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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   31592 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 23, 2025

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This reads, to me, like youre taking situations where non-conception is forseeable but not intended (pregnant, post-menopause), and arguing that its therefore ok with intent also.

Can you argue that it is not ok to intentionally avoid conception?

The question is, what tells us that the sexual intercourse thats the point is exactly "ejaculation of a penis in a vagina" and not some related different concept with different boundaries? I think that would be very difficult to explain without tying it to the purpose of sexual intercourse. Im expecting something like "the evolutionary purpose of sexual intercourse is making babies, penis ejaculating in vagina is neccesary for that, therefore its nessecary to proper sexual intercourse".

I figure that's the argument that you're used to expecting, so it's throwing you off that I'm not making it. There are lots of people who will use the Aristotelian-Thomistic Perverted Faculty argument, and you can go talk to those people if you like. Other Catholics like Pope St. John Paul II argue from "the personalistic norm" and semiotics. There isn't an official argumentation that Catholics have to use to defend sexual morality.

If you don't think sexual intercourse is the ejaculation of a penis in a vagina, what do you think sexual intercourse is? I think the definition of sexual intercourse is apparent by looking at the genitals and what they do together, just as you can look at a gun, a bullet, and someone firing a bullet and saying, "yeah, this is how they go together." You don't necessarily need someone to shoot and kill another person with the bullet to figure out that guns are for shooting. You don't necessarily need to have sexual intercourse and have a baby to figure out genitals are for sexual intercourse. The knowledge that these things can be consequences of the action might inform your understanding of the action, but the actions can be analyzed separate from their consequences.

Target practice generally still requires firing small ballistics. Pair bonding and pleasure dont require penis ejaculating in vagina.

True, there are cuddles and other things that can make pair bonding happen. In this part of the analogy, I'm just listing things that are known possible consequences of the action in question. Some possible consequences/results of shooting a gun is that it will hit or miss a target and that will create a feedback loop to help the shooter improve their aim. Some possible consequences/results of sexual intercourse is that it will make a baby or improve pair bonding. This is not an exhausted list of possible consequences of shooting a gun or having sexual intercourse.

The examples are Unidirectional and I'm not making the opposite argument that target practice necessitates the shooting of a gun or something like that. I'm not arguing that the consequences of the actions necessitates how the actions happen or anything like that.

I think thats not how people use words, generally. "Penis ejaculating in vagina", as an ordinary english description, does not actually exclude using a condom.

Where does the ejaculate go? A vagina or a condom? If you poke holes in the condom so that ejaculate leaves the condom, then wearing a condom is fine in Catholic ethics.

Can you argue that it is not ok to intentionally avoid conception?

No, because my point is about a problem with a combination of your views, not which direction to resolve it.

I think the definition of sexual intercourse is apparent by looking at the genitals and what they do together

Theres a general sense of "this thing goes in here" that I think is apparent. But just from looking at it, I couldnt tell that "oral sex to right before orgasm, then sticking it in" is fine but "Sex with a condom" isnt. Those would be question marks, to be filled in by a more formal understanding. If you think its obvious, that might be because you know the answer already.

Where does the ejaculate go?

First, your descriptions says "in", not "into", so technically it doesnt matter. But I would say that if it is in the condom, it is also in the vagina. Yes, you can ask questions which sound similar to your original formulation and lead to different intuitions, because language can be sensitive to details like that - but again, you wouldnt know where and which of these reformulations to use, if you didnt already know the answer. And then what about a diaphragm? There it definitely goes into the vagina, just not the part where an egg might be.

I notice that youre mostly not answering my examples about what might or might not count. There are a lot of contraceptive methods, even if we only consider the ones that are actually used in the real world - but apparently none of them are acceptable to the church, no matter how close to conception their mechanism of action is, except various forms of "not having sex". Its very unlikely for a principle to act this precisely, without somehow refering to conception - this is why Im expecting some argument along those lines, not just because of what Im familiar with.

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