Morality and sex and all of that

[Black_Rose]

Here is an entry from a review of the Left Behind series (Tribulation Force)

Bruce agrees to address the topic of “dating relationships” in the Great Tribulation at their next meeting, but Chloe isn’t done yet:

“And can you add to it what the rules are for morality for new believers?” Chloe said.

"Excuse me?"

"Talk about how we're supposed to live, now that we call ourselves followers of Christ. You know, like morality and sex and all of that."

And there you have it. Morality is about sex. Morality means sex and it only means sex. Or, rather, morality means refraining from sex. “Moral” questions have to do with what one may or may not do with one’s genitals. This is, for the authors, all you need to know about “how we’re supposed to live” and all you need to know about “following Christ”: Don’t have sex outside of marriage.

It would take volumes just to list the ways in which this view distorts and shrivels the meaning of morality (and the meaning of sex), just to name or identify all the things this leaves out from the matter of what is good or “how we’re supposed to live” and all the things it leaves out from the matter of what is not good or how we’re not supposed to live.

slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2010/03/tf-morality-and-sex-and-all-of-that.html

So is morality strictly about sex? I just find the quote very funny and relevant to most people’s perceptions on morality.

 

[flyingfish]

I would say that it is. You generally don’t need to convince people not to murder, rape, or steal. People will tend to naturally agree with you that it’s immoral to harm others by lying to them.

These values are universal, and apart from sociopaths people naturally agree on them. You don’t need to tell new converts to Christianity not to rape and murder. I wouldn’t even call those moral issues.

Whenever any type of preaching and reprimand is involved, they are really talking about sexual issues. Whether birth control, abortion, homosexuality, premarital sex, the types of sex you’re allowed to have. Those are pretty much the only areas of disagreement. Those are the only things that change between being Christian and not.

 

[PaulinVA]

I don’t think morality is confined to sex, and I don’t think that people agree on morality outside of sex.

Does everyone have a ‘right’ to health care?

Do I morally have to give alms to the poor as I see them on the street, or can I just give money to Catholic Charities?

What is the moral response to immigration policy?

It’s not just sex. It does seem, though, that people ask the same questions about the same sexual subjects here day after day, week after week.

 

[tafan]

I would say that it is. You generally don’t need to convince people not to murder, rape, or steal. People will tend to naturally agree with you that it’s immoral to harm others by lying to them.

These values are universal, and apart from sociopaths people naturally agree on them. You don’t need to tell new converts to Christianity not to rape and murder. I wouldn’t even call those moral issues.

Whenever any type of preaching and reprimand is involved, they are really talking about sexual issues. Whether birth control, abortion, homosexuality, premarital sex, the types of sex you’re allowed to have. Those are pretty much the only areas of disagreement. Those are the only things that change between being Christian and not.

I could not disagree more. People have wide range of views on acceptability of lying and stealing and killing. How many people think it is ok to fudge the truth on an insurance claim? “Its ok, its just a big insurance company and they owe it to me!!” How many people don’t think twice about not reporting large cash income on tax returns? How many people think abortion and euthanasia is ok? What about cursing and swearing? What about gluttony? I could go on and on. People doing these things may not really think they are ok, but people committing adultery do not really think it is ok. In both cases, they simply justify the sin to the particular circumstance.

You are correct about universal values, moral values are universal and the natural law is written in our hearts. But this includes adultery as much as theft. And in our fallen state, we do not always discern the natural law accuratly.

 

[Deo_Volente]

Grace & Peace!

So is morality strictly about sex? I just find the quote very funny and relevant to most people’s perceptions on morality.

No, morality isn’t just about sex. But morality *is *about how we structure, represent, pursue and fulfill desire. And because desire and sexuality are clearly linked, they become conflated.

There are those who would say that we do not naturally desire anything. We have needs, but it is important not to confuse a need with a desire. The confusion of need with desire results in the development of the passions, and pursuing the passions can lead to sin. For instance, I need to eat. But because I need to, it does not follow that I should desire to. When I desire to eat, I usually desire to eat a certain thing–it is not always what I need or what is good for me. Giving myself over to this desire, I find myself courting gluttony particulaly when I desire to eat unhealthily or extravangantly. This works similarly for other needs–sleep, human intimacy in all of its many wonderful forms, etc.

Those who argue that we do not naturally desire anything argue that when we desire, we do so because we have seen this desire modeled by others. We see someone else desiring, then we mimic their desire. This leads us, ultimately, to a theory thatwe don’t so much desire as that we allow ourselves to be desired in. That is, we allow the world to desire in us, or we allow the Kingdom of God to desire in us. Morality becomes a question of discerning a legitimate desire from an illegitmate desire, recognizing patterns of desire that* do not* lead to human growth and fulfillment and those that do. Part of this discernment should involve recognizing what our needs actually are and proceeding from there.

Classically, our foes are: The Flesh, The World, and The Devil. What is the Flesh? The confusion of need and desire and the rule of the passions. What is the World? The structuring of the passions into patterns of illegitimate desires that are experienced by the will as need. What is the Devil? The will that actively desires illegitimately. You can see all of this at work in Our Lord’s temptation in the wilderness

Desire, however, is not so much an adversary, but a faculty of the will by which we form ourselves and the world around us, and by which we are formed. Morality should never be a list of do’s and don’ts, but an organic understanding of the patterns of desire that do or not lead to real human flourishing. Morality requires consciousness. Discernment cannot be exercised without it. This is an important point, because many well-intentioned religious people want a list of things to do and to avoid. This is not a particularly good way to form conscience–in fact, it’s a good way to *avoid *forming conscience. But we are part of a tradition whose Master says, “I am the Way.” He doesn’t say, “The Way means following this inventory of do’s and don’ts.” For us, the Way is a Person. There is nothing to do, but there is something to be. There is a pattern of life to follow, but not a dead checklist.

This is how I see it, at any rate. Maybe it’s helpful to you?

Under the Mercy,
Mark

All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!

 

[Slowlearner]

Grace & Peace!

No, morality isn’t just about sex. But morality *is *about how we structure, represent, pursue and fulfill desire. And because desire and sexuality are clearly linked, they become conflated.

There are those who would say that we do not naturally desire anything. We have needs, but it is important not to confuse a need with a desire. The confusion of need with desire results in the development of the passions, and pursuing the passions can lead to sin. For instance, I need to eat. But because I need to, it does not follow that I should desire to. When I desire to eat, I usually desire to eat a certain thing–it is not always what I need or what is good for me. Giving myself over to this desire, I find myself courting gluttony particulaly when I desire to eat unhealthily or extravangantly. This works similarly for other needs–sleep, human intimacy in all of its many wonderful forms, etc.

Those who argue that we do not naturally desire anything argue that when we desire, we do so because we have seen this desire modeled by others. We see someone else desiring, then we mimic their desire. This leads us, ultimately, to a theory thatwe don’t so much desire as that we allow ourselves to be desired in. That is, we allow the world to desire in us, or we allow the Kingdom of God to desire in us. Morality becomes a question of discerning a legitimate desire from an illegitmate desire, recognizing patterns of desire that* do not* lead to human growth and fulfillment and those that do. Part of this discernment should involve recognizing what our needs actually are and proceeding from there.

Classically, our foes are: The Flesh, The World, and The Devil. What is the Flesh? The confusion of need and desire and the rule of the passions. What is the World? The structuring of the passions into patterns of illegitimate desires that are experienced by the will as need. What is the Devil? The will that actively desires illegitimately. You can see all of this at work in Our Lord’s temptation in the wilderness

Desire, however, is not so much an adversary, but a faculty of the will by which we form ourselves and the world around us, and by which we are formed. Morality should never be a list of do’s and don’ts, but an organic understanding of the patterns of desire that do or not lead to real human flourishing. Morality requires consciousness. Discernment cannot be exercised without it. This is an important point, because many well-intentioned religious people want a list of things to do and to avoid. This is not a particularly good way to form conscience–in fact, it’s a good way to *avoid *forming conscience. But we are part of a tradition whose Master says, “I am the Way.” He doesn’t say, “The Way means following this inventory of do’s and don’ts.” For us, the Way is a Person. There is nothing to do, but there is something to be. There is a pattern of life to follow, but not a dead checklist.

This is how I see it, at any rate. Maybe it’s helpful to you?

Under the Mercy,
Mark

All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!

It is helpful to me, I’ve saved that on my hard drive. Well put. Thank you.

 

[manualman]

Saying that morality is all about sex is like saying that nutrition is all about vegetables.

The fact is that humans need a variety of nutrients. We NEED fats, proteins, vitamins, minerals, water, carbohydrates, salt and so on. But virtually nobody in America suffers from salt or fat deficiencies in their diet. We all tend towards inadequate intake of veggies and fiber. So that ends up being the focus of much of our public discussion about nutrition. It’s where we are screwing up.

Same thing with sex. Our culture has a warped view of sex and the consequences are showing up literally everywhere. This does tend to focus the discourse and arguments on moral matters on the area that causes us the most problems. Just like nutrition.

But there are LOTS of moral matters utterly unrelated to sex. Theoretically everybody agrees that lying is immoral. Yet 3of4 resumes contains a lie these days. Kids cheat in school at epidemic rates…

Euthanasia and the issue of human embryo experimentation have nothing to do with genital stimulation and those issues are BIG today.

I’m not aware how sex figures into the morality the church tries to teach on matters of the death penalty or immigration policy justice. Are you?

 

[Jules_Winnfield]

As Rose Noir pointed out; it seems obvious that people of a certain disposition expend a disproportional large amount of energy on perceived moral dilemmas that center around what people do while unclothed.
Just today, a senior religious figure in Persia proclaimed that suntanned women, even though they appear fully clothed in public, are nevertheless guilty of the severe crime of immodesty and will be incarcerated if they do not amend their lewd ways.

Let this little fact detonate in your brain for a moment.
In Iran women can be thrown in jail for having a tan.

Fortunately we in the glorious West have abandoned such malefic folly long ago.
But, we should be modest enough to admit that mother Church used to burn people to death for the crime of recreating with a member of the same gender.

Morality becomes a domain in which most dilemmas can be solved when we realize that moral questions deal with the well-being of conscious creatures like ourselves.

If an act has no diminishing effect on anyone’s experience than it can not be immoral.
I am therefore willing to go out on a limb and state that, for instance,sun tanning, or playing with your own genitalia is not immoral.

 

[manualman]

If an act has no diminishing effect on anyone’s experience than it can not be immoral.
I am therefore willing to go out on a limb and state that, for instance,sun tanning, or playing with your own genitalia is not immoral.

SNAP! (sound of limb breaking and gravity doing its deed).

So if I lie on my resume to get a job, land the thing and actually do a decent job at it, that’s OK too, right? Nobody got hurt…

Good luck with your rationalizations.

 

[Jules_Winnfield]

SNAP! (sound of limb breaking and gravity doing its deed).

So if I lie on my resume to get a job, land the thing and actually do a decent job at it, that’s OK too, right? Nobody got hurt…

Good luck with your rationalizations.

I have been accused, often rightly, of a great many intellectual deficiencies, but casuistry is usually not among them.

To your point; perhaps there are instances when people feel that “a little white lie” has no consequences.
I beg to differ, and for these reasons.
As social creatures we have to rely on our fellow humans to sustain viable communities.
Therefore it is a moral imperative that people are honest with one another.
If you feel that your neighbors can not be trusted to collaborate with you to advance the good of the community you can wind up living in a failed state.
Therefore, a lie that is designed to further your own interest over the interest of the community is immoral as it does have a negative effect on your fellow (wo)man.

I hope this illuminates my original point.

Greets,

Jules.

 

[Podo2005]

Here is an entry from a review of the Left Behind series (Tribulation Force)

slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2010/03/tf-morality-and-sex-and-all-of-that.html

So is morality strictly about sex? I just find the quote very funny and relevant to most people’s perceptions on morality.

No morality is not solely about sex… there are many nonsexual situations where a person could do something wrong (i.e. lying, stealing, murdering/hating, being arrogant/proud/self righteous, being envious of another person, sinning by omission(not doing something you were supposed to do) etc)

Why then are many of the discussions on morality about sex? There could be a number of reasons… one being we are sexual beings & having warped natures from the fall find this kind of sin harder to avoid than others (which is why chastity is sometimes referred to as the difficult virtue). Or it could be the fact that our culture/society is obsessed with sex, porn, lust, birth control etc…
Also there is so much division with regards to sexual morality…there are ALOT of people today who simply refuse to accept the teachings of the Church in regard to sexual morality & this is a big problem because it leads to divorce, broken marriages, broken families, lack of vocations & a total debasing of society as we know it.

Stand up & talk about murder or genocide or lying being a sin & you’ll be praised
Stand up & say that using artificial birth control is wrong, or homosexuality is an objective disorder, or that masturbation is selfish & you’re labelled as “judgemental”“homophobe” “intolerant”, “not with the times”,“fascist” “lacking compassion” etc…

 

[Jules_Winnfield]

No morality is not solely about sex… there are many nonsexual situations where a person could do something wrong (i.e. lying, stealing, murdering/hating, being arrogant/proud/self righteous, being envious of another person, sinning by omission(not doing something you were supposed to do) etc)

Why then are many of the discussions on morality about sex? There could be a number of reasons… one being we are sexual beings & having warped natures from the fall find this kind of sin harder to avoid than others (which is why chastity is sometimes referred to as the difficult virtue). Or it could be the fact that our culture/society is obsessed with sex, porn, lust, birth control etc…
Also there is so much division with regards to sexual morality…there are ALOT of people today who simply refuse to accept the teachings of the Church in regard to sexual morality & this is a big problem because it leads to divorce, broken marriages, broken families, lack of vocations & a total debasing of society as we know it.

Stand up & talk about murder or genocide or lying being a sin & you’ll be praised
Stand up & say that using artificial birth control is wrong, or homosexuality is an objective disorder, or that masturbation is selfish & you’re labelled as “judgemental”“homophobe” “intolerant”, “not with the times”,“fascist” “lacking compassion” etc…

It would be absurd and wrong for people to call you a fascist for voicing these opinions.

On artificial birth control; I can’t for the life of me fathom how using artificial birth control methods can be morally problematic, which, I assume, you mean by calling it ‘wrong’.
One is almost tempted to say that informing a mother, who’s living in abject poverty and who can barely feed her current offspring, that she shouldn’t use a contraceptive is highly immoral, as it directly affects the well-being of her and her children.
If said mother is also living in an area ravaged by AIDS, telling her that condom use is somehow morally problematic elevates the immorality of the proscription into the realm of breathtaking and genocidal stupidity.

This is what you get when you divorce the concept of morality from the actual suffering and well-being of conscious creatures.

Regarding your curious comment that ‘homosexuality is an objective disorder’ [sic] one can again ask who is negatively affected by the fact that some people (about 15 % of all human beings) experience a surge in hormones from different stimuli than the other 85 %.
I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t care less that some men enjoy rubbing their willies together. To quote Mr. Jefferson " it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg".
I do, however, become morally outraged when grown men in a position of power rape children and are subsequently protected by their superiors from the arm of the law. Speaking of the law, where is cardinal Law right now and why ?

Your last electronic eructation, where you label masturbation as selfish, is surely spoken in jest.
But, on the outside chance that you were not joking, who is harmed when some lonely and unattractive person, who has trouble finding a playmate, relieves some tension while indulging in a fantasy?

All the best,

Jules

 

[manualman]

Therefore, a lie that is designed to further your own interest over the interest of the community is immoral as it does have a negative effect on your fellow (wo)man.

I hope this illuminates my original point.

And if sexual relations were created to be a physical manifestation of the permanent bond between a man and wife that cemented that bond and even can bring new life from it, then the use of that gift for mere self indulgence IS, in fact, a lie in physical manifestation. It has the same deleterious effect on the entire community. We just bury our heads in the sand and pretend not to notice it in the case of immoral sex.

I confess, I did set you up for that.

You appear to have bought the bill of goods that says that sins are an arbitrary list of things God doesn’t want us to do for his own inscrutable reasons. This is not the case. Your definition is closer to the catholic one than you think! Sin is precisely that which damages our ability to give and receive love. You just draw the line at the place where YOU are able to perceive the damage done by the allegedly sinful action. If YOU can’t see the damage, then it isn’t sinful. You are the ultimate authority. Catholics, on the other hand, extrapolate from the fact that God has demonstrated his love for us in so many ways that we trust His wisdom more than our own when we are sometimes not able to easily see the negative effects of an alleged sin.

Turns out, He’s a pretty insightful guy!

 

[manualman]

The world sees that poverty stricken woman you mentioned and thinks it is compassion to hand her a condom. That’s misguided compassion as best and false compassion at worst. The condom may, in fact, prevent further pregnancy and deprivation. But at what cost? If it ends up to be true that contraception degrades the meaning of sex between spouses and her husband gradually grows to see her as an object of desire instead of the spouse he has forsaken all others for.

The catholic response to that situation is what Mother Theresa did. When a family clearly has not the financial capacity to support more children all it takes is toilet paper, education and periodic abstinance to quite reliably prevent further pregnancy. Furthermore, doing it that way goes a long way toward preventing the cheapening of sex that is SO common in contraceptive societies. Now she can survive AND have a happy marriage. Rather better, I think.

Same goes for the woman in the AIDS area, but moreso. Handing out condoms only emboldens the behavior that causes AIDS in the first place (promiscuity and infidelity). Condoms in that environment are a bandaid placed on a pumping artery wound. Eventually they will fail. The Church recognizes that addressing the underlying destructive behavior is much harder, but actually tries to DO it. The UN condom pushing approach does nothing to address the CAUSE of AIDS, so will in the long term be wasted efforts (may slow the epidemic, but will allow it to exist and continue perpetually).

 

[Jules_Winnfield]

And if sexual relations were created to be a physical manifestation of the permanent bond between a man and wife that cemented that bond and even can bring new life from it, then the use of that gift for mere self indulgence IS, in fact, a lie in physical manifestation. It has the same deleterious effect on the entire community. We just bury our heads in the sand and pretend not to notice it in the case of immoral sex.

Pardon, Manualman, but I can’t quite follow your reasoning here.
First, sexual desires are the result of all creatures’ innate programming to leave offspring. The fact that humans tend to have elaborate mating ceremonies and sometimes even embrace monogamy doesn’t negate the fact that our sex drive is not voluntary,as any 14-year-old boy who wakes up to stained sheets can attest to. But I am sure you have heard all these basic facts about the human body in biology class already.
To castigate someone for enjoying sex is akin to blaming someone for experiencing pleasure while eating at a fine French restaurant.

What I am curious about is your claim that my community is negatively affected due to the fact that I enjoy sex.
In fact, I think I say something uncontroversial when I state that practically every mental health expert, from psychologists to your GP will tell you that enjoying sex is quite salubrious.
Not to harp on our Muslim brothers and sisters, but their questionable doctrine of turning heaven into a brothel for martyrs surely has something to do with sexual repression. The consequences of this are made clear almost daily by the sound of bomb blasts.

You appear to have bought the bill of goods that says that sins are an arbitrary list of things God doesn’t want us to do for his own inscrutable reasons. This is not the case. Your definition is closer to the catholic one than you think! Sin is precisely that which damages our ability to give and receive love. You just draw the line at the place where YOU are able to perceive the damage done by the allegedly sinful action. If YOU can’t see the damage, then it isn’t sinful. You are the ultimate authority.

You are confusing sin with morality.
This is a mistake as sin is an explicitly religious concept, which is meaningless to people who do not adhere to the religion at hand, of which, of course, there are many.
Morality is something we can all discuss, as long as it can be argued that an action has an effect, either positive or negative on our communities.
It is not so much that I declare myself the authority on what we should consider moral, but I will only accept a moral precept if you can demonstrate that it has relevance to our experience.

What people believe God wants them to do or not is not interesting to me as there are so many different versions of God floating around, even within the catholic community itself, that it would be impossible to reach a workable consensus.

Catholics, on the other hand, extrapolate from the fact that God has demonstrated his love for us in so many ways that we trust His wisdom more than our own when we are sometimes not able to easily see the negative effects of an alleged sin.

Well, perhaps you will agree that sometimes the Church is prone to make slight errors when it comes to matters of sin, and that we ought to use our frontal lobes after someone proclaims that this or that is against God’s will.
We used to burn old women alive ( ponder that, for just a second and imagine how that must feel) for 5 straight centuries because it was thought that these unfortunate ladies had committed the sin of maleficium.
Today there are such as I who doubt whether it is actually possible for a person to turn into a hare or cause a thunderstorm.
I caution people to not make claims about right and wrong without the evidence to back them up, lest they look foolish.

All the best,

Jules

 

[Deo_Volente]

Grace & Peace!

The world sees that poverty stricken woman you mentioned and thinks it is compassion to hand her a condom. That’s misguided compassion as best and false compassion at worst. The condom may, in fact, prevent further pregnancy and deprivation. But at what cost? If it ends up to be true that contraception degrades the meaning of sex between spouses and her husband gradually grows to see her as an object of desire instead of the spouse he has forsaken all others for.

The catholic response to that situation is what Mother Theresa did. When a family clearly has not the financial capacity to support more children all it takes is toilet paper, education and periodic abstinance to quite reliably prevent further pregnancy. Furthermore, doing it that way goes a long way toward preventing the cheapening of sex that is SO common in contraceptive societies. Now she can survive AND have a happy marriage. Rather better, I think.

Same goes for the woman in the AIDS area, but moreso. Handing out condoms only emboldens the behavior that causes AIDS in the first place (promiscuity and infidelity). Condoms in that environment are a bandaid placed on a pumping artery wound. Eventually they will fail. The Church recognizes that addressing the underlying destructive behavior is much harder, but actually tries to DO it. The UN condom pushing approach does nothing to address the CAUSE of AIDS, so will in the long term be wasted efforts (may slow the epidemic, but will allow it to exist and continue perpetually).

For me, there’s some difficulty in positing contraception as the or even a unique cause of the degradation of the meaning of sex. Furthermore, it’s difficult for me to assume that a husband and wife who do not use condoms have a more difficult time seeing each other as objects as those who use contraception. That idea seems much more indicative of a fantasy of marriage (or at best, let’s say an ideal) than an acknowledgement of lived realities.

Also, I don’t think that contraceptive availability leads directly to promiscuity and adultery. The desire for adultery, the desire for promiscuity–these desires can and do exist without condoms needing to invent them–moreover, they exist without us needing to attribute an insidious inventive intelligence to contraceptive devices. You can argue that they uniquely enable the desire in that they may provide an excuse (convenience) to those who would not otherwise act on their desire. But I disagree–I think that if one is bent on fulfilling a particular desire, one will discover or invent an excuse to indulge it.

Moreover, you assume that prostitution is about promiscuity. It is not–at least not on all sides of the transaction. It could very well figure into the motives of the customer, but there are a lot of other forces at work on the other end of things. Particularly in poorer areas, transactional sex is a means of putting food into the mouths of children and family. That’s the sad reality. It is not chosen out of desire, but out of the lack (or the perception of the lack) of other viable options. Abstinence education is lovely in this context, but does not address the fundamental issue, which is economic. As awful as it is to admit, Brecht was right when he wrote:
However much you twist, whatever lies you tell
Food is the first thing, morals follow on
So first make sure that those who are now starving
Get proper helpings when we all start carving
Abstinence education makes very little sense when what’s at stake is survival. In this context, abstinence education is a luxury. And, one can argue, is immoral (as many luxuries tend to be in this context) if it is not coupled with some means to alleviate and root out the causes of the desperation which lead to a situation in which transactional sex is perceived as necessary.

A morality which has as its end the fulfillment of a particular ideological goal, or which has itself as its own end, or which has representing itself or its ideology as its own end and* is not fundamentally concerned with human flourishing and bringing about the conditions in which that flourishing is finally possible is bankrupt*. Pure and simple.

Under the Mercy,
Mark

All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!

 

[manualman]

For me, there’s some difficulty in positing contraception as the or even a unique cause of the degradation of the meaning of sex. Furthermore, it’s difficult for me to assume that a husband and wife who do not use condoms have a more difficult time seeing each other as objects as those who use contraception. That idea seems much more indicative of a fantasy of marriage (or at best, let’s say an ideal) than an acknowledgement of lived realities.

Also, I don’t think that contraceptive availability leads directly to promiscuity and adultery. The desire for adultery, the desire for promiscuity–these desires can and do exist without condoms needing to invent them–moreover, they exist without us needing to attribute an insidious inventive intelligence to contraceptive devices. You can argue that they uniquely enable the desire in that they may provide an excuse (convenience) to those who would not otherwise act on their desire. But I disagree–I think that if one is bent on fulfilling a particular desire, one will discover or invent an excuse to indulge it.

Moreover, you assume that prostitution is about promiscuity…

You either misunderstand or are distorting. I certainly never acribed any sort of intelligence (insidious or otherwise) to condoms. What I asserted is that GOD has a creative and ingenious plan for human sexuality. The unspoken assumption that seems to underly much of what you say is that sex is only accidentally connected to baby-making. This is one HEII of an assumption! Throughout revelation God has shown how the link between sex and babies is a mark of his blessing. He created the pleasure and the children hopelessly intertwined. Man is arrogant and foolish to presume he understands enough to declare that the two functions of sex are both separate and easily severable.

As for the fantasy, I’ve been married for 10.5 years now, have 3 kids and have spent enough sleepless nights pondering my “serious reason” to know that of which I speak. There is a fundamental and very real difference between making the sacrifice of abstinance because of a good reason to avoid pregnancy and simply rolling on the rubber and proceeding as I will. It’s not the condom that’s insidious, it’s the one whispering in your ear that it is OK to use it who is. Of COURSE sexual sin and temptation has always been around (since the fall anyways). That doesn’t change the fact that the more distorted a society’s understanding of it is, the worse the consequences in frequency and magnitude of the sin. Get a newspaper if you disagree. It’s certainly gotten worse since the normalization of contraception.

I don’t pretend that those unafflicted by contrceptive mentality CAN’T objectify their spouse. As fallen humans, that danger lurks out there for us all. But contraceptives give an EXTRA push towards that cliff edge. Not helpful. Nor am I one who contends that NFP itself makes the marriage healthier. No moreso than a canary in a mine shaft makes a miner healthier: both only help if you notice the warning signs and take action. NFP is excruciatingly hard to practice if you have any sort of tendency towards objectifying your spouse. That’s why I hated it for years. The problem was me and all the cultural influences I accepted over the years. After recognizing that, the abstinance times suddenly got a lot easier.

Did I mention prostitution? I don’t recall that. But since you did, I will too. You have a sadly warped idea of compassion if your idea for helping the woman who feels forced into prostitution is simply to toss her a box of condoms and say ‘good luck.’ Perhaps that’s unfair as you didn’t actually say that. But every effort and penny spent on condoms is effort and expense NOT spent on the real solution. Again, it is no good to treat the symptoms of a disease if the underlying cause is left untreated. To do less is a false massaging of conscience. It would be the same thing to propose a gang violence death reduction plan that ignored that gangs themselves and just tried to fund bulletproof vests for all the inhabitants of the neighborhood. Focusing on the symtom (flying bullets) is Quixotic and doomed. Better to focus on providing alternatives.

 

[manualman]

And for the record, our culture is extremely good at that false massaging of conscience.

When we feel bad that oil drilling poses major environmental risks, we restrict it so that it happens somewhere else in the world and continue filling our SUVs with gas. (We also tend to exonerate ourselves if we drive 15,000 miles in an econocar instead, as if that’s really much better.)

We avoid dealing with the reality of what embryo experiementation really is by watching Michael J Fox and feeling bad for him. We avoid confronting the real nature of abortion by extolling the virtues of ‘choice.’

We pretend that harsh policies against illegal immigrants is justified because a tiny percentage of them commit crimes or join gangs when they come here.

There, that ought to poke just about everybody’s sacred cow…