Can Catholic Spouses Sext Each Other?

Overview

A Catholic moral analysis of whether sexting between spouses can be licit, exploring conditions, risks, and how mutual, ordered intimacy can deepen marital love.

The 21st century has changed almost every facet of human life, and our sexuality is no different. In most cases having to do with sexuality, this has been decidedly for the worst, especially from a Catholic perspective. One only needs to walk through a mall, peruse social media sites, or simply recognize the ubiquity of internet pornography to concede this. However, as Catholics, we are called to resist one-dimensional thinking about such things and instead to judge each application of technology on its own merits, weighing it against the unchanging standards of the natural moral law written on our hearts. We at the Apostolate have made sure to address some of these technological innovations as they relate to sexual intimacy, such as the use of marital aids and the like. But there is another form of modern sexual practice that could only have been made possible through the advent of smartphones, which would be sexting. Before we analyze this through a Catholic moral lens, we should first define this term. 

Sexting could be defined by any digital exchange of words or (in some cases) images in order to cause sexual arousal or pleasure in each party involved. Therefore, in order to judge its moral status within marriage, we would need first and foremost to discern whether the sexual acts involved would be considered intrinsically evil within the context of marital intimacy before we can consider how such underlying acts could morally apply to any digital context. Now since texting and online communication take place remotely, we should first ask whether any sexual enjoyment of any kind could licitly be had a) outside the immediate context of the conjugal act and b) in physical isolation from each other. The overwhelmingly vast majority of traditional moralists all acknowledge that sexual pleasure within marriage can be enjoyed outside the immediate context of the marriage act so long as an immediate danger of orgasm in both husband and wife is avoided. The position that “all sexual activity that does not terminate in the marriage act is mortally sinful” was rejected explicitly by St. Alphonsus Liguori in his Theologiae moralis and ever since then the vast majority of moralists have sided with him on this point. The deeper reasoning here is that since, as St. Thomas teaches, the conjugal act itself can be performed without any sin in marriage, so likewise would the pleasures associated with the conjugal act be permissible for spouses so long as the ends of marriage are not violated either through adultery, contraception, masturbation, onanism, sodomy, or marital rape. So long as all these acts are avoided, the spouses would only be at risk of venial sin which would arise out of an inordinate preoccupation with pleasure for its own sake. 

But what about the physical separation which circumstantially defines the act of sexting? Would this dimension of the act fall into one of those grave sins we just mentioned? Well, not necessarily. It certainly could, however. For example, if spouses text each other sexually explicit images which constitutes a near occasion for the sin of masturbation, then even if the sexting is done mutually, the proximate danger of that sin would make the whole sexual practice far too risky in the moral order. But since all traditional moralists are agreed that couples can, outside the conjugal act, engage in mutually sexually stimulating activity outside the proximate danger of orgasm, it would be absurd to conclude that the act of sexting does not count as a mutual act simply because the other spouse is not physically present. Therefore, just as a spouse in the physical absence of the other spouse can self-stimulate in anticipation of the marriage act or (for women) as a means to completing the pleasures of the conjugal act, it stands to reason that spouses can perform this very same incomplete sexual activity so long as it is done in a concurrently mutual way so as to fully live out the concrete relationality of conjugal love. So long as neither spouse is tempted to self-stimulate outside of this concurrently mutual context of texting each other or to bring about in themselves a proximate danger of orgasm, we would judge this act no differently than any other mutual incomplete expression of sexual love between spouses. I would also argue that there are unique benefits to this form of sexual intimacy, for while sexting can involve images, it focuses more squarely on the use of words to sexually arouse each other and therefore requires each spouse to focus less on the visual dimension of each other’s bodies but more intently on the unique personality of the other spouse as expressed sexually to each other. As a result, the locus of sexual pleasure becomes even more intentionally rooted in the other spouse as a sexual person as opposed to simply a sexual body. Therefore, if done cautiously and within these moral parameters, I think it can be something that brings spouses closer together in intimacy and can deepen the bond of emotional intimacy which must always shape and undergird the physical intimacy of sex. 

References

1. St. Alphonsus Liguori, Theologiae moralis, lib vi, tract vi, de Matrim, cap ii, de Matrimonio secundum se dub ii, 933, q. 4

2.  St. Thomas Aquinas, suppl. Q. 49, art. vi

3. I do realize that many esteemed moralists (e.g., Sanchez, Tanquerary, Ballerini, Lanza, Bucceroni, Noldin, Cappello, Merkelbach, etc) do not consider it always and everywhere gravely sinful for a spouse to, even outside the conjugal act, voluntarily admit in himself or herself sexually stimulating pleasure about the other spouse in their absence (by which they meant while one spouse is alone even in the absence of the concurrent mutuality of the pleasure involved) outside the danger of orgasm or of an adulterous object of pleasure, but we at the Apostolate choose to endorse the safer, contrary opinion of Alphonsus (Theologiae moralis, cap ii, de Matrimonio secundum se dub ii, 936, q. 3). You can purchase access to our Compendium to see how this issue was debated among moralists.

4. Liguori, Theologiae moralis, lib vi, tract vi, de Matrim, cap ii, de Matrimonio secundum se dub ii, 936, q. 3

5. Liguori, Theologiae moralis, lib vi, tract vi, de Matrim, cap ii, de Matrimonio secundum se dub ii, 919