannot be true that bodily pleasure is of itself a good. 

            The second point I want to make about pleasure is that when it is attached to an activity or condition that is already fulfilling, then it adds to its goodness or fulfillment.  We can see this point when we consider that it is better, for example, to have learning with pleasure than without it.  So, pleasure is not a good just by itself, it must be connected to an appropriate object in order to be a good, but it does add to the overall condition.  The question is, what must the object of a pleasure be like in order to be appropriate?  

            What is the basic criterion for distinguishing between good pleasures and bad ones?   I suggest that what makes an object or activity good and worth pursuing is that it is really fulfilling or perfective.  Pleasure is not by itself, or is not always, really fulfilling—as is clear from the examples of sadism and also illusory pleasures.  So, pleasure is good only if it is an experience of, or an aspect of, a condition or activity that is already genuinely fulfilling.  The condition or activity must first be really fulfilling, and then pleasure taken in it is an additional fulfillment. 

            Now in areas other than sex, to pursue pleasure when it is not connected to a genuine good is morally wrong, but it is not necessarily seriously morally wrong.  But in the context of sex, it is seriously wrong for the following reason.  Pursuing pleasure apart from a real personal union in sex involves treating the body-as-sexual (either another’s or one’s own, or both) as a mere extrinsic instrument, and thus as a subpersonal object.  Masturbatory sex—that is, sex done just for pleasure, whether it be solitary or with others—involves separating in one’s intention the sexuality of the person from the whole person, and so it involves instrumentalizing and demeaning the person as sexual. 

            Of course, not every use of parts of one's body includes such denigration.  To use parts of one’s body, so long as one is treating them as parts of oneself, does not involve treating them as sub-personal objects.  Also, in some types of dealing with other bodily persons, to abstract from their personhood (as when one considers a person as 175 pounds for purposes of estimating the maximum weight allowed in an elevator car) is not wrong.  But masturbatory sex (whether solitary or mutual) necessarily involves more than just abstracting from the personhood of the body being used.  It involves treating a bodily person as if he or she were not a person, for here the sexuality of the person, which includes both the body and personal expression, is used as a mere extrinsic means.  This point requires explanation. 

One’s sexuality is quite different from a person’s weight or even his or her shape, and, more importantly, when one sexually interacts with a person then one cannot abstract from her sexuality, and one cannot abstract from how her sexuality and is related to the person as a whole. One can think about a person, and deal with a person in many respects and abstract from her weight or her shape, or even, in many contexts, from her sexuality.  But if one is interacting with her sexually, then one either views her sexuality as integrated with her whole being, or one views it as separated from the person as a whole, which means, using her sexuality as if it were outside her personhood.  A person’s sexuality is quite different from her weight or her shape.  A person’s weight does not of itself tend toward the expression of one’s intentions as does one’s sexual acts and responses.  By contrast, as Roger Scruton has shown, sexual desire of itself aims not just toward bodily contact and not just toward orgasm.  Rather, in the sexual inclination one naturally desires that the other sexually desire oneself.  Sexual desire aims at the other’s body, but it aims at the other’s body precisely as animated by his or her own desire and, more than that, toward the other’s personal, that is, freely chosen, involvement with one.  That is, sexual desire, in persons, tends toward focusing on the other person as sexually embodied, and so one can say that it of itself aims toward a union that is both bodily and personal.[13]  The desire tends not just toward particular sensations but toward a recognition and affirmation (if not real, at least fantasized) included in (but not restricted to) reciprocal sexual desire from another.  This is why it makes a significant difference to people (or, most people) who they have sex with, and why most people desire to have sex only with people they at least like and who like them (or at least who they can pretend have this reciprocal personal regard).  This is in marked contrast with how we feel, for example, about a barber, or a physical therapist—even though these people also touch our body.  In other words, unlike most other bodily acts, sexual desire of itself tends toward the expression of the person, of his or her personal involvement, or caring for, the one with whom one has sex. This is why when sexually interacting with someone, one cannot just abstract her sexuality from the person as a whole:  to use a person’s sexuality as mere means for pleasure to negate the harmony of the sexual aspect of the person with the person as a whole.    

This personal expressiveness of human sexuality cannot be ignore or simply abstracted from.  But it can be negated.  This is illustrated most clearly in the phenomenon of the obscene.  The obscene is the sexual viewed from outside a first-person perspective, that is, viewed as separate from the expressiveness of the personal involvement and attachment that sexual acts of persons tend toward.  And the obscene is bad precisely because it reduces the body-as-sexual, which in truth involves an expression of the entire person, as if it were a mere impersonal object.  Thus, human beings copulating in public strikes most people as obscene and as immoral, or at least as in some way harmful or violating what sex should involve.  This is because such acts done in public are observed from a point of view outside the first-person perspective of those engaged in it, and thus as detached from any personal involvement.[14]   To pry apart the sexual from the personal, to make sexual activity something not intimate, something available and useful to anyone who happens to come along—is something we recognize as a violation, a diminishing of the real value of sexual expression. 

If one considers the example of pornography one can see this point quite clearly.  In pornography one has divorced, in one’s regard or intention, the sexuality of the woman (to consider the most frequent type of pornography) from the other aspects of her being as an integrated and whole person, and used that sexuality for one’s own purposes (even if the woman used has consented to this use).  Now, sexuality of itself tends toward an expression of one’s personal intentions (and not just an expression of one’s sexual desire); so, to divorce the bodily (or animal, including the other’s sexual desire) from the personal is not just to abstract from the other’s personhood; rather, it is to treat the other’s sexuality, as if it were a sub-personal object. 

To use the body-as-sexual for purposes which do not respect the integration of the personal and the bodily, is similar in some ways to sophistry.  Sophistry is reasoning or arguing—an activity that necessarily involves the basic good of truth—but with a disregard of truth.  To subordinate one’s reasoning or argument to ends other than truth, and without regard for truth, is to fail in one’s respect for the basic good of truth.  Analogously, in sexuality the basic good of the capacity of a person to express himself or herself sexually is always at stake.  Thus, to use sexuality but to disregard that personal expression (which, ultimately, as we argue below, can only be realized rightly within marriage) is to act with a disregard for, and thus a disrespect of, that basic good.  It is to separate in one’s intention, and thus to diminish or disrupt, this basic good of the person’s ability to give himself in the sexual act.  Thus, the specific self-integration included in the marital act and marriage is implicitly denied or denigrated.  In the masturbatory act one adopts a certain stance and forms a particular attitude toward sexuality in general, namely, one implicitly views the body as sexual as a mere tool and so one implicitly denies the possibility of marriage as a truly two-in-one flesh unity, that is, as a basic good in which there is a true bodily union of the spouses integrated with their emotional and spiritual union.  Thus, masturbatory sex violates the good of marriage itself.

To this it has been objected—by Andrew Koppelman, in a book on Gay Marriage-that pursuing pleasure apart from a real good cannot be morally wrong.  And so pursuing sex just for pleasure cannot be wrong either.  Koppelman has asked:  What about when I scratch an itch—am I not then simply pursuing pleasure unconnected to any good, but certainly there is nothing wrong with scratching an itch?  Or (Koppelman continues) what about taking a hot shower—am I not just pursuing pleasure, but there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with that, or, he also mentions just eating a good meal?  

            But, regarding the scratching of an itch:  What is remarkably different between scratching an itch and sexual activity, of whatever sort, is the simplicity of the former and the complexity of the latter.  An itch is a discomfort in some part of the body and presumably an indication of some real, though perhaps mild, bodily disorder.  There is usually no reason whatsoever against scratching to remove that discomfort—it is a simple and direct action aimed at calming the nerve-endings at some part of the body.  There is no pursuit of pleasure apart from a real fulfillment (or as isolated from the larger good of which it should be a part), as there is in the case of masturbatory sex.  The same is true for eating for the pleasure of it (the activity sought is a real act of eating which is really fulfilling) or of enjoying a hot bath (the relaxation of one’s muscles being a healthy function).  It is not that in these cases pleasure is a side effect; pleasure is sought, but as part of or as connected to a genuinely fulfilling condition (however minor it may be).  

            Thus, it remains that sex done just for pleasure, which can be called masturbation or masturbatory sex—whether it be solitary, or with two or more participants—detaches the pursuit of pleasure from concern for what is genuinely fulfilling, involves a depersonalization of one’s own or another’s body, and so is objectively morally wrong.  To be morally right a sexual act must involve more than a fair and non-violent pursuit of pleasure.[15]

III. Sex, Love and Affection  

            So far I have argued that pleasure is not enough.  I now argue that affection or even love is not enough to justify sexual activity—sexual activity is appropriate in only a certain type of community, namely, marriage.  There are four types of non-marital sexual acts: masturbation (solitary or mutual), sodomy, fornication, and adultery.  I do not formally discuss adultery here:  if masturbation and fornication are wrong, then adultery, which involves additional moral defects, is certainly wrong.   I considered the morality of masturbation above, section I.  In this section we discuss sodomy and fornication.

 

A. Sodomy

 

            By "sodomy" here is meant (1) anal or oral intercourse between persons of the same sex, or (2) anal or oral intercourse between persons of opposite sexes (even if married), if it is intended to bring about complete sexual satisfaction apart from vaginal intercourse. If a couple use their sexual organs for the sake of experiencing pleasure or even for the sake of an experience of unity, but do not become biologically one, then their act does not actually effect unity. If Jane, for example, masturbates John to orgasm or applies oral stimulation to him to bring him to orgasm, no real unity has been effected. That is, although bodily parts are conjoined, and so there is juxtaposition and contact, the participants do not unite biologically; they do not become the subject of a single act, and so do not literally become “one flesh”.[16]  They may be doing this in order simply to obtain or share pleasure. In that case the act is really an instance of mutual masturbation, and is as self-alienating, or depersonalizing, as any other instance of masturbation. However, they might intend their act as in some way an expression of their love for each other, and morally justified for that reason.

            However, in sodomitical acts, whether between persons of the same sex or opposite sexes, between unmarried or married persons, the participants do not unite biologically.  Moreover, an experience of pleasure, just as such, is not shared.  Although each person may experience pleasure, they experience pleasure each as an individual not as a unit.  For a truly common good, there must be more than experience; the experiences must be subordinated to a truly common act or condition that is genuinely fulfilling.  If, on the contrary, the activities are subordinated to the pleasurable experiences, if the physical stimulation administered to one another is merely a means to attain what are (and can only be) individual, private experiences, then a real, biological unity is not achieved.

            What feature (or features) must a sexual act have so that one is not merely using another's body (and one's own)?  The answer is that it must be an act in which a real good is realized or participated in. If this is so, then it is an act in which the two share and therefore become one in jointly performing this act. In that case, their pleasurable experiences will be aspects of a real good, rather than their acts being subordinated to the pleasurable experiences.  In the case of chaste marital intercourse, spouses participate in the real good of marital bodily union. In marital intercourse the man and the woman become biologically one in an act of copulation, and this physical union initiates or renews their total marital communion:  that is, distinct from the pleasurable experiences, there is an identifiable, real act and basic good in which they share, namely, the act of initiating or renewing their marital union in their becoming biologically one.

            It is true in general, for any two (or more) people, that actions which they perform make them one only if there is a real, common good of their actions. The common good could be health (sharing a meal), aesthetic experience (going to a play or movie), play (bridge, checkers), and so on. In each case there is a unity of action, that is, an action sharing in a real, common good, performed jointly.  Moreover, this unity of action promotes or actualizes interpersonal unity, or unity of persons. In the case of the sexual act of a married couple, their act of physically or biologically becoming one is the common good, the shared pursuit of which also brings about or enhances their interpersonal unity (unity of persons). But if the participants in a sexual act do not become physically or biologically one, then, whatever goods they may have as ulterior ends, the immediate goal of their act is mere pleasure or an illusory experience.  So there is in such an act no common good, the common pursuit of which makes them one. There is no real unity of action to effect or enhance their interpersonal unity. So in that case, although they may intend or wish otherwise, their act is in reality a using of their own and each others' bodies as a means of obtaining a pleasurable experience, which might include the illusory experience of a union which they are not by this action promoting or effecting in any way. 

 

B. Fornication

 

            There must, then, be a biological unity so that there is a common good in the sexual act.  But, as I noted before this biological union is an instance of a real human good only if it is an aspect of a real union of the persons.  If they are united as one body but are not united in other aspects of their lives or selves, then they are treating their bodies as sexual as extrinsic instruments.  But suppose a heterosexual couple has a friendship, and is even planning marriage in the future. They have intercourse, and intend their act not just as an experience of pleasure, but (perhaps confusedly) as an embodiment of their personal but not-yet-marital communion. In this case they really do become biologically one in the sexual act, and so, their act seems to be a sharing in a common good. They become biologically one, and they intend this union to be an actualization and experience of their less-than-marital personal communion. What about this type of act, which has traditionally been designated as "fornication"?          

            The problem here is that an interpersonal communion is actualized only by an act that is proper to it.  The interrelationship of family members, for example, is actualized and experienced in the family meal.  Friends actualize and experience their relationship in conversation.  Sexual activity does not actualize an ordinary friendship.  But reproductive-type acts, acts in which the husband and the wife become one flesh (biological unity) and share their procreative potentiality, actualize and provide experience of this specific type of personal communion.  Only if they are married, only if they consent to marriage, does their becoming biologically one actualize (initiate or renew) marriage.  So, only if they have a truly marital relationship can their sexual act embody their personal communion.  So, fornication, as well as sodomy, are objectively immoral acts. 

           

 

IV. Objections

            There are various objections that can be made to these arguments, but because of time considerations, I will consider here only one. 

Objection:

            One very common objection is that according to traditional sexual morality the sexual acts of sterile married couples are morally permissible.  But how can I argue, as I did above, that a couple must perform a reproductive-type act in order to become biologically one?  If the sexual acts of sterile married couples are morally right, then, so the argument goes, sexual acts performed by homosexual couples must also be morally right—for, in both cases, procreation is impossible and in both cases, it would seem, they can have sex in order to express their love for each other.  For example, Stephen Macedo argues that the only reason why homosexual couples cannot perform sexual acts suited to procreation is that they lack "the physical equipment (the 'biological complementarity') such that anyone could have children by doing what they do in bed."[17]  But (according to Macedo) the same is true of sterile married couples—so if sexual acts of one type are morally right, then the sexual acts of type must be right also. 

            However, there is a clear difference between what homosexual couples do and what infertile married couples do.  No one could have children by performing sodomitical acts.  Yet, this is not true of the type of act performed by sterile married couples when they engage in vaginal intercourse. People who are not temporarily or permanently infertile could procreate by performing exactly the act which the infertile married couple perform and by which they consummate or actualize their marital communion. The difference between sterile and fertile married couples is not a difference in what they do. Rather, it is a difference in a distinct condition which affects what may result from what they do. However, the difference between any heterosexual couple engaging in vaginal intercourse and a homosexual couple is much more than that. The lack of complementarity in homosexual couples is a condition which renders it impossible for them to perform the kind of act which makes them biologically one.

            If a married couple becomes infertile, it is obvious that this does not change what they have been doing in bed:  they still perform the same kind of act they have been doing perhaps for years. Similarly, a fertile married couple may have sexual intercourse several times during a week.  If conception results, they may not know which act of sexual intercourse caused it. Still, all of their acts are the kind of acts which could result in procreation.  Their sexual acts later in life, for example, after the female spouse has become infertile, are still the kind of acts which could result in procreation—the difference is not a difference in what they do—the kind of act—but in a condition extrinsic to what they do.

            Thus, the infertile heterosexual couple performs the kind of act that, given other conditions, reproduces; a homosexual couple (or indeed a heterosexual couple engaging in sodomy) performs acts on each other (for they do not engage in a unified act) which of themselves are not apt, in any conditions, to reproduce.  This difference is indeed morally significant.  The heterosexual couple who engage in a reproductive-type act truly become biologically one, one body.  If they have given marital consent, then this act initiates or renews their marital communion.  Their intercourse will be an aspect of this multi-leveled union and so will embody or renew that union.  By contrast, the homosexual couple lacks not just a condition enabling their act to be reproductive, but, first, a prerequisite for the formation by them of the kind of personal union which is initiated or renewed by sexual acts, and, second, the biological complementarity enabling them to become biologically one.  Of course, men have friendships with other men, and women have friendships with other women; but sexual acts performed on each other do not biologically unite them and so do not actualize or embody such friendships.

            Reproduction, or procreation, is not an action directly under our control. Its conditions are non-behavioral as well as behavioral.  What we do is an act which in some instances may result in procreation. Moreover—and here reproduction is distinct from other acts—by performing that act the male and the female become biologically one, two-in-one-flesh. When that one-flesh unity is an aspect of a total marital communion, it is a rational and sufficient motive and justification for that act. But humans (and other mammals) become one flesh (biologically one) only if they perform the type of act which in some instances procreates, only if they perform a reproductive-type act.

            In the generative act the male and the female perform an act (intercourse) in which there is male penetration into the vaginal tract of the female.  This act, performed by the male and the female together, is the first part of the process of reproduction.  In performing this first part of the reproductive process together, the male and the female act as a single unit, even if the second part of the process cannot, for any of a variety of causes, be completed.[18]  Of course, if the process continues, they continue to act as a unit (though at a distance, by means of their gametes).  A condition, or even a defect, which prevents the second part of the process cannot change the fact that the male and the female did become organically one by completing the first part of that process. 

            In sum, in choosing to engage in sexual activity one adopts an attitude toward the relationship between the body and consciousness in both oneself and others with whom one has sex, and one relates to the basic good of personal communion. To engage in sex merely for pleasure separates in one's intention the person as bodily and sexual from the person as intentional agent, treating the body (both one's own and others') as a sub-personal object.  Moreover, sexual acts aimed at expressing affection or love but outside marriage are choices of an illusory experience.  Only if there is a common good realized in and by the sexual act—making the couple one in this cooperative participation in that common good—do the participants treat each other and themselves as unified bodily persons, (and, thus, with respect) and embody a real, basic good.  For only then is their pleasure or experience an aspect of participation in a real good, rather than individual, private gratifications making use of activities or pursuits of illusory experiences.  In marriage, the couple become biologically one, and this bodily union is an aspect of their total marital communion, actualizing (initiating or renewing) their marriage.  Only if the spouses truly unite biologically, and only if this biological union is an aspect of a total personal communion, does their sexual act aim at a genuine, common good.  And the sexual act can be an aspect of the total personal communion—that is, actualize or make present their personal communion—only if the personal communion is of the sort that is naturally prolonged and fulfilled in procreation, and the sexual act is a reproductive-type act making them truly biologically one.  And so, only in marriage can sexual acts realize a common good rather than induce self-alienation or an illusory experience.

             

           

 

 

Objection 2:

 

            A second objection to the main argument is to claim that non-marital acts—in particular, homosexual sex acts—do sometimes realize a basic, common good, that they do, sometimes, somehow embody or express a personal communion.  We will consider here two variations on this.  The first is to say that such acts symbolize, or gesture, the personal union of the participants, perhaps as a special gesture, and that in this way such acts contribute to or strengthen the participants' personal union.[19]  But if that is so, then why can't sexual acts between partners of the same sex symbolize or gesture love or affection? And why must a couple have a community suited for procreation (i.e., be married) in order validly to express their love sexually?

            It is true that chaste sexual acts are signs or symbols of personal union. However, sexual acts are in their immediate reality much more than symbols or gestures. The question is whether the reality that is more than symbolic will involve depersonalization. When one waves at someone, or smiles at someone, or shakes her hand, the gesture is of itself rather trivial, but partly through convention and partly through natural association, it signifies a cordial act of will or emotion. The same is true of  a hug or a non-passionate kiss.  But insofar as these acts are symbols, the thought is moved away from the sign to the will or emotion which it signifies.[20]  However, in a sexual act there is a desire directed toward the body and the desire of the other.  The participants' attention is riveted on the action itself.  And the desire and attention is not just toward the physical presence of the other (as in a hug). So the action is not primarily a sign or gesture for some other reality.  Indeed, sexual acts are symbolically powerful precisely because of what sexual intercourse between a man and woman is in reality. 

            Moreover, a morally right sexual act does not make present in an indeterminate way just some-union-or-other.  Rather, becoming  biologically one in a sexual act is the sort of act specifically apt to make present marital communion, that is, the sort of union oriented to, and fulfilled by, procreation:  that is the kind of communion it can embody (and if it does not, then it, and the persons involved, are being used for extrinsic purposes).   Sexual intercourse is a real, biological unity, and if it is loving and respectful sexual intercourse within marriage, it embodies or makes present marriage:  not just a gesture, but a joint act in which the two become co-subjects and thus become one.  Thus, it is fundamentally a real act, and a real unification, and because of that, it is a gesture with profound significance or meaning.[21]

            It is true that someone may have sex with another in order to signify something as an ulterior end. For example, an otherwise unwilling teen girl may consent to have sex with her boyfriend in order to show him how much she cares. Still, the immediate reality of the sexual act is not a mere sign or gesture. And so if there is not a real union of which the sexual act is a part—in other words if it is not a marital act—then the bodily presence of the other, and the personal presence of the other as a bodily person, is used for the sake of the experience of the sexual act, even if that experience has as an ulterior end some signification. In other words, if doing X in itself involves treating the body as an extrinsic instrument, it does not cease to do so if one does X for the sake of an ulterior end, in this case, signification.[22]    

            Another variation on this argument is to say that there is, in some way, a real bodily unity in sexual acts not suited to procreation, that is, in sodomitical acts. 

The answer to this is that not just any act will allow a couple to experience their unity. What is it about a sexual act that enables it to embody a personal communion? The fact that it gives intense pleasure is certainly not what enables it to do so, nor that the sexual desire is reciprocal, for pleasure and desire are good to begin with only if their object or content is genuinely fulfilling. 

            No act—sexual or otherwise—can be just an experience of and actualization of a friendship.  Friendship is a unity constituted by common pursuit of genuine goods such as health, knowledge, play,[23] and so on.  Thus, friendship is actualized and experienced only in the common pursuit or realization of other genuine goods.[24]  In truly marital acts the genuine, common good is their bodily, organic unity, as a non-instrumental aspect and biological basis of the overall (multi-leveled) reality of their marriage. But no actual organic unity is present in sodomitical acts, and there is not any other human good immediately instantiated by the act.  So, sodomitical acts do not (in any substantial and morally significant sense) unify the two (or more) persons who perform them on each others' bodies.[25]

            In sum, in choosing to engage in sexual activity one adopts an attitude toward the relationship between the body and consciousness in both oneself and others with whom one has sex, and one relates to the basic good of personal communion. To engage in sex merely for pleasure separates in one's intention the person as bodily from the person as intentional agent, treating the body (both one's own and others') as a sub-personal object.  Moreover, sexual acts aimed at expressing affection or love but outside marriage are choices of an illusory experience.  Only if there is a common good realized in and by the sexual act—making the couple one in this cooperative participation in that common good—do the participants treat each other and themselves as unified bodily persons, (and, thus, with respect) and embody a real, basic good.  For only then is their pleasure or experience an aspect of participation in a real good, rather than individual, private gratifications making use of activities or pursuits of illusory experiences.  In marriage, the couple become biologically one, and this bodily union is an aspect of their total marital communion, actualizing (initiating or renewing) their marriage.  Only if the spouses truly unite biologically, and only if this biological union is an aspect of a total personal communion, does their sexual act aim at a genuine, common good.  And the sexual act can be an aspect of the total personal communion—that is, actualize or make present their personal communion—only if the personal communion is of the sort that is naturally prolonged and fulfilled in procreation, and the sexual act is a reproductive-type act making them truly biologically one.  And so, only in marriage can sexual acts realize a common good rather than induce self-alienation or an illusory experience.

 

 

 

In sexual intercourse the husband and the wife become biologically one, but they do so precisely as man and woman, precisely as potential father and mother.  So, in this act they share their procreative power (even if some condition distinct from their sexual act makes procreation impossible).  The full exercise or fulfillment of this potential would include conception, gestation, bearing and raising the child, that is, bringing the child, the concrete prolongation and fruit of their love, to maturity physically, emotionally, intellectually and morally.  Thus in their sexuality, in the procreative potential which they share with each other, there is a dynamism toward fatherhood and motherhood, and so, a dynamism which extends the present unity of the spouses indefinitely into the future.  This reality is the basis for the profound significance that most people sense or feel is attached to sexual intercourse. 

 

 

Among the implications of this view, it would seem to follow that there is nothing wrong, at least in principle, with prostitution.  For if it is pleasant for one party, why may it not be merely profitable for the other party?  Proponents of the morality of prostitution grant that there is often coercion, exploitation, and other bad effects associated with prostitution. But, they argue, these are not necessary or inevitable features of commercial sex.

 

Thus, masturbatory sex is analogous to (though not the same as) lying.  It is not itself a lie, since deception need not occur—the parties involved may be fully aware that the sexual act is detached from personal communion.  However, like lying, it involves a direct detachment or a negation of an integration that is in itself a good.  In lying there is a dis-integration of the outer self from the inner self.  In masturbatory sex there is dis-integration, a separation, of the body-as-sexual, or the animal sexuality, from the whole person. And so masturbatory sexual acts violate the basic good of marriage, the capacity of the person to give oneself in a sexual act.  One cannot view one’s own sexuality, or that of one’s partner, as a mere extrinsic tool, without at the same being disposed to view other bodily persons as similarly split or dis-integrated.