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.
CWS – PS: George Harrison around the time of Sergeant Pepper. Long hair and moustache and eyes.
::swoons::
Only if there’s a hard uncomfortable chair involved (and hard uncomfortable chairs aren’t your thing).
It’s not the first time members of the CL slice of the internet have come over here to “tell us how it is” and then decided we were, “too dull”, or otherwise a waste of time.
At a guess, they dislike 1: having people who are really in disagreement with them, 2: having to actually defend their positions on the merits, 3: the ability to ban/suppress the comments which challenge their positions on the merits.
And manboobz (as well as places like Slacktivist, and Making Light, and Whatever) are not good places for those who are fond of arguing that they are right, “because.”.
Even those who share some of their general ideas (e.g. theists) aren’t the sort to let the CLs of the world dictate to us what our morality ought to be. I am of the opinion I have a brain for the purpose of using it, and applying the reason God gifted me, in the pursuit of a moral life, which is to say a life where I am kind to my fellows, and strive to see they live a better life for my efforts.
So long as they aren’t hurting people (i.e. making the lives of others less happy, less free, etc.) I don’t care what they worship, who they fuck, what they eat, etc. “Be good to each other” is my baseline.
CL, and her ilk, seem to dislike this. It offends them that I can be happy, without saying her God is the greatest thing EVAH! SInce her God makes people miserable, I can’t say her God is all-loving, all-benevolent, etc. Ergo her God is a thug.
Laugh all you want, Kittehs, but it’s really hard to enjoy one’s white cis male privilege when one can’t even sit right. I mean, it’s kind of rare to find a truly uncomfortable chair—but must you spare so little sympathy for our oppression?
Cushions, man! Cushions!
You might like to join the Church of Ceiling Cat. Our motto: Cushions, not Crucifixions! (copyright kiwigirl, 2012)
So, I see the same level of inconsistency in thinking there, as here. She doesn’t call condemn anyone, but contraception is evil. So those who do evil aren’t to be condemned.
She’s a lot more liberal in her lack of condemnation than I am.
Tulgey there are the, “ball-chairs”. Pure anti-misandry.
@Kittehs
At the moment I’m in a very new relationship so I have eyes for him and him alone. I get to see him tomorrow! *squee* Unfortunately I’ve broken my wrist so he’ll have to be gentle with me. 🙁
I’m not a fan of facial hair. Too scratchy. Especially because I’m hypersensitive.
I feel a Python moment coming on …
“So you think you are strong because you can survive the soft cushions. Well, we shall see. Biggles! Put [him] in the Comfy Chair!”
@Pecunium: I think you’re right, and probably everyone here shares the opinion, about being cool with whatever anyone wants to do providing they don’t hurt others. We don’t really care if CL wants to risk a baby every time she has sex, but it’s a bit rude to assume that everyone else should feel the same way, and very rude presumptuously speculate about what shallow joyless creatures we are if we choose to do it differently.
So I think CL’s got the shits with me now and my last comment didn’t get through, so I’ll post it here as it’s related to what you just said. (Plus it annoys me when I’m being reasonable and a comment is deleted anyway).
That comment of hers about not condemning anyone over this is a cop-out. Perhaps she is not exactly condemning, but she certainly is making a bunch of unkind judgements. And considering that her own reasoning around it looks rather suspect, I don’t think that’s very fair.
Whelp, because I’m me, I had to find out. There is a word for sex with plants.
The more legit one is dendrophilia, which is limited to trees.
Phytophilia appears to be a neologism. Also a prolific poster on Incel Support, which raises the question of what sort of person is so unpleasant that even plants refuse to have sex with him.
CWS – that’s Yay for the new relationship and getting to see him tomorrow and Boo about having a broken wrist!
I’m really fond of neat moustaches, with or without a little under-lip beard (Mr Kitteh has a sort of hourglass shaped one that just goes to the point of his chin, and he waxes the ends of his moustache so they turn up a bit.) Can’t abide any sort of beard without a moustache, though. I don’t mind the scratchiness, it’s the tickliness in a clinch that gets me! ::scratches nose just thinking about it:: 😀
@Nepenthe – I told the boss about the sex-with-plants thing before and just read out your latest post. Boss’s reaction: “OMG” about there being a word for it, and laughing his head off about someone who’s so unpleasant even plants refuse to have sex with him.
That would be such a great parody incel post … where’s Lauralot? We need scripts!
Yeah Pecunium, it’s total bullshit. They might pretend that only their God does the judging, but they’re happy to be the messengers.
But on the sympathetic side, it can’t feel good to have suffered through a divorce and turn to your faith only to receive a bunch of condemnation and confusing messages about how sex must be done a certain way or else (so it’s probably you’re own fault you got divorced?). sthlivingincolor above talked about how freeing it was to realise there wasn’t some celestial pervert judging her for how she had sex. I hope CL stops being so judgemental, if only so that she’ll stop judging herself.
I’ve seen her before. I’ve interacted with her elsewhere. She’s not fair, she’s not intellectually honest, and she’s a bully.
I, as a Catholic; as a Catholic who considered taking orders with the Jesuits, think her theological ponderings are utter shite. We all engage in some, “cafeteria catholocism” because the doctrine, and the dogma are huge, and (as with the bible) one can’t reconcile all of it.
The question is, which river do you drink from? Which tributaries do you accept? What of the great flow of thought do you take as the path to the Sea of the Godhead (to strain the metaphor). She has chosen to take a narrow one. One which. IMO, ignores the accepting nature of Jesus. She does not accept people with their flaws. Rather, like the Pharisees of the Gospels (not to be confused with the historical Pharisees, who were arguing much the same thing Jesus was preaching, but I digress), she sets traps, and looks to see who will say the wrong things in response.
But Jesus said it was not what a person puts into their mouths which made them unclean, but what came out of their mouths.
“Love your friends? Everyone does that, I say to you rather, love your enemies”.
Paul in 1 Corinthians goes further:
If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.b If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, [love] is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing. For we know partially and we prophesy partially, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things. At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known. So faith, hope, love remain, these three;h but the greatest of these is love.
Love, in those passages is also translatable as, “Charity”.
In both readings the message is contrary to CL’s teachings. She is not arguing for love, but rather for mastery. If the passage is, charity, she is not engaging in charitable thinking. She condemns those who disagree with her holdings. She abuses those who do not share her thoughts.
Jesus did abuse people. He abused them, not for their personal failings, but rather when they were exploiting others. CL condemns people for what she sees as personal failings.
And she has a small God, one who needs people to be in fear, and anxious; she wants them to be in fear that God will not give them what they want. She doesn’t see it that way, but it’s the thrust of her theology.
@Kittehs
I’m ok with tickly facial hair for kisses etc, it’s when it’s applied to oral sex and what is an exciting tickle turns into OH GOD SANDPAPER SANDPAPER ON MY CROTCH.
As for the broken wrist, it’s my fault; I was reaching for pain medication on my desk, dangling off my (high) bed, put my hand on an unstable foldy chair to extend my reach, the chair collapsed and I fell hand-first onto the floor. It’s my writing hand too, I’m really vexed about that. Grr. It’s a minor fracture so it’s splinted.
Bleh, I should have been in bed two hours ago. Night, all. 🙂
OT but that passage from Corinthians should be thrown at Owly every time he jumps up on his Christian soapbox.
CWS – Yeah, there is an element of BE CAREFUL DOWN THERE attached! 😛
Niters!
It’s an odd thing for person who has been divorced to spend their time condemning others and society at large for their failings in the marriage arena. If I had to guess, I’d say that CL condemns people for what she sees as her personal failings. I don’t know, maybe it’s the universalising nature of Christianity. Their God is God everywhere. If it’s true for her then it must be true for everyone, and if her relationship failed because of this then everyone’s relationship should fail for doing this. Sheesh. If the God in her head sounds anything like her then I’m glad I don’t know Him.
Yes, getting away from the idea of God as a condemning man was hugely important for me, nerdypants – and in my case it was only background noise, I had no religious upbringing although my parents were Christian (Catholic and Methodist) at the time.
@Kittehs’: It’s interesting to think about what kind of effect how people think of their God has on their own personality. I think that people are attracted to Gods that reflect their personality, but I also think different concepts of God can change people so they reflect that God-concept as well. It’s a bit scary considering what nasty Gods there are out there. Some of Them are real arseholes.
@nerdypants – fersure. Yahweh might change as the OT changes, but what a stinking shite he was. I seriously think Odin has it all over him morally. Odin was an arsehole, a treacherous, deceitful, violent creep, no question, but it was all directed to staving off doomsday. Yahweh? Has all the power, created everything, and yet loves putting the blame for everything on his own creations, not to mention killing them en masse when he’s really pissed.
I was pretty close to atheist largely because the idea of an all-powerful, judging deity – interventionist or not – was just too abhorrent. I’d be better described as deist now, for want of a better term. It’s all tied up with spiritual stuff (kind of spiritualism but also without the reincarnation stuff … damn these labels are useless) and is really just background, but I know I’m different from what I was a few years ago.
@nerdypants: I don’t want to speak for the Christians, but a lot of Jewish theology focuses on how to describe and worship a God who is both the source for all of our admirable traits and also completely incomprehensible. I’ve been reading a lot recently about process theology, which turns away from praising a God who acts, and more toward praising the Holy Actions which lead to the world becoming a better place, and I think it’s a really helpful tool in getting one’s head focused in finding the holy in mundane life. Of course, I’m pretty damn Reconstructionist in my view of God, which eschews supernaturalism and Divine Judgment and elevates human goodness to the level of partnership with God in bringing on salvation, and I’m sure lots of people would call me an atheist, even though I’m not.
Also, @kittehs, I actually appreciate how “human” the God of TaNaKh really is. If you take the Bible as a reflection of human society and relationships at the time it was written, it’s actually a moving foundational myth about a people’s liberation from bondage and how difficult it is to build a functional ongoing relationship with the Divine, especially in the wake of massive cultural trauma. At least, that’s how I choose to read it.
It is easy to say that one should never use contraceptives when one does not have to push a full-term infant through one’s hips, birth canal and vaginal entryway. And I say this as someone who has done it twice willingly. It sucks to go through pregnancy and labor, and no one should have to do it unless they want to do it.
Sure, it’s fun to PRETEND to be playing at impregnation for some people (it’s a fetish for some), but you do not have to ACTUALLY have unprotected sex to get that thrill. Just like you don’t actually have to beat the shit out of someone to enjoy BDSM.
So yeah. This guy would probably change his tune quickly if the biological equipment were reversed.