Taking What We Can from Modern Sexology

Overview

A Catholic guide to engaging modern sexology: what to receive, what to reject, and how moral, evidence based approaches to marital intimacy can be developed.

Sexology both studies and shapes how our culture understands desire, pleasure, dysfunction, and relational intimacy. Yet, many Catholics feel uneasy about this field because sexologists often promote practices that conflict with Christian morality. Ignoring sexology is not a viable option, however, because the discipline contains real insights into human sexual functioning. AMI seeks to help couples understand these questions with clarity, confidence, and fidelity. To do that well, we must engage what is good in sexology and reject what is harmful.

What Sexology Is and Why It Matters

Sexology studies human sexual functioning, behavior, and wellbeing through research, clinical observation, and applied techniques. It gathers data, investigates causes, identifies patterns, and evaluates outcomes. These efforts have advanced our knowledge of arousal, sexual learning, communication, and the psychological and relational conditions that support marital intimacy. Catholics can benefit from this work because truth about the human person ultimately serves marriage and family life.

A Classical Understanding of Science

To understand how Catholics can engage in sexology, we need a clear sense of what makes something a science. Aquinas explains in the Proemium to his commentary on Boethius’s De Trinitate that a science is a stable intellectual habit that knows through causes. Scientific inquiry examines the nature, principles, and ends of things and moves from what is already known to deeper understanding (Aquinas, n.d., Super Boetium De Trinitate, q. 5, a. 1). Under this classical definition, sexology qualifies as a real science. It seeks to understand sexual functioning by identifying causal relationships and by studying how certain conditions influence sexual outcomes.

Yet modern sexology looks different from this Thomistic model because it arose within a very different philosophical framework. The scientific revolution, shaped by figures such as Descartes, shifted science away from the scholastic mode of understanding things in light of their nature and final cause. Descartes argued that science should analyze phenomena by breaking them into measurable parts and using mathematical reasoning to predict and control outcomes (Dear, 2006). This new approach treated the body as a machine and prioritized mastery over nature rather than contemplation of what something is. Because sexology developed entirely in the twentieth century, it inherited this Cartesian orientation (Ariew and Garber, 1995). Thus, many sexologists assume that the purpose of their work is to help individuals achieve whatever sexual goal they desire, without examining whether the goal itself is ordered to human flourishing.

This philosophical difference does not make sexology less scientific. It does mean that many contemporary methods operate from a different vision of the human person and of the purpose of scientific inquiry.

Where Modern Sexology Goes Wrong

This background explains why modern sexology often promotes interventions that are effective but morally disordered. A clear example is the treatment of anorgasmia. Contemporary clinical texts routinely recommend masturbation training, sometimes accompanied by erotic materials, as the primary intervention (Heiman and LoPiccolo, 1988; Binik and Hall, 2014). These strategies can produce positive results, yet they violate Christian sexual ethics by separating arousal from its proper procreative and relational ends.

Something can be gravely immoral and also the easiest or fastest path to a desired outcome. That does not make it legitimate. On the other hand, I propose that any sexual difficulty treatable through immoral means can also be treated through moral means, even if these moral methods have not yet been identified, refined, or empirically validated. This confidence comes from my conviction in both the truth about the human person as classically understood and the value of rigorous scientific inquiry.

What Catholics Can Receive from Sexology

Not all sexological interventions conflict with Christian teaching. Some are grounded in a healthy understanding of embodiment, relational communication, and gradual sexual learning. Sensate Focus, developed by Masters and Johnson, uses structured, non-demand touch to build comfort, presence, and emotional regulation between spouses (Masters and Johnson, 1970). This approach aligns well with Catholic anthropology because it fosters tenderness, trust, and unity within the marital relationship. Techniques like this can be used directly within a faithful Catholic framework.

What Needs to Be Modified or Reimagined

Other interventions must be adapted to make them morally acceptable. The field has not yet produced morally integrated protocols for several conditions, including anorgasmia. Through my ongoing training and research, I am developing theoretical adaptations that preserve the evidence-based strengths of contemporary methods while avoiding immoral practices. These adaptations remain hypotheses. They require scholarly dialogue, refinement, and eventual scientific testing.

Why These Technical Questions Continue at WIMI

AMI’s mission is pastoral and theological. It serves married couples who want to live the Church’s teaching with peace and confidence. The more technical philosophical and scientific questions belong in a different setting. For that reason, I present these developing models at the Walther Institute for Marital Intimacy (WIMI) at waltherinstitute.com, where clinicians, researchers, and scholars can interact with them more deeply. This approach makes the work accessible to professionals from any background, not only those trained in theology.

Invitation to Clinicians and Researchers

If you are a clinician, researcher, or student of the behavioral sciences, I invite you to join the ongoing conversation at WIMI. Your insights can help refine these developing models and prepare the foundation for moral, effective, and scientifically testable approaches to sexual wellbeing. By working together, we can receive what is good in modern sexology, correct what is disordered, and help build a faithful, intelligent understanding of marital intimacy.

References

Aquinas, T. (n.d.). Super Boetium De Trinitate. Aquinas.cc Latin and English edition.
https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~DeTrin

Ariew, R., and Garber, D. (Eds.). (1995). Descartes and his contemporaries: Meditations, objections, and replies. University of Chicago Press.

Binik, Y. M., and Hall, K. S. K. (Eds.). (2014). Principles and practice of sex therapy (5th ed.). Guilford Press.

Dear, P. (2006). The intelligibility of nature: How science makes sense of the world. University of Chicago Press.

Heiman, J., and LoPiccolo, J. (1988). Becoming orgasmic: A sexual and personal growth program for women. Prentice Hall.

Masters, W. H., and Johnson, V. E. (1970). Human sexual inadequacy. Little, Brown.