Condoms to prevent disease within marriage

[kage_ar]

And why are the wife’s needs deemed more important than the husband’s? Why can’t the wife, in return, make sacrificial love for his husband? What is a 2%-risk of contracting STDs compared to your husband’s eternal sexual frustration?

We as Christians are called to lay down our lives for our friends, men women husbands wives black white green brown rich poor young old.

 

[ahoyhoy]

We as Christians are called to lay down our lives for our friends, men women husbands wives black white green brown rich poor young old.

So what you’re saying is, wives are as obligated to make sacrifices as husbands are.

 

[kage_ar]

So what you’re saying is, wives are as obligated to make sacrifices as husbands are.

Have you ever read the New Testament? It will give you the full picture of love.

 

[noclevername]

The fastest growing population who are contracting HIV are MARRIED women in India. The reason is that their husbands sleep with other women and then come home to their wives. Marriages in other countries are not always loving marriages. They consider other aspects than love important.

I’m not arguing one way or the other about condoms, I’m just stating a fact for thought.

 

[kage_ar]

The fastest growing population who are contracting HIV are MARRIED women in India. The reason is that their husbands sleep with other women and then come home to their wives. Marriages in other countries are not always loving marriages. They consider other aspects than love important.

I’m not arguing one way or the other about condoms, I’m just stating a fact for thought.

Prayers for the conversion of the country of India.

 

[KCT]

“Honey, I love you enough to reduce your risk of getting HIV, but not prevent it completely. I need sex, so you’ll just have to accept the risk of getting HIV.”

Yeah . . . I want a man who thinks like that.

 

[Alix1912]

sex education + handing out condoms = happy sex life

I agree.

That’s the logic that has gotten us to the teenage pregnancy crisis we are in right now.

Ah, but do these “great guys” make up the majority of the male population? As a rule people on this forum shy away from talking about their sex lives, but if I could conduct an anonymous survey I’d love to see how willing (younger) male users of this forum to abstain even within marriage. Abstinence within marriage may work in some situations, but to suggest that EVERYONE needs to follow your personal preference and everything will be a-okay is bunk.

To suggest that EVERYONE needs to follow your line of thinking is also bunk. There are a lot of people who think using meth is fun too, doesn’t mean that I have to condone it or support it.

The difference is getting into a car with a drunk driver puts you at a high risk for car accidents. A 2%-risk, on the other hand, is really low. Besides, sexual gratification is a necessity for some people. Would you rather a married man who has contracted STDs at one point play with himself in the bathroom because his wife *just *can’t risk being infected as well?

The 2% risk figure is on a condom used properly to prevent pregnancy, it has nothing to do with STD’s. There is too much conflicting research out there to just assume the lowest risk number is the acurate one. Also as stated before several STD’s are not stopped by condoms at all. So yes having sex with an infected person is like getting in a car with a drunk person, you are running a high risk of getting infected.

Obviously, you don’t know anyone whose bank account has been targeted by a computer virus. They didn’t die, but their life might as well have been over.

Actually I do, and they had to do a lot of work to clear everything up, but their lifes continued along just fine. Money isn’t everything, and most times your bank insures against those type of loses.

In an ideal world, all husbands would do anything for his wife out of pure love.

In reality, even on this forum we’ve witnessed husbands walking out on their wives, husbands being frustrated by some of their wives’ demands, husbands not even understanding their wives’ point of views that they end up having to ask for advice from strangers on the Internet. I’ve also seen a few posts where it is implied some men become husbands because their desire to have sex is so great they just see no other option.

And why are the wife’s needs deemed more important than the husband’s? Why can’t the wife, in return, make sacrificial love for his husband? What is a 2%-risk of contracting STDs compared to your husband’s eternal sexual frustration?

You do see a lot of marriages that fail, but many succeed as well. Just because people fail, doesn’t mean we quit trying for the ideal. Many people are married to someone who loves them enough to make incredible sacrifices for them. Asking someone to risk contracting a serious illness just to have an orgasm is pathetic.

It’s sad that you obviously have no idea what real love is. You can continue to live in your world where you choose the statistics to believe and think the worst of everyone, but those of us that know or strive for something more real and meaningful in life will not join you.

 

[Alix1912]

“Honey, I love you enough to reduce your risk of getting HIV, but not prevent it completely. I need sex, so you’ll just have to accept the risk of getting HIV.”

Yeah . . . I want a man who thinks like that.

Sounds like a keeper to me Any man or woman who thinks like that is just using their partner and could not possibly love them.

 

[j1akey]

noclevername:

The fastest growing population who are contracting HIV are MARRIED women in India. The reason is that their husbands sleep with other women and then come home to their wives. Marriages in other countries are not always loving marriages. They consider other aspects than love important.

Marriages aren’t always loving in this country either. People get married for all sorts of reason, only one of them is love.

What I find interesting is that for all the talk about how sacred marriage is, a study in 1998 found that divorce rates in the bible belt in the US were 50% higher than the national average. I also found the % of people from various religions that have been divorced to be very interestinga:

Jews 30%
Born-again Christians 27%
Other Christians 24%
Atheists, Agnostics 21%

Granted this was 11 years ago when this study was done but I’d be interested in finding current numbers. So according to this non-believers get divorced less than believers to which marriage is so holy and created by God. Something doesn’t sound right about that does it?

Here’s the article if anyone wants to read it.

religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm

 

[perfectpeach]

If my husband contracted HIV through an affair, I would not be having sex with him. It would be WAY too risky since condoms do not offer 100% protection. I would never want to risk passing HIV to any potential child.

 

[Just_Lurking]

Ironically, I am arguing this from the point of a protestant.

What’s surprising is so are all the Catholics. Everyone is pointing out the failure rate of condoms in preventing HIV transmission, but cold, hard truth is that even if condoms provided an absolute, completely sure, 100% protection against disease, and even if the wife had already had a hysterectomy so there wouldn’t be any chance of children anyway, and even if the marriage was in trouble and that without the unitive effects of marital intercourse the marriage would fail, resulting in their small children being raised in a broken home, the teaching of the Catholic Church is unmoving in that the use of condoms would still be absolutely prohibited.

But for some reason you don’t see the Catholics here defending this. Instead, everyone is jumping on the incidental fact that condoms aren’t foolproof. I guess the Protestant position makes more sense.

 

[Bluegoat]

Hmm.

Well, it is not an out there scenario that a commited couple could find out that one had previously contracted HIV, HPV, or herpes, without any question of infidelity or anything like that.

As far as contraceptive methods go, if there is a medical problem that demands a solution that, as an unintended side effect is contraceptive, then it is ok to use that product.

But in this case, nothing can be done to help the partner who already has the disease. And just not having sex would prevent passing it to the other spouse. As a preventative measure, it seems unlikely that it would be ethical, as long as abstinence is a reasonable option.

In cases of HIV, it would perhaps be better not to take any risks, as people have said, in any case. (Though, couples where one has HIV do sometimes choose to do this together, so it’s not actually a totally unheard of idea. Presumably they both feel the risks are less than the advantages.)

With HPV or herpes, it’s less clear. Most couples in this situation continue to have sex - ones with herpes try to avoid passing the disease, which is often successful. But usually the couple decides to reconcile themselves to the possibility of both having it. In this case, would the Church consider that it was the duty or best moral decision of the spouse to continue sexual relations if the other person wanted to, at least in some cases? If so, would it then be morally acceptable to use a condom to reduce chances of passing it without intending contraceptive effect.

I’m inclined to think probably not, especially since a condom is not terribly effective for herpes or HPV.

 

[Seatuck]

What’s surprising is so are all the Catholics. Everyone is pointing out the failure rate of condoms in preventing HIV transmission, but cold, hard truth is that even if condoms provided an absolute, completely sure, 100% protection against disease, and even if the wife had already had a hysterectomy so there wouldn’t be any chance of children anyway, and even if the marriage was in trouble and that without the unitive effects of marital intercourse the marriage would fail, resulting in their small children being raised in a broken home, the teaching of the Catholic Church is unmoving in that the use of condoms would still be absolutely prohibited.

But for some reason you don’t see the Catholics here defending this. Instead, everyone is jumping on the incidental fact that condoms aren’t foolproof. I guess the Protestant position makes more sense.

Condoms also damage the unitive aspect to the marital act. That’s why the church hasn’t approved them for use in Africa etc.