Figleaf's Real Adult Sex

I was just remembering some occasions during online political discussions I was involved in the past, where some conservatives responded to the attitude of “it’s going to happen anyway” (both in the cases of teenage sex and gay sex) with something like “people are going to kill and steal anyway, but that doesn’t mean we should accept it.” Or even something like “children might play in traffic if we don’t stop them. It’s for their own good for a parent to punish them for trying to do something foolish.”

So I’m wondering if maybe at least some of them see sex in any form as being inherently harmful in some way (to society? to the soul?) hence the attitude of “don’t do it, period, except for the deliberate intention of making children in wedlock.” Obviously birth control, condoms, abortions, sex education, etc. undermine their message/attitude/philosophy by greatly reducing the chance of obvious physical and lifestyle consequences. But it isn’t really the “obvious consequences” that they’re concerned about, they just try to promote an environment where those consequences are significant because otherwise some of the “unwashed masses” just wouldn’t “get it”.

Am I making any sort of sense at all?

[You’re making perfect sense, Nightfall. I know some of them really do think “well, if you have sex you’re going to hell, so what does it matter if some people get HIV — they’re gonners anyway. We’re at least saving the genuinely ‘pure.’” The problem, of course, is that the whole purity thing doesn’t seem to apply to men. At all. Which… just introduces more pretzel logic. Thanks. —fl]

I have to agree with Sarah – enough that I wrote a post about it. Can’t we attack abstinence-only without making Bristol the poster girl for it? I realize she agreed to an interview, but we’re stooping to the level of the other side if we then hold up Bristol as a “perfect example,” rather than keeping the spotlight where it belongs: on Sarah Palin. We also don’t know jack about what conversations transpired between mother and daughter wrt to Bristol’s pregnancy and whether abortion was ever considered.

Figleaf, I realize most of this post was a quotation, but you quote it approvingly and it comes across as an endorsement. You’re not the only one who did this but I would expect you to insist that we leave the kids out of it as much as possible.

[Hi Sungold. You and Sarah have an excellent point and I’m… somewhat embarrassed to have left so much emphasis on the daughter when I really have issues with her parents… who, it must be said, either let her go or put her on national television. What I meant to speak approvingly of were Britni’s statements of the core anti-choice syllogisms. I could have been more clear about that — not least because a) I did drag a minor child into it but also b) because in doing so I distracted you and others from the main point: damned if you do and damned if you don’t only works if you like damning people. Which, evidently, the anti-choice is all (and to a large degree only) about. Thanks for the nudge, Sungold. —fl]