Apparently, using contraceptives turns couples into The Lockhorns. Or so this post from CL on Complementarian Loners suggests:
Contraception reduces sex to recreation – ‘fun’ without the deep joy that a mindfully lived life can bring – and thus this percolates through the relationship as a whole. All those little jabs at each other, the passive-aggressive ways of letting the other know that you are hurting, and the hiding are part of this mentality. We’ve all done it, just as most of us have contracepted.
I’m sure many people will think this a stretch, but when we withhold something as central as our fertility from each other, what else do we withhold? Self-censored thought is like contraceptive sex. Married couples are often reluctant to be completely honest with each other and are apt to become defensive with each other, ending up – or even starting out – as adversaries rather than team mates. Since the so-called sexual revolution (think about that term for a moment), women and men have not needed each other the way they used to. Separating sexual intercourse from procreation has also separated us from each other – and from our essential selves – in a real way.
Yeah, it’s probably better for married couples to eschew contraception entirely and have eight gazillion children. And then get a reality show.
Yo hold up, can you use ‘contracepted’ as a verb that way? Because I’m going to do that from now on.
“Hang on baby, we gots to contracept.”
Exaggeration to farce masquerading as a refutation. Surely you can do better than this, David.
I use condoms and yet I’m 100% honest with my partners. Mostly because I lack a brain-to-mouth filter. It’s a rare person who really doesn’t mind hearing about my opinion about my menstrual period or my ideas for porn based on children’s cartoons, though (or is perfectly willing to tell me to shut up).
Oh God, in the linked post: “I’m a Chinaman.”
Chinaman? CHINAMAN? Are you from the 1930s? Did you get here in the same time machine accident as Mr. Meller?
So this guy thinks that no one ever, ever used birth control until the pill came along?
I don’t think CL wants people to eschew contraception completely. They are, as the saying goes, allowed to resort to mathematics but not to chemistry.
Sure, like having a bunch of screaming kids you can’t afford is great for a marriage.
“Chinaman?” Dude, I think the preferred nomenclature is Asian-American.
I was going to make a mad-lib out of this, but farce isn’t a verb, so, huh?
@ Hellkeel – he peed on my rug, he didn’t build the railways!
[An] exaggeration to [the point of] farce…
Better, Claire?
Sir Bodsworth:
Dude, the Chinaman is not the issue here!
“Contraception
reduceselevates sex to recreation”. There, fixed.The entire post is absurd on its face. Why should David or anyone else take it seriously? For example:
Setting aside, for a moment, how poorly this is written what if anything are we supposed to take from this? The only thing to do is point and laugh.
I just realized that I also am almost never in the bathroom with my husband when he takes a dump, and vice-versa. And I bet this is true for other couples, as well! If we withhold the sight of ourselves pooping from our partners, WHAT ELSE ARE WE WITHHOLDING?
(What is it about the religious and their hatred of fun?)
So what Consistent Loser is saying is that they hate fun and shame on anyone who doesn’t. Fine, be on your punishment trip if that’s what gets you off, but stop trying to drag everyone else down with you.
How DARE a person encounter farce — farce, I tell you! — on a blog dedicated to mockery! I am insulted to the very core. I demand restitution.
I don’t even understand the logic here. I can give myself more completely to my husband, just as he can to me, because of contraceptives. We don’t have a lot of money. Without contraceptives, we would have to withhold ourselves from each other because we can’t afford it right now. I wouldn’t feel safe with rhythm methods, and as a result, we’d probably fight a lot more and generally be more cagey and adversarial.
I dunno, I don’t go to parties very often, but normally when I’m in a picture having fun at a party it’s because I was having fun.
Well, obviously there’s only one type of joy and if you spend any of your time having fun then you can’t experience it.
Wait a second, if someone is having a jolly good time, how is that not having joy in one’s life?
Joy is where you haz a happy-if someone has a good time, they haz a happy and therefore this makes zero sense and deserves yet more mocking.
If CL thinks comparing her situation to the Duggars’ is “exaggeration to farce”, then I’d be interested to know what she perceives to be the important difference between her views and theirs. They sound pretty similar to me.
So are we supposed to be posting pictures of real joy to Facebook now? Because I really don’t know what that would look like.
The whole thing about adversarial relationships made me think of Karma Chameleon:
“Every day, is like survival/
You’re my lover, not my rival”