Unless she crawls through your window and sexually assaults you, she’s not doing that.
Well, too bad for you. That’s free speech in action. As far as I’m concerned we need less prudishness not more in our media. I’m tired of people panicking over the flash of a nipple.
I doubt many have such low standards; and if they do too bad. That’s not your business. Jealous?
Well, it is and hopefully will continue to be. It’s better for people to have sex before a more permanent commitment; they have some idea of each other’s needs and wants.
Well, too bad; that’s a self inflicted problem. If you don’t give a woman what she wants, she’s free to leave whether you like it or not. And however much it offends your view of women, like it or not they generally want sex and have always wanted sex. And now, they can actually admit it and do something about it, which is better than the good old days of lies and self hatred.
And I feel that every time a woman chooses an abortion she makes the world a bit better, by not bringing an unwanted child into the world. Why should your view trump mine? Much less that of the women in question? Why should you be allowed to punish and degrade them?
As for the other matters in the thread, I’m trying to remember the definition of Puritanism. The dreadful fear that someone, somewhere, is having fun? Something like that.
I just fail to understand how a self-proclaimed libertarian could be so bothered by sex out of wedlock that they oppose it even in the hypothetical in which there is a 100% effective contraceptive. Isn’t that like the exact opposite of libertarianism?
I did say that there were more issues at stake than overpopulation.
It does prevent pregnancy. But not to the effect that the general population believes.
Given the current attitudes towards sex you are right. Our planet has difficulty supporting 6 billion people. How is it going to fare supporting 12 billion? So the only thing that can save us is a global change in our attitude towards sex.
That may or may not be true but it doesn’t negate the fact that 8,000,000 couples having protected sex can still result in at least a quarter million unplanned pregnancies.
Again this is immaterial and in a way a red herring. 8,000,000 couples having protected sex can still result in at least a quarter million unplanned pregnancies.
Yet again, immaterial. 8,000,000 couples having protected sex can still result in at least a quarter million unplanned pregnancies.
Key word: almost.
Perhaps the first thing we should do is provide access to birth control, but surely the second thing is to recognize that those birth control methods aren’t 100%.
I addressed this in the discussion. The problem is the attitude we have towards sex. The problem isn’t the program, it’s the audience.
None of those do anything but drag a red herring across my path to distract the issue that I am raising.
These arguments that abstinence only programs fail are a smokescreen to the fact that abstinence is largely ignored in sex education. The majority of sex ed is pro-contraceptive and it always glosses over the idea of being abstinent. The educators will begin, “obviously refraining from sex is the best option but let’s spend the next week talking about contraceptives.” Abstinence is not highlighted as an option. It’s practically ignored and teaching kids about contraceptives is almost a lesson on HOW to have sex and the way it is taught encourages the idea that contraceptives are practically fullproof. Even if we know that it’s not, educators don’t seem to talk about just how INEFFECTIVE contraceptives really are. And that is my entire point here.
I usually use the word “couple” when I have these sorts of discussions. I know people on this board tend to get caught up in semantics so I decided that “woman” would prevent that. I chose woman over man because women get pregnant and men don’t. It’s a lot easier to quantify the sexual lifestyle of women since there are statistics about pregnancy, abortion, and childbirth. I didn’t realize that by using the word “woman” I neglected to include men in the OP. That was a mistake and I do recognize that sexual responsibility is equally important for both genders.
IF they believed that they were protected because of contraceptives and were promiscuous then they should be punished (by carrying the child to term) because they denied their responsibility when they had sex. Yes, the man is a part of that too so he should be required to help support the child, that is unless they decide to give the child up for adoption. That is of course the best solution to all of this. There are a lot of men and women waiting to adopt babies today.
Nonsense. The people contributing the most to that increase are the people who have the very attitude that you want them to have. And as a result, women are treated as breeding animals instead of people.
Garbage again. Abstinence gets pushed all the time, and the result is a HIGHER rate of pregnancies where it is. Teaching abstinence DOES NOT WORK.
And no one is claiming that contraceptives are foolproof. They are however quite effective, and encouraging their use far more effective than teaching abstinence. Which is social destructive and emotionally crippling, as well as useless.
I’m not talking to you about this misguided attitude you have of Christians anymore. You’ve already told us that you have a chip on your shoulder. That effectively ruins your place in this argument. You can’t have an open mind. I actually can. I’m not really going into abortion in this thread. In fact I’m trying to avoid it because I don’t want this to become an abortion debate.
No, abstinence ONLY is taught all the time. And contraceptive mainly is taught all the time. But abstinence HIGHLIGHTED while educating about contraceptives is NOT taught.
I’ve already stated that I support teaching contraceptives, but not ONLY contraceptives. The educators, just as you glossed over my point, gloss over the fact that abstinence is more effective than any contraceptive.
And thanks for demonstrating my point that when you get past all the noble sounding rhetoric, anti-abortion people just look at the “unborn” as a weapon to use on women. As a club you can use to punish “sluts” with.
Again, garbage. There already are more children who need adoption than there are eligible adoptive parents. Forcing vast numbers more unwanted children into the world won’t improve that.
And forcing a woman to carry and birth a child is NOT “the best solution”; it’s utterly evil. You might as well be agitating for government enforced rape; it’s the moral equivalent of what you want to do. What you want is worse, if anything; it lasts longer.
And I didn’t say a thing about Christians, or even religion. I pointed out that the people who have the attitude you want are the ones producing most of the children. And I wasn’t even the first to point that out. Treating sex as only being about having children shockingly does not produce fewer children.
But it’s not, because*** people won’t do it***. Not now, not in the past, not in the future barring mind control.
Yah well I hate to break it to you folks, but there is always the as-yet-unmentioned IUD:
Apparently there are better materials now available so that you don’t have to carry copper around in your ____, though I could be wrong. Combine it with condoms for STD protection and you’ve got a pretty mighty fortress.
And the whole ‘change attitudes about sex’ thing is rather undefined. What if the ‘attitude toward sex’ among the female community was, “What guy among us has not got off today?”, and this were accompanied by some polite way of educating them on how to give a proper handjob. You know, the non-pregnancy causing kind. Under the banner of fighting ignorance of course.
Would that be ok, or is the point really about abstaining from pleasure?
Actually SmartAlx, my premarital sexual escapades are completely safe from unwanted children. My gf and I use birth control. If that fails she would get an abortion. We’ve actually talked about this, and neither of wants children right now or has any moral qualms whatsoever about abortion.
You’ve ignored most of the evidence people have shown you which proves that the birthrate has decreased in Western nations since the sexual revolution. You’ve offered no proof that even if the world’s population were to increase as you fear that humanity would use up all the resources, or whatever you’re afraid of. After all, if things like nuclear energy or genetically modified crops can’t cope with larger populations, I suppose we could always feed the Irish to each other.
Finally, girls gone wild commercials don’t offend me. If girls want to show their breasts, I think that great. However, I did watch an episode of CSI Las Vegas that horribly offended me. The plot was so illogical, the acting so wooden, and the entertainment value so lacking that I considered it obscene. Should I not have to see CSI on my tv? No, I should change the channel and thank All Mighty Atheismo that we have freedom of expression in this country, even if people sometimes use it to make crappy tv or start threads about how they hate that other people are having premarital sex.
To continue this line of reasoning, wouldn’t there need to be a connection between low birth rates and societies that take a prudish view of sex, restricting or even criminalizing it before marriage, publicly shaming people who have sex before marriage and out-of-wedlock children? (Children and women killed in pregnancy or birth and infant mortality would of course have to be factored in.)
But Canada, the UK, France, Sweden – all countries with liberal views towards sexuality and admirable contraception and abortion access, as well as satellite and internet services for all the Girls Gone Wild and Sex and the City their citizens can stomach – rank past 150 in this list of countries by birth rate.
At the top? Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Afghanistan… All shining examples of countries mired in pro-sex propaganda and liberated women on the prowl.
OK, so can we agree that better education about contraception is a good first step? Since you don’t really seem to be proposing anything other than the nebulous, “change attitudes about sex”.
There must be better examples than these. You are glossing over the causes of the high sex rates in these countries: poverty and an oppressive view over women. Any examples of countries where the POPULATION decides that a less sexually active lifestyle is the right one for them?
150 Martinique ( France) 12.4
151 Cyprus 12.2
152 France (metropolitan) 12.2
153 United Kingdom 12.0
154 Norway 12.0
155 Luxembourg 11.5
156 Moldova 11.4
157 Sweden 11.3
158 Denmark 11.2
159 Finland 11.2
160 Netherlands 11.1
161 Barbados 11.0
162 Republic of Macedonia 10.9
163 Estonia 10.8
164 Georgia 10.8
165 Spain 10.8
166 Russia 10.7
167 Portugal 10.5
168 Belgium 10.4
169 Canada 10.3
170 Cuba 10.3
171 Slovakia 10.0
172 Malta 9.8
173 Romania 9.8
174 Poland 9.5
175 Channel Islands ( United Kingdom) 9.4
176 Belarus 9.4
177 Greece 9.3
178 Hungary 9.3
179 South Korea 9.3
180 Latvia 9.3
181 Austria 9.2
182 Czech Republic 9.2
183 Italy 9.2
184 Switzerland 9.2
185 Ukraine 9.2
186 Lithuania 9.1
187 Croatia 9.0
188 Slovenia 9.0
189 Bulgaria 8.9
190 Bosnia and Herzegovina 8.8
191 Japan 8.3
192 Germany 8.2
193 Singapore 8.2
194 Hong Kong ( People’s Republic of China) 7.6
195 Macau ( People’s Republic of China)
Perhaps there are some anomalies in there, countries where populations have lost the will the have sex completely or where consensual sex between adults is so restricted and taboo they abstain altogether. You’re welcome to come to your own conclusions, though if you don’t think your vague calls to change people’s views and responsibilities when it comes to sex aren’t squarely in line with many cultures that oppress women, you may want to come up with something more specific. You don’t need to spend much time studying history, recent and ancient, or other cultures to figure out that restricting reproduction and sexuality almost always falls on the female population, who suffer as a consequence.
Originally Posted by SecretaryofEvil View Post
You’ve ignored most of the evidence people have shown you which proves that the birthrate has decreased in Western nations since the sexual revolution.
SmartAlx
Qoute:
You haven’t read the whole thread. #1 We had a whole discussion on it. #2 This is a red herring so it does not belong in the discussion.
I did read the whole thread. Why is it a red herring? In the discussion it was noted that the unplanned children of sexually liberated people comprise a tiny fraction of the world’s population growth. How does being married produce less population growth?
SmartAlx
Quote:
Really? Do I need to? Seriously? Isn’t it already clear that the world’s resources are already strained?
Yes you do need to prove that. New advances in technology have enabled more people to have more resources than ever before. It is a popular opinion among historians that 14th century Europe before the Black Death was “overpopulated” in the sense that their were too many people and not enough resources. However Europe today has many, many more people than it did in the 14th century. Advances in farming, such as selective breeding, crop rotation, pesticides, and tractors, enable the world’s farmers to grow more food more efficiently. In addition, advances in transportation, freezing and refrigeration enable food to be shipped from farther away and stored longer. India suffered from several horrible famines in the late 19th century. While Indian still certainly has large poverty issues, there is not widespread starvation numbering in the millions even though there are far more Indians now than there were a century. What changed? Lots, but partially the recent implementation of high yield rice crops. And that’s just food. What about energy? Presumably one day oil and coal will run out, but we have nuclear energy, and maybe one day effective wind and or solar energy. So yes, you need some sort of evidence to back up your claim that there are going to be too many people on the planet.
Yes, but you do also keep banging the overpopulation drum. The fact is that less than 1% population growth is a reasonable number for a country of our size and resources.
Cite that the general population believes contraception to be 100% effective and fool proof, please.
Again with the overpopulation drum.
In terms of food production, there is plenty of food in the world to feed everybody (cite). The problems of hunger stem largely from issues of poverty and distribution. Producing the food is easy. Getting the food to isolated poor people is the problem. Heck, maybe having 12 billion people will make the supply chain easier.
Can is not the same as do.
You haven’t established that unplanned pregnancies are a problem. So who cares.
Bullshit. You’re argument is that widespread use of birth control and changing sexual practices has resulted in increased unplanned pregnancy, therefore we need to change our sexual practices back to those of earlier times. The evidence shows just the opposite - that current birth control usage has resulted in declining (albeit non-zero) amounts of unplanned pregnancies.
Therefore, if your goal is to reduce unplanned pregnancy, your solution of turning back the clock on sexual behavior would be counter productive.
And again - can is not the same as will; unplanned pregnancies have simple solutions.
Again, cite please that anyone thinks contraception is fool proof.
You’ve asserted that. You’ve not proved it or even decisively argued it.
Bullshit. If you’re going to argue that we should change our sexual behavior you have to demonstrate a) that our current sexual behavior is problematic and b) your proposed change would be an improvement. You’ve failed to do either.
Even if we accept your numbers for the sake of argument, you haven’t offered a convincing reason why unplanned pregnancies are problematic given that solutions are readily available or that a burgeoning overpopulation boom is ahead of us. Evidence is clear that our population growth is close to zero.
Secondly, evidence is clear that unplanned pregnancies have declined since the advent of hormonal birth control and the sexual revolution. Therefore there is no evidence that turning back the clock would result in fewer unplanned pregnancies.
First off, abstinence-only program have been in effect in various school systems for the last ten years or so (roughly). Two congressional studies and several independent studies have all confirmed that these programs have been useless. They haven’t prevented students from becoming sexually active and they haven’t lowered the incidence of teen pregnancy.
Secondly, while it’s true that all contraceptives have a failure rate, it’s also true that they are effective in preventing the vast majority of pregnancies. Again, even using your numbers, worst case scenario, contraceptives work. Again, since the advent of hormonal contraceptives, the number of unplanned pregnancies has declined. It’s absurd to look at the margin of error and ignore the overall positive impact.