Both, maybe? I understand if you mean a rock has no desire/will etc but this makes no sense as analogy so you must mean something else, and I don't know what.

Mostly. If say a couple is married and they agreed to use contraception but one of them, the one using the contraception, actually desires to have a child. That person wouldn't be sinning if there is a shot at beating the odds.

I understand the Church's position and your blind person analogy. But even with you explaining it. I still dont see the difference between an elderly couple with no desire or ability to have kids and a gay couple. Both are having sex that intrinsically can't produce children and both have no innate desire to. But thats alright ill just stay confused.

If you and the church want to say sex is for married straight people because its purpose is innately for procreation, ok. I mean i dont agree mainly because sex was around long before marriage and i think there are other innate reasons for it and it shouldn't matter if humans go outside of the innate programing as long as no one get hurt anyway, but ok.

The Church's position is totally incoherent and self-contradictory.

Well yeah agree they are definitely confusing.

Relating to that i have another question.

If anal, oral and all sexual acts that aren't vaginal penis related are sins. Then wouldn't kissing be a sin? It gives sexual pleasure and it has nothing to so with creating life. What about touching and caressing? Wouldn't you need to, in order to not sin, go the full monty close your eyes and use the hole in the sheet sex method.

I think I see your problem. I highlighted it for you. Maybe next time you could use serial-killers as an example, or neurotics who doesn't dare step on cracks in the pavement.

What I mean is that, except when speaking metaphorically, we do not call a rock 'blind,' because being able to see does not belong to what a rock is. We don't need some special term to indicate that a particular rock can't see, because no rock is able to see. Instead, we use the term 'blind' to indicate when an animal (such as a human being) that normally is able to see cannot see. The proper subject of the term 'blind' is always a thing normally capable of seeing.

Similarly, when I say that "Bob is infertile," I mean that his engaging in vaginal intercourse probably or (practically) certainly won't result in conception. I wouldn't say "Bob is infertile" just because he's a homosexual (or a celibate, or one who engages in masturbation, etc.) who doesn't happen to engage in vaginal intercourse. I also don't call particular acts 'infertile,' but rather a person who will not conceive or cause conception through vaginal intercourse.

That is, the proper subject of the term 'infertile' is always a person, considered with respect to what would occur as the result of their participating in vaginal intercourse. The act of vaginal intercourse is intrinsically ordered towards reproduction, even if a particular person engaging in it is infertile. Therefore any comparison between a homosexual act and a heterosexual act on the basis of whether or not the heterosexuals involved are fertile or not is just a bad comparison. You are comparing (a) an act that can never result in new life to (b) an act whose intrinsic purpose is reproduction. (b) remains true even if one or both of the people engaged in the act are infertile.

This seems terribly self-contradictory. Please tell me what I'm reading wrong, or is this really how it works?

I really don't like the rock/blind guy analogy either. You don't have to call the gay couple infertile if you don't want, but why are you pretending that an infertile heterosexual couple having sex is "intrinsically ordered towards reproduction?" Infertile people (who know that they are infertile) don't have sex to make babies, and infertile sex isn't designed for baby-making either.

The arrangement of the sex act itself is geared for reproduction...The fact that it is an infertile couple doesn't change that arrangement.

Would you care to expose the contradiction? If you are unable too then it doesn't exist.

Would you say a fear of stepping on cracks in the pavement is normal? Would you say homosexuality is normal?

If you think one behavior is normal and the other is not can you give us your reasons.

If anal sex is immoral because its a non procreative sex act. Then why aren't all non procreative sex acts immoral?

That's not exactly fair of you to say about me, considering that outside of my major in college, psychology classes were the ones I took the most frequently, 3 of them 3,000 level and above. In one of the 3,000 level classes something like 30% of our final grade depended upon a group research project about a subject in psychology. The group I got into wanted to research the subject of society and homosexuality, possible mental/physical roots of it, brain scans of heteros vs *****, is it a mental illness, can gay people resort to heterosexual lifestyles, do they need to change at all, lifespan's and overall mental health of gay vs straight people, etc etc. That was like 3 years ago so plz forgive me for not remembering all the specifics and %'s. All I remember coming away with is it's all inconclusive to me. Psychologist used to try and treat it and help them. Then came the 1960's. Now psychs are not allowed to treat them as though anything is mentally wrong with them. Some gays have been able to change sexual orientation either through power of religion or working out issues through alternate therapist, or just straight up self help type ****. Some gays believe they will never change and don't want to change, they're perfectly happy with who they are. Some things about risks say this, others say that. Lifespans are shorter most likely because of drug use and frequency of AIDS (no I'm not stereotyping) along with certain health risks. That's all I really remember reading but it's about as fresh on my mind as my 4k level International marketing class where I was in another group where we had to study everything known to man about Japan and Proctor and Gamble and the Swiffer product line. To sum up, plz don't say I have no idea about research done on the subject and societal things related to it. Like I said the specifics I admit I will have no ability at this point to direct people to #s, %s, or even correct terms (anal/vs colon cancer). It was years ago, I just remember the outline of it all

The church only has a problem with the male ejaculating outside a woman's vagina. What exactly is inconsistent about that?

Infertile couples having sex is not geared toward reproduction. The Church will grant divorce/annulment in the case of infertility, which means that it is important that sex leads to reproduction. But in other cases they don't have a problem with non-reproductive sex in other contexts. This is inconsistent, period.

Uh, no. In the case where the persons engaged in the act are infertile the act of sex can never result in new life, same as (a).

This is false. The Church will annul a marriage that has never been consummated, including if this is because of impotence. But once a marriage has been consummated, it is forever, even if one or the other spouses is infertile.

Edit: furthermore, as I said before, if a person is known to be impotent, he is forbidden from marrying under Church law.

This works just as well. The Church has a problem with infertile persons.

Or,, as an old priest in a Catholic forum posted once: "There is no reason a Catholic married couple shouldn't be having a whomping good time in bed."

I wonder if folks around here think Catholics stop having sex after menopause?

If I recall correctly the church may grant an annullment in cases where one partner knew they were infertile before the marriage and hid that information from the other partner. I don't think the church would grant an annullment if it was discovered after the marriage that one partner was infertile. I'm a traditional catholic(go to the latin mass and all that hoo-haw) and don't pay much attention to the goings on of the modern church.

In any case saying a marriage never took place(the church doesn't allow divorce) does not mean hetero sexual sex is not a reproductive act. If I threaten to harm you, even If I have no means to harm you, my threat is still a violent act.

?

You do know what impotence is, don't you?

The Church only presumes eunichs to be impotent.

just saying

Well, nothing I've said would suggest otherwise!

There was a relatively recent case involving a paraplegic in Italy who was not allowed to marry because he was known to be impotent.

Mind if I ask what kind of parish / chapel you attend?

Oh, sorry. I misread you. What if the marriage is consummated but there are problems of impotency? Is this grounds for divorce?

And to clarify something else, if one of the persons is infertile and this is only known after marriage and one of them wants children is this grounds for divorce?