Contraceptive Culture: Normalizing the Abnormal and, Also, Vice-Versa

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Sex is about reproduction. This is the natural function of sex, biologically speaking, and it’s odd how the same liberal fanatics who enjoy endlessly lecturing us about Darwinism and global warming — “The science is settled!” — are so unscientific about sex. Instead, the sexual enthusiasms of liberals tend toward sterile non-procreative acts, while they react with horror at the idea that someone might engage in the normal act of reproduction with the expected result. If they can’t prevent pregnancy, liberals want to kill the resulting baby, apparently believing that motherhood itself is a weapon of patriarchal oppression.

This mentality is what I call “The Contraceptive Culture.” I’ve written about the subject occasionally for years (see “The Pill at 50: Unhappy Un-Birthday,” May 8, 2010) and my emphatic pro-life stance has sometimes led to readers mistaking me for Catholic.

Proudly Protestant, I nevertheless recognize that the encyclical Humane Vitae identified the fundamental problem with artificial contraception: It separates functions that naturally belong together. Whereas love, sex, marriage and parenthood are normally part of the same bundle, The Contraceptive Culture divides them up in a decidedly abnormal way, and once this strange way of thinking takes hold, it becomes difficult for people to understand what’s wrong with it.

My wife and I have six children, so we’ve heard all the anti-“breeder” jokes that are common to The Contraceptive Culture. Sometimes, however, you encounter truly hateful expressions of the anti-natal mindset, as when someone posted a photo of the Duggar family’s appearance at a Ken Cuccinelli gubernatorial campaign event in Virginia:

“Expansive meat tarp”? Such vicious and perverted comments are a product of the hostility to normal sex that has entrenched itself in liberal rhetoric. Democrats are now the party of sodomy and abortion, and outright hatred of normal people — especially, hatred toward Christian families — is considered entirely acceptable to so-called “progressives.” Consider a question Time magazine recently asked an NFL player:

Six kids? Regardless of your profession, it’s impossible to
be a good parent to six kids. Not enough hours in the day.

Really? Are you saying that my wife and I are bad parents? Do you have any idea how healthy, happy and successful our kids are? Molly Hemingway has an excellent take on this subject:

Since when did having kids become something that Americans irrationally fear and loathe?
The media remind us regularly that the most important cultural value relative to family life is what’s euphemistically called “choice.” The choice of whether to have kids or not is held so sacrosanct that our laws permit the decision to be made many months after a new human life begins. Some even advocate extending the choice to a period of time after birth. So why the weird reaction to people receiving children as a blessing instead of fighting them tooth and nail with hormones, chemicals, surgery and scissors? Do we need some remedial courses in how babies are made? It’s entirely natural, of course, for babies to be conceived when men and women have sex. Treating the entirely expected procreation of children as something to be avoided at all costs — and an unspeakable atrocity if one has, say, three children already — would be weird even if our culture weren’t obsessed with sex at all times, in all places, in every context, at every moment. . . .

Please read the whole thing.

 

 


103 comments

  7. The ‘contraceptive culture’ defo impacted us. Before I entered the homeschool community, I thought having two kids was perfectly normal. Now I’m the oddball, and rethinking what I used to assume was “normal.”

  10. Maybe that “expansive meat tarp” is better some old fag queen’s rectum or throat!

  11. I can understand some methods, and occasions of use of birth control, most notably handing out condoms to sailors. However, the widespread use is going to be a long term problem.

    One of the questions I don’t ask, is what does wide spread birth control do to the long term future of humanity? Most of the interplay between men and women over the years has been dominated by reproduction. Removing that just makes it more difficult.

  12. FT has a nice related article : Children as Commodities.

    The Council of the District of Columbia is considering a bill, sponsored by its most aggressively activist gay member, to legalize surrogate child-bearing in your nation’s capital. Infertility is a heart-rending problem. But solving that problem is not what’s at issue here, for the D.C. surrogacy bill is being pushed by the same people who brought “gay
    marriage” to the shores of the Potomac River: people who affirm what are, by definition, infertile “marriages.”

    http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2013/10/children-as-commodities

    …………..

    People with a homosexual problem are deformed. The more that homosexual farcical marriage is legalized, the more that people accept the “gay” narrative (born this way and every whim must be accepted), the more people think “gays” are just fine as they are, the more these garbage of homosexuals will deny children their right to their mother and father. Only in very special circumstances should a child be raised by only one parent, and always with the hope that the parent may then marry a healthy heterosexual individual to form a couple.

    But for two garbage of homosexuals to manufacture a child and purposefully deny that child a loving heterosexual parent or both their parents, it’s disgusting.

  13. To be fair, check out the headshots of those people. Personally, I’m glad people that physically and mentally hideous aren’t breeding.

  14. Are you really arguing that sex should only be for pro-creation? WHY??? Sex for it’s own sake is great. If and when people are ready to start breeding they should but that doesn’t mean you have to abstain from sex until then.

  15. Wide spread birth control means a smaller population therefore more resources for those who are currently alive and a better quality of life. Pretty simple.

  16. Smaller population = elimination of social safety nets because there’s no one to pay for them, slower economic growth because there’s no one to do the jobs. In case folks don’t believe that, ask yourselves why our self proclaimed elites on the left and right are so big on illegal immigration, which will flood the country with up to 53 million immigrants in the next 20 years. Interestingly enough, the number of abortions is around . . . 50 million! Imagine that!

  17. No, he’s not. “Whereas love, sex, marriage and parenthood are normally part of the same
    bundle, The Contraceptive Culture divides them up in a decidedly
    abnormal way, and once this strange way of thinking takes hold, it
    becomes difficult for people to understand what’s wrong with it.” Children are the natural biological result of sex. They and the people who choose to have them are not weird.

  18. I don’t know anything about this “contraceptive culture” and like most people, democrat or republican, I’m fine with people having children. With that being said I don’t want any and because of that feel no real reason to marry since to me the only reason to marry is to have children. With that being said, does that mean it’s somehow wrong for me to have sex(even the kinky kind) for the rest of my life? If so then I don’t want to be right!

  20. Technology is already saving labor on a massive scale and will continue to do so, so less people would mean less competition for any existing and soon to be scarce work and would actually help the economy. And how would safety nets be affected? Less people would mean less money to pay out too. Less people also means more living space, less demand for living space, and therefore cheaper living space and this would trickle down for all areas of life. Abortion and contraception are 100% necessary for our physical and economic survival and I don’t give a good crap if you consider that immoral. I think Aldous Huxley makes one of the most compelling arguments against large populations in Brave New World Revisited. Check it out.

    http://www.is.wayne.edu/MNISSANI/RevolutionarysToolkit/BraveNewWorldRevisited.htm

  21. You’re right. Sex outside of marriage is something God calls adultery. A lifestyle of adultery God calls fornication. You don’t like the rules, then have a talk with the creator. I doubt he will ever see things your way, because he made things the way they are for a very good reason.

  24. I don’t believe in God and even if a superbeing such as it exists I doubt it would really care about something so trivial like a single individual enjoying his sexuality outside of the marital bed. If you consider that adultery, then I guess I’m a proud adulterer. And my question would be to God if he exists is “If you didn’t want us to enjoy it, why did you make it so much fun?”

    Sounds like the act of a sadist to me.

  25. He does want us to enjoy it, just like He wants us to enjoy food. I don’t advocate that people eat whatever they want, as much as they want, whenever they want. Sexual activity is the same.

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