Archive for the 'Sexuality' Category

A “Letter from Rio de Janeiro” appeared yesterday in the Chicago Tribune, written by Colin McMahon, the paper’s South America correspondent.

Titled Sex and the City–of Sex, it begins thusly:

RIO DE JANEIRO — Does a city already intimately associated with sex really want to build something called a “City of Sex”?

And if it does, Rio de Janeiro is asking itself, would said City of Sex really have to look like that?

City of Sex is a proposed erotic center that would be built in the famed beach neighborhood of Copacabana. The center would house art shows, informational exhibits, shops, a museum and clinics dedicated to sexual health.

As an aside, does there exist a more ironic euphemism than “sexual health”?

Speaking of euphemism, the article also notes that the proposed City of Sex would contain — not surprisingly — “swingers clubs”.

One thing is for sure: our pansexual overlords have an amazing talent for marketing over the top hedonism in such a way as to make it seem like it’s no big deal. (more…)

There is no one better than Dawn Eden when it comes to digging up dirt on Planned Parenthood.

She’s posted two entries this week on the sex-peddling, abortion-pushing juggernaut, both of which are must-reads (HT: Mark Shea, who has repeatedly — and rightly — claimed, “Show me a culture that despises virginity and I’ll show you a culture that despises children”).

From earlier this week:

Planned Parenthood of Canada — now known as the less historically freighted Canadian Federation for Sexual Health — has long pushed the envelope farther than its American counterpart. So, it’s no surprise that its Toronto chapter’s teen sex-ed site, Spiderbytes, is more openly pedophiliac than Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Teenwire (which I detailed in the Touchstone article “The Young and the Hot-Wired”).

For anyone wishing to prove that Planned Parenthood’s true agenda is to sexualize children, Spiderbytes is a goldmine. There’s simply too much for me to describe on my own, and [words] fail me when it comes to features like the Risk Rater.

I took Spiderbytes’ “sexual readiness” quiz: “What to Do and When?”. To see what would be the site’s advice to those teens who need the most guidance in controlling their behavior, I checked off the most sex-obsessed answers to multiple-choice questions like this one:

You are surfing the net and accidentally come across a porn site. You…
a. bookmark it with the rest
b. change sites immediately
c. look if you’re curious
d. call friends to joke about it

When I clicked for my quiz score, this is what came up:

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On this day in 1968, Pope Paul VI, of happy memory, issued his landmark encyclical, Humanae Vitae (a phrase meaning “Of Human Life”, the official Latin version’s opening words) which reiterated the Catholic Church’s nearly 2,000 year old teaching that artificial contraception is sinful.

At the time, and even more so thirty-eight years later, many people — Catholic and otherwise — are shocked that at precisely a time when the winds of change were gale force, the Bride of Jesus Christ vowed that she would cling to such an “outmoded” view of sexual morality.

That Paul VI would reiterate the Christian condemnation against contraception is hardly a surprise, considering that no pope has the authority to change Church doctrine, much less natural law, which condemned contraception long before the Church was even around.

I first read Humanae Vitae during my sophomore year in college. I was prompted to do so because at the time, I had issues with the Church’s teaching against contraception. I had always been strongly against abortion, but I also believed that birth control could be helpful to the pro-life movement’s goal of eradicating abortion. (more…)

Last month I posted about a demonstration I participated in outside of the Playboy headquarters in downtown Chicago.

We were there to protest a fundraiser benefiting the Illinois Coalition for Adolescent Health — a group that has recently partnered with Planned Parenthood of Greater Chicagoland to form a coalition whose goal is to strip all funding of abstinence-only education for Illinois schools and instead require them to use condom-based sex education programs.

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Via Project Reality:

NEW SIECUS REPORT ATTACKING ABSTINENCE PROGRAMS GIVES INACCURATE INFORMATION ABOUT CURRICULA CONTENT

July 19, 2006 (Glenview, IL) – A report released today from the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), accuses abstinence programs, including Project Reality’s Game Plan program of relying on inaccurate and misleading information and fear and shame-based messages. SIECUS is an anti-abstinence education organization that fights against federal funding for abstinence programs, and advocates for more federal funding for condom-based sex education.

In fact, the quote that SIECUS uses in accusing Game Plan of being fear and shame based and inaccurate, is, in itself, inaccurate.

Oh, the irony!

The SIECUS report quotes Game Plan as stating to students, “Even if you’ve been sexually active, it’s never too late to say no. You can’t go back but you can go forward. You might feel guilty or unworthy, but you can start over again.” In fact, the quote, from page 45 of Game Plan states, “You can’t go back in life, but you can always go forward. Even if you’ve been sexually active, it’s never too late to start over again.”

SIECUS has proven once again that its stock-in-trade is equal parts moral bankruptcy and incompetence — an extraordinarily dangerous combination.

Project Reality director Libby Macke commented:

SIECUS clearly did not research our programs thoroughly and accurately. It is likely that other inaccuracies exist in their report focusing on 50 states using abstinence education programs.

Quite so.

I recently came across a section titled “Bad Advice” on the Modesty Zone website. (Modesty Zone is the host of the ever insightful blog Modestly Yours).

One feature, titled “Do Whatever the Man Wants”, encapsulates why How-To-Get-Used-by-A-Man-Instruction-Manuals like Cosmo, Glamour, and Marie Claire aren’t worth the perfume scented glossy paper they’re printed on:

I’ve been carrying around this clipping from my friend’s Cosmo for a few months now, it’s from their ASK HIM ANYTHING column:

Q. I’ve been with this guy for two months, and we’re really into each other. There’s one problem, though: He keeps pressuring me to have sex with him, but I’m not ready. I want to wait six months to make sure it’s right. Unfortunately, my man thinks that’s ridiculous and is getting annoyed, but I’m not about to change my rules. If he liked me enough, wouldn’t he be patient?

A. Let me make sure I read that correctly. You want him to hold out for six months? You’ve heard of dog years, right? Well, there’s also such a thing as guy years—and six months of waiting for sex feels like two years to him. See, a guy needs sex as part of a balanced man-diet. He needs it like he needs calcium, iron, and buffalo wings. If a man isn’t getting his nutrients, he turns into a cranky, whiny baby. And do you really want that disaster on your hands? As long as you don’t have any issue with premarital sex, I suggest you bump up that due date. After all, you say you’re really into him, and it’s already been two agonizing months—so what exactly are you waiting for? I mean, what are you going to learn about this dude in four months that you don’t know by now?

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“Condoms Found to Block a Virus Harmful to Women,” headlines the New York Times article about a study on condoms and HPV (human papilloma virus) published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

In many circles, the study is being touted as a boon for proponents of condom-based sex education and a setback for abstinence education supporters.

A closer look at the study, however, reveals that the tired old message of “Use condoms” is hardly an advisable strategy for HPV prevention.

Among the study’s findings:

The incidence of genital HPV infection was 37.8 per 100 patient-years at risk among women whose partners used condoms for all instances of intercourse during the eight months before testing, as compared with 89.3 per 100 patient-years at risk in women whose partners used condoms less than 5 percent of the time (adjusted hazard ratio, 0.3; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.1 to 0.6, adjusted for the number of new partners and the number of previous partners of the male partner).

Read that alarmingly high 100% condom use failure rate again in light of the New York Times headline. The study itself uses considerably less stronger language: (more…)

Father’s Day is this Sunday, so I thought it would be as good a time as any for this blog to scratch the surface of an alarming trend: one that I will call, for lack of a better term, Anti-Parenthood.

This term refers to a significant portion of the population — particular those in their 20s and 30s, whether married or single — who plan to never have children, and harbor a sort of condescending arrogance toward “breeders”.

I was prompted to examine this trend after reading a recent Slate article in which advice columnist Emily Yoffe urges a soon-to-be-married couple to reconsider their desire not to have children.

Her counsel struck a nerve with her readers:

The majority of letter-writers were not single but happily married and professionally successful—the people you’d expect would make wonderful parents, and in a previous generation probably would have. Many didn’t just write about the adult pleasures of their childless (or “childfree”) life . . . but expressed contempt for those deluded enough to want to reproduce. As one woman wrote: “My husband and I are childless by choice and I heartily encourage all younger friends to consider it. It is the most wonderful lifestyle, free of whining and sniveling and mini-vans.”

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From the heart of our nation, Project Reality gives us yet more evidence that the supporters of “comprehensive” sex education have no interest in entering into open-minded debate with those who oppose their agenda:

ABSTINENT TEENS KICKED OUT OF CAPITOL BY COMPREHENSIVE SEX EDUCATION ADVOCATES

POSTED: JUN 14, 2006

Advocates for Youth, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), and the Society for Adolescent Medicine (SAM) not interested in listening to abstinent teens

Yesterday, opponents of abstinence education, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States and Advocates for Youth, hosted a Congressional Briefing entitled “The Ethics of Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs.” The briefing featured an analysis of a case study on the “ethics” of teaching abstinence education to teens, arguing that abstinence education violates adolescents’ fundamental human rights.

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Yesterday I joined several dozen teens, parents, and abstinence educators to protest outside of Playboy magazine’s headquarters in downtown Chicago.

It’s not as if we needed a particular reason to protest outside the Playboy offices, but after learning what was scheduled to take place there, I would have felt guilty had I not taken part.

We were there to protest a fundraiser benefiting the Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health — a group that has recently partnered with Planned Parenthood of Greater Chicagoland to form a coalition whose goal is to strip all funding of abstinence-only education for Illinois schools and instead require them to use condom-based sex education programs. They recently succeeded in doing so in the Chicago Public Schools. (more…)

Uh, no.

But that’s precisely what Luc Bovens would have us believe.

Bovens is a professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science who recently wrote an article titled “The Rhythm Method and Embryonic Death”, which appeared in the British Medical Journal’s subsidiary, the Journal of Medical Ethics.

In the article, Bovens writes:

What has gone unnoticed is that, if one is willing to make a few relatively innocent assumptions, then the rhythm method may well be responsible for massive embryonic death and the same logic that turned pro-lifers away from morning after pills, IUDs and pill usage, should also make them nervous about the rhythm method.

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“Show me a culture that despises virginity, and I’ll show you a culture that despises children.”

Catholic and Enjoying It! blogger Mark Shea has made this observation on many occasions in the course of his writing.

And he’s absolutely right.

The latest example of why he is right is found in this story from–where else?–the Netherlands:

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch pedophiles are launching a political party to push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations to 12 from 16 and the legalization of child pornography and sex with animals, sparking widespread outrage.

The Charity, Freedom and Diversity (NVD) party said on its Web site it would be officially registered Wednesday, proclaiming: “We are going to shake The Hague awake!”

The party said it wanted to cut the legal age for sexual relations to 12 and eventually scrap the limit altogether.

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“It takes a tough person to play football. Well, what kind of priests do we want to have? We want someone who is internally strong and externally strong. That’s the kind of priest who can change society.”

These words were spoken by Ben Kessler, who recently graduated from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN. Ben was a defensive tackle on the St. Thomas football team and completed his double major in philosophy and business with a 4.0 grade-point average. He was an undergraduate seminarian and plans to become a Catholic priest.

Ben Kessler is my new hero.

I had never heard of him until this morning, but I now know enough about him to know that he embodies the virtues of courage, holiness, and humility–the stuff of saints.

Ben exhibited these virtues at his school’s commencement when, after being named “Tommie of the Year,” he testified to the truth of the Catholic Church’s teachings on sexual morality, and railed against selfishness–a fault he admitted he himself is guilty of.

Ben’s remarks made not a few people uncomfortable: (more…)

I imagine our resident curmudgeon Lauren will be jubilant about this, but it’s worth bringing up anyway. Sam and Bethany Torode, the Protestant couple who in 2002 published the book Open Embrace: A Protestant Couple Rethinks Contraception have recently recanted their opposition to contraception. In an “Open Letter” on thier website, they say that after five years of practicing Natural Family Planning (NFP) they’ve decided it’s too difficult and that barrier methods of contraception are okay.

I’ve practiced NFP for a little longer than five years—just over nine years, in fact—and on top of that I have nine-plus years prior experience with contraception. If you figure I’ve been married for fourteen years you can do the math and see that my experience spans both side of the marriage bond.

Based on that experience I can testify to two things: (1) Contraception is bad for relationships and especially poisonous for marriage and (2) NFP, though at times very difficult, is extremely benificial to marriage. If you’re interested in further elaboration on these topics, I invite you to visit my personal blog, Square Zero, where I’ve been addressing these issues at length in recent days.

A new study confirms what common sense already told us:

Sexually charged music, magazines, TV and movies push youngsters into intercourse at an earlier age, perhaps by acting as kind of virtual peer that tells them everyone else is doing it, a study said Monday.

Blogger Mark Shea’s razor-sharp analytical skills don’t disappoint in his 26-word post on the study:

Science Discovers that a Culture Which Despises Virginity Despises Children

In other news, science figures out that water is wet and the sun is quite bright.

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