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.
ok, i am off to go have nonprocreative sex and nonjoyful fun. gnight everybody.
@Zanana, My condolences. That sounds awful. 😀
nerdypants, yes, lots of Catholic/fundamentalist morality is suffused with a weird romanticism. You’re supposed to be pure and clean when you marry, then you have this transcendent, spiritual union and birds sing and babies appear and everybody lives happily ever after. And what’s so poisonous about it is that if anything goes wrong in that frankly bizarre scenario, it’s your fault because you’re not trying hard enough, you’re not praying enough, you haven’t given your life to god, etc., etc. There’s no understanding of the hard realities of life, that sometimes you marry an asshole, that if you have nine kids you aren’t going to be able to feed them, and all the praying in the world isn’t going to fix that. And they are so obsessed with sex that they try to make it into something it isn’t. Sex is wonderful, but it doesn’t mean having no boundaries and merging with another person, and if you’re trying for that you’re going to be disappointed.
What an awful article, zanana. If I’m reading that correctly, the man can’t even, say, touch her while they have intercourse because “every part of the act” has to be “procreative,” or have the potential to make babies. So they can kiss and touch a bit, but that’s all. If she doesn’t have an orgasm, oh well.
That church doesn’t care about anything except its fucking rules. No compassion, no love, just the fucking rules. You don’t like it? Go to confession.
Shite, that guy’s so out of it he’d be considered a whackjob several hundred years ago. I mean, in the seventeenth century there were Catholic theologians who said a woman should masturbate if her husband didn’t arouse her to climax during sex. They said so because it was believed women ejaculated the same way as men, and this was necessary for pregnancy; the idea was still about maximising the chances of conception. But even so, the idea of passion and female orgasm meant more to them four centuries ago than it does to this pillock!
Ruth Kleinman, Anne of Austria p 89
I don’t even… I mean, how do they support these ideas that every sex act that can’t lead to procreation is sinful? Although PIV is still okay if you’re naturally infertile? It just doesn’t… What kind of Bible quotes do they use to support these views? Oh right, the “becoming one flesh” part. But wait – HOW do you get from “becoming one flesh” to “only have PIV without contraception”? *my head hurts*
Well, considering how passive-aggressive CL is herself, you can see how she might like the idea of pinning the blame on something else. It was the contraception that made her do it, you see.
(Note to CL – it is definitely not the contraception that’s making you think “contracept” is a verb. That’s just you being an idiot.)
Well, the Protestants who are against birth control use the Bible verse Psalms 127:3-6 of
The whole idea behind it is to win a culture war against secular humanists (which means anyone not a Teavangelical) by strength in numbers. So more babies now means more power in the future. Actual Quiverfull groups are against the rhythm method, too, because it is done with a “birth control mentality” and even though it’s not that effective, it is still better than nothing.
I don’t know the reasons the Catholic Catechism has for forbidding contraception.
I heard it was based on outdated science that women were incubators and jizz was a full proto-baby.
So wanking is also abortion.
I’m not an expert on Catholic belief, so this was based on GCSE Religion and Philosophy which was 7 years ago…
(… Oh god, that long ago?!)
One has to put in account that not every parent (even the husband) may be psychologically/emotionally suited to handle a lot of kids. Even if they could balance their budget, have the older ones help take care of the younger ones, that’s a lot of work and it may be a bit too much for them.
Reading through the blog, CL seems to really hate school. Is it really that bad? I must have been brainwashed because I didn’t find school useless.
Thanks, Bionicmommy. I must still say it’s a stretch though. I mean, that psalm says “yay, children! Lots of kids are great!”, but that’s not really the same thing as going “birth control is EVIL! You must have as many children as you can! Everything else is sinful!”. Besides, if you do interpret the psalm as “have as many kids as possible” it would follow that CELIBACY is wrong as well, since being celibate definitely stops one from having as many kids as possible. But maybe they think so? Maybe they take this idea to its logical conclusion and think being unmarried and celibate is terribly sinful?
Creative Writing Student, I don’t think it’s that so much because female wanking isn’t allowed either. I don’t know what Bible verses they’re using to base it on, but the idea is that sex has to be “procreative” and “unitive.” So any sort of wanking, mutual wanking, oral sex, anal sex, anything but PIV is “evil.” And, yeah, by that logic, people that are infertile shouldn’t be allowed to have sex at all, but they don’t claim that for some reason.
The good news is that most Catholics in the U.S. ignore most or all of this and go about their business. The bad news is that Catholics in other, less wealthy, countries are more likely to follow it. And that the Catholic Church has WAY too much influence on the governments (and therefore the laws) of many countries, such as Ireland, Poland, and Italy. Just read about a case of a 14-year-old girl in Poland who was raped and went to two hospitals for an abortion and was refused and bullied; the government had to step in and enable her to get the abortion. She just won her case in the European Court of Human Rights. It’s not enough, but it’s something.
You really have to wonder how they square the idea that God is so horrified by non-procreative sex with the idea that God made humans to enjoy sex regardless of its procreative potential. Why not make us like most female mammals–utterly uninterested in sex except during the fertile phase of our cycle?
The Catholic Church in America is confused. The heavy cross-pollination of the Fundies, combined with the reactionary elements has made the leadership a bunch of idiots. Papally Stupid authoritarianism has been a major problem for centuries, but the most recent bouts (Pius IX, and Ratzy, as well as; to a lesser extent, but no less insidious for it, JP II; with his appointment of reactionary cardninals (and I have to wonder how much of that was Ratzies’ doing).
The laity has always (worldwide) been much less adherent to the more stupid teachings.
The Tridentines (for those playing at home) rejected Vatican II, outright. They managed to get the vatican to allow them to conduct the Mass in The Old Rite (using Latin, and the Celebrant facing in the same direction as the congregants). I’m of a mixed mind on Latin in the Mass. I can’t attend a service in anyplace but an English speaking country (with the semi-exception of France, where I can keep up; if I am not the least bit late). In Germany and Korea all I could do was accept the Eucharist, but to take active part in the mass was impossible (though the church in Waegwan was splendid to me, and I can say I enjoyed communion with them at the lunch they insisted I join them in; which they did not knowing I was Catholic. I was just some dude taking pictures of magpies in the yard).
If all the Tridentines did was use the Latin Rite, I’d not care, but they are way out there… taking every last bit of reactionary theology you can imagine, as well as adopting Dominionist thinking, and rolling it up into one unholy mess. I was interested in a woman who, it happened turned out to be a Tridentine Catholic.
It ended as soon as I found out.
I really wish John Paul I hadn’t died.
Heh. Marty Klein’s new post could not have been more timely.
If god exists, I’m pretty damned certain he has a lot more important things to deal with than the ways some random penis goes into some random vagina.
(I honestly don’t get it why religious folk of this calibre seem so obsessed with how god sees sex. Like, seriously? Then it’s me who’s the selfish/egocentric one, thinking god has too much bloody work to do than think about THE SPECIAL LITTLE SNOWFLAKE YOU. Ugh.)
Isn’t part of the no-birth-control nonsense derived from the OT story of Onan refusing to impregnate his widowed SiL and using premature withdrawal? (“spilling his seed on the ground”). I think they also stretch that tale as part of the no-masturbation idea, too.
Aren’t Mel Gibson and his equally charming father in the Tridentines?
Yes, the Catholic Church I was raised in was so much more compassionate and focused on social justice issues. Now it’s all oppression, all hatred, all the time. Now their millions go toward funding anti-gay-marriage groups like NOM.
@Kitten: Maybe. Only in that story you can sort of see why Onan was considered immoral… According to the custom at the time, it was his duty to give his widowed SiL a child, and the child would be considered his dead brother’s. Onan didn’t want to give a child to his dead brother because he didn’t like him or something (don’t remember the story exactly), so he withdrew before ejaculation out of some kind of spite.
Doesn’t really seem to be analogous to a couple agreeing to using birth control because they simply don’t want kids.
Kitteh, I thought Mel Gibson was associated with Opus Dei, another incredibly reactionary group (“reactionary” doesn’t quite cover it; they still practice “mortification of the flesh,” such as scourging yourself). They don’t talk about who’s a member, though.
Nice. I like that he makes the point that virginity in and of itself isn’t the problem, but rather the paired expectations that people should be virgins AND that they should magically know how to have great, intimate, meaningful sex right off the bat without ever being taught much of anything about sex other than “it’s sinful! don’t do it!”
I’m pretty sure that the Gibson family are Opus Dei. Worth noting – I have multiple relatives and in-laws who’re Catholic, and every single one of them reacted to Passion of the Christ with “WTF is this shit?”. Opus Dei is really, really out there.
More on Opus Dei here: http://www.odan.org/corporal_mortification.htm.
Yes, right wing fundamentalists usually are against public schools. If they are rich, they send their kids to private, religious schools and if they are not, they homeschool their kids. If you ever get a chance, watch the documentary “IndoctriNation” because it shows how they are afraid that public schools brainwash kids to hate Chrisitianity by teaching about evolution, contraception, and anything else that goes against their beliefs. They divide the world into two groups–the evil secular humanists, and the elect few that will be saved.
In Missouri this spring, Brian Nieves introduced a bill to make our state sovereign over the federal government over the issues of gay marriage, gun control, and homeschooling. Nieves said the federal government might impose national standards on homeschooling families, so Missouri can just opt of those laws (lol, he’s full of crap because “state sovereignty” is treason).
Now there are parents out there that do a good job teaching their kids at home, and they have good reasons for that choice. Unfortunately, there are some who are not qualified to do it, and they made their choice based on an irrational fear of change. It’s too bad that people judge all homeschooling families based on what they see from families like the Duggars.