The Morality of Multiple Orgasms During Sex For Both Men and Women

In this article, we discuss the morality of either the husband or wife experiencing multiple orgasms in a single session of conjugal intercourse.

---

Many of the questions we get at the Apostolate center around the difference in moral calculation between the male and female orgasms during the marriage act, so we thought it would be worthwhile to devote an article discussing those differences in more detail.

Now the male orgasm from a moral point of view is relatively clear cut. The only moral context in which the male orgasm takes place would be inside the wife’s vagina without any contraceptive barriers. If a husband wishes to have more than one orgasm, he will simply have to wait until he can have penetrative intercourse again so that he can ejaculate inside of his wife. I can only think of one potential caveat to this having to do with the possibility of a so-called dry orgasm for the male. Since a true marriage act must involve the husband’s procreative insemination, if the husband experiences the satiating sensation of orgasm without ejaculating, this would constitute a complete sexual act but not a true marriage act. Therefore, the husband would need to make a sincere attempt at ejaculating inside of his wife at some point during the same session of marital intimacy. Given the inherent difficulty of this, I do not think it would ordinarily be moral for a husband to deliberately procure a dry orgasm as such during conjugal intimacies (remember, if the husband were to be unsuccessful and actually ejaculate outside the wife’s vagina, this would directly and gravely go against the order of nature).

As for the female orgasm, as I’m sure you can all guess, the matter becomes much more complex. Before going into specific moral questions, we need to ask in what precise way the male and female orgasms differ from one another. Fundamentally, they differ in their reason for existing. The male orgasm was ordained by God to accompany the emission of semen which is what enables the conjugal act to be intrinsically directed toward procreation, whereas the female orgasm is not necessary for procreation to take place. Rather, it principally serves the unitive end of sex by providing women with a biological opportunity to experience to satiation the fullness of the conjugal act taking place. While many speculate that the female orgasm can assist fertility, this is clearly accessory to its primary purpose which is thoroughly unitive. For this reason, the rules which morally govern the male orgasm must differ from those which govern the female orgasm. Moreover, the very sensation of a female orgasm is itself shrouded in some degree of ambiguity or uncertainty. It is very common, for example, for women to experience orgasm-like sensations prior to experiencing the full satiation and sedation of the sexual impulse, which, from a moral point of view, is what characterizes the complete sexual act. In light of these truths, we must ask: is it permissible for a woman to intentionally enjoy more than one orgasm during a singular conjugal act?

There are two main opinions on the matter. According to one opinion, the female orgasm is designed by nature to accompany and therefore directly correspond to the male orgasm. Therefore, if there is no second male orgasm, an additional female orgasm would violate the order of nature and would be morally classified as an unnatural pollution. Very few theologians hold to this view [1]. According to the second view, because the female orgasm is not principally ordered toward the procreative end of the conjugal act by itself, it does not violate the order of nature if several orgasms take place during the same marriage act. Nature simply provides no basis for insisting on a one-to-one correspondence between male and female orgasms so long as they both take place during the same marriage act. We will conclude with the words of both Fr. John C. Ford and Fr. Gerald Kelly in their landmark treatise Contemporary Moral Theology Volume II, Marriage Questions (1964):

“In our opinion it can be reasonably maintained that the several female orgasms which take place during one act of sexual union are all morally united with the completed act of the man during that union, and that nothing more is required to preserve the proper ordination of these several orgasms to the marriage act in which they occur. There is a practical consideration which confirms this view. Suppose the man is naturally slow in arriving at his climax, with the result, not planned ahead of time, at his climax, with the result, not planned ahead of time, that his wife has two orgasms while he has one. When the second orgasm impends, what is she to do? Ask him to withdraw without completion? Obviously not. Remain passive? Hardly. Is she not supposed to help him to finish? Can she be obliged at one and the same time to help him actively to finish and to repudiate internally the activity (and its pleasure) which she is externally obliged to produce? There seems to be a strong presumption from common sense, not easily overcome by fine-spun philosophical argumentation, that they are both acting in accordance with the moral law if at this point they deliberately cause and consent to the second orgasm. If so, the second orgasm is not intrinsically evil like an unnatural pollution.” [2]

Footnotes:

1. The only viewpoint which explicitly expresses this view is found in Hurth’s manual: Inquisitio Critica in Moralitatem ‘amplexus reservati’, 1952

2. Fr. John C. Ford and Fr. Gerald Kelly, Contemporary Moral Theology, vol ii, Marriage Questions, 1964