What Can a Married Couple Do and NOT DO in Their Bedroom: Selfishness, Dignity and Other Factors

Summary — What married couples can and cannot do in the marriage bed

This document summarizes the key points, practical guidance, and spiritual context from a talk on sexual morality in marriage. It organizes the core principles, concrete “do” and “don’t” rules, pastoral guidance, common Q&A takeaways, practical lifestyle tips, and referenced resources.

Core principles emphasized

• Human dignity: every sexual act must respect the person as made in God’s image. Dignity and charity (self-gift) are the foundation for sexual morality.
• Marriage vows: marriage is a total, 100% gift of self. Anything that intentionally blocks that self-gift undermines the marriage sign.
• Openness to life: sexual acts in marriage should be ordered toward the possibility of parenthood (even if pregnancy is unlikely).
• Spiritual aim: marriage’s vocation is sanctification — spouses help one another become saints; the sexual life is a microcosm of the whole marriage.

Practical “do” and “don’t” rules (summary and explanations)

Do

• Treat your spouse with dignity, respect, and self-giving love in every sexual act.
• Use foreplay and affectionate, non-sexual intimacy (holding, kissing, caressing) to love and care for your spouse — these are especially important to women.
• Use external stimulation (including instruments) to help a spouse reach climax only within the context of the marital act and when it is dignified and consensual, observing important limits:
  • The final ejaculation must be vaginal to constitute the completed marital act.
  • External stimulation cannot be a standalone sexual act (that would be masturbation).
  • If sexual activity begins on a night when intercourse is not intended, couples may go partway but must stop before vaginal ejaculation (and generally before the wife reaches orgasm if intercourse won’t be completed).
• Be cautious about sexual practices (oral, anal, extreme acts) — even when technically permissible, consider whether they respect the spouse’s dignity and cause no harm.
• Practice self-discipline and charity (for example, Natural Family Planning rather than contraception) if sterilization or past choices have created selfish dispositions.

Don’t

• Don’t use contraception: it intentionally blocks the total gift of self and turns the act toward selfishness rather than love (the Church’s teaching presented is that contraceptive use is morally wrong).
• Don’t treat the sexual act as mere personal gratification or as a right to do anything to obtain children; openness to life must be respected.
• Don’t use pornography: it violates dignity, breaks marital vows, drives selfish lust, and is described as a mortal sin (especially when involving minors or coercion).
• Don’t masturbate (including masturbatory acts involving another person outside the completed marital act); masturbation is sinful when it substitutes for self-giving intercourse.
• For unmarried couples: all sexual acts are forbidden. Even passionate kissing and progressive sexual behavior are considered morally wrong because sexual acts are ordered toward intercourse and marriage.
• Don’t pursue IVF or surrogacy: these are presented as morally impermissible because they treat children as objects/commodities and involve other moral evils (laboratory fertilization, destruction of embryos, third‑party use of bodies).

Pastoral, spiritual, and relational guidance

• If a spouse has been unfaithful (porn, selfish sexual behavior, etc.), the injured spouse is not guilty for the other’s sin; confession and conversion are called for.
• Even in cases of abandonment or civil divorce (in a sacramental marriage), spouses are called to fidelity to vows; prayer life and sacramental/spiritual supports are essential.
• The sexual life is a test/indicator of the whole marriage: selfishness in the bedroom typically reflects selfishness across the relationship; conversely, self-giving in intimacy fosters holiness.
• Prayer, sacramental life, and conversion are central: God provides grace for married life; couples should pursue holiness together.
• On the afterlife: earthly marriage “ends” at death in terms of matrimonial status, but persons and relationships are recognized in heaven; souls will know one another more perfectly in God.

Concrete Q&A takeaways

• Is external stimulation allowed? Yes — if it’s within the marital intercourse context, dignified, and does not substitute for the completed vaginal ejaculation.
• Is foreplay allowed? Yes — foreplay and fondling are permitted anytime for married couples; they are forbidden outside marriage.
• Is oral/anal sex allowed? The talk characterizes these practices as potentially morally permissible but to be judged by whether they honor the spouse’s dignity; many priests discourage degrading or harmful practices.
• Pornography: always wrong — violates dignity, marriage vows, and often involves exploitation.
• Sterilization (hysterectomy, vasectomy): these do not change the requirement of charity and openness of disposition; sexual acts still need to respect marital self-gift.
• IVF and surrogacy: morally wrong because the child becomes a product and conception is divorced from a loving conjugal act.

Practical lifestyle and relational tips

• Prioritize tenderness, romance, and emotional intimacy — these matter greatly and often more to women.
• Know your bodies and boundaries: understand what will create arousal you cannot stop and plan intimacy accordingly (save certain behaviors for nights you intend intercourse).
• If wounded by sexual sins of the spouse, seek confession, pastoral guidance, and work toward conversion rather than retaliation.
• Teach and model chastity and human dignity to children and young people; recognize cultural pressures (hookup culture, pornography) and counter them with formation.

Notable people, locations, and resources referenced

• Speakers: Father Robert Aler (priest; author of God’s Plan for Your Marriage), Dr. Christine (host of “Breakfast with Bacon”).
• Father Aler’s parish locations referenced: Minnesota; St. Augustine and Holy Trinity (Enunciation mentioned).
• Conferences/websites: “Disrupting the Culture with Truth” conference; TruthSpeak / truthspeak.org (Truth Speakers Conference — Virginia Beach reference); CatholicParentsOnline (homilies and talks posted).
• Resource/book: God’s Plan for Your Marriage (Father Robert Aler).
• Show: Breakfast with Bacon (host Dr. Christine Bacon).

Sexual morality in marriage, as presented here, is framed around human dignity, absolute self-gift in the marital vows, and openness to life; the sexual life is both a sign and instrument of spouses’ mutual sanctification.