When I think about contraception, my thoughts generally run to things like this:
“Is this condom on inside-out? Oh, crap.”
“I guess IUD’s aren’t necessarily a good idea for some women unless they like bleeding from their vagina every day for six months.”
“Has anyone ever actually used a female condom?”
Over on Complementarian Loners, an MRA-adjacent “relationship” blog written by a couple of Catholic converts, the bitter divorced dude who calls himself 7man has some more, well, advanced ideas about contraception. By “advanced” I mean, of course, “odd and terrible.”
He starts off with this proposition:
A man and a woman cannot develop a great relationship if contraception is part of it or if they met while she was using hormonal artificial birth control. REAL committed, trusting, exclusive sexual intercourse is essential.
Oh, it gets weirder from there:
Birth Control is a misnomer since this is her speaking through her body saying, “I control when I will give birth, not God, not a man.” It doesn’t require any respect for fertility since fertility is subverted. This puts the woman in the dominant position and she then determines when and under what conditions she will ACQUIRE his seed rather than being open to RECEIVE. (Is woman not a vessel?)
I’m pretty sure a woman is a person, dude.
Usually the contraception is done by the woman, it messes with her body; she blocks the ability to receive and the whole exercise becomes taking pleasure from the other. Of course, she can always lie about taking it or not taking it. This is in essence lying with the body. A man can lie too if he withholds his gift by vasectomy or by condom.
In his profile on the blog, 7man refers to his ex-wife as “BatShitCrazy” (apparently that’s just one word now), but I think she demonstrated some pretty clearheaded and rational thinking in getting herself away from a guy who can refer to his semen as a “gift” without giggling.
[I]t is women acting as succubi. And so the ultimate end of a failed attempt to block PROCREATION is abortion. After all, God surely did not do his part and create a soul for the life that she did not intend to receive, right? Does her hamster prevent God from fulfilling his part of creation? Not likely! …
I am left with the impression that subverting fertility may be just as much an abomination to God as is divorce.
I hope you mention that right up top in your Match.com profile, dude, because that’s the sort of shit women need to know right off the bat before they send you any misguided “winks.”
Oh, and apparently men and women can’t have good sex unless the man controls everything and the woman cannot leave:
Can men and women have what they so deeply desire (in a relationship) while withholding the central gift of self? Have Christians stopped to consider the word PROCREATION? We participate in the CREATION of God in our act of sexual intercourse. We assist in CREATION of a body, but God provides the soul. CREATION is intended to occur in conjunction with a COVENANT. Can intercourse be unitive if this element is totally removed from the act of marriage, in the one-flesh-union?
A COVENANT is an OATH, a BINDING and a COMMITMENT. This is more than a contract or a whim. The sublime pleasure of sexual intercourse cannot happen when such aspects are blocked. The kind of fulfilling sex that every person longs for and rarely experiences is also precluded when the woman endeavors to control the relationship. In order for her to feel the fullness of the union, she must be claimed in a COVENANT to one man PERMANENTLY.
I can only imagine Mr. 7man explaining all this very earnestly to his date as they munch on breadsticks at the local Olive Garden, after which the unfortunate woman excuses herself to go to the ladies room and, as soon as she is out of his eyesight, slips out the back door of the restaurant and literally runs the entire way home.
7man closes with this little puzzler:
[S]uccumbing to passionate desire is easier without the risk of pregnancy and therefore commitment is not essential prior to the parting of thighs. Does this ever turn out for the good?
Yes. Yes it does.
Now that’s a pretty good reason to use them.
Maybe there’s something I’m not understanding properly about the way female condoms are used, but I was under the impression that if some man is pushing boundaries and not taking no for an answer when it comes to not having sex without a condom then having to stop mid act to put on a female condom wouldn’t exactly be an improvement.
And anal sex improvements seems like a good thing as well. 🙂 See, I’m learning awesome stuff. The last partner I had anal with I was fluid-bonded with, so I didn’t experiment much with barrier methods.
The idea is that you can put it in several hours beforehand.
Yes, but what about the chalice from the palace?
(I love that movie.)
BlackBloc – I think there are some guys who won’t put a condom on, because that’s asking them to take action and it’s somehow compromising their manliness, but they won’t tell or force a partner to take a female condom out.
Whether they’re willing to pause the action to let their partner insert it–probably depends, sadly, but even if they aren’t, their partner can insert it beforehand if they usually have sex at a predictable time.
(It kind of sickens me to think how many relationships are basically an ongoing rape. I can’t believe how many women in really nice “normal”-seeming relationships I’ve seen talk about how when their boyfriend wants sex, sex happens, ’cause that’s just how men are. Christ.)
Hmm…I was unaware that when a sperm is about to collide with an egg, a pop up window shows up and the woman can decide whether or not to conceive.
Also, reading that article on Pandagon about what an abortion / miscarriage looks like was really eye-opening, even for a pro choicer like me.
No one dominates my body but me, and I decide if I procreate or not. I don’t care what an imaginary sky daddy supposedly says.
They broke the chalice from the palace. And replaced with with a flagon with the figure of a dragon.
“Not Catholics, per se. Some Catholics, as some Baptists, and some Lutherans, and some Muslims, and some Jews, and some Anglicans, and some….
It’s extremism, and stupid, but neither is it exclusive, nor monolithic in those faiths.”
Well, sort of yes, and sort of no, because the view we’re discussing here isn’t some sort of fringe perspective on Catholicism; this is the official view of the church and the language he’s using is exactly the language the church uses. The views of ordinary Catholics are often quite different (ex-Catholic here), but this is the official line.
But, yes, I see your point that there are lots of non-Catholics that hold similar views.
Yeah nothing more fulfilling than an unplanned pregnancy. Bc just gets in the way of such ecstasy. Btw, what is “hamster” referring to? I see it often in mra land and I’m lead to believe its a woman’s brain on a wheel or something?
Wait, wait, wait, I think I’ve got it!
The pestle with the heeblie’s in the pellet with the chalice, the true with the brew has the dragon with the…
No, wait. Let me start over.
Yeah, that’s a right everyone has.
Even convicted criminals.
Lol, so now I am imagining that when a man ejaculates into a woman’s vagina, a robotic voice says “sperm acquired, initializing conception.”. Then a countdown clock starts up. If they don’t want to deal with pregnancy, they have to diffuse the timer before it reaches zero. Now, was it the red wire or the blue wire?
Corollary: women who want to get pregnant can do it easily whenever they want!
Can we lay off the Catholics please? I’m catholic, so is most of my family. 98 percent of catholic women use bc. My sister in law got fitted for her iud right after the baby’s baptism. A catholic bishop was just on NPR talking about gay rights and marriage. Don’t judge a whole religion on a few nuts. Every religion has nutty people.
Well, if we’re going to talk about robotic sex, or sperm acquisition, or whatever, then we’ve got to start with this:
I’m with Sara – I’m dating a Catholic and he uses condoms every time.
I think the Catholic Church is absolutely terrible on contraception (and a lot of other things), but not everyone who identifies as Catholic is in the same boat.
@ Sara
Oh, nothing against Catholics, I’m just not too fond of many of the Pope’s official statements. However I know numerous other people are opposed to birth control. This isn’t a problem with Catholicism, this is a problem with society as a whole.
Sara, the “rationalization hamster” is a MRA thing. Here’s one definition I found on the internetz:
Some MRAs even created a quick meme for it.
Our revenge was to take over the meme, so that all the most popular ones are feminist, or at least make fun of common MRA/misogynist themes.
Rate them, or create your own! Every time one of the good guys creates a new hamster meme, David gets a kitten.
“I was unaware that when a sperm is about to collide with an egg, a pop up window shows up and the woman can decide whether or not to conceive.”
Congratulations, you found the single viable use for Monsieur Sans Nom’s people-souls-in-robot-bodies transhuman ideology.
I wish, also, MORE KITTIES!!!!!
Long disquisition on internal catholic politics,and how it relates to the US political scene. Feel Free to Skip.
stlivingcolor: Well, sort of yes, and sort of no, because the view we’re discussing here isn’t some sort of fringe perspective on Catholicism; this is the official view of the church and the language he’s using is exactly the language the church uses. The views of ordinary Catholics are often quite different (ex-Catholic here), but this is the official line.
Not quite (as a person who is still moderately affiliated with the church, and who considered taking Jesuit orders, I can say the Official Position of the Church is both more complex than this, and quite conflicted. It is also at odds with much, bordering on most, of the laity)
It is the loud opinion of a large chunk of the American Curia, but the actual position of the Church is that non-rhythm contraception is not, ispo facto, a sin. There are simple reasons to use it (any medical condition which is aided by hormonal BC is kosher), as well as issues of greater harm, which allow a parish priest to give an official dispensation. It is, as so many things are, actually; as doctrine, a matter of personal conscience, despite the ballyhoo.
Since BC isn’t hasn’t been the subject of Papal Fiat under Ex cathedra, using it is, at most, a venal sin, and as such not something which leads to damnation on it’s face.
And, even if it were the party line, the dominant position on the part of the laity, of which our hero in the OP is a member, is that BC is just fine, given that in 1973 66 percent of Catholic women used contraception. A recent study, with some problematic use of terms, found that 98 percent of sexually experienced (i.e. had sex at least once) Catholic women had used a non-rhythm form of BC. The DHS studies say Catholics use it at a rate consistent with the non-catholic population.
The Church’s present position on BC didn’t start down the road to the present situation until 1931, when Pius XI issued his encyclical, Casti Connubii.
But Margaret Sanger, was a Catholic. John Rock, of Harvard, who was both a devout Catholic, and a professor of medicine who taught contraception; in contravention of the Encyclical, and despite the actual practice of BC being illegal in Massachusetts. Rock happened to dissapprove, strongly, of sex outside of marriage. He put out a book, in the ’60s defending oral contraceptives as being in accord with Casti Connubii
If John XXIII had lived a little longer, it’s possible (it was certainly thought to be probable, at the time) that the Church’s stance would have changed.
But Paul XI was more reactionary. Despite his commission on the matter saying the proscription ought to be lifted (60 to 4), Pius issued Humanae Vitae, reaffirming the tenets of Casti Connubii.
One of the leading theologians of the Church, Father Bernard Haring, said catholics needed to follow their own conscience, not the papal decree; there was widespread preaching to that effect in parishes.
If it weren’t for Reagan, Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, and the rise of the Religious Right making abortion such a political football, the Catholic Church’s official stand on the subject wouldn’t matter much (this is also taking into account that John Paul I died so soon. He was planning to issue a letter, perhaps even a bull, reversing the Church’s stance on BC, as well as that against Freemasonry, but I digress).
But the loudmouths, the Cardinal O’Connors and the Bill Donohue’s have a dog in the fight. Being loudly against abortion, and BC, put them into the center of politics, in a way that Kennedy’s election (and Kennedy was a supporter of BC) didn’t. They found a piece of the zietgeist that gave them sway, and they inflated piece of doctrine, which, as with remarriage, the vast majority of Catholics have no problem with, and made it seem to be a cornerstone of the Church.
I still want to download my mind into or hook my brain up to a starship and explore the cosmos for all of eternity, I’m not an asshat to people who aren’t into that idea though, aaaand I recognize it’s kind of an unrealistic assessment of current technology, but it would be cool if it could be done. According to Monsieur Trou de Cul, can I be transhumanist without libertarianism?
“Usually the contraception is done by the woman, it messes with her body; she blocks the ability to receive and the whole exercise becomes taking pleasure from the other.”
“the other”… TheOther!
Does JtO know about this example of misandry?
@aworldanonymous
Can I derail for a moment to note how amusing I find it that you don’t bother to unPonify the stuff you copy and past?
It’s like, I’m scrolling through the comments and it’s all misogyny, misogyny, misandry, and then BAM PONIES.
It’s great.