Oral and Anal Sex flip flop? March 2025 Announcements and Reminders (page 2)

Rattigan350

This should also apply to medical issues and higher education because generally people would not discuss medical issues with other or even educational things.

Also, Witness women shouldn't have adult toys either. No need for that stuff.

Journeyman

It's amazing how long they agonized over how to deal with something that could have been easily dealt with by minding their own business and staying out of the marital bedroom.

Well said.

"So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate." Matthew 19:6/Mark 10:9 (NIV)

How much more intimate could two people become than "one flesh"? So of who else's business is it what sexual acts they mutually agree to engage in with each other? "No one", the verse clearly shows.

Were they 'scriptural principles' being expressed in the 1983 article or the 2025 article?

Good question. I don't know about the 1983 article - I haven't looked it up - but I would imagine it was more proscriptive back then. The recent 2025 article actually says nothing particularly helpful anyway. There's just a footnote that says:

The Bible does not provide details as to what sexual practices between a husband and a wife should be considered clean or unclean. A Christian couple must make decisions that reflect their resolve to honor Jehovah, to please each other, and to maintain a clean conscience. Generally speaking, a couple would not discuss with others this intimate aspect of their marriage.

Hardly much help to elders really. Better to just say something like "don't involve the elders in this aspect of your marriage unless there is an issue of non-consent", as there's not much "advice" they can - or should - provide in general. And of course from a secular viewpoint, if non-consensual sex acts in marriage are illegal in the country (as they are now in most advanced nations) that should be a matter for authorities trained in supporting victims of sex crime, not a bunch of unqualified "elders".

The only points I can make out that might provide the basis for advice are:

Paragraph 9: "Being sexually demeaning. Some husbands pressure their wife to engage in sexual acts that are demeaning and that make her feel unclean or unloved." That's linked to Ephesians 5 about husbands loving their wives as their own bodies, and

Paragraph 17: "He will not pressure her to engage in sexual acts that make her feel uncomfortable, that are demeaning, or that bother her conscience. He too will strive to maintain a clean conscience before Jehovah." The verse used there is Acts 24:16 about keeping a clean conscience.

It's true there is a significant strand of porn these days which focuses on degradation and humiliation, and the extreme forms of BDSM would seem to fall into that - many "worldly" authorities too are worried about the rise of those, for example with schoolkids now viewing stuff like that and thinking that's normal sexual activity. But beyond that, it doesn't really rule anything out. Certainly not "typical" oral or anal sex.

Rattigan350

"The Bible does not provide details as to what sexual practices between a husband and a wife should be considered clean or unclean."

The problem is that in the 1972 they said that oral sex was wrong because Paul refers to “the natural use of the female,” which some were abandoning in favor of what is “contrary to nature,” thus satisfying “disgraceful sexual appetites” and “working what is obscene.”

What makes Paul our boss? The one who says what is right or wrong? The Watchtower writers like to use the writings of the apostles because they like to have authority to lean on. That's not how it is supposed to work.

"Paragraph 9: "Being sexually demeaning. Some husbands pressure their wife to engage in sexual acts that are demeaning and that make her feel unclean or unloved.""

That again refers to oral sex as it is demeaning. See they did that without referring to Paul.

TonusOH

I agree that we shouldn't use Paul as a role model, given his view that women were objects with "uses."

FedUpJW

you would expect that by now the spirit would have told them to stop being nosy old perverts.

Them as can, do. Them as can't, inquire of others.

Wise old experienced Elder: "If it tastes like shit, you overbit!" "If it smells like cologne, leave it alone!"

They say oral sex is a lot like the Mafia. On slip of the tongue and you're in deep shit.

JW_Rogue

So, basically it's a "don't ask, don't tell" policy but the married couples are never told about it just the Elders? Doesn't quite make sense.

blondie

The Bible does not provide details as to what sexual practices between a husband and a wife should be considered clean or unclean. A Christian couple must make decisions that reflect their resolve to honor Jehovah, to please each other, and to maintain a clean conscience. Generally speaking, a couple would not discuss with others this intimate aspect of their marriage. (WT January 2025, p. 13) (Available in a public WT source)

moomanchu

Now with the internet, I guess elders don't need to have their sexual fantasy's fulfilled by couples confessions.

ukpimo

I must clarify my post. I don't believe that this is necessarily a "flip flop" after all. After much mediation on this week's Watchtower study, I think the organization is simply identifying each sexual act within marriage as a conscience decision that will differ from couple to couple.

I don't believe this rescinded any previous "direction", and I still feel that the org will always secretly view "oral", "anal" and the like as "perverse", but now do not want to get involved, undoubtedly for legal reasons.

I apologise for any misinformation I may have spread regarding this footnote, even though it is still a "clarified belief". I now understand it to be a "conscience decision" rather than a permissive attitude towards any sexual activity now.

DesirousOfChange

Generally speaking, a couple would not discuss with others this intimate aspect of their marriage.

Guess they've never been in a the locker room after 18 holes of golf and a 12-pack. Nor in a hot tub with a few other couples and a pitcher of margs.

Oral and Anal Sex flip flop? March 2025 Announcements and Reminders

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