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.
So almost all women over 50 or so, or women (or men) who are infertile, can just hang it up because at that point you can’t make a baby?
“When we withhold something as central as our fertility from each other, what else do we withhold?”
Unwanted pregnancies?
Gee, wouldn’t you think that men who, you know, LOVED their kids wouldn’t want them to go without things like food & shelter for 3 months just to punish their mothers?
They figure that women who are in that spot will never leave; or if they do they will leave only when they are self-sufficient, and so no child support will ever be awarded.
“The two cannot become one in completeness with ‘personal boundaries’. When boundaries are created between two people, the two remain two. This philosophically gets in the way of the two becoming one flesh, much as a condom is a physical boundary results in mutual masturbation. Strict personal boundaries is actually a ludicrous idea and fundamentally evil, since it undermines what should be a great and transcendental Christian vocation.”
So the man is not, “The head” in the relationship? If there are no strict boundaries, then there can be no difference in power between the two, as anything one wanted to do, the other must accept; lest it be a boundary between them.
My brain hurts: Before I proceed with my points, I acknowledge of such the intent of such a rule is to reduce human suffering. Laudable but ineffectual. Trading murder/suicide for a two-step process to drive a man to suicide only helps the woman.
Uh…..! If the dude is going to kill himself regardless, then making sure he doesn’t kill anyone else is to the good. It’s reducing a harm.
Also, imposing such a rule implies that some men should follow it because it is a rule. Nobody — no cop, no judge, no president — should be afforded any legitimacy in interfering with a man’s family affairs. Conceding that to any degree is tantamount to self-imposed slavery.
No. Just no. Marriage/sex does not make the woman his absolute property, to which any decision he makes is ineluctable. People are not possessions.
Let’s see (and CL isn’t making a new argument; though it’s no less stupid for that. Perhaps more, because the flaws have been exposed already, and CL doesn’t care that she’s spewing nonsense already known to be nonsense). I love my partner. I want to express that love through sex; because of my longing for her.
Since we use contraception we have that option; anytime the urge to express our affection by means of sex arises.
If we didn’t use contraception we’d have to worry about her getting pregnant. Our ability to express our affection/love/lust/desire by means of PIV goes out the window as a casual thing. Any time we choose to have PIV she might get pregnant.
This, you say, makes for a closer more intimate bond?
My experience contradicts this. In fact, the more reliable, and less difficult, the contraception has been, the more intimate, and secure, the relationship has been.
Women with IUDs report the greatest satisfaction with their sex lives. Oddly, reducing the fear that any single act of sex will be a completely life altering event makes it easier to have that sex. Since sex is good at strengthening bonds in healthy relationships it’s no surprise that removing barriers to easier sex would lead to better relationships.
Funny, isn’t it – I wouldn’t have thought of fertility as being something I give to someone. It’s just something that’s part of my body (or was – yay for age). And it’s certainly not something anyone else has any call on or right to expect. It’d be one thing if the two of us wanted to have children, but we don’t (and thank goodness it isn’t possible!).
@pecunium @ 7:13pm
Non sequitur.
CL – that wasn’t a non sequitur at all. It referred to earlier comments you presumably haven’t read.
Longer CL: *stamps foot* How about a real refutation and a substantive discussion, huh?
Later: *posts two word comment.*
I’m not really getting how my fertility is something central to me. If I were rendered infertile in some sort of accident, should I get a new set of friends? Change my name and move to a different country? Go back to school to pursue a new career because I’ve changed so much?
I suppose my testes are rather close to the center of my body, but that implies that I ought not to withhold the contents of my small intestine from a partner, and that’s just difficult.
2-D Man – I’m getting pictures of a really gooey fetish situation here …
CL: @pecunium @ 7:13pm
Non sequitur.
No, it was that you weren’t the subject of that comment. It’s not all about you.
Feel free to respond to the comments which were related to you.
Happy Halloween everyone! I just finished taking the Little Hellion out. She went as Sherlock.
It’s a direct and substantive refutation of your assertion that contraception prevents couples from having an honest and meaningful connection. Are you sure you know what “non sequitur” means?
Happy Halloween! I went as a serial killer. Cereal box with a knife stuck through it. Kids were a ghost and a bumblebee.
@pecunium
Pretty sure I wrote what you quoted, then commented upon, in your comment at 7:13pm. (The first one of the two with the same time stamp).
Kitteh’s Help
Gooey fetish, great Halloween costume, “I went as intimacy!”
LOL 2-D Man! Can you imagine the fright from CL & co if someone dressed up as Intimacy Without Fear Of Pregnancy?
@The Kittehs’ Unpaid Help
Yes, I would certainly get an acute case of the vapours from that. lolollolzzl
Kittehs: dress up as “FUN” and she’d keel over. Then get up and berate you, but whatever.
CL- you already did get a case of the vapors from just thinking of that, according to the post you wrote.
Yeah – equality, recognising people’s individual worth, not being brainwashed into thinking men are your masters and women just lowly creatures whose value lies in being breeding machines … a 180 degree turn like that probably would give you the vapours.
CL, instead of just saying non sequitur, could you say why you believe Pecunium’s argument does not follow?
Ok, I want someone to dress up as Relationship With Zero Boundaries just so I can see what the hell it looks like.