Stanek weekend question: What’s wrong (if anything) with premarital sex?
Students at Wesleyan University in Middleton, CT, have produced an “I Have Sex” video to support taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood. It has already received over 240,000 views (warning, vulgar) in only 10 days…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaxBR1AiFS4&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
That video has supposedly spawned students at other colleges to create their own “I Have Sex” videos, such as Bard College, Elmira College, Oberlin College, although they all appear similarly produced, likely by The Coffee Party.
The premise, which so many in America don’t even seem to question, is that taxpayers should pay to enable premarital sex and then pay to alleviate its consequences.
Then there was this March 16 CBS report on a new website by University of Chicago students promoting casual sex. The site connects those interested in hook-ups, what used to be called one night stands…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpvDAnx5I30[/youtube]
What would you say, perhaps on the other side of the free love experiment, to those thinking premarital sex is just fine? Or perhaps you’re one who sees no problem with it?
[HT for U of C video: Laura Loo]

As a Christian the Bible says husbands and wives should be one flesh. It warns against sexual sin saying fornication is a sin against your own body. So thats the problem I have with pre or extra-marital sex.
But even if you’re not religious the fact that 1 in 4 Americans has an STD ought make you pause. I would not take those chances any day! YUCK.
Sex with someone who isn’t committed also gets painful emotionally. Theres tons of movies about this… that boy and girl decided to have casual sex and then FEELINGS get involved. It always happens. How can it not? Sex is such a bonding… you are joining your most intimate parts of your bodies…. you are experiencing such earth shattering bliss… how can you separate your feelings from your body when our bodies and souls are connected?
Now those who view sex as recreation will point out failed marriages and abusive marriages. Marriage as God created it is perfect. Marriage as practiced by flawed humans is not perfect. But that still doesn’t take away the havoc wreaked on mankind by selfish people who use sex for their own pleasure and give no thought or reverence to its power emotionally and physically.
In the past you were spiritually dead because of your sins and the things you did against God.?Yes, in the past you lived the way the world lives, following the ruler of the evil powers that are above the earth. That same spirit is now working in those who refuse to obey God.?In the past all of us lived like them, trying to please our sinful selves and doing all the things our bodies and minds wanted. We should have suffered God’s anger because we were sinful by nature. We were the same as all other people.
?
But God’s mercy is great, and he loved us very much. ?Though we were spiritually dead because of the things we did against God, he gave us new life with Christ. You have been saved by God’s grace. ?And he raised us up with Christ and gave us a seat with him in the heavens. He did this for those in Christ Jesus ?so that for all future time he could show the very great riches of his grace by being kind to us in Christ Jesus. ?I mean that you have been saved by grace through believing. You did not save yourselves; it was a gift from God. ?It was not the result of your own efforts, so you cannot brag about it. 10?God has made us what we are. In Christ Jesus, God made us to do good works, which God planned in advance for us to live our lives doing.
The payment for sin is death. But God gives us the free gift of life forever in Christ Jesus our Lord. Ep 2 and Ro 6 NCV
The problem with the video isn’t the question of premarital sex, but rather the juvenile assumptions and faulty logic upon which it is based.
These naive college students think that Planned Parenthood has much of anything to do with education? How quaint.
These products of cradle-to-grave government-dependence brainwashing imply that they will be unable to educate themselves about sex without government funding of Planned Parenthood? How telling.
These socialists-by-environmentalism bring up “tax breaks” to “oil companies”, as if they have anything at all to do with the question of federal funding of Planned Parenthood?
These useful idiots* think that they’re proving some point of argumentation by being racy and edgy, when all they are really doing is allowing themselves to be a tool of logical fallacy.
We don’t care if you have sex**. You are an adult, and have every right to exercise free will. However, by the same token: we are not responsible to bear the consequences of your exercise of that free will, nor are we willingly compelled to pay for the moral atrocity you commit, via the murder of an innocent, unborn human, in order to avoid one such consequence.
A word of advice to our nascent movie stars: avail yourselves of the resources of your university, and research the life, beliefs, writings, and actions of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger. You may reconsider your ignorant support of Planned Parenthood, which since its founding has purposed to advance racist eugenics through abortion, far more than any facade of “sex education” or “family planning”.
* The socialists who use them as pawns for such stunts as this video understand full-well the meaning of the phrase “useful idiot”, having been coined by their 19th century idols in the USSR
** Truth be told: we do care, but only because we know the real consequences of extra-marital sex, and desire that you not have to endure those consequences.
Wasn’t casual sex one of the things that was big in Rome just before it fell? Just saying…
Truth be told: we do care, but only because we know the real consequences of extra-marital sex, and desire that you not have to endure those consequences.
How true. And I believe that Planned Parenthoods true agenda was forced out into public scrutiny a little sooner than they attended. I think there about to fully comprehend that everyone’s brain has not been washed by their worldview. I think they also have seriously underestimated the impact that teenagers who are seeing with their intellect and their hearts and souls will have on their misguided agenda. Hopefully the same demographic that they have betrayed will be instrumental in their own conversion to moral sanity. Believing.
Oh, I forgot to mention the literal laugh-out-loud moment of the video:
“We are young, and we VOTE.”
No, actually, you don’t. You should, but as a group, you don’t.
what is really sad about the first video posted by Cafe Moms is the number of comments from moms who said they would be proud to have their sons and daughters post such a video.
Sex is for babies and bonding so if you don’t want to be bonded and have babies then
don’t have sex. In nature there are no judgements just consequences for actions. The
consequences for these actions are enormous. Emotionally, spiritually and physically.
Sex is sacred. We are lying with our bodies when we do it outside of a life long
committment to marriage.
If your friends jumped off a bridge into the water below, and this is a high bridge…would you do that too?
Why do something so stupid and crazy? Did you ever think the next guy or girl you are with will be someone ELSE’s spouse some day? Do you think about the person who could be your spouse? Would you want your future spouse to love only you or to brag about how many men or women she or he has been with?
Saving yourself for marriage is not hard. It does take self control. But don’t you think it would be worth it when you are married? Think about this.
Condoms can’t fix a broken heart or heal you. Pills can’t fix self esteem.
Think before you act.
What’s wrong (if anything) with premarital sex?”
wrong
1 a: an injurious, unfair, or unjust act : action or conduct inflicting harm without due provocation or just cause b : a violation or invasion of the legal rights of another; especially : tort
2: something wrong, immoral, or unethical; especially : principles, practices, or conduct contrary to justice, goodness, equity, or law.
3: the state, position, or fact of being or doing wrong: as a : the state of being mistaken or incorrect b : the state of being guilty.
Pre-marital sex, even if consentual, is almost always ’injurious’ to ones emotional, physical and, if you can fathom the notion, ‘spiritual’ self.
Pre-marital sex is also about as ‘stupid’ an act as smoking tobacco or abusing your body with legal or illegal drugs for recreation.
But when the emotions and the hormones kick in logic and reason are relegated to the back seat of the street car named desire.
Most people do not engage in sex as casually as shaking hands.
“What does ‘love’ have to do with pre-marital sex/extra marital sex?
I refuse to watch the video. I will not give them my “VIEW”.
You know here is another thing….many employers will see such videos and decide not to hire them. Honest! Many companies look on Facebook and other stuff to decide on hiring decisions.
I say married couples with children create a new entitlement program – let’s call it a “Procreative Stimulus” program.
We should be entitled to at least 1 week’s vacation at an all expenses paid resort for the explicit purpose of making love (that would be fully committed sex for those who don’t know). No interruptions and the like.
Non-marrieds and childless singles can pay for it through a non-procreative tax. In other words – they don’t want to have children (who are future taxpayers) then someone else has to – and since it’s expensive and time-consuming to bear and raise children, I think we who are doing so should be annually entitled to some serious R&R, with the nice side effect of having children if the Good Lord wills it.
That’s right – married couples with kids want to reach into the wallets of those who just want casual sex.
I think married couples would love the idea.
We could fund it out of Title X – after all – that’s real family planning.
Sorry Chris but you had premarital sex. Get off your high horse.
These videos will be great when these youngsters are tired, sick and heartbroken and want to settle down with someone more stable and start a family. These videos will come back and haunt them and future relationships. How would anyone like to see an old video of their dad or mom saying “I have sex”?
Do these young women think about how it will be after they have a child and are unable to have sex for a period of time? If a spouse has this mentality engrained, they will be shopping for sex while their spouse is parenting. I guess maybe women could resort to waist up sex in between feeding the baby. Anything to keep their man happy, right??
Do these women think he will respect them and wait for sex during those times? After all, “I have sex” is all about the “I” and nothing about the “You”.
I want to emphasize everything Chip Bennett said, and I also want to add:
My goodness this video is creepy! I get it, people have premarital sex, what else is new? But honestly, keep it to yourself. I don’t want to know what you do during your private time. Have some class.
This isn’t racy, it’s gross.
“Megan says:
March 19, 2011 at 11:15 am
Sorry Chris but you had premarital sex. Get off your high horse.”
I had it too. Before I realized what I am doing to myself and to what destruction it is leading me.
Lucky are the ones, who realized that before it was too late and stayed chaste. If I knew then what I know now, I wouldn’t have done it for anything until I was married. You see some of us learn from our mistakes and then can warn others not to make them.
What Megan, Chris isn’t allowed to learn from his past mistakes? He isn’t entitled to change his opinion? Who made you the queen?
He also didn’t abdicate his responsibility as a father and ask other tax payers to pay for his lack of self control.
LizfromNebraska, what you posted made me think how saving yourself for marriage takes no more self control than being faithful to your spouse once you’re IN marriage.
@Megan:
Sorry Chris but you had premarital sex. Get off your high horse.
Do, please, try to explain how that is germane to the topic at hand.
I will leave religion aside for now, as other seem to have covered it already. My problems with pre-marital sex are these:
1. Risk of STD’s and STI’s
2. Unplanned pregnancies resulting in abortions or parents who are not ready to be parents.
3. Emotional problems after casual sex if one of the partners starts feeling attached and the other stays indifferent. This more often happens with a girl falling for a guy and having her heart broken, though it can happen other way round.
4. Health problems from using birth control, having abortions.
5. Marital problems in the future. Knowing that your other half has slept with hundreds of people would create a trust issue and be uncomfortable in situation that would make you think things like “has he/she done it with this friend, or that guy, or that aquaintance?”
6. Double standards between girls and guys. When a girl has had many partners she’s often labelled a “w***e”, when a guy does the same thing, he’s “the man”, “the stud”.
7. Even pre-marital sex and co-habitation of commited couples increases ther risk of future divorce. “couples who begin their marriages through cohabitation are almost twice as likely to divorce within 10 years compared to all first marriages: 57 percent to 80 percent.” (Joe S. Mcllhaney, Jr., M.D., president of The Medical Institute for Sexual Health)
An idea: how about for a next weekend question ask – what is positive about premarital sex?
In my opinion – nothing. If it’s done purely for pleasure, you’re better off with a bar of chocolate, at least it wouldn’t make you pregnant, emotionally unstable and infected.
When I was in college, my mom said “once you have sex, you can never go back to holding hands.” Of course, I was already having sex and the statement just seemed weird.
Now I know from experience how true her words were — my heart was broken several times and hand holding is such a fond memory. I pray that my daughter (who I have raised alone) can understand better than I. Sex is so easy, love is so hard.
Hand holding is wonderful, I really miss it.
My wife and I hold hands all the time.
“we want to be treated like adults”
Then start acting like it!
Excellent post on the problems with pre-marital sex, Vita! You covered all the issues I have as well. I love the part about chocolate, it made me laugh so hard, and it is so true.
Looks like the latest innovation to facilitate college girls riding the “cock carousel”. On some of the sites I read, confirmed atheists discuss how to meet and marry very religious christian girls because they haven’t spent their youth riding the carousel and are more likely to actually love their husbands.
I cannot attach the link but there is an interesting article in the WSJ today:
Why Do We Let Them Dress Like That? by Jennifer Moses
What’s so “vulgar” about college students saying they have sex. BTW, college (and high school students) have been having sex for a long time. I went to Catholic school in the mid sixties where we were taught that premarital sex was a “mortal sin.” My graduating class (66) had very few virgins. When Planned Parenthood opened up, the waiting room was full of young ladies in short plaid skirts….
They were praising Planned Parenthood for all that they do for young people who are having sex or thinking about it and need information and contraceptives so that they can be safe. Parents in the reality based community accept the reality that their kids are sexually active and, as such, want them to be safe from STD’s and unwanted pregnancies. Nothing vulgar about that.
The video is very slick. Good visuals of a diverse group of students (not all are having sex) and nice music background.
And casual sex being part of the fall of Rome. A-hem, casual sex has been a component of human societies since the time of the pharoahs. European dynastic conflicts were, in some cases, due to “bastard” sons wanting a piece of the royal pie. The Victorians, despite their reputation as prudes, were nothing of the sort.
Sex is not just for procreation. And BTW, if PP is defunded (and it won’t be anytime soon), women who have private health care plans will still get abortions. Poor women will just have more babies (or damage themselves with “back alley” abortions) and all you folks who hate funding PP will just have to bear the costs to society of more poor children not all of whom will be sold to well off childless couples. Can’t have it both ways, here.
BTW, Weselyan is a very good school.
“cock carousel” Oh my, such vulgar language! I wouldn’t have thought that pro-lifers would even know such a phrase ;)
Chip @ 11:41 – that’s Megan’s typical flame-bait.
She doesn’t have logical arguments, so she substitutes directives instead.
CC said: Poor women will just have more babies (or damage themselves with “back alley” abortions) and all you folks who hate funding PP will just have to bear the costs to society of more poor children not all of whom will be sold to well off childless couples.
Hey CC – your eugenics is showing – thought you might like to know.
There are reasons some young adults might want to not have sex, and their are reasons other may decide to. I”m not troubled by the idea of two 20 year olds having a sexual relationship before marriage.
I am not an amusement park ride. Casual sex or sex without marital commitment denies the fact that I am a WHOLE person- that my being is more than just physical, that my body is interconnected with my heart and mind and soul. I have only been with one man my whole life, ( I am 27) but I have seen the tragedy my friends have fallen into with casual sex.
There was a line, (and forgive me for using this- cheesy as it may be :)) in Breaking Dawn of the Twilight series. Bella was on her honeymoon and she was very nervous about exposing herself and making love for the first time. She says something like she didnt know how people did that (have casual sex) because if it was anyone but someone she trusted, someone she knew truly loved her, she would never be able to leave the bathroom and face him. I feel the same way. Exposing yourself to another human being, especially on a sexual level, is like baring your soul. And if its not…then I dont understand the point.
It wasn’t so much casual sex that led to the fall of Rome, but a variety of causes including a drop in the population.
Lots of theories for why it dropped, including plague, lead poisoning from Roman pottery and a number of other ills. One factor was that the people, particularly the upper classes, were having fewer children. As a result of the decline, there was not a large enough army to defend against the barbarians.
Not so much casual sex, but the failure to have children, leading to decline in population. Sound familiar?
She doesn’t have logical arguments, so she substitutes directives instead.
Hmm. Chris, don’t you mean “invectives”? Come to think of it, Invecties must be Megan’s middle name
“Exposing yourself to another human being, especially on a sexual level, is like baring your soul. And if its not…then I dont understand the point.”
Yup, even PUA’s note that past a few number of partners, it is much harder for people to bond. They warn not to fall for girls with a high count because they are practically guaranteed to be unable to emotionally connect long term. GSS data agree, the more pre marital partners, the higher the infidelity rate. Conversely those who report only one lifetime partner, also report lower infidelity and have more children. Data suggest the chaste will be the big (evolutionary) winners of the 21st century.
“GSS data agree, the more pre marital partners, the higher the infidelity rate. Conversely those who report only one lifetime partner, also report lower infidelity and have more children”
Got a link for that?
Regarding the first video. PP costs more that 75 million. Tax breaks for oil companies mean they keep operating here and folks here have jobs. Plenty of other countries would be happy to have them and tax them even less than we do. Maybe these young “adults” would like the job market to soften even further. Maybe they should have signs that say “I use energy”. Or perhaps they would prefer to pay $8 gallon while they drive to stand in line for hours with hundreds of others trying to interview for a few limited positions. People in other countries do. And they don’t go to college because their parents can’t afford it. So they live at home and they don’t have sex. What a bunch of brats. Where was that? Weslayan? John Wesley must be rolling in his grave.
“Hey CC -your eugenics is showing…
No, it’s reality. I worked in social services with poor families – both in assistance and child protective services. Those who are poor face far more stressors than those in the middle class. And that’s why so many of them utilize Planned Parenthood for contraceptive and abortion services. For many who are just getting above the poverty level, having another child means that they go back to below that line.
Conversely those who report only one lifetime partner, also report lower infidelity and have more children. ”
hmm, that seems pretty obvious. If you’ve been unfaithful, you are by definition not going to be able to report “only one lifetime partner.” That’s like saying “For those who were virgins when they married, there was a very low rate of premarital sex reported.”
Well, isn’t that special? How about:
I AM NOT AN ANIMAL. I AM A HUMAN BEING.
I’M YOUNG. WHY IS PLANNED PARENTHOOD EXECUTING MY YOUNG RELATIVES?
I WILL NOT HAVE “GHOSTS OF SEX PAST” IN MY MARRIAGE”
Oh, and Megan,
Gulp. I’m the World’s Oldest Virgin. Am I allowed to comment?
This is really creepy. They should be ashamed of their activity, not broadcasting it.
What’s wrong with sex outside of marriage?
1. Who wants to be a walking petri dish of STDs?
2. It cheapens sex so that you have a harder time bonding with a real life partner.
3. Risk of creating a baby you’re just going to kill.
4. Brave New World was a DYSTOPIAN novel, people! We weren’t to emulate the promiscuity and babies out of bottles.
5. It gives you the illusion of real intimacy before real intimacy has a chance to develop, thus damaging the relationship. (Think of the pilot in Alive, who thought they’d passed Curioc when they actually hadn’t.)
6. It contributes to the overall cheapening of all human relationships.
7. The expense (birth control, STD treatments)
8. Health damage (from filling your body with hormonal contraceptives and the increased risk of cervical cancer).
If casual sexual encounters are a healthy expression of sexuality, then bulimia is a healthy expression of the appetite for food.
So the premise is that you have to support PP if you have premarital sex? That’s just dumb, and I’m surprised at any pro-choicer who would insinuate as much.
“Got a link for that?”
Sure
http://www.norc.uchicago.edu/GSS+Website/
for cheating females use GSS variables
SEX(2), EVSTRAY(2), NUMMEN(2)(3)(4)(5)(6-10)(11-20)(21-350)
for fecundity by partners use GSS variables
NUMMEN, NUMWOMEN, NUMCHILD
Miss CC – shall I sit you at the table with the Nazi’s, the Bolsheviks or the Red Chinese?
I hear Mao has a delightful show tonight.
It’s reality-based population control – just your style.
What shall it be? Your choice.
“hmm, that seems pretty obvious. If you’ve been unfaithful, you are by definition not going to be able to report “only one lifetime partner.” That’s like saying “For those who were virgins when they married, there was a very low rate of premarital sex reported.”
Not exactly, those who report fewer partners before marriage are less likely to cheat. Those who have only one partner in their whole life, have more children. Maybe that wasn’t clear.
“Hey CC – your eugenics is showing – thought you might like to know.”
Wow, if that’s eugenics, then I wonder what word you’d use to describe mandatory sterilization and euthanasia programs. You’re one step away from just coming out and saying that any attempt whatsoever to prevent unwanted pregnancies is evil and wrong.
Right, because every non-marital sexual encounter is a one-night stand. *Eye roll.*
If you want to wait until marriage to have sex, great. Personally I think the whole abstinence thing makes people hysterical and self-righteous, and gives them unrealistic expectations about sex and marriage. Most “virgin until marriage” types I know were always one heavy petting away from the big cherry pop, and so they got married by age 20 so they could “legally” hop into the sack. I predict these unions will last about long as a Christian rock song. Whatever though, to each his own. But how fair is it to impose this worldview on everybody else?
“But how fair is it to impose this worldview on everybody else?”
Considering the continual decline in female satisfaction with life over the past forty years, it is probably downright charitable.
“Most “virgin until marriage” types I know were always one heavy petting away from the big cherry pop, and so they got married by age 20 so they could “legally” hop into the sack. I predict these unions will last about long as a Christian rock song.”
Right. Megan’s anecdotal stories trump decades of social science. Those fools at University of Chicago, why did they even bother the collect all that GSS data, when we can just ask Megan.
Former neo-Nazi becomes leftist after sex change
Published: 12 Mar 11 09:21 CET
http://www.thelocal.de/politics/20110312-33671.html
Before undergoing a sex change to become a woman, Monika Strub [formerly known as Horst Strub] was a member of Germany’s neo-Nazi NPD party. But ten years later, she is running for Baden-Württemberg’s state parliament for the socialist Left party.
Christoph Kröpel, spokesman for the Left party in the state of Baden-Württemberg, described Strub’s history with the NPD as a “youthful transgression” and said she has “fundamentally changed.”
He told the paper Strub had so clearly distanced herself from her former party “that there is absolutely no doubt as to her political bearing.”
Wow!
Now that is going to extreme measures to demonstrate you have cut your ties with your former bedfellows.
I wonder if Strub also underwent ‘limbic’ reduction/removal surgery [limbicectomy] to achieve liberal nirvana or if he was able to approximate the same result with drugs and sensitivity indoctrination and copious amounts of time in front of his HDTV watching Keith Olbermann ‘Countdown’ re-runs.
…”the limbic brain inside a right-winger or Republican or conservative or your average white power activist, the limbic brain is much larger in their head space than in a reasonable person, and it’s pushing against the frontal lobe.
Janeane Garofalo appearing on ‘Countdown’ with Keith Blowhardermann April 2009
Reminds me of Leslie who was considering gender re-assignment surgery.
Leslie asked Robin, an acquaintance who had already completed the transformation if it was painful.
No, the friend replied.
The surgeon provided adequate medication to deal with the pain associated with the surgical trauma, but what really hurt was when they stuck that tube in her/his ear and sucked half his/her brains out.
That must be why liberals get so upset with Rush Limbaugh when he boasts he will debate them with half his brain tied behind his back just to make it fair.
“This is really creepy. They should be ashamed of their activity, not broadcasting it.”
Their parents must be so proud. I am sure they sent the youtube link to their folks straight away.
This is the stuff you’re blogging about eh?
Yeah, that $100,000 pro-life prize was money well spent :p
The worst pre-marital sex I ever experienced was great at the time. [At least for me.] but the consequences associated with the act were almost universally painful for me and for her [no he’s.].
There was the ghonorhea, the emotional pain of the ‘breakup’, the pregnancy and subsequent termination, the drugs, the drinking and the regret over beng complicit in the murder of my own child.
Humans are stupid. We learn slow and forget quick.
Ha! Ahoy, Zekester!
You know, there have been people wringing their hands and moaning about the younger generation since the time of the ancient Egyptians… Heck, maybe before that.
I had pre-marital sex, but I didn’t get married until I was 41 years old, so I hope I get some kind of a pass.
And anyway, isn’t there a saying about “You don’t buy a car until you test the milk,” or something like that? : D : P
Doug,
Tho I am confident your question was rhetorical I will attempt to answer it.
“Why should the bull into an eternal covenant with the female bovine when he can acquire the fringe benefits at no cost.”
Of course in this post modern age of no absolutes the gender and multiple combinations of sex partners is endless and is not even limited to living things. Inanimate objects are acceptable as well, but the batteries are not included.
What happened to the proabort mantra “stay out of my bedroom”?
PP is no longer grasping. The straws are well out of their reach now.
Doug, stay away from my farm animals — and my car.
I have read the many thoughtful comments on both sides of this issue here. I am on the side of abstinence certainly for college age and younger. I feel strongly and speak from experience that the ability to develop true intimacy and the foundation for a good marriage is stunted by casual sex or premarital sex. The comment about once you have sex it is hard to abstain is so true for female and male alike. I have a college age child who just experienced this problem which ended a nice budding relationship/friendship as my child is still a virgin and neither of them are ready for marriage since they are still in their early years of college. It was heartbreaking for them both. Casual or premarital sex as well as our overextended debt are manifestations of the “instant gratification”, “I want it all and I want it now” syndrome of our current culture. The liberal media, particularly film and tv glamorize casual sex and instant gratification depicting teens and young adults instantly in love and having sex without depicting the real life consequences. Self discipline, self restraint, sacrifices…gratification postponement…this is what produces success and a more permanent form of gratification. A good marriage, family, any good relationship often requires sacrifice. If I were looking for a prospective mate, I would be looking for someone who is capable of exercising such self discipline.
I was going to list all the things I miss about casual sex, but some of you put it better. However, I can add:
* backstabbing competition from other women
* guys pretending not to know a woman after sex; passing each other in the cafeteria and they look down and away
* girls who get mad that their friend hooked up with the cute guy, so they sic on her the drunkest jerk at the next party (“Go talk to Cindy, she said she thinks you’re cute!)
* guys not wanting to be seen on a real date with girls they’ve had sex with, then taking out the girl’s roommates for nice dinners because those girls held out
* female friends hooking up with creepy guys and expecting me to entertain the creepy companion
And as for the sort of long term aftermath of casual sex:
* running into an old one-nighter in public after he’s obviously had a few drinks and he starts telling your new date how much fun you were
And the very long term aftermath:
* creepy former companion stalks you on your new internet page or email
All so much fun and so empowering. My high school friends and I get together almost every year, and all of us have had those midnight drunk dialings from guys who think you’re still on the market, or 20 yrs later the creepy internet contacts with people you’d rather forget. I wish not, but it seems pretty common. Some of the above happened to me, some to my friends, and none of it fun.
So Operation Rescue hero Ken has jumped from pre-marital sex to transgenderism. Excuse Me? In addition to being homophobic, looks like Ken is transphobic.
And what is “GSS” – “hippie” still hasn’t provided a link.
The folks who send their kids to Wesleyan aren’t the type who “pray” in front of abortion clinics. Those that do, send, I suspect, their kids to conservative bible and Catholic colleges. Certainly not the big RC schools like Villanova, Notre Dame, and Georgetown. Where do you folks send your kids to college?
I’m sure everyone here has done that he deed without being married, myself included. personally, I don’t see the problem with two people being intimate with each other so long as they’re of age and as long as they’re willing to (wo)man up and take care of that which they’ve created. If they’re not, then they really shouldn’t be doing anything which produces children.
The U of C video is especially disturbing and outrageous. The fact is, no one in favor of casual sex (if there even is such a thing) can list the downside of chastity because there isn’t one. Chastity preserves integrity, honor, respect, health, bodily autonomy, life, freedom, and future. Chastity harms nothing and no one. Chastity affirms life and love. Chastity demonstrates self-control, discipline, and maturity.
“Casual” sex on the other hand has absolutely no benefits. It has a mile-long list of harmful consequences and even deadly results. Casual sex reduces people to objects of gratification; things to be used and discarded; it lets loose an army of diseases and infections that can kill, disfigure, or just ruin the body; it does not recognize the value of human life nor protect human life.
Those idiotic college students are an embarrassment. They are also playing Russian roulette with their lives and other people’s lives. They will find out the hard way that their notions of hook-ups and “freedom” were stupid and dead-wrong but by then, their babies will have been executed and their bodies and hearts will be forever changed. How sad.
Chastity is smart. Casual, premarital sex is the height of stupidity and disrespect.
Mark Steyn correctly comments that not all societal/cultural change is for the better and cannot always be considered progress. Women in the Muslim world have not benefited much from changes in their culture since the ’50s. So to for the sexual revolution, unless you define progress as: 52,000,000 abortions, the breakdown of the family and an expanded welfare state to name just a few of the fringe “benefits” of devaluing sexual intimacy.
http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/3800/104/
http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/3710/104/
It’s really about the premarital sex, isn’t it, and not the “babies”?
Basically, it’s none of anyone’s business if people have sex before they are married, reliigious dogma aside. People who are hung up on things like that should seek mental help.
“It’s really about the premarital sex, isn’t it, and not the “babies”?”
Unmarried status is the involved in the majority of abortions. Cause and effect.
“Basically, it’s none of anyone’s business if people have sex before they are married, reliigious dogma aside.”
Uh, no, these folks want us to pay for their birth control, abortions and STD treatments.
“People who are hung up on things like that should seek mental help.”
No, they should seek redress of their grievance of being forced to pay for other people’s private activities.
Given the tone of the comments here, I feel that I should remind everyone that pre-marital (or, as I prefer, non-marital, since pre-marital implies that the people involved will get married at some point in their lives, although not necessarily to one another) sex is not the same thing as casual sex. Think of non-marital sex as a large umbrella category with lots of smaller categories beneath it. Can non-marital sex also be casual sex? Absolutely. Does it have to be? No. People don’t have to be married in order to be in committed relationships. (Personally, I’ve never understood why a legal bond, a piece of paper, and a willingness to declare one’s love for each other in public is viewed as being so important, but to each her own, I suppose.)
“And what is “GSS” – “hippie” still hasn’t provided a link.”
link posted above at 2:34 pm
Anyway, if you took sociology in college, your professor should have shown you how to use the GSS.
@Bart: the blog title asks: “what is wrong with premarital sex” not who is doing it. From your post it appears you don’t want anyone cramping your style or you see nothing wrong with it. Perhaps you could post here about the benefits of premarital sex besides a minute of pleasure (assuming there is an orgasm, not always the case for female, especially for female in an uncommitted relationship, one night stand, etc…)
“The folks who send their kids to Wesleyan aren’t the type who “pray” in front of abortion clinics. Those that do, send, I suspect, their kids to conservative bible and Catholic colleges. Certainly not the big RC schools like Villanova, Notre Dame, and Georgetown. Where do you folks send your kids to college?”
Wow. You can’t be serious. Not only do they send their kids there, the colleges actively recruit qualified applicants. Only 10% of Ivy League students come from a home where the parents were ever divorced. That is way below the national average. It is probably below the average for fundie bible colleges. Consistent church attendance correlates with higher social function, higher intelligence, higher academic performance etc.
CC, you need to look at some data. You are just making wild assumptions based on “I think, therefore it’s true.”
I’m 17 and I (proudly!!) DON’T have sex. Sex was meant to be more than pleasure, It’s meant to make a bond between two human, a married man and his wife (Or a married woman and her husband, whatever,) that they share together, its an act of love, selfless love. Your giving all of yourself to another person who you love more than yourself. By having sex your saying “I love you” with your body in the most amazing way. It’s a bond that goes beyond the flesh, its really the only kind of bond that can hold two persons together on both the physical level and the spiritual level. If you wanna go at it, go ahead! There’s no one stopping you! no matter what anyone says its still your choice right? Yes, but look ahead and think of the consequences. You run the risk of getting a divorce once your married and that risk gets higher and higher every time you have it. Why? Because if your bunny hopping from one guy to another, (or one chick to another) you will have an extremely hard time staying with just one partner for a long period of time, because when you have sex with many partners your body is being trained to expect that, a lot of different partners and experiences. Think ahead, what do you want? A lifetime of ‘one night stands’? No real, lasting love with someone who will never get ‘bored’ with you, will love you even as you age? It’s all fine and dandy if you like bunny hopping, but don’t whine when you find out that s/he cheated or you deal with him/her throwing divorce papers in your face when s/he finds out that you did. Of course you could always just use a little self control, and save yourself for someone who will really love you, won’t use you or turn their back on you, who won’t use you. Which would you prefer?
But hey, why listen to a chaste 17 year old b***h right? I don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ve never done it so how should I know right? “You-don’t-know-what-your-missing” yeah yeah yeah, I’ve heard it before. “Your-expecting-to-much-your-gona-be-disappointed-on-your-wedding-night-and-wish-you-did-it-sooner” blah blah blah. No no don’t mind me, go ahead and have fun! Isn’t that what the teen and young years are all about?! Living life and letting go? Enjoying your youth and beauty? Right?! Because this is fun right?! That’s all that counts right?!
CiCi!!!!!
You go girl!! I am very proud of you and I am praying my four children will be as committed to purity as you are!! God bless!
If you need a marriage certificate to guarantee that someone will respect you, you need help.
Megan,
A marriage certificate signifies a commitment, it won’t command respect if a person is not already respected before the certificate is issued.
on topic says:
March 19, 2011 at 1:05 pm
I cannot attach the link but there is an interesting article in the WSJ today: Why Do We Let Them Dress Like That? by Jennifer Moses
I often wonder that myself. Interesting article. Thanks!
CiCi, Thanks for showing a different side of our young people. Hurrah!
I guess it’s kinda nice that these young people are putting their pictures out there for the world to see. This way young people will know which folks not to waste their time dating.
Maybe a video should be made that has all the beautiful young people like yourself proclaiming “I’m worth waiting for.”
If you never say no, your yes doesn’t mean anything.
Praxedes – Doug, stay away from my farm animals — and my car.
LOL!!!
mom4ever – great comments @ 5:04pm!
Enigma,
I agree with you with the exception of marriage being “just a piece of paper.” It’s important in so many religions and cultures, plus many gay and lesbian couples are fighting for the right to marry- would it not be wrong to dismiss marriage then? Just asking- I just want to know your thoughts on the subject.
enigma said :
If that’s all you think is involved in the Covenant of Marriage, then you’ll never truly understand.
What is troublesome to me is that so few people understand marriage or seek to understand it. Many will go – “but you’re talking religious when you talk about covenants.”
Which also means so few people understand what a covenant is…
Uh, marriage is not for the benefit/happiness/fulfillment of the partners. It is to tie the man to his children. Marriage obligates the partners. The woman to her husband and the husband to the children. That is what marriage is for. There is no legal requirement of love for a marriage, only conjugal rights and the rights of the children to their father’s assets.
Premarital sex is wrong because it endangers the rights of the children.
Marriage exists to protect the children.
Hippie,
It might depend on the culture- perhaps in some cultures marriage serves the purpose of “tying” men to their children, but in our culture it is about love and relationships as well as children. That’s why we date- to find the right person to marry (in the long run, of course- not every fifteen-year-old who goes out on a date is auditioning potential husbands or wives).
Carla: thank you very much :) God bless you as well
Praxedes;your very welcome, lol it doesn’t usually take a YouTube video for us ‘goodie goodie’ girls to figure out which guys are real and which ones just want a new toy, but the video does help ;) And that may not be such a bad idea, it could be a counter measure to all those ‘I have sex’ vids
Praxedes,
What a great idea!!!
CiCi is hardly alone!! :)
http://www.lifenews.com/2011/03/04/cdc-report-most-teens-not-having-sex-abstinence-ed-works/
I just find it interesting that the Coffee Party, which is supposed to be the opposite of the Tea Party, is now promoting jackass behavior by children. The Tea Party is all about shrinking government and lowering taxes, while the Coffee Party was supposedly about keeping government big and keeping taxes high. But apparently they also want youths to act like jackasses.
BUT… I guess they’re doing this to keep government big (keep funding Planned Parenthood), so it’s not that much of a detour from their founding purpose.
Carla; thanks for sharing, its great to see such big numbers :) Knowing that their so big helps keep my hopes up and it hopefully will help many teens who are committed to chastity keep their hopes up about finding someone else who shares their view about sex and who is waiting till marriage.
Young adult has sex. Contracts and STD. Doesn’t have insurance. Medicaid covers it.
Wait. WHO’S PAYING FOR THIS? Ohhhhh. WE ARE!
Thanks, kids, for your all your sexual deviancy. Keep spreading those diseases, and we’ll keep picking up the tab.
“in our culture it is about love and relationships as well as children”
Tell that to the man paying child support to his ex wife for the child she conceived with her adulterous lover while still married. She divorced her husband to be with her lover. Now her ex pays her new husband/adulterous lover to support the child.
Cici:
Thanks for posting here. There are many young people like you and the trend is going more your way than those minions in the Wesleyan students’ video. You are making smart choices instead of easy and convenient choices. You are more likely to succeed in the long term because you are planning ahead instead of doing what impetuously seems right and feels good for the moment. You know more than most 17 year olds… that the best things are worth waiting for and are not achieved that quickly. Good luck and God Bless.
Did you notice how few students they actually recruited for this stunt?
Anyway, marriage is for the protection of children.
http://www.loyno.edu/~history/journal/1989-0/haller.htm
It only makes sense that some teenagers see their peers drinking, partying, being promiscuous and want to avoid that. Word gets around. They KNOW which girls are sexually active, getting pregnant and also which ones have “miscarriages.” They know who is going to PP and getting tested. And also who is using who. Or is it whom?
Doesn’t take too deep a thinker to realize that the way to AVOID all of that is to have self control and wait!!!
mom4ever, thats great to hear and very encouraging :) thank you very much and may God bless you as well
@Chris A. I love your idea for real family planning! I won’t hold my breath waiting for that entitlement program though!
It’s gonna be hard to drive to the “hook-up” bar if the price of gasoline skyrockets.
For decades, feminists have been propagating the myth that men and women have equal desires for and reactions to casual sex. A woman who engages in multiple trysts is “embracing her sexuality” – and if she has doubts afterwards, she’s simply experiencing unnecessary guilt heaped upon her by a patriarchal society. Women and men are really the same, they say, so why shouldn’t a woman “have sex like a man”?
College women are slowly starting to realize that it’s all a lie. Even women’s studies courses and three hundred episodes of “Sex and The City” can’t mask the fact that expert opinion favors chastity.
In her book “Unprotected,” published earlier this year, Dr. Miriam Grossman makes a medical case for sexual conservatism. As a psychiatrist at UCLA’s student health services, Grossman has seen firsthand the emotional destructiveness of promiscuity. She declares multiple hook-ups “hazardous to a woman’s mental health.” …
As feminists assail traditional moral standards for sexual behavior as “oppressive,” they ignore the fact that the sexual revolution has created a culture in which men win and women lose. While women bear the unwanted pregnancies, abortions, and emotional pain wrought by casual sex, men are free to move on to the next bedmate.
Unfortunately, many college women have been brainwashed by a popular culture that embraces a combination of girl-power feminism and the Playboy philosophy. They believe that sex is just for fun and casual hook-ups have no emotional consequences. They believe they are just like men.
But, if the article in my school’s paper is any indication, others are catching on to the truth: the hook-up culture is more oppressive than traditional morality ever was.
~Townhall.com May 23, 2007.
What a great article. I like the way this person thinks and writes.
Vannah,
“I agree with you with the exception of marriage being “just a piece of paper.” It’s important in so many religions and cultures, plus many gay and lesbian couples are fighting for the right to marry- would it not be wrong to dismiss marriage then? Just asking- I just want to know your thoughts on the subject.”
Just because something is important to someone else doesn’t mean that I have to hold it in high esteem. Would I tell a newly-wed couple that I thought their happiness was meaningless? Absolutely not. For one thing, I have more tact than that, particularly in face-to-face scenarios. Do I want to get married? Eventually (personally, I blame society for instilling this in me as a laudable goal). But I really don’t understand why people emphasize marriage so much–it’s often promoted as though it’s the only kind of romantic relationship that could ever be serious or worthwhile. I don’t understand how transforming a committed, long term-relationship suddenly validates it more in the eyes of others, or in the eyes of the people involved.
As to the homosexual marriage question–whether you value the right to marry or not, it is a right, and denying that right to others on the basis of their sexuality is wrong.
We know that it’s not so good for HIV patients in the other countries which are afflicted by socialized medicine. Obamacare is not holding out new hope for them either.
A huge mess in the nursing homes is the STDs of the elderly. They tend to flare and create quite an impressive problem in this largely immunosuppressed population.
Some of these difficulties are very long standing, but exacerbate in old age due to immunosuppression.
Do you think that Obamacare will have enough money to address these recurrent and chronic problems in the extended care facilities?
Death panels!
enigma said: As to the homosexual marriage question–whether you value the right to marry or not, it is a right, and denying that right to others on the basis of their sexuality is wrong.
Wrapping any behavior up legalistic language ‘rights’ is basically an attempt to make regulations – which in effect is establishing a religion.
And focusing too much on “rights” without discussing the responsibilities is like trying to say coins are only one-sided objects.
The folks who send their kids to Wesleyan aren’t the type who “pray” in front of abortion clinics. Those that do, send, I suspect, their kids to conservative bible and Catholic colleges. Certainly not the big RC schools like Villanova, Notre Dame, and Georgetown. Where do you folks send your kids to college?
I graduated from Smith. To paraphrase Antoine Dodson, run and tell that, homegirl.
My issue with these people making this video is, what happened to the notion that some things should be kept private? I don’t want to know or need to know who’s having sex, especially when it comes to total strangers. Did these people consult with any and all present or past sexual partners to find out if those people wanted their sex lives to be a subject for discussion on YouTube? Let’s say you know the people in this video. Let’s say you know their past and/or present boyfriends and/or girlfriends. Now you know the present ones are having sex and the past ones very well might have, when, frankly, whether people are having sex really isn’t any of anyone’s business. There’s a reason genitalia is referred to as “private parts.”
CC. why are she always here? For someone who hates pro-lifers, she sure hangs out with them a lot. I guess it gets lonely living alone.
CC says: March 19, 2011 at 5:07 pm
“In addition to being homophobic, looks like Ken is transphobic.”
=============================================================
Coitus Consumatus,
I am the founder and administrator of Phlaming Heterosexuals Opposing Bigotry In America, aka ‘PHOBIA’.
Just doing my part to preserve ‘truth justice and the American way’.
I am not at homophile, nor am I a homophobe.
You are free to embrace any pervert or perversion you like just as long as your partner(s) are above the age of consent and have the mental capacity to legally grant their consent. [Be careful abour exchanging money for services rendered or received. Prostitution is illegal in most states. You would not want to jeopardize your job opportunities with a conviction or even an arrest for solicitation.]
Be careful with the animals. There are some jurisdictions where it is illegal to engage in sexual activity with the livestock and there are some animals who might view your demonstrations of affection as an act of aggression and respond like… an animal. The critters are not likely to recognize your ‘safe word’.
I suppose plants and inanimate objects are fair game, but be careful of naturally occurring toxins and materials containin carcinogens.
Please be ‘earth friendly’ and dispose of your spent batteries using an environmentally responsible method. Recycle whenever possible and consider making the investment in a solar powered battery charger and rechargable batteries.
It would not be prudent to broadcast your sexcapades as there are some individuals and corporations who might reject you for employment if they come across images or descriptions of your daliances.
But then again your free spirit and non-judgemental and relativistic approach to life and sex might land you a career in the porn industry in some capacity.
As someone said up the thread a ways did they send a copy of the video to their parents?
“Hey mom and dad I made a video with a bunch of other college folks and wanted you to take a look at it and let me know what you think!!”
Ah. The parentals must be so, so proud.
CC says: March 19, 2011 at 1:13 pm
1. BTW, college (and high school students) have been having sex for a long time.
2. My graduating class (66) had very few virgins.
==============================================================
Crab Cakes,
1. Of course you did.
2. So what double blind scientific study method did you use to determine that there were ‘very few’ of the 65 other girls in your graduating class that had intact hymens?
Was than when you discovered your passion for pelvic exams?
I know.
You surveyed the boys in your senior class and all of them claimed to be ‘men of the world’ and then using that ‘reliable bit of intelligence’ you tapped into the ‘gossip grapvine’ to see who had canoodled with whom.
Why do proaborts use “length of time” to legitimize everything??
Sex has been around a long time. Abortion has been going on for thousands of years. Homosexuality has been going on since the dawn of time. Young girls have been getting pregnant for forever. Rape has been going on since the beginning of time. There has always been rape, murder and abortion and there always will be!
yor bro ken,
‘reliable bit of intelligence’
Exactly. I know of a few young ‘gentlemen’ who claimed to sleep with me in high school and college. To some of these guys, saying hello in the hallway somehow constituted intercourse.
Funny how the Cha-cha Chicks who danced the mattress mambo the most wanted to believe that almost everyone in their class was behaving the same way. I guess misery really does like company.
“Wrapping any behavior up legalistic language ‘rights’ is basically an attempt to make regulations – which in effect is establishing a religion.
And focusing too much on “rights” without discussing the responsibilities is like trying to say coins are only one-sided objects.”
You really need to give this legal theorizing of yours a rest. It’s nonsensical and totally uninformed. Making regulations is not “establishing a religion”. Constitutionally guaranteed rights are not contingent upon whatever “responsibilities” you think ought to accompany them. If you’re not comfortable with legalistic language and concepts, then don’t discuss matters of the law. These are complicated issues and trying to dumb them down like this adds nothing to the discussion.
CC did your class graduate in 6/66?
these individual, anecdotal stats are not indicative of anything, for example, my hs class graduated after that and I was virgin and four years later, still a virgin in college, as were many of my sorority sisters.
Regardless, there is no safety in numbers in this situation. Just means more disease is being spread more quickly if they are all having extramarital sex. These stats also do not answer the question of what is wrong or right about engaging in extra/premarital sex?
so far, I have not seen much posting on the merits and/or benfits of this behavior, although there have been abundant posts about how everyone does it and how antiquated it is to engage in abstinence rather than promiscuity.
Still waiting to see the list of reasons why it so advisable, especially for females, to have sex with someone who is not your spouse.
Chris,
“Wrapping any behavior up legalistic language ‘rights’ is basically an attempt to make regulations – which in effect is establishing a religion.
And focusing too much on “rights” without discussing the responsibilities is like trying to say coins are only one-sided objects.”
Since when do regulations–to use your terminology, not mine–constitute a religion? You might want to check your definitions before you swing words around–someone might get hurt, or become severely misinformed, otherwise.
I’m not going to dispute that rights typically are accompanied by some sort of either responsibilities and/or consequences associated with their use. You may have the right to free speech, but that doesn’t mean that you can shout “fire!” in a crowded theater. You may have the right to smoke, but exercising that right means that you may come down with emphysema or lung cancer, and that your clothes will smell terrible. You also don’t have the ability to exercise your right in any and all available venues.
The difficulty comes in defining what responsibilities should accompany each right. (Natural consequences, on the other hand, are typically much easier to define, although how people should respond to them is not. Should smokers, who are ill through their own choices, be given lung transplants, or treated for other smoking-related medical maladies? Most people would say yes.) Responsibilities typically also are not legislated as such, unless they potentially constitute a clear and present danger to others, or a violation of others’ rights. When you have children, for instance, those children may expect to be treated with at least a federally-mandated minimum of care, or they may be removed from your protection.
What clear and present danger is posed by homosexual marriage? I fail to see how allowing two consenting homosexual adults who love each and wish to build a life together the same legal protections and recognitions as heterosexual couples is a threat to anyone. No one is holding a gun to heterosexual people’s heads and telling them that they have to get married to someone of the same sex, or that they have to divorce their opposite sex partner because heterosexual marriages aren’t valid anymore. I realize that some communities find homosexual marriage to be offensive and immoral, but offense does not constitute harm.
The problem seems to stem from a desire to limit the definition of marriage–i.e. to one man and one woman. The groups that most typically espouse this sort of view–religious, traditional, ect.–fail to recognize is that the definition of marriage has already changed from what they would wish it to be. Back in the day, marriage wasn’t just a legal bond, but a spiritual one as well. In some communities, it is still viewed that way. But society as a whole has moved on from those times, and in many cases marrying couples don’t consider their union to constitute a holy/spiritual bond of any sort. The definition of marriage also clearly doesn’t include procreative ability. Apart from the fact that there are no testing centers determining one’s eligibility for marriage on the basis of fertility, couples in which both partners are beyond procreative age are still able to get married. If the societal (and by this I mean general society, not specific communities within it) definition of marriage isn’t limited to spiritual views about the meaning of marriage (the union of one man and one woman, becoming “one flesh,” ect.), and isn’t linked to procreative ability, on what grounds should it be denied to homosexual couples?
(Note–“because it’s traditional” is not a good argument. First off, the definition of traditional in this context can be disputed. For modern western civilization it can be considered traditional, but if you draw back to encompass the entire realm of human history, polygamy is the norm. The simple fact something has existed in the past is irrelevant in terms of arguing why it should continue to exist in the present or future without arguing why it should be considered a societal good. Don’t believe me? Piracy–in this case referring to water-based, physical pirates and their capturing of ships for loot or profit–is also traditional. Should it be lauded as a good thing?)
Students at elite colleges are the most likely to be virgins.
Yes, you read that right. In fact 35% of MIT graduates are virgins.
41% of Harvard students are virgins and 44% at Princeton are virgins.
I have posted this before. Sorry pro-aborts, this only contains data. No anecdotes.
http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/04/intercourse-and-intelligence.php
Lori Pieper
I think it might have had something to do with what their idea of fun was. I’m surprised they made it past the building of the coliseum. Have you read the amount of detail that went into their sacrificing Christians and other members of their population. I think it’s very very fitting that the barbarians (?) paid them a visit.
I have written at length on this, twice:
http://jacquefromtexas.blogspot.com/2008/11/injustice-of-premarital-sex.html
http://jacquefromtexas.blogspot.com/2009/03/injustices-of-pre-marital-sex-part-ii.html
“You surveyed the boys in your senior class and all of them claimed to be ‘men of the world’ and then using that ‘reliable bit of intelligence’ you tapped into the ‘gossip grapvine’ to see who had canoodled with whom”
Shows to go ya just how much you know about 60’s Catholic prep school education. There were no boys in our school. Just a small group of young women who showed their birth control pills (with their names on them), talked about missed periods, and went into graphic detail about digital penetration for those who wanted to keep their virginity. Oh right, and the guys were all from local Catholic prep schools. Meanwhile, the sodality girls (all 10 of them) dressed as brides and crowned the statue of the “Blessed Virgin.” (From an anthropological perspective quite pagan as it does relate to “earth mother.”) Meanwhile, the rest of us little heathens waited outside the school grounds for our boyfriends and after school “parking” fun.
“I think it’s very very fitting that the barbarians (?) paid them a visit.”
By the time the “barbarians” “paid them a visit,” (5th century) many of the “barbarians” had embraced “Arian” Christianity.
“Still waiting to see the list of reasons why it so advisable, especially for females, to have sex with someone who is not your spouse.”
“Girls just want to have fun” and “variety is the spice of life.” And if they practice safe sex and have a health insurance policy to get them what they need, it’s – none – of – your – business.
Jacqueline
Did you actually read the rest of your source?
“However, when information on the timing of
intercourse decisions is exploited and individual fixed effects are
included, the negative effect of sexual intercourse disappears for
females, but persists for males. Taken together, the results of this
study suggest that while there may be adverse academic spillovers from
engaging in intercourse for some adolescents, previous studies’ estimates
are overstated due to unmeasured heterogeneity”
Certainly you weren’t speaking to me because I never gave a source. But I will beg that we get back on topic: how does highlighting the fact that stupid people do stupid things a justification of said stupid things. Yes, there will be kids having sex, but that does not change the fact that this choice rarely bodes well for them or their unfortunate children. These are case studies for abstinence, not justification for promiscuity.
Sorry, Jacqueline. I should have addressed the comment to “Hippie.” But lots of kids have sex and have, thanks to effective use of contraception, no consequences. No harm, no foul, and nobody’s business. BTW, there is a percentage of those who use Planned Parenthood who are married and can’t afford another mouth to feed. (which cuts into Dr. Nadal’s meme about those dirty unmarried women who “spread their legs.”) But let’s defund PP and have lots more unwanted babies and lots more STD’s. Yeah, that’s a plan.
And BTW, folks, as for me – 10 years of unmarried sex with no consequences to the taxpayer. It does happen.
These young people have no idea what they are talking about.
How many girls who held up those signs will get pregnant? get an STD? get a broken heart because the “sex” they thought they could walk away from isn’t so easily forgotten?
Will they smile then? Will they be ready to hold up a sign that says, “I have sex and I got pregnant” ?
CC so you buy your own pills or contraceptives.
And if you get ill from all the years of contracepting or are infertile you will pay for all your treatment?
Some of us believe that there are consequences other than physical? ;)
“10 years of unmarried sex with no consequences to the taxpayer”
Oh, so Planned Parenthood no longer requires government funding? Great! Glad to see you now want to defund them.
CC says: March 20, 2011 at 6:40 pm
“And BTW, folks, as for me – 10 years of unmarried sex with no consequences to the taxpayer. ”
=============================================================
Cabecudo Celebrous,
Of course you did.
No surprise there.
The first part is believable, the second part, the qualifier, is about as believable as Wilt Chamberlins claim to have ‘bedded ten thousand women’.
Wait.
You weren’t one of Wilt’s bed buddies, were you?
Did you get the Stilts autograph?
“But let’s defund PP and have lots more unwanted babies and lots more STD’s. Yeah, that’s a plan.”
Sorry that ignores the data. As contraceptive use rises, unwanted pregnancies, and STD’s increase. They all go up together. Before contraceptives there were fewer unwed births and STD rates were lower. However, those lower rates were not zero. There were some unwanted pregnancies and unwed births and STD infections.
People thought by using contraceptives (of various sorts) they could lower the rates, but it has not happened. Perhaps it would have if sexual activity had remained constant. Most researchers conclude that the increase in illicit sex has so far outpaced the reduced risk which accounts for the observed net effect of overall increase in all of the outcomes the contraceptives were designed to reduce.
One would expect that contraceptives would lower the rates, but it has not been observed. The opposite has occurred.
CC sez:
“Shows to go ya just how much you know about 60?s Catholic prep school education.”
Wow…. an old pro. This one’s pushing what would have been retirement age before the pelosi reid obamaconomy tanked (for the next 15 years).
First approved in 1960, the early, high dose birth control pills were in common use in CC’s forward leaning prep school full of early adopters.
misty watercolor memories…………….
CC,
Let me see, you grew up in either CA or NY. Yes?
10 years of uncommitted sex and there’s no problem? God will have something to say about it, whether you believe in Him or not.
There are consequences for using birth control and I don’t think a young girl, especially a teenager fully understands the toll they take on a woman’s health over the years. Heck , I doubt the pharma co’s know them all. Abortion, especially multiple abortions also have long term consequences physical and emotional. How much does Planned Parenthood or other purveyors of the free sex culture inform their clients of all these potential consequences? They only provide the legal minimum disclaimers and warnings, of that you can be sure. I wonder how many women who have had abortions tell their other children about these abortions? If they hide this information, then I would ask why, if abortion, in their mind was such a good decision? How many children wonder about their aborted siblings? None of the above are exclusively religious issues.
“Humans are evolutionarily designed to be paranoid, and they believe in God because they are paranoid”
How does he know that this isn’t the paranoia speaking?
Of course, this argument is completely fallacious. Suppose it can be shown that I am evolutionarily designed to be paranoid to believe that the earth revolves around teh sun. Does it thereby follow that the earth does not revolve around teh sun? This “argument’ by the evolutionary psychologist is classic example of the genetic fallacy. This fallacy claims that just because you know where a belief originated that you can therefore conclude that it is false. But this is simply sloppy thinking, as we have noted above. It does not at all address the numerous arguments for God’s existence; it simply blows off any theistic belief by chalking it up to evolutionary nonsense.
Furthermore, as I pointed out in the first question I posed, it is a self-refuting theory. In other words, how does teh researcher prove that all the evolutionary psychology and philosophical foundations for teh scientific method are not also a product of evolutionary paranoia?
Okay Bobby, but consider this, high IQ folks are less likely to have sex but more likely to say it isn’t wrong. Now, considering how this attitude plays out in practice in today’s culture, it seems like an interesting strategy. They take few risks and preserve their health and safety of their kids while telling others it is just fine to take risks and suffer the consequences. It may not be the greatest strategy but it may be more adaptive than the reverse.
“Although there are tons of diets and exercise programs on the market, the population is getting fatter. But that doesn’t mean dieting and exercise are not effective, particularly when we look at people who diet and exercise correctly and consistently.”
I addressed that situation in my comment. You can’t make people use contraception (of various kinds) effectively just by making the contraceptives and directions available. They have to want to do it. Just like dieting and exercising.
So yes, there are more diet and exercise products available than ever and people are fatter. It may be counter intuitive but that is what we observe.
Likewise more contraception has coincided with more unwanted pregnancies, more unwed births, more STD’s and more abortion. That is what we have observed.
The hypothetical reasoning of, “well, it could work,” is worthless after we have decades of data that shows it didn’t work.
I mean, abstinence could work in theory. Duh. And evidently does work for many.
The thing is some people will not abstain and also can’t or won’t use contraceptives effectively.
Why are pro aborts so resistant to science?
“But lots of kids have sex and have, thanks to effective use of contraception, no consequences.”
I don’t think that CC understands the term ‘incidence rate’.
What is lots?
Got a link for that?
I mean, CC, your personal experience in your own little world does not reflect what is going on in the world in general. Your world is not the world. That is why researchers collect data to see what is really going on.
“Likewise more contraception has coincided with more unwanted pregnancies, more unwed births, more STD’s and more abortion. That is what we have observed.”
Yep, just that one causal factor. A+ in epidemiology for you!
“Yep, just that one causal factor. A+ in epidemiology for you!”
Is that what I said? No, it isn’t. However it is what you said. Pro-aborts point to contraceptive availability as the one causal factor that will bring down incidence rates despite the fact that decades of data show that it hasn’t. Do you understand “necessary but not sufficient”? This is the idea that while increased contraception maybe be necessary, it is not sufficient to lower incidence rates among those having illicit sex, probably because behavior responds to conditions. There just is no evidence that contraception of various sorts are actually efficacious at reducing those incidence rates. Rather all of the negative outcomes increase with more contraceptive availability and education.
If you just want to make the point that one can’t say with absolute certainty that contraceptive availability didn’t cause the increase, okay, but that requires ignoring the most obvious and most likely behavior modifying variable.
Especially when we can say with absolute certainty that contraceptive availability has not lowered the incidence of any of these negative outcomes. Rather, they have all increased dramatically.
Contraceptive availability is not effective at reducing overall incidence rates of any of these negative outcomes.
I don’t think that CC understands the term ‘incidence rate’
So are you advocating the re-criminalization of contraceptives in addition to abortion? Do you actually thinking that taking contraceptives away from people will induce them to change their sexual behavior which will, in turn, lead to less unplanned pregnancies and STD’s? I realize that folks don’t always utilize contraception but contraception failure should not be a justification for not making it available.
From the highly respected “Lancet”
“…Overall abortion rates are similar in the developing and developed world, but unsafe abortion is concentrated in developing countries. Ensuring that the need for contraception is met and that all abortions are safe will reduce maternal mortality substantially and protect maternal health.”
From USAID
Numerous studies show that use of effective modern contraception reduces unintended pregnancies and abortions. In Chile, increased use of contraception since 1960 has been accompanied by a dramatic decline in abortion rates, which were estimated to drop from 77 per 1000 married women of reproductive age in 1960 to 45 in 1990.
And in response to several questions, I grew up in RI and when my “rhythmn method” might have failed (my mother’s method of birth control that she told me about (1966) when I told her I was sexually active) I decided to go on the pill which I actually needed because of heavy periods. I transitioned from my mother’s health care to my own. Had this not been available, I would have had to, like many young girls without health insurance, access Planned Parenthood. And that’s why I, along with lots of other RI men and women (including those in the RI faith community) “stand with Planned Parenthood.”
CC, I am just making the point that the argument that contraceptives can lower the incidence rate of any of those negative outcomes is likely false, because the incidence rates go up together.
When no abortion or contraception or effective treatment for STD’s existed, rational folks made rational decisions and avoided illicit sex more than they do now. However the incidence rate was not zero and you can dig up tragic stories from the bad old days. Now, there weren’t nearly as many of those folks either as a percentage nor in absolute numbers as there are now. If in fact the availability of contraceptives is the cause, which is likely albeit not absolutely certain, then they have cause more women and children more pain and suffering than the they endured before, sadly.
More contraception will almost certainly be accompanied by more suffering, not less. That is what the data show.
hippie,
I must say, awesome commentary; thank you for sharing your expertise.
CC-
Since when does dodging a bullet mean “no consequences”- Let’s suspend reality and say that girls pumping their bodies with artificial hormones has no physical effect- emotions and self-esteem rarely go unharmed.
Little girls emailing me in terror over ingrown hairs that they think COULD be an STD because they are having sex- That’s a consequence, even though they find out that it wasn’t what frightened them. Little girls terrified that they may be pregnant, who find out they ultimately aren’t, still endure that distress. The emotional pain of a break-up is exacerbated after sex. So suppose she ends up with no STD’s or unplanned pregnancies and goes on to have a faithful, happy marital sex life- she didn’t escape with “no consequences.”
There is a reason why women who exercise prudence and self-control regarding who gets to be intimate with them have higher self-esteem.
I have often been asked by the sexually promiscuous at abstinence debates, “Oh, you think you are BETTER than I am just because you don’t have sex?”
My answer, which never goes over well, “I am infinitely BETTER OFF than you.”
I am not better than anyone, but I certainly act smarter than the lot of them.
@Jacqueline
Well said!
it’s – none – of – your – business.
CC, If it’s – none – of -our – business, why - is – your- side – making - videos – bragging “I – have – sex”?
I have mixed feelings about this.
I think that people should not have sex if there are not willing or able to accept the consequences of sex, including possible STD’s and pregnancy.
HOWEVER I do not think that marriage is really the only measure of being ready for sex and the possible consequences. And… NOT ALL PRE-MARITAL SEX IS CASUAL SEX. Just because someone is not married and is sexually active does not mean they are promiscuous.
I will use myself as an example: I am in a commited relationship with the man I plan on marrying, we live together, we are sexually active and not married, and yet not having casual sex!
Jodes,
True, you are far from promiscuous. :) I just see living with someone without a formal commitment and giving them the chance to father my children without that commitment as playing with fire. There was an earlier discussion about marriage being about protecting children. I think it also protects women. By just living together like a family but not a family, my boyfriend could walk away from me and our child at any time and I would have a billion hoops to jump through to get him to properly care for his child. Marriage fixes that. And being married before doing married things means that marriage would not be some afterthought to a baby, but something he wanted to do from the beginning. This is why I think it’s smart to take things in that order: marriage, living together, sex, and then children. I have found that people cohabit with those they “plan” on marrying all the time and don’t end up marrying because the truth is, if they are sure they want to marry, they will just do it already. Marriage often never happens- but heartbreak and children do! Women and children bear a disproportionate amount of the pain when shacking up doesn’t exactly work out.
This is not your case, Jodes, but one of the reasons I think women living with men they aren’t married to is dangerous is because there are always men willing to trade room and board for sex. This happens all the time under the guise of “relationships” particularly to vulnerable single mothers who would be homeless if a man didn’t take them in. The woman then makes all her decisions based on her financial dependence on this man not based on logic and reason. She turns herself into nothing more than an in-kind prostitute who also cooks and makes the house smell nicer. And most abusers take this “isolate them and make them dependent” approach to finding victims to beat or rape. Men will certainly take the perks of marriage without the responsibility if women will let them have it. This is why women shouldn’t let them have it.
Cohabitation very rarely works out in favor of women who do it. I hope that ends up different for you.
it’s – none – of – your – business.
Then why are they insisting on taking 363 million of my tax money to pay for it? If you take my money to do something and then kill innocent children it BECOMES MY BUSINESS.
I make good choices that benefit society, that don’t require medication or devices- but still I pay for other peoples’ stupid choices why paying myself to get better educated and more successful to give them even more money to subsidize their self-destructive recreational habits.
@Jacqueline:
“She turns herself into nothing more than an in-kind prostitute who also cooks and makes the house smell nicer. And most abusers take this “isolate them and make them dependent”
saw a dear elder lady who had the living together arrangement and her companion of 20 years had even left her $ in a bank account etc… but his children and legal heirs ( who did not visit much, if at all, or nurse him through his last 3-4 years of serious illness) have done all they could to deprive of her of what he had left her. I don’t doubt he cared for her and attempted to provide for her but these little details like marriage make such commitments and bequests a reality instead of an empty or unenforceable promise.
@Mom4Ever,
That’s so sad! I see a lot of older couples who cohabit because marriage would cost them SSI or other financial benefits they need to live on. That needs to change.
I have found that most “engaged” couples that live together and have children, etc just take the “engaged” label to make themselves feel better about living like a married couple without marrying. There is something that is keeping them from getting married- otherwise, they’d get married. Why are we to believe that financial promises that have no substantive weight behind them are a reason not to marry? Surely, if they truly cared about protecting their partner, they would just marry her.
@Jacqueline:
& vice versa. There are many successful women (such as–myself) who might think twice about (re-)marrying as they become widowed, etc… however, a well done “pre-nuptial” agreement can obviate that excuse for young and old alike.
“When no abortion or contraception or effective treatment for STD’s existed, rational folks made rational decisions and avoided illicit sex more than they do now.”
And once again you try to pass off this spurious association as scientific “fact.”
According to the Guttmacher Institute, up to 800,000 abortions were performed per year during the 1950’s and 1960’s.
Scientific studies don’t show much difference between the sexual activity of teens who have ready access to contraception and those who don’t. See: Elliott et al. (2007). Sexual activity and teenage females taking hormonal therapy for medical indication. Journal of Adolescent Health, 41(6), 616-619.
Aside from finding no statistically significant association between the rates of sexual activity in groups of girls taking the pill/those who don’t, the authors also present a nice lit review of other studies that disprove the notion that availability of contraception increases sexual activity.
Even the CDC agrees that improvements in family planning has been a big achievement for women’s health. I’ll let you decide: cast your lot with the country’s most well-respected public health institution, or with regressives who hate the idea that women should have a say in what happens to their bodies (Warren Jeffs, the Pope, and Taliban warlords are all proud members of that club).
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4847a1.htm
“According to the Guttmacher Institute, up to 800,000 abortions were performed per year during the 1950?s and 1960?s.”
However the actual individuals who came up with those numbers have since admitted they are not accurate. Note that the 800,000 number is much higher than the numbers in the early 70’s after abortion was legal. That certainly casts doubt on that number.
“Scientific studies don’t show much difference between the sexual activity of teens who have ready access to contraception and those who don’t.”
What teens cannot get condoms and spermicides from the drugstore? The notion that any teens cannot get contraception is just absurd.
“Even the CDC agrees that improvements in family planning has been a big achievement for women’s health.”
Sky high breast cancer rates,
Sky high STD rates,
Higher infertility rates,
Sky high unwed births
Those are not better outcomes. There is no way to say that the rates are better.
“I’ll let you decide: cast your lot with the country’s most well-respected public health institution,”
Appeals to authority are logical fallacies. The numbers are all that matters. The data don’t support the conclusions. The opinions of people in powerful positions are worthless without the data.
“or with regressives who hate the idea that women should have a say in what happens to their bodies (Warren Jeffs, the Pope, and Taliban warlords are all proud members of that club).”
Uh, those folks are ideologically driven, not data driven. I am not speaking of the numbers not ideology.
Planned Parenthood provides services that some people want and need.There are just as many people that are for funding of PP as against.I hate paying for a drug war that can never be won,yet I am forced to.Maybe single people don’t like paying for other peoples children to go to school,the consequences of not having an abortion.We all pay for some things that we don’t want to pay for or fund.Why do people who don’t believe in abortion funding think they are more special than the rest of us???If your religion tells you not to have premarital sex and abortion then stop having them.But if my religion says its no problem,then let each person make the choice that is best for their families…The videos told the truth of what the real true life attitudes of today’s young people are….Its just as I thought it was…
“The videos told the truth of what the real true life attitudes of today’s young people are”
Hilarious. What 20 people? Big deal. What you mean you think you couldn’t find 20 folks to say the opposite? Good grief. What a bunch of fuzzy thinking.
“There are just as many people that are for funding of PP as against.”
All polls show that while folks may be split on abortion depending on the exact wording, the percent that support abortion for any reason are always a minority as are the percentage that want to pay for other people’s birth control and abortions.
Hippie, you don’t HAVE any data. I don’t know how you’ve convinced yourself otherwise.
And FYI, people who don’t use contraception consistently and effectively get sexually transmitted infections. Doh! Go to the CDC’s website and compare chlamydia rates for New England and the Upper Midwest to southern States–those bastions of the abstinence-only-until-marriage agenda. Oh, and by the way: according to the most comprehensive evaluation of abstinence-until-marriage ed to date (from the Mathematica Institute), these ideologically-motivated programs actually result in decreased use of contraception at initiation of sexual activity. No coincidence, then, that the teen birth rate spiked between 2005 and 2007, when many states were receiving hefty abstinence-only funding.
By the way, according to the CDC itself (which IS the authority on these matters; I don’t know what “data sources” you’ve been obliquely referencing):
“As fertility declined in developing countries, the infant mortality rate decreased from approximately 150 deaths per 1000 live births in the 1950s to approximately 80 per 1000 in the early 1990s.”
Even if your false concerns about women’s health don’t disguise your contempt for contracepting women, at least recognize that family planning is good for birth outcomes.
“Surely, if they truly cared about protecting their partner, they would just marry her.”
Holy perverse incentives, Batman! I have to disagree. If marrying her would cost him money such that he would be less able to provide for his family financially, you can see that legislators have managed to write tax code to the detriment of married couples and for the benefit of singles.
“Go to the CDC’s website and compare chlamydia rates for New England and the Upper Midwest to southern States–those bastions of the abstinence-only-until-marriage agenda.”
You have to look at the disaggregated data for it to be meaningful. You can’t compare apples to oranges.
Sorry, Megan, you would have to be living under a rock not to know that illegitimate births have been rising ever since the Pill was made available. Are you honestly going to going to argue that breast cancer rates are coming down? Or that STD infections are coming down? You will be the only one.
“As fertility declined in developing countries, the infant mortality rate decreased from approximately 150 deaths per 1000 live births in the 1950s to approximately 80 per 1000 in the early 1990s.”
Once again you are the one arguing for only one causal factor. Nutrition, medical care and vaccines that lowered the overall pathogen load must of course be negligible. Right? For example if a woman’s baby doesn’t die, she is likely to continue breast feeding which will lower her fertility. So the arrow of causality can go the other way. That is, lower infant mortality can cause lower fecundity.
Mark,
The consequences of not having an abortion are(gulp)CHILDREN???
Thank, dude. You made my day!! LOL
Gotta go. All of my consequences are home from school.
“Sorry, Megan, you would have to be living under a rock not to know that illegitimate births have been rising ever since the Pill was made available.”
Sure, unwed motherhood is on the rise, primarily because teenagers who get pregnant don’t marry their partners these days.
And as for your second assertion: “Nutrition, medical care and vaccines that lowered the overall pathogen load must of course be negligible.” Did I say that? Absolutely not. But contraception allows young women to delay childbearing and older women to limit it (two poles when pregnancy outcomes are the worst). Family planning allows people to break the cycle of poverty by having kids when they’re ready. Sure, breast cancer is an issue with delayed childbearing, but at least women in post-industrial countries can choose when they want to have babies.
“The arrow of causality can go the other way.”
Well aren’t you clever. For a feedback loop like that to start, you’d actually have to have a healthy mom and baby in the first place.
Are you really going to argue that family planning is more harmful to women than beneficial? Because you’d definitely be the lone crazy voice in a room full of people with even the most basic knowledge of public health.
“Are you really going to argue that family planning is more harmful to women than beneficial?”
If a woman uses, for example, oral contraceptives so that she can have multiple partners and ends up with an STD, then yes. If she uses them to delay childbearing past 30 and therefore has a lifetime breast cancer risk that is 200% of what is was if she had a baby when she was 20, then yes. If she uses condoms, which so often fail, and ends up with an STD or abortion, then, yes.
If she is married and mutually monogamous and doesn’t use family planning to delay childbearing but rather to have space between kids, then the evidence shows she is at much lower risk.
These are all data based observations. No ideology necessary.
Also, these are generalities, not universals.
“For a feedback loop like that to start, you’d actually have to have a healthy mom and baby in the first place.”
Yeah, you would. Many resources were allocated specifically for that purpose. It is possible to be sick and starving and have no health services available except family planning. In fact some people in developing countries complain of that very situation. That certainly is less likely to lead to a healthy mom and baby than having vaccines and good nutrition but no family planning. Millennia of experience support that notion. There were healthy moms and babies long before there were extensive family planning services. The combination of behavior and nutrition contributed to that health. The settlers of New England had the highest fertility and lowest infant mortality ever recorded to that point in history. Behavior matters. Nutrition matters. Family planning is an outcome not a cause.
What if women don’t ever want to get married? I know plenty of people who are in committed, monogamous relationships (a few also have children together) who simply have no interest in making it “legal.” Should they also not be having sex?
And what about women, regardless of their relationship status, who may never want to have children? Should the be denied sexual pleasure because of it?
I think you all are insane. You’re operating only within your own narrow framework of what relationships, adulthood and family should be.
Hi Katie.
“You’re operating only within your own narrow framework of what relationships, adulthood and family should be.”
Should we be operating outside of our own framework on what relationships should be? Of course we operate within our own framework. Whose framework should we be operating within? Does it make any sense to operate within someone else’s framework when someone asks you about what you think about a certain topic?
“These are all data based observations. No ideology necessary.”
The ideology oozes from every inch of what you just wrote! All premarital and non-procreative sex=bad and unhealthy. If an unmarried woman’s on the Pill, she must be a huge ho who’s slept around with every guy in town. Is there anything contrary we can glean from the latest little rant of yours?
Setting aside the question of contraception, pro-lifers care about abortion first and foremost. If PP is so wonderful with family planning and birth control, then find, let them keep doing it. But if that’s their primary goal, they can stop performing abortions and keep the government money. Or they can keep performing abortions, and we’ll give the money to other groups. That’s what Reagan and the Bush Presidents did with Mexico City.
If you think that there aren’t other groups that can do what PP does, don’t worry. If you provide the money, you’re basically creating demand for those services, groups will form on their own to take over that role if necessary.
Hey Darcie/Fran/Melinda/Lilian/Chuck/Carla/Martha/Kalmus/Serena/marianne/francis – you’ve been a busy little bee, haven’t you? Pick one name and stick with it.
“And what about women, regardless of their relationship status, who may never want to have children? Should the be denied sexual pleasure because of it?”
This is the whole denial that sex is basically for making babies, which biologically it is. Should the biologically dysfunctional have sex? I mean, there is a can of worms. But in the Darwinian sense, folks who don’t procreate, well, they are on the way out of the picture. It seems the rational practical thing would be to go for the permanent solution. Why mess with temporary measures when you don’t ever want kids? Sure it is their business, not mine, so I don’t care. That doesn’t make it healthy. That is a totally different discussion.
“I think you all are insane. You’re operating only within your own narrow framework of what relationships, adulthood and family should be.”
No, this is not the old is/ought problem. David Hume may have described it centuries ago, but it still plagues some folks’ thinking. By defining what is healthy, one cannot automatically start arguing that health and morality are the same issue. Morality affects others. The health of a self supporting individual far less.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is–ought_problem
By the way, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that preventing pregnancy=reducing a woman’s exposure to the hazards of childbearing=lower maternal death rate.
“Darcie/Fran/Melinda/Lilian/Chuck/Carla/Martha/Kalmus/Serena/marianne/francis”
paid pro-abort lackey’s trying to appear more influential than they are? astro turf?
What are the odds?
Megan, I think you’re confusing you and hippie. Hippie doesn’t rant. You, on the other hand…
paid pro-abort lackey’s trying to appear more influential than they are?
Don’t know about the “paid” part, but as for the rest – no doubt.
# Create one original moniker and stick with it.
# Please use a unique name.
“preventing pregnancy=reducing a woman’s exposure to the hazards of childbearing=lower maternal death rate.”
All highly effective birth control methods also have risks. But shouldn’t the individual woman’s desire for children fit in there somewhere? Or do we just look at developing nations and think, gee, high maternal death rate, let’s reduce maternity. That ought to fix things. Talk about paternalistic and patronizing.
“All premarital and non-procreative sex=bad and unhealthy. If an unmarried woman’s on the Pill, she must be a huge ho who’s slept around with every guy in town.”
Did you miss the explanation of incidence rate and generalities vs. universals? I am addressing the rate. Obviously, these things aren’t universally observed. I have consistently discussed rates. When STD rates go up, more people suffer. When unwanted pregnancies go up, more people suffer. When illegitimacy goes up so does child and maternal poverty and more people suffer. That doesn’t mean every woman who ever had non-marital sex is a ho, with abortions, STD’s and lives in poverty. It just means that the rate is higher. The point is as contraceptive use has gone up, so have breast cancer rates, illegitimacy, STD’s, unwanted pregnancies, etc. Although contraceptives could have been used to bring down those outcomes, such has not been observed. Instead they have all gone up, unfortunately.
This is not moralizing. It is just reporting what has happened.
Megan, I was 24 and my wife 26 when we married. We were dating for 4 years. We were virgins up until our wedding night. We could care less about maintaining my wife’s hymen. We cared about having children AFTER being married. We cared about NOT hurting our bodies with disease. We cared about being FULLY committed to each other for the sake of ourselves and our future children. We cared about our own emotional and mental well-being. THAT is why we were virgins and chaste until marriage. It is smart to hold sex until marriage. Anything else is absolutely stupid.
BTW, we planned our parenthood without Planned Parenthood. ;)
“Family planning allows people to break the cycle of poverty by having kids when they’re ready.”
A couple rarely knows when they are “ready” or when the “perfect” time to start a family is. There is NO perfect time. (Ask any of us who have children.) Viewing children as money-drains is a sad position to take and that mentality contributes to abortion numbers. From a practical point of view, children are able to contribute to the family income while learning self discipline and other skills before they are of legal working age. As adults, with proper education and work ethic, they can improve their parents standard of living, and improve their community as well.
I don’t know of any study that shows that women who use birth control or have abortions improve their financial lot at a higher rate than those who don’t. Have you, Megan?
BTW, we planned our parenthood without Planned Parenthood.
Hi Segamon,
Me too! Being chaste until the wedding saved us lots of money and no tax dollars were siphoned from the federal treasury to the detriment of our country. Maybe we deserve a tax refund.
Since you took the time to slam my education, hippie, it reflects pretty poorly on your own intellectual capacity that you aren’t providing any citations.
From Nelson & Masters (2007). Infectious Disease Epidemiology: Theory and Practice:
“…gonorrhea incidence has decreased by nearly 70% since the peak of the gonorrhea epidemic in the mid-1970s” (970).
“The trend of increasing incidence of [chlamydia] infection…results from increased screening activity…A true estimate of chlamydia prevalence is therefore not known, which presents major problems in evaluating trends.”
“Syphilis rates in the United States reached a plateau in the late 1960’s and continued to drop until 1975.”
From Miles and McBride (1997). World War I origins of the syphilis epidemic among 20th century black Americans: a biohistorical analysis:
“Autopsy reports from cases of preterm and full term infant deaths, as well as stillbirths, from a study conducted at Emory University in 1924 revealed that syphilis was the cause of death in one third of these cases (Bartholomew, 1924). These reports are just a sample of the medical literature from this time. During this period syphilis was a source of concern for the public health community much as heart disease, cancer and stroke are today.”
Hi Janet,
See this recent evaluation of a family planning program in Bangladesh.
http://www.prb.org/pdf09/fp-econ-bangladesh.pdf
Sorry, but having more kids than you can support IS a problem. It’s not an insult to children but an acknowledgement of reality. A woman on the poverty line can be forced under with another baby. In areas of real material deprivation, guess who typically bears the brunt of unwanted childbearing? Girls. Girls who don’t get enough to eat because of too many other mouths to feed, girls who are kept out of school to help mom with the housework, or who have to take over the housework if mom dies (oftentimes from pregnancy complications). So no, we aren’t talking about frivolous situations like a family’s ability to buy a flat-screen tv if they don’t have another baby. For women across the world, undesired fertility exacerbates unequal conditions and limits their futures.
once again this discussion is digressing away from the original question:
What’s wrong (if anything) with premarital sex?”.
Not the merits of family planning or “compare and contrast” effective methods of birth control
“In areas of real material deprivation, guess who typically bears the brunt of unwanted childbearing? Girls. Girls who don’t get enough to eat because of too many other mouths to feed, girls who are kept out of school to help mom with the housework, or who have to take over the housework if mom dies”
So, you are suggesting introducing something that has been shown to correlate with an increase in the exact problem that you think needs to be reduced?
Birth control has been shown to reduce birth rates most effectively among women in stable monogamous relationships. However, birthrates outside of stable monogamous relationships have increased with more available birth control. Do you think that is going to help these women and girls? It could hit the poor the hardest. Of course, it is easy to take risks with other people’s lives.
Megan,
You have to look at the disaggregated data to get the whole picture.
Minority rates are much higher. But like abortion, who cares about them.
http://www.cdc.gov/std/stats09/minorities.htm
Hippie,
You said yourself you were talking about rates and trends. That CDC data says NOTHING about the supposed association with contraceptive availability and frequency of sexual activity. I see you’re also getting desparate, pulling out the race card. So goodbye, red herring. Back to your assertion that contraceptive availability is associated with more unintended pregnancies. Where’s the data on that? I’d like to see it.
Megan,
I had a response for you that I accidentally deleted so here’s the condensed version.
That’s an interesting study, but with so many variables I’m not convinced that spacing babies by “family planning” was any more effective in producing a so called “better life” than increased immunizations, availability of potable water, etc…
The study results are purported to support The Millennium Development Goals which consist of eight goals related to ending poverty and improving education, women’s empowerment, health, and the environment by 2015. World leaders adopted the goals following the UN Millennium Summit in 2000. (See footnote.)For more information: http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/.
Was the study sufficiently “independent”?
Hippie, I’d be interested in your comments if you have time to read the study. Thank you.:)
once again this discussion is digressing away from the original question:What’s wrong (if anything) with premarital sex?”.Not the merits of family planning or “compare and contrast” effective methods of birth control
mom4ever,
I was thinking the same, but, IMHO, the question of whether fewer children alone decreases poverty is an interesting one and could be relevant to the question regarding the appropriateness of premarital sex, among teens AND adults. Don’t you agree?
Janet
its an interesting question but I don’t think it has any significant bearing on whats wrong (or right) with premarital sex. The relevance is tangential at best. Don’t get me wrong, this is a very relevant discussion if its about taxpayer funded birth control, etc…but not particularly material to the entitled topic. jmho.
I don’t know, Janet. All 192 United Nations member states have collectively recognized that unwanted childbearing is a global problem–yes, among many others–that needs to be addressed in order to eradicate extreme poverty. Maybe these major world superpowers are onto something…but who knows.
Honestly, where do you people buy the baby-obsessed koolaid from? Do you think every pregnant woman in the world is saying to herself, gee golly, this is such a blessing, we’ll just shift around our finances a bit, pinch and save here and there, and things will be A-ok? Uh, no. What if, with every birth, you risked your life because you lived in a place with terrible obstetric care? Or you just simply didn’t have enough food to feed your family? The idea that kids can contribute to family capital makes sense until you break it down and think about what it takes to feed them, keep them healthy, and send them to school. Oh and let’s not forget: girls are the first to be pulled out of school in low-income countries to help with caring for the household.
Megan,
Honestly, where do you people buy the baby-obsessed koolaid from? Do you think every pregnant woman in the world is saying to herself, gee golly, this is such a blessing, we’ll just shift around our finances a bit, pinch and save here and there, and things will be A-ok? Uh, no.
I can’t imagine anyone in my life calling a person who accepts pregnancies as they occur naturally as ”baby-obsessed”. Is that really what you meant to say? Pregnancy is a perfectly natural event (and there ARE cultures who believe babies are blessings, without drinking the kool-aid). Who are WE to tell them otherwise and load them up on BC and our opinions on what’s best for THEM? American culture has already been polluted by the babies are evil mentality so let’s keep the anti-baby sentiments here. I don’t want women to suffer, but there is more we can do for the less fortunate than tell them their children are the problem.
Well, as mom4ever mentioned, this thread has been taken off course, so maybe it’s time to step back.. It’s been fun.
“I don’t want women to suffer, but there is more we can do for the less fortunate than tell them their children are the problem.”
Who’s telling who anything? Women across the world tend to think that unfettered childbearing is a problem. According to a recent Obstetrics and Gynecology article, a survey of women in 18 African countries found that, on average, women reported having two more children than they had desired at the start of childbearing. Sorry Janet but having kids you’re not financially/physically/emotionally prepared to deal with IS a problem for lots of people. Do you think an unqualified pro-baby mentality actually results in better health outcomes for children?
Who’s telling who anything?
You brought up the 192 United Nations member states for one, not me. (Have you heard of the UN Population Fund?) Look at PPFA also. The underlying goal is population control, if you haven’t noticed. They promote the idea that a controlled population will solve the problems of the world. Read PPFA’s mission statement on the Federal Tax Form 990 for public use (you can find it at their website). Look at the agenda of International PP. I’m sensing an anti-baby mentality which is quite nauseating.
Do you think an unqualified pro-baby mentality actually results in better health outcomes for children?
If you mean disregard for a family’s situation, no, I didn’t say that. What I have said is that I don’t agree that limiting family SIZE is the most important factor in eliminating poverty, that being the focus of the prb.org study that you linked to. Now…really…. Good night.
Megan,
Nothing makes me sicker than your feigning to support abortion out of some supposed concern for women in third world countries. I don’t buy your “compassion” when I can absolutely guarantee that you don’t actually DO a damn thing to help your sisters abroad accept talk, talk, talk about giving them birth control and not micro-loans, school financing, or anything that would actually HELP them ascend out of their situation. Nor do you help the less fortunate children that you claim should never have been born. You’re soapbox is about how women need to be able to prevent and kill children that bring or keep them down but not the systems that create that oppression. You are perpetuating the injustice, not alleviating it.
When having a child, a natural part of womanhood is indeed such a dire life-threatening circumstances that would result in the starvation of other children, that woman is in NEED. Childbearing is a human condition, not something reserved for the wealthy. THAT IS THE INJUSTICE, the circumstance, not the baby. You don’t propose to change that circumstance, only force them to concede to their lot and shun their children while you, by virtue of your birth as a Western woman, can choose to have as many kids as you please with reasonable belief that they will all have access to clean drinking water, nutritious food and education. So you are the elite who can have children and your charity is to help poor women be victim to their circumstances and not have children? Remind me not to run to you if I were ever in need.
If I were a woman in need, I would hope you would give me a pair of mating rabbits to make bunnies to eat and sell, chickens for eggs, teach me how to make soap from ash and lard. Don’t laugh- When my mother found out that women in a certain part of Mexico make a dollar a week and soap is 4 dollars a bar, she taught them how to make soap to use and sell for profit from things they could easily get around their house.
You can support birth control on any principle that you want, but I am calling you out when you claim it’s supposedly because you care so much for women and children in dire circumstances. Put your money where your mouth is.
Sponsor a sister from Adelphe, adopt a child through Compassion, or send a girl to school. I’ve blogged about this at length too:
http://jacquefromtexas.blogspot.com/2006/12/send-girl-to-school-change-her-life.html
Jacque,
THANK YOU!! What an excellent comment!!
Here Megan, this charity helps women in poverty give birth. Oh, wait you don’t want that. You want those children to NOT be conceived in the first place or killed to “help” their mothers out of poverty.
Hmmmm. What to do. In any case, here is the link.
http://rescuebabiesnow.org/
Ahahahahaa you have got to be kidding me. Where–WHERE–have I said that family planning is THE magic bullet that’s going to alleviate world poverty? I haven’t, and I wouldn’t say that. Enough with crying elitism/racism, mmkay?
“You don’t propose to change that circumstance.”
Actually Jac, you’re pretty wrong on that one. I’d say going to school for public health is a decent step in the direction of “changing that circumstance.” Eradicating infectious disease, promoting economic reform (to undo the damage that neolib., structural adjustment policies have wrought), and combating the disatrous effects of climate change on food security are all topics pretty high on my priority list.
But tell me, dearheart: how do you propose to reduce poverty and promote gender inequality if millions of women across the world do not have a say in their reproductive health? Jackie, your naivete is showing, gotta watch that. Do you think women in developing countries don’t have the desire to control their fertility? Now that’s patronizing. It has been estimated that nearly 70,000 women in the developing world die from botched abortions every year. That’s 70,000 motherless families right there–a tragic situation that could have been averted through better access to family planning. What do you think happens to kids who lose their mothers through pregnancy and abortion complications? They flounder. Studies have shown that kids are more malnourished if they live in a household without a mother responsible for allocating food resources. And again, who bears the brunt of that suffering? Girls.
FP is a cost-effective way to avert some of these tragedies as part and parcel of broader poverty reduction strategies. If you want to continue to cry “eugenics!” or “racism!” then be my guest, but you’re just going to end up looking foolish.
Hi Megan.
I’m glad you brought up the 70,000 number. I wrote about this last year when Guttmacher Institute came out with this study http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/AWWfullreport.pdf . Here is why, while in reality there may be over 70,000 deaths, we have no good reason to believe it is true. My comments copied and pasted below:
BTW, here is an example of the kind of scholarship we’ve all come to expect from Guttmacher. On page 32, they state “Globally, an estimated 70,000 women die every year as a result of unsafe abortions,137” where the number 137 refers to reference number 137 found at the end of the article. This reference should presumably tell us the methodology by which the author arrived at the number 70,000. Here is what reference 137 says:
137. Åhman E, estimate for 2005, personal communication,
Feb. 3, 2009.
Personal Communication. WOW. Now this is not an uncommon thing to do in articles, but it is usually something trivial- not an integral part of the research paper. I thought that the purpose of “peer-reviewed” articles was so that other scientists could repeat your experiments and test your methodologies and see if they arrive at the same conclusion. In this case, though, we have NO IDEA where the number 70000 came from. No one can look at the methodology to see if it was derived from reasonable estimates.
Not exactly a “gotcha,” Bobby. The WHO has commissioned Ahman to compile WHO data about the global burden of unsafe abortion. The publication, “Unsafe Abortion,” addresses the issue of methodology. Here it is: http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2007/9789241596121_eng.pdf
I believe this last version came out in 2007. So no, it wouldn’t be too bizarre for a Guttmacher rep to discuss the latest statistics with a highly respected scholar in the field and reference this exchange.
Sorry but women die from unsafe abortions. Sad fact.
Well, it was not meant to be a gotcha. It was meant to show that I have never was able to track down exactly how this number was arrived at. Honestly, why would the “scholarly” Guttmacher institute not cite this paper? I will take a look at it, but I find it very odd that there was no citation in the article that came out in 2009. I don’t believe it is bizarre for a Guttmacher rep to discuss statistics with someone, but I do believe it is bizarre to not cite the actual study.
“Sorry but women die from unsafe abortions. Sad fact.”
And yes, I am sure this is true. That wasn’t my point. My point was to question teh statistics given to us because I have not been able to track down the methodology of Guttmacher and others as to how they arrive at their numbers.
Jacqueline at 5:47 am: Great post!
Women who continue to perpetuate the injustice under the guise of helping is a huge frustration to me as well.
Sorry but women die from unsafe abortions.
So the answer is to help them kill their children in a safer environment?
Women die from unsafe rapes too. Open up the rape clinics Rocket Scientist.
Yes – and EVERY child (with few exceptions) die with abortion. Why not concern for them? Why not concern for sanitary services so that women and children can get medical care in remote areas? Those basics are what women need – not abortion.
Can we help women in poverty? Absolutely. Can we help families who need food/shelter/etc? Of course.
The reason that many women end up in dire circumstances in the third world is due to supply issues and basic clean water/available medical care. And if those in power would not stop supplies (food, medical, etc) from getting to certain areas, that would be very much better.
The lie of a better life guaranteed with less children is a fallacy. Here in the west we have a life of luxury compared with others in the world. Despite having less, in many ways life is filled with more love and meaning. Here in the west – when women have less children – there is still the poverty of the soul.
And that is what we see here for all the young, touting the ‘great life’ they are leading having sex any time, with any one, with ‘no consequences.’
When they get their hearts broken, their fertility effected by STI’s and a life style that practically guarantees a lonely life as time goes on – it’s a false hope of happiness because it’s filled with ME,ME,ME, when we are meant to be filled with sharing and living for the other (you, you, you).
It’s about finding meaning in giving, helping, loving and deeply connecting on all levels – not just quickie hook-ups and superficial relationships. We are meant for more – we are meant for Him, and the superficial life-style does not reflect the love for which we are created.
Live deeply, love fully, welcome all of humanity – even our first neighbors in the womb. We are made for greatness – not for our self-gratification. We are made for the other (indeed all others), not for our own pleasure and greed.
“Here in the west – when women have less children – there is still the poverty of the soul.”
Here in the west, having fewer children has lead to greater participation in the labor market, which means better resources for existing and future kids. As a kid my family definitely lived frugally. With even one more kid my parents would not have been able to send us to college. Sorry Joy, but to me, “poverty of the soul” means being deprived the opportunity to get an education. No college would have meant curtailment of my future earnings, in the end hurting my parents–who expect me to help support them in their old age.
“Why not concern for sanitary services so that women and children can get medical care in remote areas?”
Um duh, that’s obviously a huge concern. Without system-wide changes in mind, of course family planning itself is merely a stopgap measure. But while we work to achieve better social and economic conditions across the world, family planning is a cost-effective measure to help women avoid the risk of pregnancy when they do not want to take that risk. Even if we focused all our attention and money–right now–on shoring up the health care systems of low-income countries, the process would take a looong time to ensure sustainability. Do you really want women to die in the interim if it can be prevented?
Megan,
I am sure I’m not the first to tell you that the tweeny sarcastic platitudes like “mmkay” and “dearheart” are incredibly annoying and don’t bode well for any argument you might attempt to make. If you want to be taken seriously in a conversation, conduct yourself like an adult.
That being said…
I called you out and was obviously correct per your response. Yes, you have suggested birth control and abortion as a means to address poverty, because you are desperately trying to paint something that is so inherently selfish as something that is an objective good for those in need. You are trying to make your support for birth control and abortion seem like it’s not about you people able to live the lifestyle you want with no consequence. It is complete BS, which is what I pointed out and why I’ve asked you to stop pretending that your support child-killing because of these poor women. You support child killing for you. It’s all about you. And this latest argument is a smokescreen because you have found that arguing for women to create and kill children in America (like you) simply because they don’t want to be pregnant does not much sympathy get. And so you change the environment to the third world, much like your ilk are always trying to draw the conversation to rape, incest and the mother’s life, not the other 99% of abortions for which you advocate. We all see right through it. Some have cordially engaged you on it, I am merely offended on behalf of those you are exploiting to rationalize your support of evil and pointing out that it is an exploitation. It is offensive to people who actually care about other people.
I will be charitable and assume that your compassion is real (although better sense tells me otherwise), the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel (Proverbs 12).I would like to chalk up some of your misguided, since I studied Public Health at the med school as one of my Ph.D. specifications and I was aghast at how heartless people’s “charities” were. Case in point, one group, to curb AIDS, was soliciting 500K to buy condoms for sex slaves in India. SEX SLAVES! Their intervention was that since these women are property, we should target the brothel owners to implement a “condom-only” policy and suggest they can make more money selling condoms at the door since these women have no power to suggest condoms to their rapists themselves. Would this lower AIDS rates? Probably, and these married men would be less likely to take the AIDS home to their wives, so from their standpoint, it would be a successful intervention. But from the standpoint of anyone with a conscience: ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?! These people are validating sex slavery and the rape of women several times a day! They are soliciting money not to rescue these women from their bondage, but lower the risks of them getting/transmitting a disease that are only exposed to because they are victims! So they remain sex slaves, only sex slaves that get HIV 5 years later than they may have before. To these MPH students, this was a good idea. To me, it makes me want to vomit.
What would I do? I would take that 500k and rescue women into a home that teaches self-sufficiency skills. I would free them from their bondage and give them something of value to sell other than their bodies. There is an order of nuns in the Phillipines who do this- collecting stones and pearls, polishing them and making them into jewelry that they sell to support themselves. My favorite bracelet was actually made by a rescued Phillipino former child prostitute. Your ilk would have given her condoms and allowed her rape and exploitation to continue, because you are “eradicating disease.” For people that see the innate dignity and worth of every human being, there is a higher standard. That’s where I live. There is room here for you, but it involves thinking about someone other than yourself.
P.S. Megan, on a personal note, I have to call you out on your whole: “I’m going to school. I’m doing something for humanity!”
Once again, you are going to school FOR YOU. Your education is FOR YOU. There’s nothing wrong with that. My education was actually for others, but I greatly enjoy it and have profited immensely from it, but I don’t hide behind it as you are doing. You are what you do, not what you plan to do. The smallest good deed is worth infinitely more than the grandest good intention.
I have always been involved in social justice issues while in school, no matter how many jobs I’ve had to have to keep myself afloat. (I have two now, praying for a third, and I am still actively involved with directly helping women and children). I don’t hide behind my schooling to suggest that I care (although my degrees are in Social Work), I care and so I do. The fact that you intend to draw a paycheck one day doing something good for others does not suggest a deep level of commitment to humanity.
Having written recommendation letters a plenty for undergraduates going into grad school or the job market, I have found that giving people give now and give more when they can and selfish people only give when it suits them. You have time to change this.
Jacqueline,
Excellent comments. Hard to believe Megan doesn’t follow your reasoning.
Megan,
Public health practice has population control at its center. Maybe one of your professors could explain it to you.
Here are great videos at the Population Research Institute website explaning the truth about food shortages, poverty, and overpopulation.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Colinpri1
Here in the west, having fewer children has lead to greater participation in the labor market
Greater participation in the labor market by either or both genders does not suggest a deep level of commitment to humanity either.
It has, however, led further to the Me Mentality.
“My education was actually for others.”
I hope you leave that self-righteousness of yours at the door before crusading so tirelessly for teh_babies–it’s pretty insufferable. I also do not give a dang about your resume, but I hope it made you feel real big to itemize your extracurriculars. A gold star for you, Jacqueline! FYI, other people here go to school, hold jobs, and volunteer while maintaining a modicum of self-awareness.
And seriously, if I needed a dose of “love and logic,” I’d pick up a copy of Chicken Soup for the Soul. Why don’t you head back to Motivational Interviewing 101, kay?
Megan,
The P.S. indicates that this was an afterthought. I don’t know where the main thought went, but I’ll address your trite response.
Yes, my education is for others. This isn’t self-righteousness, but a fact, just as much as me saying, “that gift in the closet is for my godson’s birthday.” I wanted to be a journalist and had worked hard toward that goal when I discovered that I was called to social work. I wasn’t happy about that at the time, but luckily God knows me better than I do and I am blissfully happy doing something I didn’t even know existed! I was called back to school for the purposes of rescuing vulnerable people from euthanasia. In fact, certain victim’s faces grace my notebooks to remind me why I do what I do. This is just a fact, incomprehensible as it may be to you. It’s not just for “teh babies” although I know quite a few babies and older children now and their families that are very happy I stood up for them. One of them is my goddaughter. I’ll find a picture and post it. She’s beautiful.
As for your “gold star” crack- I didn’t say what I’m saying to get a cookie, but to point out how hiding behind going to school does not a humanitarian make. Didn’t I precisely say that going to school doesn’t count as doing something? You’re the one claiming it is. If so, then shouldn’t you be doing all these things you claim is no big deal instead of doing absolutely nothing? I don’t expect praises, nor do I want them, but I will call you out for feigning to care about people to press your own egoistic agenda. (But more on that later.)
What’s insufferable, and I’m sure I speak for everyone, is your tween-speak and the need to write as if you are in a Pauly Shore movie. The “mmmkay” and “ummm” and vocalized fillers that you write down unnecessarily merely to set an annoying, mocking tone- It’s working. That is their sole purpose. Like I have said before there are much more laudable ways to spend your time than solely annoying people. If you want to have an adult conversation, start conducting yourself like an adult. You present yourself as university level, but I have taught sophomores of 19 that conduct themselves with more maturity.
Hey all, back to the increase of STD’s coinciding with rise of contraception. Megan noted that after the pill was introduced, some STD’s increased until they hit their ceiling in the 70’s. If you think about it, that makes sense. Rates of infection of STD’s have some inherent maximum because some % of the population are not sexually active, and some % are mutually monogamous. If 10% aren’t having sex and 60% are mutually monogamous, then the ceiling is 30%. Sadly, this is about what the California reported among teens; 25% of teens had an STD. So, virtually all of the folks with multiple partners got an STD.
Just making the point that in behavior, etc, there is often some kind of ceiling like that. That is why STD rates can’t go up forever, because some people don’t participate and there is a maximum level that can be reached.
“That CDC data says NOTHING about the supposed association with contraceptive availability and frequency of sexual activity.”
So what? That doesn’t mean there is no correlation. It means that they chose not to discuss it or investigate it. Anyway “frequency” wouldn’t matter much for STD’s. Multiple partners and concurrent multiple partners is much more the issue. That may just be beyond the scope of what they wanted to present.
“I see you’re also getting desparate, pulling out the race card.”
I see your lack of compassion isn’t limited to disabled children. You kept saying how women’s health in developing nations would improve women’s health. I don’t see how birth control pills is going to help a woman in the absence of proper nutrition and other necessary medical care. Now, you callously disregard the health of minorities who suffer high rates of STD’s despite ubiquitous availability of cheap/free birth control. Do you think those high rates are “good” health outcomes? Obviously there is more to health than birth control. I am not opposed to birth control, but it is not a panacea. It doesn’t lead to better health in the general case. Rather, improved general health would lead to birth control. If a woman has six kids and five die, there isn’t much of a case for birth control. However, if she has six kids and they all live, now she might think she wants some birth control. The availability of birth control has affected people’s choices. Some of those choices aren’t healthy choices.
USAID puts it really well, Ninek:
“It is widely recognized that family planning contributes to reducing maternal mortality by reducing the number of births that expose women to mortality risk. There is also evidence that increases in contraceptive use may reduce the risk per birth by eliminating the highest risk births.”
http://www.healthpolicyinitiative.com/Publications/Documents/668_1_TMIH_FINAL_12_19_08.pdf
Family planning isn’t just about giving away “pills.” It includes providing women with information about their fertility and equipping them with the skills necessary to successfully negotiate with their partners. FP encompasses NFP, too. Obviously it’s not the end-all and be-all to eradicating poverty. But at least allowing a woman the choice to say, “Okay, I don’t want to put my body through another pregnancy right now/I’d like to focus on the children I have for awhile and make sure they get proper attention and nutrition/I’d maybe like to make an income to help support my family” is a step in the right direction. But even in all of this, I’m not really sure what you’re advocating for, hippie.
Oh, and by the way, I’m ignoring your previous post because it’s incoherent.
Jacqueline,
You’re right. Because I haven’t been receiving life instructions from the big ghost in the sky, I can’t possibly be motivated by humanitarian concerns. I can’t wait to start rolling in the dough when I get a job in…emergency preparedness. Or youth obesity prevention. I actually turned down a position as an investment banker for the easy money to be had at all those local public health departments. Vaccinations–what a cash cow!
Family planning isn’t just about giving away “pills.” It includes providing women with information about their fertility and equipping them with the skills necessary to successfully negotiate with their partners. FP encompasses NFP, too.
Really? Planned Parenthood teaches NFP? PP teaches women about their own fertility? Gosh, I thought it was too busy spending time suppressing a woman’s natural body systems and snuffing out life to be concerned with actually empowering a woman to know about her own amazing body. Hmm.
Megan,
The post that was deleted becomes more and more relevant the more you speak. You are transparent and everyone sees right through you. That’s why your concern for abortion and birth control for those poor women is so offensive. You support birth control and abortion for yourself, but you know making the case for an American woman with ample resources making and then killing a child doesn’t not a get a lot of sympathy, so you pulled exploit the third world to try to make an argument, This is what your ilk always does in talking about the rape/incest victims that account for less than 1% of abortions, because they make a better case for you being able to do whatever you please. It’s despicable. And ultimately, it’s empty. People who seek themselves and their desires always trade good, priceless things to cheap, unsatisfying substitutes. People who seek sex for sex and don’t wait for it in it’s fullness miss out on the greatness of it while injuring themselves. People that throw away priceless children because they don’t want to share their time or money give up the most precious thing in life. Yes, they got their “way” but ultimately, they are fools who chose poorly. If their poor choices didn’t hurt others, I would just pity them. You mock those who receive direction from the God of all creation, but those are the people that contribute most to the world and since your concern is yourself, you are God of your life, these are the people that are the most joyful and fulfilled. Just another example of how choosing self ultimately makes you worse off. It’s the great irony of life. Want proof: my hourly rate as a consultant yields six-figures, and I am a social worker. I didn’t plan on that and if I had, I surely wouldn’t make it. People who seek their life will lose it, and those that lose their life for the sake of Christ will find it. Every. time.
I could see in a self-focused life how you would want to find something of greater meaning- but nothing that would actually impose upon your desired lifestyle. I will be charitable and assume that you genuinely have some concern for public health, but will certainly use people to self-validate. I have seen this up close when I did my minor in public health and spent time with the MPH students at the med school. For a class project, one of the interventions was 500k dollars to get condoms for prostitutes in India to curb HIV. And since these women were property, they have no authority to insist on condoms, so the intervention suggested that you solicit brothel owners to have a “no condom, no sex” policy and charge for condoms for additional profit. Surely this would lower HIV and men taking HIV home to their wives. Sounds good, right? Until we stop and remember that these women are PEOPLE, raped several times a day! The 500K wasn’t to rescue these victims, but prevent the spread of disease that comes from their victimization and continue victimizing them as sex slaves. These MPH students, like yourself (although you are probably an undergrad as evidenced by your tone), see such an intervention as a good idea, since it curbs disease. But for those who see the dignity and worth of every human being, this is unacceptable. When I broached that, they class was amazed that anyone would oppose. This is what happens when you lack a fully-formed conscience.
You asked what I would do! I support ministries that rescue such women already and find skills or work that doesn’t involve getting or spreading HIV or otherwise degrading oneself anyway (so ironically, it’s an even better public health intervention). These ministries exist. My favorite bracelet was made by a former child prostitute in the Philipines, rescued by an order of nuns. They gather and polish rocks, make jewelry and sell it. Like I said, my mother also taught women how to make and sell soap, converting the recipe measures to things around the house like half a Coca-Cola can. By the way, during that trip, she and her fellow nurses vaccinated 15,000 people in the 3 days before the vaccines went bad (no refrigeration), and did diabetes testing. They went as missionaries from the big ghost in the sky, on their own dime. (I went too, only I did gopher work as I was only 17 and in college). People like my mother do more with no paycheck that you will with yours, because they actually care. It’s not a career for self-fulfillment, but I can guarantee you that it’s infinitely more fulfilling.
By the way, I was too young to be disturbed, but I cleaned out a closet at the Red Cross that trip filled to the ceiling with IUDs and condoms. Now, they couldn’t send refrigeration for vaccines, but they sure could send whatever it takes to prevent more brown people…I am not surprised. This is how you roll.
It’s an affront to me that any woman in the world not have the choice if and when they become pregnant, whether it’s because they’re coerced, have a lack of resources, etc. Women are people, Jacqueline, not baby-making machines. Women in the first world, women in the third world, women everywhere should have the right to determine what happens to their bodies (and futures).
Yep, and I agree that public health needs to be a multisectoral effort, including the fight for economic justice. If only the average person paid more attention to the big policy-level changes that need to happen instead of assuaging their white liberal guilt by channeling endless resources into self-sustaining, often fraudulent, unevaluated charity efforts that aren’t forced to be accountable to their donors…
Oh, and I’m not even going to get into the sex worker issue with you. Smarter and more worldly people have already said enough about the huge flaws in “raid and rescue” missions fueled by the notion that every woman selling sex is a slave. Do you think that maybe–just maybe–denying sex workers any shred of agency contributes to their further victimization? Maybe check out some of the advocacy projects sex workers have undertaken themselves before talking about something you really know nothing about:
http://www.sexworkersproject.org/resources/rights-and-support.php
Megan,
You are a misogynist if you think that women in their healthy natural state of fertility are at some inherent disadvantage that we require pills and latex and such in order to have control over our lives. There is nothing wrong with me and my functioning ovaries, fallopian tubes and uterus that require me to have a pill or device! If women are coerced or forced to consent to making children, that is another issue that you ignore if you just give her an IUD or a pill instead of stopping the fact that she is a victim of rape. I am aghast that you can’t see that!
My natural body is great. It ovulates, it menstruates. It functions as intended. There is nothing wrong with your functioning body either, you just want to use it how you please with no regards to the natural consequences. Drug addicts die from such things, and due to STD’s on certain cancers linked to hormonal BC, people that use their bodies as such end up dying too. We certainly can count the millions of children who have died. Now I know sex is good and natural (in its intended context) and illicit drugs are almost always inherently unhealthy, but look at food addicts! You abuse nature and there are consequences. Birth control is an inherent abuse of nature, trying to have sex but it be as if you have not had sex. It simply doesn’t work.
First, when it comes to the sex industry, I am not talking about raid and rescue. I just donated to an organization today, the Pink Cross Foundation that offers porn stars a way out. They can choose it or not (although their free will is often subject to the substance addictions they have acquired in order to do the degrading work- and the work is needed to finance the drugs- it’s a vicious cycle). But there is no raid and rescue, only an offer. When we keep in mind that a vast, vast majority of women in the sex industry are survivors of childhood sexual abuse and sexual assault, who participate in the industry because being abused is the only thing that feels “normal” to them, we see that your compassion of assuming that these women enjoy their work and are there of their own free will is total BS. Still, as adults, they make their choices but I will certainly give them the ability to make a better choice. Now, if the prostitute is a child- SHE CAN’T CONSENT. So child prostitutes from the mission I support are in fact sex slaves and need to be rescued. I implore you not to get into a pissing contest with me about who knows more about social programs and welfare because you will lose. I am a program evaluator for a living and know what is and is not effective. Apparently you do not or you wouldn’t support birth control/abortion efforts that have resulted in more social ills. But I guess if it’s not broke, you want to fix it til it is, as long as it supports your personal agenda.
I am pretty secure in my level of smart. As far as worldly, I am proud to say I am not worldly at all. Have you seen the world lately? I guess in your worldview that calls evil good, it wouldn’t look as bad to you as it truly is.
Great posts Jacqueline!!
You support birth control and abortion for yourself, but you know making the case for an American woman with ample resources making and then killing a child doesn’t not a get a lot of sympathy, so you pulled exploit the third world to try to make an argument
Megan, I beg you to please, please stop exploiting our gender to make yourself feel better about your lifestyle and choices. It really is so very obvious to the rest of us here what you are doing.
Megan – thanks for your response. Here is mine, now that I’m back to the computer!
Education was not an either/or preposition….Entering college – many did on a shoe string, and if there was need, there are need-based scholarships, merit based scholarships, community college, etc. Sometimes working at a University allows the employee reduced or free tuition – so there are lots of ways around paying big bucks for college.
While it was great that your parents were able to send you, many families can’t and the children still survive. My oldest daughter got her masters without paying for tuition – and they gave her a research job, to boot. So if one is clever, one can get an education and still get a higher-paying job. It just takes patience, ingenuity and guts!
So life does not directly equate to lost education, as you can see from above. Also – when I was working a professional job, I was paid tuition reimbursement to go to school in the evening. Hard, but do-able.
and the duh part – providing real medical services instead of only abortion and ‘reproductive health’ services – please tell that to PP – not only in this country but abroad.
They are advocating for reproductive services only abroad – why? because that is what they do and that way they can make $$$. We’ve seen it here with natural disasters (Katrina) where PP – instead of offering nurses, doctors, sterile bandages, food, water, housing, etc – they only offered condoms, EC and some abortions. Other than that, nothing.
So what does PP stand for as a medical entity when women are in need? Not real medical care (heart, lung, endocrine, bones, brain, sight, circulatory, ambulatory, mental health, emergency, trauma, birthing, dentistry, cancer, diabetes, AIDs treatment, stroke, allergy, malaria, high blood pressure, clean water, sanitary food practices, etc). Nope, just good old ‘reproductive health’ services.
So – there is the duh.
So – as a college graduate, you can see that PP is only after something very specific, not dealing with regular medicine, not dealing with the basics, which is especially detrimental to women in desperate situations abroad.
Bully for you, Joy. I’m still glad I got to go to school.
Also, Title X, which funds PP, was always intended for preventive care and family planning. I cannot believe I am having this argument about what PP “doesn’t do” given the fact that many of you in this forum so vehemently oppose universal health care. Maybe in your la-la land, Joy, doctors are just treating the poor for free, but that’s not usually what happens in a free market system. And that’s why there are thousands and thousands of uninsured people in this country, and we have one of the worst health profiles as a nation within the developed world. So no, Joy, PP doesn’t treat cancer. But if you’re an uninsured recent immigrant, or a kid who’s been kicked out of her house, a Planned Parenthood clinic can be the first point of entry into the medical system.
Jacqueline,
“Natural” is a false construct, an empty term that be used to signify anything. In nature, in my “natural state,” I probably wouldn’t survive because I need glasses. Without modern medicine we wouldn’t be able to live as long as we do. So what? Why the moral squeamishness when it comes to reproduction? Do you think the world would be better if we were all just Quiverfull?
“In nature, in my “natural state,” I probably wouldn’t survive because I need glasses. Without modern medicine we wouldn’t be able to live as long as we do. So what?”
Come on, Megan, I’ve defined natural for you before, and it sure as heck ain’t this. Again, by natural, I mean something acts in accord with a thing’s purpose or essence. Hence glasses are natural for you in the sense that they restore proper function to your body. Tumors are not natural because they act against the body’s proper function. If you want to hold that there is no such thing as proper function or essence of a being and that drinking water is objectively just as “good” as a tumor but most people simply prefer to drink water than to have tumors, that’s fine. But please no more straw men.
Megan – it’s still not good health care, and you know it. The community health centers, public health in every city do a much better job.
And those immigrants? They are stunned and astounded to find out that PP does abortions and want nothing to do with them. I just talked with a young woman from another country last week – she said she would never be back because of their callous regard for human life. And we got her the referral she needed to find medical care elsewhere.
That is the point. PP has an agenda – getting everyone to have sexual relations – and they are there to make money off of every step – the initial consultation, the follow-up exams, the changing of birth control because of side effects, the STD testing and of course the abortions. And if these services are ‘free’ to anyone, PP always still gets paid – by the state, by the Federal government, by grants, donations, etc. They are angling the numbers – because while they know that most women will continue a pregnancy, they know a percentage will not, and their advice is bad, bad, bad.
For myself – I am a DES daughter – and have been harmed by those very artificial hormones that PP and others love to give out. I knew my family health history, but did not know that I should not have more hormones (artificial) in my system. I figured that the medical professionals should know what is good for the women.
Wrong assumption. They never asked for my history. And I ended up polluting my body without realizing it.
Where did I get such good medical service? PP of course.
Stop defending the indefensible. If PP thought Title X was their primary purpose, they would drop abortions in a heartbeat (pun intended). But abortion is PP’s cash cow, and they want to be sure that their funding, through all the stages of poor sexual choices continues. Because they know that without abortion, their business would crumble. They actually lose money on the non-abortion services. Their bottom line is not big enough with the title X and ‘preventive services.’ They actually admitted that themselves in their latest financial figures.
So again – ‘health care’ but it’s all about the money. Follow the money.
“So again – ‘health care’ but it’s all about the money. Follow the money.”
Yup, PP is just another giant irresponsible corporation. The government protects them and PP does the dirty work, for a price. The eugenics movement morphed into PP which has accomplished what the Klan could only dream of.
Megan,
Natural is not a false construct! It’s the very basis of science and every major human advancement! Ever heard of “state of nature.”? You determine how things physically work in order to see what variables create an aberration. The state of nature for women in monthly ovulation and menstruation- FERTILITY! Infertility is an unnatural, unhealthy state. Your pills and device are designed solely to make healthy female bodies unhealthy so women can be used like a warm inflatable doll. There are many ways, FREE, healthy ways with no side effects to exercise judgment over when to have children, ways that have a higher success rate than your drugs and devices. These ways respect women instead of merely turning them into something to be used.
What construct is wrong is your misunderstanding of the people’s opposition to birth control: It’s not birth control or quiverfull. Most people who oppose birth control on moral/social grounds are not quiverfull. I am not quiverfull and don’t agree with that mentality, although I know and respect many who practice it and like them, hope to be blessed with children and many siblings for my children, aunts and uncles for my grandchildren, cousins, etc. It’s not birth control or 20 children as it’s commonly represented.
I love that people who appreciate women’s capacity to create, bear and birth children are the ones you label as “squeamish about reproduction.” We are fine with reproduction. It’s your worldview that is terrified of letting women be healthy women.