Acts used for the purpose of foreplay are not exempt from the moral law. Some acts of foreplay are moral, and other acts of foreplay are immoral. Foreplay is a means to the end of natural marital relations. But the end does not justify the means. Therefore, the acts used as foreplay are not justified merely by being a type of foreplay.
A knowingly chosen act is moral if it has three good fonts of morality (intention, moral object, circumstances). A knowingly chosen act is immoral if it has one or more bad fonts of morality. In order to be moral, each act of foreplay must have three good fonts of morality. (A font of morality is a source or basis for morality.)
The intention to use an act as a type of foreplay, i.e. in order to prepare for natural marital relations, is not sufficient to make the act moral. The circumstance that an act occurs in connection with (in the context of) natural marital relations is not sufficient to make the act moral. In order to be moral, each and every knowingly chosen act must have a good intention, and a good moral object, and the good consequences must outweigh any bad consequences in the circumstances. The marital bedroom is not exempt from the moral law.
All three fonts of morality must be good for any act to be moral. The context of an act (its circumstances) and the intention of the person who acts are not sufficient to cause the act to be moral.
"It is therefore an error to judge the morality of human acts by considering only the intention that inspires them or the circumstances (environment, social pressure, duress or emergency, etc.) which supply their context. There are acts which, in and of themselves, independently of circumstances and intentions, are always gravely illicit by reason of their object; such as blasphemy and perjury, murder and adultery. One may not do evil so that good may result from it." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1756).
The object (or moral object) of an act is the end in terms of morality toward which the act is inherently directed. When the moral object is evil, the act is in and of itself immoral; it is an intrinsically evil act. All intrinsically evil acts are inherently ordered toward an evil moral object. Intrinsically evil acts are never justified by intention or by circumstances because the very nature of the act is contrary to the Law of God (the moral law).
Pope John Paul II: "Consequently, circumstances or intentions can never transform an act, intrinsically evil by virtue of its object, into an act 'subjectively' good or defensible as a choice." (Veritatis Splendor, n. 81).
Pope John Paul II: "No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is contrary to the Law of God which is written in every human heart, knowable by reason itself, and proclaimed by the Church." (Evangelium Vitae, n. 62).
Unnatural sexual acts (oral sex, anal sex, and manipulative sex, i.e. masturbation of self or of another) are intrinsically evil and always gravely immoral because these acts are not unitive and procreative. The deprivation of the marital or unitive or procreative meaning from any sexual act causes the moral object to be evil, and the act itself to be inherently immoral. In order to have a good moral object, each and every sexual act must be not only marital, but also unitive, and procreative. Any sexual act that is non-marital, or non-unitive, or non-procreative is an intrinsically evil act.
Pope Paul VI: "The Church, nevertheless, in urging men to the observance of the precepts of the natural law, which it interprets by its constant doctrine, teaches that each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life. This particular doctrine, often expounded by the magisterium of the Church, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act." (Humanae Vitae, n. 11-12.)
Unnatural sexual acts are never justified by the intention (or purpose) to use these acts as a type of foreplay, nor by the circumstance that these acts occur in the context of natural marital relations. All unnatural sexual acts are intrinsically evil and always gravely immoral due to the deprivation of the unitive and procreative meanings from the moral object.
Each knowingly chosen act must have three good fonts in order to be moral. When an act is intrinsically evil, it has an evil moral object, and therefore a bad font of morality. One bad font is sufficient to cause an act to be a sin. Good intentions and dire circumstances can never justify an act that is intrinsically evil.
Furthermore, each act must stand on its own as to its morality. The three fonts which apply to any act are those which spring up from that same act. One act cannot borrow the fonts of morality from another act. An intrinsically evil act is never justified by being done before, during, or after another act because intrinsically evil acts are inherently immoral. Therefore, unnatural sexual acts are never justified by being done before, during, or after another act, even the good act of natural marital relations.
Unnatural sexual acts which lack climax are sometimes called 'stimulation' (oral stimulation, anal stimulation, manual stimulation). But the lack of sexual climax does not change the moral object from evil to good. These sexual acts remain deprived of the unitive and procreative meanings, and therefore they remain intrinsically evil, regardless of intention or circumstance. Other acts of foreplay, those which are not unnatural sexual acts, generally do not have an evil moral object and so they are not intrinsically evil.
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