Answering a Reader’s Questions about Anal Stimulation, Sexting, and Sexy Photos/Videos Within Marriage

Some of the questions you as our readers ask are so valuable that we would like to take the opportunity to broaden the audience for their answers. In this article, we are answering a reader’s questions about anal stimulation, sexting, and the exchange of sexy photos and videos within marriage.

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Reader question: What about anal penetration as part of the foreplay/stimulation or the possibility of strap-on penetration (F to M) as part of the foreplay/stimulation?

Answer: 

While it is true that some moralists believe anal penetration can be done without a proximate danger of orgasm (Fr. Felix Cappello, Archbishop Antonio Lanza, Jone-Adelman [joint manual], Merkelbach, Slater, Ballerini, and others), we like to opt in favor of the safer opinion which acknowledges a) how rare it is for an act like this to not involve a proximate danger of orgasm and b) that, unlike oral stimulation where the mouth is commonly associated with expressions of conjugal love, the anus simply doesn't lend itself to the possibility of signifying conjugal love. The same could arguably be said about strap-on penetration which symbolically subverts the order of nature. While these acts may not be against nature strictly speaking, we cannot endorse them. I would also point out that even if an act is not always and everywhere sinful, it could still fall short of the spirit of Christian asceticism and could fall into a hedonism where pleasure is pursued to the detriment of cultivating deeper conjugal affection or of cultivating a spirit of Christian self-denial. Pius XII warns against this in his Address to Midwives. For a very good treatment of what does or does not fall into un-Christian sexual hedonism, I would strongly recommend Fr. John Ford and Fr. Gerald Kelly's Contemporary Moral Theology Volume ii: Marriage Questions. You can also find excerpts for that by accessing or Compendium by becoming a patron!

Reader question: What about sexting with photos/videos, and can we keep these said photos/videos to watch again later?

Answer: We did a full article on sexting which you can find here.

In short, we think this can not only be licit but can conduce toward a deeper layer of sexual attraction to one another that transcends mere physicality. This, however, could only be done if the danger of solitary pollution were strenuously avoided and excluded. If this activity does become a proximate danger for solitary pollution (i,e., masturbation), then it would become a near occasion of sin. 

Reader question: What about home videos that we use for foreplay/stimulation, i.e., a home video where part of the foreplay is stimulating one another manually while watching previous acts. Doesn't this cross into pornography? But then how is sexting any different?

Answer: I think the answer here is very similar to the previous question, namely, that the danger of sin is not so much in the exchange of this private content between spouses but in the danger surrounding masturbation. It could also pose a potential danger in reducing the other spouse as a mere object of pleasure, but it does not seem to me that this danger necessarily exists in all cases. Considered in itself, however, it does not constitute the sin of pornography because there is an absence of a third party that is necessary for the sin to be committed, per the CCC's definition of pornography.