For facility of treatment of our subjects, there is a need to first identify the big terms that we are to use.
Big O, or orgasm, is when a female sexual arousal is followed by engorgement and is signalled by muscle contractions that last from 4 seconds to 15 minutes, with an interval of .8 seconds. The experience of it is subjective, since our brain comes to interpret physical stimuli subjectively (or so, as psychology tells us) -- that is, solely based on individual's perceptions. However, accounts of how an orgasm feel mention a sensation of tingling in the spine, brain and genital areas. Some women say they experience like being on verge of passing out, while others tell of a level of bliss.
To understand what is religious experience, the characterizations of William James (The Varieties of Religious Experience) about mystical or sacred or holy experience. Religious experience is transient (that is, temporary, or after the experience the individual soon returns to his/her normal frame of mind), ineffable (i.e., cannot be adequately captured by words), noetic (that is, the individual feels that he/she is able to learn something from the experience), and passive (it means to an individual without control over it, or to -- in a manner of speaking -- turn it on and off).
Diverse, though, these two experiences are, there are some who hold that one is a concrete, if not a usual, form of the other. Orgasm is said to be an instance of religious experience. At the superficial level, one says an orgasming lady is very often calling on "Oh, God!," while an in-depth probe would compare the enjoyment that accompanies the two experiences.
This position is obviously debatable, especially if one considers religious experience to be an experience involving the sacred while orgasm is -- as "sexual" is normally construed -- mundane or of flesh. And, precisely, this leads me to the meat of this article.
The Church defines its competencies: morals and faith. In morals, the object of study is human act. Human act has the elements of freedom, knowledge and free will. Thus, by this definition, the Christian Church actually wants to say that there is no aspect of human existence that could be free from its "interference" -- at least, this is the term used by most people who are unsympathetic to organized religion. And -- needless to say -- even the sexual act of couples naturally falls within the "competence" of the Church.
Not surprisingly, one finds official declarations from the Church about this subject. In particular, even the use of what kind of contraception is categorized by the Church as either morally acceptable or not. There is also a prescription concerning who can do it and with whom. Not to mention that -- well, at least, to date, this is no longer given emphasis as before -- before the act starts the couples should clear their minds of other intentions aside from the desire to share in the procreative action of the Divine.
According to Cultural Anthropology, sex and sexual symbols are satiating most of the cultures. This is true viz. that fact that every culture is also said to exercise a sort of "police control" over the sexual behavior of the members of society -- something which is said to be inherent in all cultures dealing with all other social behaviors insofar as cultures are bound for self-preservation.
I am tempted to think that the Church intends to control what happens in the bedroom because it is akin to, if not a, religious experience.
Big O's similarity to religous experience perhaps is not all the reason why the Catholic Church is imposing its influence and rules on the sacredness of the matrimonial bed. Or not simply because of the climatic utterance of "Oh God", which is not a general expression, I believe, opted the Church to be in charge in one way or another on this matter. To understand the spiritual aspects we cannot do away with the material point of view because material influences greatly affect our spiritual standing.
Sex in its purest sense should be use for begetting children within the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman. But man as he is, exercising his free will, indulge in sexual activity to express his emotions of love and affection or just to satisfy his lust. The need for love and affection which he considered already as one of his basic emotional-physiological needs, carries with it the need for sex. And because of this propensity of man to justify his behavior to gratify his senses due to his insatiable needs and desires, the Church has its duty to provide guidance towards morality. I therefore post a positive note on the Church competencies to deal with this aspect. It is not only the Catholic Church that imposes some particular behavior or prescribed regulative principles in sexual activity but also holds true with other religions and culture.