Understanding the Practical Basics of Marital Chastity: Complete vs Incomplete Sexual Acts

In this article we walk you through some key terms and concept that will help you understand the fundamentals of marital chastity which may help illuminate our articles a bit more.

---

I realize that many of our recent articles invoke terminology that we haven’t taken the time to spell out in quite some time, so I wanted to devote this article to defining key terms moral theologians have used when discussing sexual acts that are either licit or illicit within the context of marital intimacy. For a much more detailed treatment of these matters from esteemed traditional moral theologians, check out our Compendium where you can access their writings on marital chastity in both Latin and English (we are the only organization who provides an English translation for many of these writings)

Complete sexual act: This refers to a sexual act brought to its full termination in orgasm, which theologians define as the “full resolution or sedation of the sexual impulse”. While this usually accompanies the emission of ejaculate, so-called dry orgasms would also fall under the category of a complete sexual act. According to Church teaching, the complete sexual act can only take place within the context of the marriage act, i.e., the husband’s emission of semen into the wife’s vagina [1]

Incomplete sexual act: Sexual acts that do not bring either yourself or your spouse to orgasm. Here is how Fr. John C Ford puts it: “[b]y incomplete venereal acts theologians understand the process of tumescence up to the point of orgasm, but not including it. By incomplete venereal pleasure they understand the mixed feelings of pleasure and tension which normally accompany tumescence”. The vast majority of traditional theologians (including St. Alphonsus [2])  believe that spouses can licitly engage in incomplete sexual activity outside the marriage act so long as there is no foreseen proximate danger of orgasm in either the husband or the wife. To access the opinions of these theologians, check out our Compendium. 

Venereal pleasure: This refers to the pleasure derived directly and immediately from the genital organs. It can either be incomplete or complete. Incomplete when the pleasure is not brought to orgasm; complete when the pleasure is brought to orgasm. While complete venereal pleasure is usually associated with a complete sexual act, theologians distinguish the two in order to accommodate situations when orgasm takes place accidentally while the associated pleasure is consciously rejected.

Venereo-sense pleasure: This kind of pleasure typically arises from incomplete sexual expressions that do not directly stimulate the genital organs, such as prolonged kissing or touching/looking at less decent parts of the body (e.g., a woman’s breasts). These pleasures do not directly stimulate the genital organs, but bring about a state of arousal and pleasure that derives from them nonetheless. This type of pleasure is absolutely forbidden for unmarried couples to deliberately activate within themselves, but is per se permitted between married couples outside a proximate danger of pollution. 

Pollution: Orgasm outside the conjugal act. In the strictest of senses, pollution refers to the spilling of male ejaculate outside the wife’s vagina. But theologians typically use the same term to refer to any completed sexual act (i.e., orgasm) outside natural conjugal intercourse whether by a man or woman alone or by a man and woman together. From a moral point of view, pollution takes place when a man or woman experiences the full resolution or complete sedation of the sexual impulse outside the proper context of the conjugal act. Pollution can be voluntary or involuntary. Voluntary if the orgasm is sought after deliberately; involuntary if pollution happens by accident and the pleasure of the orgasm is resisted internally. Accidental pollution is not gravely sinful if the acts which proved the pollution were a) morally licit in themselves (e.g., licit incomplete sexual acts between spouses) and b) done with a just cause (that is, if the danger of pollution is foreseen but there is a proportionately grave reason for positing the preceding action, such as making necessary preparation for intercourse) [3]. For more detail, check out our Compendium. 

Proximate danger of pollution: This is typically the limit case for morally allowable expressions of incomplete sexuality between married couples. This happens when either the husband or the wife consciously foresees the greater likelihood of an orgasm happening if the sexual act is prolonged further. As stated above, this can only be tolerated between husband and wife for a proportionately grave reason, but only if the danger of consent to the pleasure of a pollution is altogether excluded. 

Morose delectation: Prolonged or sustained mental pleasure about sexual things.”Morose delights and desires for those things that are permissible for married couples are no sin, for those that which is prohibited under venial sin is venially sinful to delight in, for that is prohibited under mortal sin, is gravely sinful to delight in, because pleasure receives its morality from the object.”[4] (Fr. Hieronymous Noldin, SJ, Summa theologiae moralis).

Footnotes:

1. Pope Pius XII, Address to the Second World Congress on Fertility and Sterility, 19 May 1956

2. Alphonsus Liguori, Theologiae Moralis, Lib. vi. Tract vi, de Matrimonio, 933, q. 4

3. Lanza, Theologiae Moralis. Appendix: De castitate et luxuria

4. Hieronymous Noldin, SJ, Summa theologiae moralis