Hobby Lobby SCOTUS ruling

[redbreegull]

today I found out that male leftism is an ideology

[pavementtune]

Originally Posted by duovamp

obvious trolling from Charmy and TOC every fucking time they post.

Since when is charms a troll? Or TOC. I'm not good at spotting trolls, I really think both are mostly serious.

. We have enough food and space to provide for the people of the world several times over.

3 times the current world population would fuck the environment so badly that you can say goodbye to breathing without a mask.
As it is over 700 million people don't have access to clean water. Hurray, let's have 7 babbies each! Much better than using birth control. Because ancient christianity said so.
We'd be fucked without the plague already.

[null123]

I'm deadass

[juliana]

I like how exploding boy or whatever his name is read only the first sentence of my 2-3 sentence post and then made a comment.

[Bread Regal]

you two were made for eachother

[juliana]

I don't think charmbag was saying anything troll like.

I don't really agree with the whole men care about women's issues because it helps them out. I do think that some men have sold women that sexual freedom is the ultimate feminism, it happens in the porn industry or whatever.

However, I do agree that sex isn't respected as it should be. And I understand the argument that maybe without birth control there would be more respect for the act because it held more severe consequences.

I find in my life, the casualness of sex these days has really ruined romance. Call me old fashioned but I would like to form a friendship before I am comfortable to fuck but I have found that I am ridiculed by men for thinking this way.

Maybe I have bad luck with dudes, but I see it as a cultural shift. Has it all become fast food sex & fast food people?

[redbreegull]

We have enough food and space to provide for the people of the world several times over.

I actually looked up the physical space thing recently because I made this argument to someone. If space were evenly distributed to all human beings, everyone would have plenty of room! Actually no, it turns out that is not correct once your factor in the enormous amount of land on Earth which cannot sustain humans i.e. mountains, deserts, etc., each of the 7 billion of us would have a tiny amount of space

[Trotskilicious]

Originally Posted by Charmbag

Also please spare me your tears you've called me a cunt and a "mean lesbian" over the years, let's not do this.

i was very wrong

[Trotskilicious]

Originally Posted by juliana

I find in my life, the casualness of sex these days has really ruined romance. Call me old fashioned but I would like to form a friendship before I am comfortable to fuck but I have found that I am ridiculed by men for thinking this way.

Maybe I have bad luck with dudes, but I see it as a cultural shift. Has it all become fast food sex & fast food people?

in my experience i've had the exact same pressure from women

[Trotskilicious]

sometimes i think it's this pressure that both genders do to themselves & each other like it's some kind of delusion of a social norm created by popular culture

SEX
OOOH
BEER
FUN
LOUD
FUN
SEX
BEER
LIQUOR
OMG
LOL
FUN

[reprise85]

Originally Posted by Charmbag

I'm going to preface this by saying that you asked for my opinion, so I'm not going to write a thoroughly referenced article covering the breadth of topics that inform such a huge subject and this is going to be a hopelessly insufficient explanation but, sorry. I think the Catholic (and Orthodox) view of sexuality is the most humane, healthy and elegant idea imaginable. I'm not going to pretend that it's not somewhat exotic to me still, because I come from the same culture as you all. But I have come to believe this is the right way to be.

I think the biggest issue I have with this position is the inherent moral superiority that it conveys. You obviously believe in universal moral principles more than I do, and believe that sex only for procreation or as some kind of relationship enhancer is the only way it is justifiable. But many people do not agree, and saying that one way is the right way to be for all of the people on the earth really just blows my mind. It may be a healthy and elegant way to be or aspire to, but I'd argue that it is not humane. This coming from someone who is not sexually active and would definitely only be if it was in the context of a relationship/"relationship enhancement" - but just because I want to enhance my relationship with a partner doesn't/shouldn't mean I am ready to have a child or even ever want to.

Reprise, you write that sex is fun, but I know you must also understand that there are many more dimensions to sex than just entertainment. There is a reason it has to be regarded with more gravity than going to Six Flags. Like all human appetites, sex has to be tempered or it becomes unhealthy. It should be understood relative to its purpose, just like when food becomes too divorced from its primary function as fuel for the body, it causes physical and psychological problems. Sex can become excessive just like eating or drinking, but because it is so fundamentally social in nature I believe it is even more destructive when out of balance.

You also speak of the naturalness of sex and question why people should "be denied" it. I agree sex is natural, but if naturalness is your concern, why do you endorse a practice that untethers it from its equally natural counterpart ie children? How can we expect that such a change would not have a profound impact on society? I'm also not advocating that people be denied sex, I am saying people should have sex when it is actually appropriate to do so. However, going without sex is a perfectly okay way to be as well, and can free people up to focus on other things. This is why some people choose to live celibate lives. People are not entitled to sex, surely you must agree. To me that is the mentality of rapists, but it is a common attitude in our society today.

No one is entitled to sex from another person, of course not. But when two parties want to have sex, that has nothing to do with entitlement. People have been having sex at inopportune times forever. People have alternate forms of sex when that is their preference. Are you saying all alternate forms of sex are immoral, because they don't result in possible childbirth and are therefore unnatural and divorced from the natural consequences of spilling sperm inside of a female's body?

The modern world is completely divorced from natural consequences for many, many things. We don't die from small wounds getting infected in general. In the past we had to chop off people's arms when they got infected. Now we use medicines, some of them completely synthetic. Because we are altering the course of natural death, is that an affront to morality? Why is this standard different for controlling birth? Controlling life and controlling death in this way are morally equivalent, imo.

To get into specifics, I'm gonna refer specifically to the Catholic byline on this issue. Catholics believe that sex has two purposes, the first being procreation, the second being the forming and deepening of the emotional bond between a couple. Catholics are asked to engage in sex only if they are "open to the possibility of forming new life", even if infertility etc would make such a possibility very unlikely. Natural Family Planning is approved by the church, but when you think about it it works out because it simply reinforces the importance of self-control and moderation when it comes to sex. If you want to know more details about this type of thing, it's an easy one to quickly Google for.

But look, basically you are saying that sex is okay as long as you don't take birth control and are open to forming new life, but natural family planning is attempting to control conception in the same way any other kind of birth control is, it's just not as good at it. So if the sin is in attempting to control the natural consequences of sex, I don't see the difference. You can argue about BC being unhealthy and of course it can't be good to trick your body into thinking you're pregnant all the time. However, morally, I don't see how these two methods are really any different besides pills or procedures being "unnatural".

We live in a time when people compartmentalize sex as much as possible so that we can all indulge in it as much as possible. The consequences of this can be seen in the breakdown of families, the proliferation of pornography, countless unwanted pregnancies (and the ensuing psychological effect this has on women), the further atomization of every human being in our society, greater power in the hands of capitalists who now also own women as a class of workers (not fully possible before widespread use of birth control and abortion) and who have successfully devalued the family to a status below personal success and """freedom""". This is a great way to demoralize and destabilize entire nations. The view of women as sex dispensers used to be limited to prostitutes, now we are all caught up in it. Gender roles in general are in flux, but for women and girls this has mostly meant a self-concept centered on satisfying men's now shameless, uninhibited sexual impulses. Older women used to have a place in culture as mothers and grandmothers, now they are some of the most invisible, dehumanized and trivialized members of society. I could go on and on.

I agree that the proliferation of degrading pornography on the internet is alarming.

We might just disagree about this, but I don't think society is any different than it has always been. People have been having sex for fun for ever. People have been subjugating each other forever. Women have always been treated like shit on a macro-level (outside of their families). Children have always been "more immoral" than their parent's generation, and the world is always going to shit according to the elders of any period of time, etc etc. That's the human story and it will always and has always been the same since societies have existed. I personally, and I know most people would disagree with this, don't see family as the obvious highest moral imperative. But I look around and, despite what society shows as success and personal freedom being the most important thing, everyone I know is having babies. Same as it ever was. I would say women who choose not to have babies are looked at as outcasts more than women who are all about their families.

I'm not interested in debating this per se because believe me, I know that everyone disagrees. If you want me to elaborate on some points I will though, I realize this might not explain much.

Charmbag, I have no hostility towards your views but I do think they are unnecessarily and arbitrarily specific in a way that is exclusionary and more harmful than you realize. I don't think the state of sexuality in our society is anywhere near ideal but I also don't know what ideal would even look like besides "have sex if you want to and can do so safely and don't if you don't want to".

[null123]

Yeah, we just have really different worldviews so we'd be here all day trying to bridge the gap.

[Trotskilicious]

ah you ruined it

whatever

ASTEROID IMPACT CAN'T WAIT HERE WE GO

[null123]

?

[Trotskilicious]

i was impressed with reprises counterpoint and i wished to express it with a gif from the movie Friday

[null123]

I mean shit, do you wanna see a back-and-forth multiquote megathread? I dunao mannnnnnnnnnnnnnn

[reprise85]

it's cool

i've been working all day and my brain is kind of fried anyway and i dont have the kind of chunks of time like i used to to get into a thread with someone else for a few hours.

[reprise85]

also tmi, my period won't stop and it's been like 2-3 weeks and im starting to go insane. yes i know i need to go to a doctor.

[null123]

They'll prob tell you to go on birth control

[juliana]

Originally Posted by reprise85

also tmi, my period won't stop and it's been like 2-3 weeks and im starting to go insane. yes i know i need to go to a doctor.

What the fuck! Does this happen every month?

[reprise85]

This is the first time it's ever happened.

I don't want to go on birth control mostly because I don't want to worry about yet another medication causing complications. I'll try other things. Mostly I just want to know it's just stress and not cancer or something.

[juliana]

That is serious shit! Go to the doctor tomorrow.

[reprise85]

I was thinking I was a bit late but I'm not sure, I was prob 1-2 weeks late and now it won't fucking stop.

[reprise85]

I can't get an appointment with an OBGYN tomorrow unless I go to emergency and I'm not doing that.

I'm going to call my regular doctor on Monday and either go there or have her give me somebody and try to get an appointment in the next few days.

[juliana]

Good plan. Hope it is all cool and no major probs.

[reprise85]

Thanks

I mean either it's some kind of benign hormone thing/stress in which case it's not dangerous

or it's a cyst or something fairly harmless.

or it's something serious and two days isn't going to make a difference in getting a diagnosis

right?

i'm not in pain

[reprise85]

God damn I hate doctors.

It's not exams, or the doctors themselves, it's having to explain all of my conditions and feeling like a freakshow and/or hypochondriac since there are so many.

hypothyroid
asthma
eczema
foot problems
tachycardia/blood pressure issues
depression
ptsd
ibs/gerd

fucking shoot me

[Trotskilicious]

Originally Posted by Charmbag

They'll prob tell you to go on birth control

my friend's sisters cousin's friend wouldn't be able to work without the miracle of birth control

[juliana]

Originally Posted by reprise85

Thanks

I mean either it's some kind of benign hormone thing/stress in which case it's not dangerous

or it's a cyst or something fairly harmless.

or it's something serious and two days isn't going to make a difference in getting a diagnosis

right?

i'm not in pain

Ya you will be okay, it is best to go through your doctor, you don't need the ER.

Originally Posted by reprise85

God damn I hate doctors.

It's not exams, or the doctors themselves, it's having to explain all of my conditions and feeling like a freakshow and/or hypochondriac since there are so many.

hypothyroid
asthma
eczema
foot problems
tachycardia/blood pressure issues
depression
ptsd
ibs/gerd

fucking shoot me

I am sure they hear war worse everday. Going to the doctor is upsetting to me too. My doctor is really good but she can be a little bit upsetting.

[null123]

I do kinda have the itch to make a couple points though

- Catholic teaching on contraception has to do with affirming the value of life. You'll find that Catholics also are very against assisted suicide. It's not an anti-technology or anti-medicine thing. Birth control is even condemned in the Bible, and was certainly condemned in the early Church. It's not a question of changing times.
- If you feel like "everyone is having babies" you still need to consider the numbers and realize fertility has been on the decline for 100 years. Relative to the rest of the world, affluent Western women don't have many children.
- Why do you believe children are always more immoral than their parents? As far as I can tell this is a completely ahistorical view of humanity, it at best covers the trends of post-war America.
- Your sense that "this is just how things always are" seems very cynical and passive to me. There has obviously been a ton of change in our society as far as children born out of wedlock, divorce, abortion, prostitution etc etc. Those things matter, and it has NOT always been this way.
- To give some specific perspective on the cultural impact of birth control, look at the midcentury decline of the Catholic Church. Many people misattribute the decrease in membership and devotion to Vatican II (which attempted to modernize the church, introduced the vernacular liturgy etc), but in fact the big blow was when Pope Paul VI delivered his encyclical officially condemning the use of birth control in 1968 that people started leaving in droves, and even much of the clergy did not support the Pope during this time. There had already been a trickle of dissent though from around the time protestant churches flipped on the issue about 30 years prior.