Petting fornication?

What is the difference between petting and physical foreplay or sex that involves bringing your spouse to orgasm using just your hands to manually stimulate them? If my wife gives me a hand-job, is that fornication, petting, or something else? Does it matter if I orgasm or not? If the touching and stimulation are through clothes or not? Does having foreplay constitute fornication even if you don’t end up having PIV intercourse?

If it doesn’t matter that you’re just using your hands, that you’re providing indirect stimulation through clothing instead of direct skin-to-skin contact, or that you didn’t orgasm, then how is petting different than fornication?

I can think of stages of foreplay that are more innocent than petting (e.g. massage of non-intimate body parts) and equivalent to petting (e.g. manually stimulating your partner’s genitals, breasts, etc. prior to PIV intercourse). I’m not sure there is anything that is considered foreplay that is more directly sexual than petting. Even when you look at passionate kissing, chances are that this is part of your foreplay and sexual relations. At what point does passionate kissing become part of sex and not just foreplay?

Is the distinction solely one of intent and not the actual act? I.e. petting is manual stimulation when you don’t intend on having sex but it’s part of foreplay, sex, and fornication when you do?

Merriam-Webster says adultery and fornication involve sexual intercourse, which it defines as PIV sex. So while petting may not technically be adultery or fornication, I think it would clearly be a case of adhering to the letter of the law while ignoring the spirit of the law of chastity, which is sexual fidelity or sexual exclusivity. At that point, the terms used to describe different acts become less important than just not doing sexual things with people to whom you are not married — whatever kind of sexual thing that may be. That’s why a gynecologist doesn’t violate the law of chastity when he performs exams. It’s not sexual touch. (Unless it’s the 19th century and you’re a woman with a doctor “treating” you for hysteria... then I think you could probably sell ice to eskimos and beach-front property in Kansas.)

I think some sexual acts, when sinful, cause more or less damage than others, so in that sense can be considered more or less sinful. However, whether something is more or less sinful is not the point. If they violate sexual exclusivity, then I would consider them sinful and in that sense they are “lumped together”. It just doesn’t make sense to me that two people who are married but not to each other could be involved in petting but because no PIV occurred there is no law of chastity violation.

I would distinguish between sexual acts and sexual relations. Sexual acts can be solo, while sexual relations inherently involve another party. Sexual relations outside of marriage violate laws of chastity and the commitment to sexual exclusivity with your spouse. It’s a lot less clear that is the case with solo sexual acts, which may or may not violate sexual exclusivity, depending on the reasoning (e.g. masturbation to produce sperm for infertility testing and treatments vs. masturbation to relieve the sex drive when the spouse is not available to have sex vs. masturbation when the spouse is available to have sex), and whether or not it is a truly solo act (e.g. masturbating in the presence of your spouse vs. masturbating without their knowledge vs. masturbating during phone sex with your spouse vs. masturbating during phone sex with someone not your spouse vs. masturbating to porn featuring someone who is not your spouse vs. masturbating to pornographic videos of you and/or your spouse vs. masturbating to fantasies of someone not your spouse vs. masturbating to fantasies of your spouse vs. masturbating and just enjoying the sensations without fantasies, etc).

I sure used the M word a lot in this post...

I know people have dislike for the Miracle of Forgiveness. I don't feel that way about it.

I think our experiences can shade our judgement about the meaning we place on other people's words. Often how we interpret it isn't the intended message. We each read things through the filter of our own perceptions; adding different emphasis and meaning than even the author as they wrote it. We each take something a little different from it.

I'm sure the intention wasn't to make people feel worse. I don't think an apostle of God would purposely do that. The title is the "miracle" of "forgiveness", both of which denote a message of hope and goodness. That should be kept in mind as we read it.

That said, the choice of words may have been misguided and he may not have foreseen how it could be taken wrongly. I don't want to excuse his actions, just putting another perspective out there. My experience was mostly positive.

Petting was an antiquated term in the 80s when I was growing up. We need a translator to consider the morality of petting. I didn’t notice people distinguish between heavy petting and light petting. I have come to understand petting as feeling somebody up. Light petting, copping a passionate feel but not to orgasm and probably over clothing and not for that long. Heavy petting involves mutual masturbation—full on, intentional touching with orgasm as the destination. So…petting is a nice option for married folks and a violation of law of chastity for unmarrieds. Is a passionate hug, maybe cupping a breast or butt through clothing for a minute or less equivalent to fornication? Most would say no. I would agree. However I would acknowledge that that incremental movement towards more physical intimacy and arousal makes it tougher to avoid PIV sex (fornication) or a handjob or mutual masturbation (heavy petting).