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

Dear Nika:

Well, the understanding of these sexual ethics requires a Catholic understanding of sexuality and marriage.  Your former boyfriend may not ever understand it.

Each and every act of sexual intercourse must be open to life. Each ejaculation of the man must be open to life. While the woman may seem infertile, she may not be, and God can create fertility where there is none. Even a woman who is barren must still be open to life. Remember Abraham's wife, Sarah, who got pregnant in her 80's?

In any event, even in cases in which the woman is not likely to get pregnant, such as during her infertile period, or when from human wisdom it is impossible for her to get pregnant, such as after a total hysterectomy or old age, the moral standards and natural law for the marital embrace remain the same.

The faculty of ejaculation of the man's seed is ordered (by nature) to be deposited in the vagina of the female, not anywhere else. Thus, ejaculation anywhere but in the vagina is "unnatural."

In addition, the marital embrace is ordered to the mutual self-giving of each other. The climax of the sexual experience therefore needs to be giving to the spouse -- it is not merely for oneself.

Even in marriage if we are just after the orgasm and sexual pleasure apart from the mutual self-giving that marital sex is suppose to be then we are being selfish, we are really just mutually masturbating, our spouse is merely a sex-toy we use to "get off."

Pope Pius XII* said it this way: "Marriage is a mutual commitment in which each side ceases to be autonomous, in various ways and also sexually: the sexual liberty in agreement together is great; here, so long as they are not immoderate so as to become slaves of sensuality, nothing is shameful, of the complete acts -- the one involving ejaculation of the man's seed -- that they engage in are true and real marriage acts."

Father Stephen Torroca** remarked: "Spouses are required to seek moderation and self-restraint necessary to preserve their love-making from becoming the pursuit of the shallow and apparent good of isolated pleasure, rather than the authentic good of human love, sexually expressed in shared joy."

The sexual embrace is meant to be a mutual self-donation to each other. All this is short-circuited if the orgasm is experience outside of this context. The nature of a woman allows her to have multiple orgasm during love-making and still be a donation of herself to her husband. A man's orgasm is focused upon his ejaculation. Thus, for him to achieve the donation of himself in this ultimate way to his wife necessitates that the product of his orgasm be within his wife. Any thing else is not self-donation, but a withholding of himself from his wife.

The Catechism states (bolded areas are my emphasis):

2360 Sexuality is ordered to the conjugal love of man and woman. In marriage the physical intimacy of the spouses becomes a sign and pledge of spiritual communion. Marriage bonds between baptized persons are sanctified by the sacrament.

2361 "Sexuality, by means of which man and woman give themselves to one another through the acts which are proper and exclusive to spouses, is not something simply biological, but concerns the innermost being of the human person as such. It is realized in a truly human way only if it is an integral part of the love by which a man and woman commit themselves totally to one another until death."

2362 "The acts in marriage by which the intimate and chaste union of the spouses takes place are noble and honorable; the truly human performance of these acts fosters the self-giving they signify and enriches the spouses in joy and gratitude." Sexuality is a source of joy and pleasure:

The Creator himself . . . established that in the [generative] function, spouses should experience pleasure and enjoyment of body and spirit. Therefore, the spouses do nothing evil in seeking this pleasure and enjoyment. They accept what the Creator has intended for them. At the same time, spouses should know how to keep themselves within the limits of just moderation.

I hope this helps.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary

* Pope Pius XII, "Address to the Second World Congress on Fertility and Sterility," May 19, 1956 (AAS, 48.473). English translation found in John C. Ford, SJ, and Gerald A. Kelly, SJ, "Contemporary Moral Theology," vol. 2, "Marriage Questions" (New Man Press, 1964), p. 212.

** Father Torraco is currently Associate Professor of Theology at Assumption College, Worcester, Massachusetts. He is the Executive Director of the Society for the Study of the Magisterial Teaching of the Church (SSMTC). He is an instructor in Theology as well as Chaplain for one of SSMTC's affiliates, the cyberspace based Regina Coeli Academy, and a member of the faculty of Catholic Distance University in Hamilton, Virginia. He also serves as a consultant for the Pope Paul VI Institute in Omaha, and for the Cardinal Kung Foundation in Connecticut. He is the author of various books and articles in moral theology, medical ethics, the social teaching of the Catholic Church and the spiritual life.