"Safe Sex"

[edwest2]

Then maybe we shouldn’t have “sex education” at all. Maybe that’s not the answer.

The Catholic plan is the BEST possible plan. If everyone implemented the Catholic plan, there would be NO SUCH THING as STDs or teen pregnancy. “Unwanted” pregnancy would be extremely rare. NOTHING is safer or more effective than the Catholic plan. That’s not an opinion or a religious doctrine - it is scientifically established fact.

So why shouldn’t that be the goal? It CAN be done. It HAS been done for most of human history. It is BEING DONE in many parts of the world today. And this was accomplished (and is being accomplished) without any “sex education” whatsoever.

If we have a plan that is safer and more effective than ANY OTHER PLAN, why do we say, “oh well, that won’t work, so let’s try to figure out how to make dangerous behavior less dangerous?”

The Catholic plan isn’t designed to operate in an environment where people are sexually promiscuous and it’s OK to be sexually promiscuous and it’s assumed that everyone is gonna be sexually promiscuous.

That’s the issue. TV, movies, books, etc. make having any kind of non-marital sex OK, fun, and usually, without consequences. Normally, two people meet, get to know each other, plan to marry, get tested, and get married.

Then some think that having any kind of sex outside of marriage is OK. As if they can’t live without it. Who decides when you have sex? The Church and the State don’t decide for you.

Ed

 

[edwest2]

A little more info:

education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2373/Risk-Behaviors-SEXUALLY-TRANSMITTED-DISEASES.html

Ed

 

[billcu1]

OK, what is the Catholic idea of sex? Monogamous sexual relation within marriage. My wife and I have each had exactly one sexual partner (each other). I’m 50 years old, and I’ve never been with another woman.

Good 4 you

 

[billcu1]

Then maybe we shouldn’t have “sex education” at all. Maybe that’s not the answer.

The Catholic plan is the BEST possible plan. If everyone implemented the Catholic plan, there would be NO SUCH THING as STDs or teen pregnancy. “Unwanted” pregnancy would be extremely rare. NOTHING is safer or more effective than the Catholic plan. That’s not an opinion or a religious doctrine - it is scientifically established fact.

So why shouldn’t that be the goal? It CAN be done. It HAS been done for most of human history. It is BEING DONE in many parts of the world today. And this was accomplished (and is being accomplished) without any “sex education” whatsoever.

If we have a plan that is safer and more effective than ANY OTHER PLAN, why do we say, “oh well, that won’t work, so let’s try to figure out how to make dangerous behavior less dangerous?”

The Catholic plan isn’t designed to operate in an environment where people are sexually promiscuous and it’s OK to be sexually promiscuous and it’s assumed that everyone is gonna be sexually promiscuous.

Certainly not secular “sex education” Politically motivated and teaching that “They’re going to do it.” I don’t think so. But then there are poor parents.

Free sex and love…

 

[DavidFilmer]

where is the Catholic plan “BEING DONE in many parts of the world today”?

Teen promiscuity is uncommon in many parts of Central and South America.

But it’s not just a Catholic plan. Teen promiscuity is uncommon in many predominately Muslim, Jewish, and Asian cultures.

And there’s nothing “Catholic” about Natural Family Planning. It’s biology, not religion, and anybody can do it. If you want to control pregnancy (regardless of religious beliefs), it is simply the most effective method available to do that.

Surely a smart guy can recognize that NFP is more effective than condoms or pills. So why don’t smart guys advocate NFP? Even (and especially) amidst sexual promiscuity? Oh yeah, it requires some self control. No guarantee of sex on demand. We can’t have that, can we?

 

[billcu1]

Then maybe we shouldn’t have “sex education” at all. Maybe that’s not the answer.

The Catholic plan is the BEST possible plan. If everyone implemented the Catholic plan, there would be NO SUCH THING as STDs or teen pregnancy. “Unwanted” pregnancy would be extremely rare. NOTHING is safer or more effective than the Catholic plan. That’s not an opinion or a religious doctrine - it is scientifically established fact.

So why shouldn’t that be the goal? It CAN be done. It HAS been done for most of human history. It is BEING DONE in many parts of the world today. And this was accomplished (and is being accomplished) without any “sex education” whatsoever.

If we have a plan that is safer and more effective than ANY OTHER PLAN, why do we say, “oh well, that won’t work, so let’s try to figure out how to make dangerous behavior less dangerous?”

The Catholic plan isn’t designed to operate in an environment where people are sexually promiscuous and it’s OK to be sexually promiscuous and it’s assumed that everyone is gonna be sexually promiscuous.

Assuming that “everyone is going to do it” is to me showing the general overall lack of discipline among people nowadays. Concerning just about everything.

 

[jesusalright4me]

I guarantee you someone on this post has already said something to this extent, but here it goes. Birth control in the from of a condom CAN be very successful, I have heard that there is about a 98% success rate, WHEN used properly. However, simply because people don’t know how to do so, that success rate can go down. People put them on wrong, store them in improper conditions, and sometimes you probably just get a bad one off the line. There is no problem in admitting this when arguing with somebody that is trying to prove the success rate of common birth control.

The Church disagrees with contraception for one primary reason: they artificially tamper with God’s purpose for sex and make sex more about lust than a gift of self. If an alien species were to come to earth and observe two humans getting it on, what would they conclude the purpose of sex is? The answer is not hard to see: for unity and procreation. What do you get when you remove unity? Rape. When you remove procreation? Contraception. When sex becomes purely about pleasure with no consequences, what do you get? More lust. And it is not hard to see this, ever since birth control became mainstream in the sexual revolution, pornography has run rampant, divorces have increased, and a respect for the sanctity of sex has been lost. Though many other factors are at play here (the dawn of the internet for porn and no fault divorce), a large factor in many of these issues is the loss of respect for sex.

The end never justifies the means. Even if birth control one day achieved a 100% success rate, this would not make it any more moral. They absolutely do prevent teen pregnancies, but the problem that needs to be addressed is not how to prevent teens from making new life, which is by the way a beautiful gift of God, but how to show teens the true purpose of sex. However, it may be a challenge to show your friends that this is the real issue, because I guarantee you they themselves have misinformed ideas about sex as well.

Hope that helps

 

[Regulaguy]

My parents may have brought me up as a Methodist, and weren’t as serious as some when it comes to my religious education in the home, but they made certain things extremely clear to me throughout my upbringing:
Do NOT have sex with anyone unless you are married to them. That is the rule, and they made sure I knew it. Even when my faith was at its lowest point and I had conceded so many other things to popular culture (during my college years), I still held this rule, at least, to be absolute: I will not have sex with anyone with whom I could not imagine raising a child. The way I used to see it was, that is the risk, and you must be prepared to bear the consequences. Since then, I’ve come to the Catholic understanding of all of this and thankfully I remained a virgin, but my point is, do not underestimate the power of parents. There is a way to instill in young minds these important beliefs, and as many people have pointed out already, there is no safer option than to save sex for marriage so that it can be a complete gift of one’s self to another.

 

[marymary1975]

We’re talking about teens, though, and even if they accept the data you are giving, they will say that teens simply don’t respond well to abstinence only

They say that states which teach abstinence only have the highest rates of teen pregnancy (and STDs?)

In my personal opinion I don’t think that the so called down on teen pregnancies has that much to do with teaching contraception but with the fact that abortion has become easily accessible for teen. If a teen gets pregnant inany states they just can go and get an abortion an no one will find out and that would not be counted as a teen pregnancy. i think what has gone down is teens giving births not so much teen pregnancies.

 

[Thorolfr]

If we have a plan that is safer and more effective than ANY OTHER PLAN, why do we say, “oh well, that won’t work, so let’s try to figure out how to make dangerous behavior less dangerous?”

The Catholic plan isn’t designed to operate in an environment where people are sexually promiscuous and it’s OK to be sexually promiscuous and it’s assumed that everyone is gonna be sexually promiscuous.

It’s always better to have more knowledge than less. If a teen is going to have sex even though they know it would be safer to be abstinent, it would still be better to use a condom even if that is considered wrong than to get an incurable STD such as HIV. It’s the same kind of reasoning used in needle exchange programs for drug addicts. It’s better to give a drug addict a clean needle than to let him become infected with HIV because he only has access to infected needles. Preserving life is always more important. Otherwise, we would be saying that all harmful things are equal when in fact some are worse. It follows the principle that a lesser harm may sometimes be tolerated to prevent a greater harm.

 

[jesusalright4me]

It’s always better to have more knowledge than less. If a teen is going to have sex even though they know it would be safer to be abstinent, it would still be better to use a condom even if that is considered wrong than to get an incurable STD such as HIV. It’s the same kind of reasoning used in needle exchange programs for drug addicts. It’s better to give a drug addict a clean needle than to let him become infected with HIV because he only has access to infected needles. Preserving life is always more important. Otherwise, we would be saying that all harmful things are equal when in fact some are worse. It follows the principle that a lesser harm may sometimes be tolerated to prevent a greater harm.

The end never justifies the means. I once heard of a priest who told a bunch of young people that condoms are wrong, but better to be safe than sorry so if you are in a situation, use them. This is NOT what the Church teaches. The Church has a duty to preach truth in all cases, and to promote condoms on any grounds would go against this duty, as the use of condoms is an intrinsic evil.

This is what I can say, though I can see where you are coming from. As far as I know, in Catholic moral theology the lesser of two evils cannot apply to condom use to prevent STDs, though I do not know why this is. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable could shed some light on why exactly using condoms to prevent STDs cannot be preferred to allowing people to contract an STD?

 

[Rau]

…As far as I know, in Catholic moral theology the lesser of two evils cannot apply to condom use to prevent STDs, though I do not know why this is. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable could shed some light on why exactly using condoms to prevent STDs cannot be preferred to allowing people to contract an STD?

The lesser of two evils can be accepted, but the evils in question need to lie in the consequences of the act, not the act itself. Intrinsically evil acts (murder, calumny, fornication, contraception, etc) are never permissible; they can never be “accepted” regardless of the motivation or implications.

The above is the position of Catholic Moral theology. There are other philosophies that deem no act to be intrinsically evil, and one need only concern oneself with the (earthly) consequences arising from the choices we make. It’s in that philosophy that the idea of “lesser of two evils” is more prominent, since, under that philosophy, the weighing up of consequences needs to be done for every act where options present.