Religion and those who make a living out of pandering its simplistic and defunct notions are unable to stay out of our bedrooms it seems. The Pope has recently hit headlines again with his decree that HIV “cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems”.
People like to have sex. They like it a lot. The problem as we all know is that when people have unprotected sex they pass on HIV and women get pregnant when they do not want to be pregnant. It’s not rocket science.
There is, however, something that largely prevents this from happening when used properly. It is a miracle … of modern science, research, materials development, quality control and mechanised high-voltage testing and it is called a condom.
It is clear that if everybody used condoms responsibly, HIV and unwanted pregnancy would be dramatically reduced. It is not an evil thing; just a little piece of latex and it has no affiliation to any religion, country or agenda. It simply exists and is there to be used by enlightened, informed people.
By papal thinking, however, if you allow people easy access to these condoms, they may be tempted to use them and have that nasty, dirty sex all the time. To the church, for some crazy reason, this is much more of a threat than the transmission of deadly HIV. It’s like destroying all the guns and throwing the villagers a bunch of Bibles when the invading army is lined up on the hill. It’s a quaint and novel spiritual idea but misguided in an ironically Darwinian way and lives will surely be lost in droves.
One might also be tempted to ask how a celibate German gentleman such as Herr Ratzinger, otherwise known as the Pope, may have arrived at conclusions at such odds with science, reason and recent Aids deaths statistics.
One may further enquire how he has the gall to stand before the world and pronounce on something that he has never explored for himself. Experience certainly has been known to modify theory. It may well apply in this case. Surely people who have actually had sex and work intimately with people suffering from HIV should advise the HIV policy for the sex lives of millions?
One might now also demand to know where his solution for the HIV pandemic is derived from since the Bible never explicitly mentions it and he is, we assume, not speaking from practical experience. Did he do any studies? Did he interview thousands of people who engage in sex regularly or is he just parroting the party line?
So, the solution to the problem, according to this puerile papal thinking is to decree that people should not be allowed to use condoms because condoms are against God’s will. In that way, is it theorised that the flock will suddenly and homogenously become totally responsible and will start abstaining from the very act that perpetuates us as a species until conditions are Churchly perfect. Take away the condoms and people will just realise that they should stop having sex until they are in a loving and faithful relationship for life. Just like that.
I think not.
If there is one thing you can bet on through the course of human history, it is infidelity. Prostitution is not called the oldest profession in the world for nothing. People have always had unprotected sex and have always had sex with people they should not have sex with.
Always.
Even people as incorruptible as the Catholic clergy seem to periodically dabble in sex in many twisted and repressed forms. How then is removing the condom, the only feasible economic mode of protection available, from the hands of the people going to suddenly modify encoded human behaviour that existed long before the condom? If the clergy struggle, what’s an average guy supposed to do?
Of course the uncanny reaction of Catholics worldwide, when asked about the obvious idiocy of the Church’s views, has been to distance themselves from the views but not the religion. “I am a Catholic but I use condoms” is about as mystifying to me as “I am a vegetarian but I eat biltong”. Surely a crack in the crust indicates some deeper seismic issues? Do these people not wonder what else could be flawed with their doctrine before blindly forging on?
One could argue, if one could be bothered, in favour of the Pope, that his stance is already well-known. The Catholic Church has simply restated its old views and the world media have pounced and made headlines about what we already know. It’s not really news.
One could also argue that many Muslim states have similar draconian rules and laws pertaining to sexual relations. Woman in many parts of the Middle East are wrapped up so tight that an ankle flashed in error is enough to get you into real trouble. Every religion that comes to mind tries to meddle to some extent in our sexual conduct. Why focus on the poor old Pope? He is espousing some good old family values. Abstinence and loving relationships hardly sound like the makings of an ill-founded and evil mantra.
The current relevance, however, is that this misguided man was quoted sitting on a plane on his way to Africa, the centre of the Aids pandemic and the primary battleground in the fight against the disease. Tireless people without bullet-proof Pope mobiles fight here daily to improve the situation. Along comes one man, sweeps in and undoes all of that hard, painstaking work.
Doubly ironic here is the fact that the Pope has millions of followers in Africa who were only too happy to rid themselves of colonial governance and all forms of colonial oppression except that of the imported religions that came with it. While almost every Eurocentric suggestion of interference is treated with contempt by Africans, this deadly one couched in a defunct, outdated moral code is lovingly respected. Irony does not come thicker than that.
As a result of the Pope’s African visit, millions of people may forsake condoms or doubt their efficacy and avoid them due to this one powerful message. Will the Pope take responsibility when they all die or will he look after the Aids orphans he creates? No, he will continue to preach his nonsense jetting off to a new location writing their genocide off conveniently as God’s will.
Will he get involved in seeing that his alternative reality of abstinence is observed and will the infection numbers come down? No and no again.
Do the countless NGOs that preach the “Word of Condom” implement practical structures on the ground and see that they are implemented? Yes and yes again. Do they save lives and empower people through education to better their own lives? Yes and yes again.
Unfortunately the Pope is by no means alone in this crusade. He is now and has in times past been flanked by some of history’s greatest and therefore, in my opinion, most irresponsible names. Mother Teresa herself flew around the world for photo opportunities with any leaders who provided her the chance to plug her simplistic views on abortion and birth control. From India to Ireland, from Haiti to Africa, she pottered along in sensible shoes and spread the word to millions — do not use condoms or birth control she said.
In South Africa, Thabo Mbeki and his long-time toady, Manto Tshabala-Msimang, made international news on a regular basis with an equally disturbing pseudo-scientific stance exemplified by Matthias Rath and his nutty vitamin cure being given a serious hearing.
In Mbeki’s case, Harvard did the math and he seems, in tandem with his troop of incompetent health ogres, to be responsible for the early extinguishing of roughly 330 000 lives. Thankfully that era of pointless death and suffering has drawn to a close but we are still living with its legacy.
I could not find a number large enough to put to the harm Mother Teresa vested on the world by her repeated bleating to stop abortions and ban birth control and condoms. Deaths aside, her insistence that suffering was a divine right for the poor and that terminal patients should suck it up and die in pain without spending a cent of her massive donation money on proper painkillers, puts her true agenda into perspective for me.
In absence of the numbers, however, I can refer you to an enlightening text on this highly overrated Catholic menace called “The Missionary Position” by Christopher Hitchens. What can be said without fear of contradiction is that she shamelessly used her fame to catapult her church’s dangerous views around the globe, consorted with and accepted huge donations from some very unsavoury people in doing so and we are all presently living with her stone-age legacy and will do for some time. Nobel prize indeed!
Nobody, by the way, is saying that the Pope is just plain wrong. It could probably be convincingly argued that a militant theocracy in which infidelity is punishable by death or life imprisonment, imposed upon people living in an HIV-prevalent region may solve the problem. They could round up the infected and put them into “Bible camps” styled on the Missions of Mother Teresa. There they could pass away without cure or pain regimen, cramped in agony but clutching their Bibles, as the good Lord would supposedly want them to do. It is a feasible hypothesis. Pretty rough life compared to condoms and ARVs if there turns out to be no afterlife but that’s religion in Technicolor for you folks.
It is also mighty unlikely that infidelity and unprotected sex would reduce to zero in such a case anyway, as a study of many of the Muslim theocratic states will attest, but I will concede that it would drop to levels that perhaps only an educated, condom-using population may compete with. As such it may be a solution, provided people are happy to be treated like sheep and stripped of their dignity and rights. It may also prove to be even more difficult to implement than simply distributing condoms and a message but that’s for the Catholic Church to figure out on their own time.
So that in a nutshell, is our choice. Practically, and I use that word pointedly, results can probably be achieved with an archaic Taliban-style theocracy or similar with a militant Catholic twist, or with modern education, freedom and condoms.
I choose condoms.
Actually it is all down to a misinterpretation of “marriage is for the pro-creation of children”. Think about it logically. It could just as well mean have as much sex as you like, but once you plan children and a family you must choose a partner and settle down. Which is more or less what most African cultures did do – before Christianity and Islam interfered.
But in reality the problem lies much deeper. If Matthew chapter 19 of the Bible has been misinterpreted for 2000 years – what does that do to the theory of “the infallibility of the Pope”?
I knew he was in Cameroon and Angola…when was it he visited your bedroom? Was he in his pope-mobile?
South Africa, has had the wide distribution of condoms for many years. So the question arises, how can there be so many new cases of HIV here very day?
At least all the masses that die in agony will be in heaven or nirvana or wherever they go when they are dead. We will burn baby…
This is the boldest and most unashamedly realistic piece of writing in the days of religious zealots. Well written Grant, watch out for the religious thought police who still believe gay people should be sent to camps to “rehabilitation” camps. They are going to be promising eternal damnation for actually thinking for yourself instead of letting geriatric German do it for you.
Very powerful and very relevant. Bravo!
Bravo Grant.
It’s just centuries of Papal Bull!
Could the true God be using the Catholic Church to preach “His” message? “By their works you will recognize false prophets” Matt 7:19,20.
Enough said.
@Lobengula – because lots of people are not using them – just like the Pope advocates…
People have been distributing condoms on a massive scale in SA since about 1990 when the HIV prevalence rate was less than 1%. After 18 years of massive condom distribution, what has been the result? You can hardly claim condom distribution in SA has been a success in terms of AIDS prevention. The Pope is only saying what should be obvious to anyone with eyes to see and brains to think — this ain’t working. It hasn’t worked in SA, hasn’t worked in Zimbabwe, hasn’t worked in Swaziland, and really doesn’t work in the United States. The City of Washington, which has been pushing condoms massively since 1985, recently announced it has a 3% HIV prevalence, the highest of any place in the USA. How can anyone look at the record and claim that doing more of a failed strategy will solve the problem.
And who uses condoms “correctly”? If requires the man withdraw as soon as he ejaculates. The US CDC says this has to be done “immediately.” If that you idea of love-making? Nobody does that. Correct and consistent condom use has proven itself to be a fantasy.
Bravo on an excellent article.
Its time people stood up to the folly that is religion.
Lobengula
Why so many new cases of Aids? I listened to an expert on the radio and I believed her explanation. Children have no hope – no future, no jobs, so they have no reason to live and are dicing with death.
Every Root Cause Analysis 101 rudimentary and Fundamental Law 101 rule might been broken here.
I love it. I have forwarded this piece to my extensive Catholic priest network but will not be held responsible for the stampede that may (may not) ensue.
Entertaining writing writing, as usual, Grant.
Mr Walliser
How about reading what Professor Edward C.Green at Harvard had to say about the matter.Professor Greene had an article in the New York Times on 1st March.He is the expert and he agrees with the Pope so stop knocking the Pope just for the sake of knocking the Pope or the Catholic Church for that matter
Christine Mallett
Lobengula…do yourself a favour and attend a workshop with high-school kids regarding sex education and HIV. Most of them are sexually active, like every weekend they getting down to the nasty. And them sixteen to 18year olds will tell you that its much better skin-to-skin, try convincing them otherwise. They’ll just ask you if you use a condom with your wife and how come you have kids and you’re preaching to them about using condoms.
its a tough world out there, especially since most parents don’t have “real” discussions with their kids wrt to sex and relationships. If you tell a kid “not” todo something, he’ll try and find out whats so bad with it.
Grant perhaps the Pope could be right based on facts. Dr Edward Green of AIDS Prevention Research Project at Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies said last week that despite AIDS activists and media outlets pounding the pope for downplaying the effectiveness of condoms, the science actually supports the Catholic leaders claim. “The Pope is correct” Green told NRO “or put it a better way, the best evidence we have supports the pope’s comments.” Check out the article in Worldnetdaily – ‘Guess who says the pope was right about condoms, AIDS’.
In practice (not fine clever words) Uganda is way above any other African country in turning back the scourge of AIDS and according to Science Magazine, teaching about AIDS and promoting monogamy has led to a dramatic turnaround in the country’s AIDS epidemic. Compare this to Botswana’s anti AIDS effort, focussing on condoms for all and to date is a dismal failure.
So Grant before you do a long rant try to get all the facts plus a bit on both sides and then write a shorter more balanced article and try not to be so PC, that is for Yuppie social butterflys and weak politicians not serious social comentators trying to save SA from AIDS.
Giving everyone condoms may or may not stop AIDS (you would need to be in everyones bedroom checking up that they used a condom) but sensible monogamy will definitely curb the scourge.
Brent christain but not Catholic
@Christine,
Is Professor Edward C. Green Catholic by any chance?!
Regardless, there are far more experts who disagree with the Pope.
Condoms won’t solve the HIV/Aids crisis on their own. They are one weapon in an arsenal of weapons used to fight the disease including education and ARV’s.
We ask how the rate of infection can be so high after years of distributing condoms? I shudder to think what it otherwise would have been if condoms were note being distributed in the fight against Aids.
A-fricking-men
There you go again with your anti-catholic vitriol, setting up strawmen, mislabeling, misquoting, grandstanding and bravado. You really do hate Catholics, don’t you—notwithstanding your assurance last year that you have Catholic family and friends. (Some of my best friends are engineers.)
Readers who are interested in an alternative view of the matter, try:
http://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/20090325_1.htm
Grant—don’t waste bandwidth going there. It is unlikely to change your mind. Just cling to your belief that Catholics are a bunch of simplistic fools led my a rather deluded old man.
Grant I liked your article for a number of reasons. I am a Christian (not a Catholic) and your article really highlighted the fact that man-made religious institutions such as the Catholic church should not have any say over how we should conduct our lives. For me the Bible is the ultimate reference and just because the pope and his henchmen feel a certain way should not influence people. Its kind of like taking out the middleman to get a better deal, cut him out and go straight to the Source…
Wonderful piece Grant….
@Jean – “They are one weapon in an arsenal”
Careful with those metaphors
Christine,Brent, Yuki
The Pope’s attitude to condoms has NOTHING to do with Aids. It has to do with not allowing birth control and predates Aids by 2000 years.
Do you want to explain to me what biblical verses this belief of the Catholic Church is derived from?
@ Brett: wasn’t the Bible itself written by middlemen?
Great to see a strong atheist position in our religion dominated country. Extra points for referring to Hitchens. Full agreement about the mystery of South Africans love for Christianity, the worst of all Europe’s colonial exports to Africa.
The Catholic church coming down on the wrong side of history is hardly novel, is it.
As to condom distribution not achieving anything for South Africa? The numbers of condoms distributed look large, but people don’t require one condom a month. Hundreds of millions need to be distributed every year to make a difference. Khayalitsha in Cape Town recently began approaching their distribution targets and new sexually transmitted infections there (a proven risk factor for HIV transmission) have been slashed over the period.
Bravo Grant, take a bow!
As you rightly point out, infidelity is just one of the flaws that Eve passed on to us by exercising her dvine right to eating that fruit. If you believe this story (read: if you believe the Pope’s dangerous rhetoric), then I put it to you that regardless of anything that the good lord says human being’s are destined to make mistakes. We live in sin and will all inevitably die having violated our fair share of the lord’s stringent law’s.
So the question of whether we should use condom’s or not is irrelevant, we all have a choice but every cultural and relligious body should endeavour to encourage people to do what is right for them. People should not be chastised for using condoms because if you’re the type who is going to succumb to your carnal urges then its best that you use them. If you intend to abstain (lonely word that, abstinence) then continue not to have sex. That in essence is what the Pope and all his pompous, self righteous followers and cronies should be saying!
We dont live in the moralistic vacuum that exists within the Pope’s ears, we live in a dirty, dishonest & unfaithful world. As long as religious people at large insist on pretending that this is not true we will continue to observe the paradoxical situation of greater awareness and distribution of condoms and higher infection rates.
I think the Pope is smoking something he shouldn’t be or he’s a racist (Because I’m Black!)! I don’t judge church going people, but sometimes they think that the bible can solve all the ills oof this world. Given a choice between AIDS (Condom) and Bible (NO-Condom), I’ll follow the scientifically proven choice. To Catholics, the pope is wrong.
By the way, Great article dude.
I agree with Alan: “Great to see a strong atheist position in our religion dominated country. Extra points for referring to Hitchens.” Thank you Grant.
Though I think Alan’s comment that Christianity is “the worst of all Europe’s colonial exports to Africa” is both wrong & simplistic, it would be interesting to speculate what the reason is for South African’s love for Christianity,
Mags
A bit of a toss up between Europe’s export of Christianity to Southern Africa in their colonial period; and Arabia’s export of Islam to Northern Africa in their colonial period. Female Genital Mutilation is no joke, nor stonings to death of women who claim to have been raped.
Lyndall,
Whether its Christianity from Europe or Islam from Arabia the common denominator in these problems is religion.
Religion has always controlled people with twisted circular logic: if I rally people around generally true things (e.g: love & faithfulness are good; killing is bad; community work helps against suffering; people with more ought to give to people with less, we have spiritual needs etc.etc.) then I own that truth and therefore everything I claim must be true.Therefore I am in charge. God must have made it so because, well, it is so,and as we know God is the man.So if you don’t listen to me, you disobey God. And that you must fear.
I think a main reason for the contradiction (vis a vis Africa, out with colonialism, in with religion, above) is that the day to day truths ring true for the common man and simultaneously the power opportunity is too tempting for the ones who want control. Or, to be fair, perhaps see a need for control, given that not everyone can think for themselves & one wants to avoid anarchy. Then of course the ‘athiest prevalence’ (I prefer agnostic) comes down to what people are really thinking at home but don’t want to rock the boat – back to all the true stuff that’s at the bottom of it in the first place and happy families. It’s a conundrum. Can we afford a vacuum at this point for the sake of accuracy? It would be an interesting experiment.
Now Catholics Bishops are telling their sheep to avoid Reiki because it is incompatible with Catholic doctrine, is superstitious (as if their beliefs aren’t!) and funniest of all because its not SCIENTIFIC…!
This would be funny if it wasn’t so harmful. What a racket.
http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-03-31-catholic-bishops-in-us-ban-japanese-reiki
An insightful novel on the arrival of Christianity in Africa and its corrosive influence on tribal values is “Things fall apart” by Achebe. As far as I remember (I read it a long time ago) the slaves accepted Christianity first.
Grant, you choose 80-90% safer sex. Congratulations!
LOL…
Tina, assuming thats what it is, I’d rather have 80-90% safer sex then NO sex.
Thats just ‘unnatural.’
Hey Jean and Grant.
Welcome back
Haven’t heard from you lot for a while.
Nothing else interesting to say, apart from trying to bash religion. So I suppose a new anti-Catholic blog is called for.Always a good technique when readership is getting a bit down. Start an anti-Catholic pogrom
It must p you all off that the Pope is so influential whereas old Christopher whatshis name has already been consigned to last year’s best seller list along with the Da Vinci Code.
@Christine,
Is Professor Edward C. Green Catholic by any chance?!
Regardless, there are far more experts who disagree with the Pope.
Condoms won’t solve the HIV/Aids crisis on their own. They are one weapon in an arsenal of weapons used to fight the disease including education and ARV’s.
We ask how the rate of infection can be so high after years of distributing condoms? I shudder to think what it otherwise would have been if condoms were note being distributed in the fight against Aids.
Jean that is the kind of impeccable logic that we have come to expect from you lot. Condoms have been handed out and have not worked. Your answer is well hand out more. Who is more ideologically driven you or the Pope I would like to ask. You and Grant are born again atheists and want to push that belief. You like Grant are not really interested in AIDS or condoms. This blog is just an excuse to try and attack the Catholic Church. As for Grant quoting Christopher Hitchens, a man who supported the invasion of Iraq I must point out, well he was asked to be the devil’s advocate in the beatification of Mother Teresa. So the biased bigoted Vatican actually asked him to come and sya why Mother Teresa was not a Saint. That sounds pretty unbiased to me.
Professor Edward C Green is a self described liberal agnostic. Go Google him!
Afronooit
You say “You and Grant are born again atheists and want to push that belief.”
Atheism is not a belief . Atheism has to be seen from the point of view of the believer as the non-belief in whatever religion that believer subscribes to. If you’re a Christian then non-Christians would be atheists; if you’re a Muslim then non-Muslims would be considered atheists and so on. There are thousands of religions so everyone, whether you have faith or not, is an atheist.
Oh Mags how simplistic.
Atheism especially the current variety has all the trappings of a cult.
There are the enlightened ones Dawkins and Hitchens.
There is teh need to proselytize.
There is anger at the unbelievers who continue to believe
On Mr Dawkins website there is a shop where you can buy an atheist T shirt and mug
Dawkins claims that most scientists are not religious. Has he doe a survey.
No he just asserts it. Maybe it is a revealed truth.
Atheists are cleverer than religious people.
Once again no evidence just assertions.
You atheists beleive that you do not believe in anything.
How quaint.
Grant
You look familiar. I just cannot place you. I would presume you were at Wits in the late 1980′s. Perhaps I saw you at Cathsoc. I cannot be sure but you look familiar
I hate your 250 limit – is it new?
I feel embarrassed coming so late to this debate.
The ridiculous, childish and profoundly conceited concepts of all religions are demonstrated in this exchange.
I would like to start a website for intelligent people who can sit and think objectively for more than 15 seconds, called something like Atheism for Human Salvation.
Religious superstition (because that is all it is) has crippled the development of the human intellect for over 3000 years.
The idea that the universe was created for our one species by some super-being would challenge the intelligence of a 10 year old (not brainwashed by his/her parents.)
What Man needs to learn in order to develop, is how to live without being the apple of some supreme being’s eye. This is not easy, but many times more noble & appropriate than being the servants of some invisible but clearly absent entity, about which the religious witchdoctors (including,especially the Pope) can spin some placatory garbage, e.g. ‘god works in strange ways’ – (i.e no ways at all)
Please reply to waudits@cinet.co.za if you have anything constructive to contribute. (Religious victims’ opinions are most welcome as fodder for our derision.)
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OOPS! SORRY! I fell asleep reading this inane drivel and my head hit the keyboard! YAWN!
Badly reasoned and fallaciously argued. Firstly, Grant, you don’t strike me as a Catholic, whether nominal or non-practising. Therefore, the Pope is not really in your bedroom dude. Secondly, what he has to say about condoms has to be put into context. It is not “No condoms!” the end, roll credits. What about “Abstain from sex until you are married, and then be faithful to your spouse”? Oh wait! That seems to be two things that people are incapable of doing these days (and men seem to be the worst at the “be faithful” part, by the way. I wonder why that is). Abstaining from sex is the ONLY 100% sure-fire way of not contracting HIV and avoiding unwanted pregnancy. But I forget! You are also a believer in the ridiculous “abstinence goes against our biology” argument, because we are all “just animals.” Yawn! More fallacy (if you’ll excuse the pun). Sex is not a biological imperative like eating and drinking. You also pose the question: what does a celibate old man know about sex? Uhm, what does a brain surgeon know about brain surgery unless he has had brain surgery performed on him? Exactly the same argument dude! Come on!
And I could carry on and on tearing apart your fallacious arguments, but YAWN! why bother? Catholic bashing through the medium of inane drivel is obviously your hobby horse.
John – for someone who supposedly slept through the article, you seem to have lots to say about it.
You cry illogic and fallacy yet you can’t point out why with anything coming closed to a refined and coherant argument. I give you a B for language use, which I quite enjoyed, and an F for argument which was frankly poopy.
Sex is a biological urge just like eating and drinking. Sexual urge and hunger can both be denied but to deny them is not natural for the human animal. While I agree that denying hunger is more immediately dangerous than denying sex, both have repercussions. The problem with denying sex is that those repercussions are more subtle. Denying sex leads to behavioural changes, inner unhappiness, depression and I could go on but I really don’t want to bore you again do I.
The end result of the feelings of self worth and mating security that are denied to the human animal not getting laid manifests in our behaviour. A stereotypical priest fiddling with a little boy is a great example for you to ruminate over.
There are two sides to your brain surgeon argument – the one giving and the one receiving the surgery. A brain surgeon knows everything about the giving of brain surgery and perhaps not nearly as much about how it actually feels to get the surgery. The patient, whether a brain surgeon or not, knows everything about what brain surgery is like to receive. The problem…
with your analogy is that either you need a brain that has been chopped up or you need to have fiddled extensively with brains to contribute to the argument.
The Pope is trying to perform brain surgery without the in depth knowledge of a surgeon OR the knowledge of the patient. To follow the analogy, he basically has no brain. He neither knows what it is like to have sex nor does he therefore realise the dynamics involved at an academic level in the prevention of STD’s. He has not passed grade 1 on sex and yet he is trying to lecture at university. Only an idiot would listen to what he has to say and believe him.
History has shown us that abstinence is not an option. There are, granted, a few responsible souls who can comply and a few that really believe that if they don’t, lightning will strike them down and they will burn. They are the oppressed minority of the world’s population. The rest of us understand that sex will happen whether you like it or not. When it does, we want condoms nearby so that the people involved keep it clean and control disease and unwanted pregnancy.
A world in which everyone dutifully behaves, goes to church on Sunday and never fucks around is a Papal wet dream conceived in the grade 1 classroom of sex ed. It is ultimate control of the flock and will never happen since we are not sheep.
“One could also argue that many Muslim states have similar draconian rules and laws pertaining to sexual relations. Woman in many parts of the Middle East are wrapped up so tight that an ankle flashed in error is enough to get you into real trouble.”
This, from someone who thought little of dredging up a rape victim’s sexual history to blame her for being sexually attacked?
http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/grantwalliser/2009/11/03/kangaroo-courts-part-1-the-polanski-case/
“3. The girl had had sex more than once prior to the incident with Polanski (she stated twice). It is not clear with whom and under what circumstances.”
Somehow I can’t really take seriously your plea that other people stay out of your bedroom, when you think it is your right to invade other people’s.