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WARNING!! This question and answer is of a mature nature. Parental discretion is advised.

Dear Fay:

Thank you for the courage to ask the question. I praise God that you are concerned about what is proper in the marital embrace.

There are some people who do say that "anything goes" in the marriage bed as long as there is mutual consent. This is not quite true.

The marital embrace is to be a mutual self-giving of each other in love, a respect for the bodies of the spouses that encourages tenderness between them. It is not about 1) anything that degrades or humiliates the human person, nor about 2) attaining the most intense orgasm possible, pleasure for pleasure sake, nor about 3) violating the respect of each other's bodies and the mutual sex-giving in other ways.

Now as I explain these things I am not referring to sin. It is presumed in my explanations that the couple is open to life and that the husband ejaculates only in his wife's vagina. It is also presumed all things are with mutual consent.

With that said, let us look at the each of the three areas that the marital embrace is not:

1) Any sexual practice that degrades or humiliates is a violation of mutual self-giving and tenderness between spouses. Practices in this category include bondage and the infliction or receiving of pain and other practices too disgusting to mention.

2) While there is nothing wrong with orgasms or experiencing pleasure (pleasure in sex is a God-given gift), seeking pleasure for its own sake is inherently selfish and counter to the mutual self-giving that God intends for the marital embrace.

When a couple is focused on pleasure-seeking and the quest for the greatest pleasure, rather than expressing a desire to give a loving pleasure to one's spouse in the total context of love, intimacy, mutual self-giving, and tenderness the couple degenerates into treating each other as little more than a sex toy for self-pleasure -- a kind of mutual masturbation.

Such things as the taking of certain drugs or the use of devices for the purposes of enhancing the sexual experience depart, in my opinion, from the true self-giving and tenderness the marital embrace is suppose to be. Making love is suppose to be with one's spouse and not with a spouse and a machine.

3) Other ways in which the mutual self-giving, tenderness, and respect is violated can be when the husband pressures his wife for sex when she really doesn't want to or when the wife uses sex as a manipulative weapon or as punishment.

In conclusion, I cannot give you any specific advice since I do not know your situation. There can be situations where a device might be used when there is some sexual dysfunction such as in impotence on the part of the husband or the wife.

Apart from that possibility, which needs to be brought the attention of a doctor, I think the couple needs to explore ways to be intimate that will be satisfying without introducing devices.

I do not think this is an issue of sin, but of prudence and fulfillment of the true intimacy of the marital embrace that is most consistent with the theology of the body and of marriage.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary