Melinda Gates drew some nervous laughter at a recent TED-x presentation by bringing up the subject of sex in a discussion on contraception. She deserves our applause for doing so because, as clearly related as these subjects obviously are, we family planning specialists rarely put them together.
The purpose of contraception is to make it possible for couples to enjoy the pleasures of sex without the consequence of pregnancy. A lot of people -- and at least one Church -- disagree with this, and many of those folks oppose contraception. But the great majority of couples around the world today practice birth control, believe it is virtuous and healthy, and tell us that it improves their lives. Fully 61 percent of all couples in the world today are having sex and using one or another contraceptive method to avoid pregnancy.
The international family planning profession, of which I have been a member for more than 40 years, has always been nervous about sex. When I took my Masters' degree in family planning in 1969, we had courses in demography, epidemiology, reproductive physiology, and health administration. Sex was never mentioned. Even reproductive physiology was more about the corpus luteum than the clitoris. To this day you seldom read anything about sex in the family planning literature. The reason, I think, is that sex bothers people, especially good sex. We hear a lot about problems with sex (and there are many), but very little about good sex, very little about the quantum of pleasure in the world enjoyed by the two billion women and men (and same-sex couples) who regularly enjoy consensual sex. Is not such sex a good thing? Should not we family planners celebrate the fact that the contraceptives we provide make it possible for people to have more sex? Isn't more sex good?
This idea makes people antsy. Sex has a long, negative reputation in human history. The early Christians despised sex. Historian Reah Tannahill reminds us that "it was Augustine who epitomized a general feeling among the church fathers that the act of intercourse was fundamentally disgusting." A trend in this negative history has been men's fear of women's sexuality. Women were thought to steal men's vitality, to undermine their very sensibility. Remarking on Cleopatra's power over Mark Antony, Plutarch noted: "The unreined horse of concupiscence did put out of Antony's head all honest and commendable thoughts." Delilah's sexuality stole Samson's power. "His strength is useless against love," Delilah sings in the Saint-Saens opera. "He is my slave." "Down from the waist they are Centaurs," intones Shakespeare's King Lear, referring to women's genitalia. "Though women all above. But to the girdle do the gods inherit, beneath is all the fiends'." Eve Ensler's liberating play, The Vagina Monologues, makes note of this tradition. One character says, with maximum irony, "it's a cellar down there... You don't want to go down there. Trust me." And, of course, it's men's fear of women's (dangerous) sexual attraction that forces women to cover their bodies and faces in many Middle Eastern countries today.
Sex, thus, is controversial, and so is birth control. That being so, the family planners who oversee the hundreds of millions of dollars devoted to family planning around the world prefer to focus on women's health, an indisputable benefit of family planning. But we'd do a better job I think if we addressed the subject of sexual pleasure head-on. After all, sex without pregnancy is a powerful expression of love for many couples. It is an important bonding experience, linking two people physically as well as emotionally, bringing them as close to each other as it is possible for two people to be. For most of us, it is an important and fulfilling part of life.
There are some positive signs on the horizon. A brave band of concerned family planning and HIV/AIDs professionals has formed The Pleasure Project, which works tirelessly to remind conference goers and others that sexual pleasure is an important part of the equation. At one international conference, the Pleasure Project put up posters in the corridors, asking "Did you have sex with yourself last night?" And condom advertising especially has begun to enjoy a solid dose of sex in its marketing mix. Here are some examples. My own organization, DKT International, helped spearhead this. We linked up with the Pleasure Project and Condomania at the recent HIV/AIDS conference in Washington DC to "put the sexy back" in safer sex and condom use. How? One way is variety. DKT's project in Brazil, for example, includes condoms with colors and aromas (strawberry, chocolate, mint, tuti-fruti, banana, cola, and watermelon), condoms lubricated with mild anesthetic to delay ejaculation, extra large, anatomically shaped condoms, condoms lubricated to create a cool sensation and condoms lubricated to create an extra warm sensation, among others.
So let us celebrate. Sex is unquestionably necessary; why shouldn't we be pleased that it is also good?
Philip D. Harvey is president of DKT International, an international family planning organization.
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Notes: Tannahill: Sex in History, pp 138-48
Shakspeare's Plutarch (1875), p. 184.
Davinder Kumar: Lifting the Burden of HIV/AIDS
NFP is science-based and highly effective.
And there is no cost. NFP is free!!!
Must-read essays:
"The Truth About Natural Family Planning"
http://www.kofc.org/en/columbia/detail/2012_07_nfp.html
"The Benefits of Natural Family Planning"
http://allhands-ondeck.blogspot.com/2012/02/benefits-of-natural-family-planning.html
Check the essays out! You might be pleasantly surprised by what you find.
For, example most people do not know that the World Health Organization has classified contraceptives as carcinogens, in the same category as asbestos.
Details:
http://allhands-ondeck.blogspot.com/2012/03/dangers-of-contraceptives.html
http://allhands-ondeck.blogspot.com/2012/03/dangers-of-contraceptives-part-2.html
Isn't ironic that so many women on the left are worried about hormones being used in their beef and chicken, yet they are more than willing to pump harmful hormones into their own and other's bodies?
I hate when people see it as a bad thing. It's awesome when it's done safely. Other than that all bets are off so to speak.
The book: “Adam and Eve After the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution” by Mary Eberstadt. (Short video preview is here:
http://allhands-ondeck.blogspot.com/2012/04/video-trailer-adam-and-eve-after-pill.html)
Summary (OSV):
[Fifty years after the Pill, many are gravely concerned about its effects. Are women better off in our “post-liberation” world? Are families stronger, dignity more protected, and relationships healthier now that contraception is widely available?
Stanford researcher Mary Eberstadt provides a firm “no” in this important book. Her groundbreaking text draws on secular research from sociology, philosophy and culture to show how the Pill has been one of the most disastrous inventions in history. According to Eberstadt, “no single event since Eve first took the apple has been as consequential for relations between the sexes as the arrival of modern contraception.”
Eberstadt demonstrates that the increase in divorce, pornography and unhappiness, and the prevalence of abortion, date rapes, hookups and binge drinking all flow directly from the sexual revolution. She also shows how Pope Paul VI’s groundbreaking encyclical, Humanae Vitae ("Of Human Life"), has proved prophetic in its dark vision of a contraceptive culture.]
Review:
http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/some-in-congress-defending-contraception-mandate-ask-where-are-the-women-he
Eberstadt's essay -- "Has the Sexual Revolution Been Good for Women? No." :
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304724404577297422171909202.html
One cannot guarantee that one will not get pregnant. And, if a person does get pregnant in a circumstance where one is not ready to fully take on that
responsibility then he or she is being irresponsible.
All you have to do to see the fruits of your philosophy is to look out at our society and the impact of the sexual revolution – widespread STDs, an epidemic of single-parent households, tens of millions of
abortions and tens of millions of fatherless children.
Have you seen the studies on the outcomes for children raised in fatherless homes? It is not a pretty picture.
People who engage in promiscuous sex (sex outside of marriage) are rolling the dice and risking their future and the future of their children, all for a few rolls in the hay.
If I do end up getting pregnant, my boyfriend is ready to put a ring on my finger. He wants children. I don't, however. But we both like sex. So were going to have fun. Sorry. If you think sex out of marriage is a bad thing. More power to you. That's YOUR thing. I commend you for it.
Also, I'm working on a degree in Forensic Pathology. I would like to obtain my PhD. If I do end up pregnant, my child will have a very fortunate future.
Just because both people get off doesn't make it amazing (it does help though). Sometimes its simply in the act of sex itself that can make it both fun and bonding.
rob
At this very instant, there are MILLIONS of humans having sex and in a few minutes millions more will join them and that will continue throughout each and every day. Heck, some couples might even have sex three or more times during the next 24 hours.
Sex is NOT for procreation but for pleasure, plain and simple. Lets face it, babies are an unwanted byproduct 99.99% of the time humans have sex.
We should ignore their views.