My mind has been musing over quite a bit the last little while. Religion, choice, parenting, entertainment, employment. Some of the musings have been personal enough that I haven't shared them here. Others seem a little shallow. It's been hard to nail down a particular musing long enough to formulate a blog post - hence last weeks lapse. Perhaps it is just a matter of me doing the BIC HOK method of writing.
That method might actually be very good for me. Not long ago my office did a Meyer & Briggs Typology Indicator workshop. Many of the people in my office are administrators of the indicator and provide it to our First Year Experience classes. I did the test a little over a year ago and showed up as an ENFJ (although there is very very little separating me from an ENFP). As an extrovert (someone who gets their energy from external sources and interactions) I often think out-loud - which can be really annoying for everyone, myself included. So my thoughts evolve as I communicate them. Perhaps that is why I have always enjoyed writing and why I started this blog.
Interesting enough I was thinking about the pro-choice / pro-life debate of planned parenthood and abortion when I saw this blog by Matt Walsh. I found it rather straight forward and will say that prior to reading it I agreed with him on many of his points. I consider all life sacred and power to create life is gift from God. I will say that in a life and death situation between mother and child that an abortion makes sense. I will also say that in the event of a pregnancy due to rape - where the woman had no choice - an abortion also makes sense. However, a parent or parents choosing to abort a child because it would be expensive, inconvenient, or not with the parents' life goals is very selfish and rather heartless reasoning. Pro-choice say they want to choose whether or not to have the child. That choice was there prior to the conception of that child. The choice to have sex, engage in intercourse, "do it," and every other euphemism and disisum used to describe the God given power of procreation was the first choice they made. If birth control was not used - that was the choice that was made. If birth control was used the responsibility for that child is still there. If both parties are unwilling to accept the commitment of having a child together then why were they doing the very thing that might lead to one?
I will readily acknowledge that physical intimacy is for more than just the conception of children. It strengthens relationships between partners. It brings people closer together. I find it very sad that there are people who engage in such a powerful, meaningful, intimate action in a carefree, flippant, or causal way - giving so much of themselves so readily with so few reservations.
The media of today would have you believe many things about sex. I can safely say that the bulk of what the media portrays can be called, "happy sex." "Happy violence" can be described as violence without consequence. This is what we see in cartoons as well as in live action comedies and even action movies. I love Screen Junkies' Honest Action videos. They had a doctor watch Home Alone 1 and 2 and all the Die Hard movies and report the number of times the villains (in Home Alone) and our hero (in Die Hard) would die. The numbers for Home Alone by itself are quite sobering. It would kill a combined total over 35 people if the violence in those seven movies were realistic. That's an average of 5 per movie and that's not counting everybody that is actually shown to die in Die Hard.
For a comparison, James bond has had sexual intercourse with at least 52 women over 22 films. Extrapolating from data from the WHO, it was estimated that just shy of 500 million people had an STD in 2008. Based on population totals for 2008 that would mean that just over 1 in fourteen people had an STD. Even if Bond had sexual intercourse with women who only had one other partner he would have contracted 6 STDs over the course of his films. If the women had three partners - 10 STDs. Four - 14. If each were as promiscuous as he was - 193 STDs. At least. Also, assuming that Bond is not sterile I would imagine at least one pregnancy to occur, potentially 52. Bond is a prime example of Happy Sex, non-consequential, sexual intercourse. How many other portrayals of such behavior are spread throughout the media? With films with titles like "The 40 year old Virgin" and main stream cables shows named "Sex in the City" it is clear that sexuality is more pervasive and more accessible via media then previously. George Gerbner, Larry Gross, Michael Morgan and Nancy Signorielli talk about how media influences our perception on society. The more we consume the more we perceive what we consume as reality. This means that more more sexual activity we see in the media the more we feel that such behavior is normal - even though the contrary may be true. With such a flood of "happy sex" in the media is it any wonder that sexual intercourse has lost any meaning of intimacy.
So to bring it around to the original topic. Our media and culture pushes sexual intercourse as a causal act that has few consequences. When people adapt such an attitude it may lead to an unplanned pregnancy. When this happens the pro-choice crowed would have it a simple matter to avoid the unwanted consequence by aborting (killing) the child. I find it ironic that pro-choice mindset seems to disregard that the person already made a choice and now wishes to remove the choice from the unborn child. Even if the child cannot (or maybe should not) be cared for by the mother there are options that still give it a choice to live. It seems that the person who is being asked to make the choice on whether someone should live or die is the exact person who may have made the horrible choice of engaging in sexual intercourse without birth control. That doesn't seem like a good idea to me. I think that people need to take responsibility for their actions and let the consequences live.
Interesting enough I was thinking about the pro-choice / pro-life debate of planned parenthood and abortion when I saw this blog by Matt Walsh. I found it rather straight forward and will say that prior to reading it I agreed with him on many of his points. I consider all life sacred and power to create life is gift from God. I will say that in a life and death situation between mother and child that an abortion makes sense. I will also say that in the event of a pregnancy due to rape - where the woman had no choice - an abortion also makes sense. However, a parent or parents choosing to abort a child because it would be expensive, inconvenient, or not with the parents' life goals is very selfish and rather heartless reasoning. Pro-choice say they want to choose whether or not to have the child. That choice was there prior to the conception of that child. The choice to have sex, engage in intercourse, "do it," and every other euphemism and disisum used to describe the God given power of procreation was the first choice they made. If birth control was not used - that was the choice that was made. If birth control was used the responsibility for that child is still there. If both parties are unwilling to accept the commitment of having a child together then why were they doing the very thing that might lead to one?
I will readily acknowledge that physical intimacy is for more than just the conception of children. It strengthens relationships between partners. It brings people closer together. I find it very sad that there are people who engage in such a powerful, meaningful, intimate action in a carefree, flippant, or causal way - giving so much of themselves so readily with so few reservations.
The media of today would have you believe many things about sex. I can safely say that the bulk of what the media portrays can be called, "happy sex." "Happy violence" can be described as violence without consequence. This is what we see in cartoons as well as in live action comedies and even action movies. I love Screen Junkies' Honest Action videos. They had a doctor watch Home Alone 1 and 2 and all the Die Hard movies and report the number of times the villains (in Home Alone) and our hero (in Die Hard) would die. The numbers for Home Alone by itself are quite sobering. It would kill a combined total over 35 people if the violence in those seven movies were realistic. That's an average of 5 per movie and that's not counting everybody that is actually shown to die in Die Hard.
For a comparison, James bond has had sexual intercourse with at least 52 women over 22 films. Extrapolating from data from the WHO, it was estimated that just shy of 500 million people had an STD in 2008. Based on population totals for 2008 that would mean that just over 1 in fourteen people had an STD. Even if Bond had sexual intercourse with women who only had one other partner he would have contracted 6 STDs over the course of his films. If the women had three partners - 10 STDs. Four - 14. If each were as promiscuous as he was - 193 STDs. At least. Also, assuming that Bond is not sterile I would imagine at least one pregnancy to occur, potentially 52. Bond is a prime example of Happy Sex, non-consequential, sexual intercourse. How many other portrayals of such behavior are spread throughout the media? With films with titles like "The 40 year old Virgin" and main stream cables shows named "Sex in the City" it is clear that sexuality is more pervasive and more accessible via media then previously. George Gerbner, Larry Gross, Michael Morgan and Nancy Signorielli talk about how media influences our perception on society. The more we consume the more we perceive what we consume as reality. This means that more more sexual activity we see in the media the more we feel that such behavior is normal - even though the contrary may be true. With such a flood of "happy sex" in the media is it any wonder that sexual intercourse has lost any meaning of intimacy.
So to bring it around to the original topic. Our media and culture pushes sexual intercourse as a causal act that has few consequences. When people adapt such an attitude it may lead to an unplanned pregnancy. When this happens the pro-choice crowed would have it a simple matter to avoid the unwanted consequence by aborting (killing) the child. I find it ironic that pro-choice mindset seems to disregard that the person already made a choice and now wishes to remove the choice from the unborn child. Even if the child cannot (or maybe should not) be cared for by the mother there are options that still give it a choice to live. It seems that the person who is being asked to make the choice on whether someone should live or die is the exact person who may have made the horrible choice of engaging in sexual intercourse without birth control. That doesn't seem like a good idea to me. I think that people need to take responsibility for their actions and let the consequences live.
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