Condoms. How many of us use them? How many have at one time? How many abhor the rubbery smell? The icky medicinal sensation of having to stop…whatever it is and get ourselves all “gloved” and proper?
Its time for change. Bud, can you break a dollar?
Admittedly, I speak for myself. Done skillfully, just as easily is it a turn-on. What can I say? Some are lucky.
The point is, I have a right to choose. And I have a more or less surefire way of protecting myself against pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, the, putting it bluntly, consequences of having to deal with being a sexually active, self-sustaining adult. Escapism? So, what! Television, Internet, laden supermarkets. Is that any less of an existence in an artificial bubble of what these days enjoying an advanced Kardashev Scale Type I civilization means? Better be, if I am facing a nuclear holocaust, jobs easier than ever lost to cheap overseas labor, such devastating, yet formerly localized, plagues as Ebola catching an opportune plane ride!
Personally, I am married and ours is a comfortable relationship blessed with an awesome toddler. We are not really trying to conceive, but would be overjoyed seeing a stick cough up another “plus” sign.
But I remember my high school health class, the very first delving — YES, it’s a very intentional pun — into human reproductive systems. Every set of parents in my homeroom signed an affidavit permitting their sophomores to audit…horrors!…a subject matter that was not so much a popularization of sex (which, let’s face it, most 15-year olds have, at least, an idea about — if not yet one, put to practical use) as consequences of prematurely attempting to contribute to the global gene pool. Every set of parents, that is, but one, and it is thanks to them that a perfectly boring — and rather disgusting — class enjoyed a cachet of something sweet and illicit.
Because I, also, remember a petite all-American Honor Roll student who had had her desk moved all the way out into the hallway with the classroom door all but glued shut lest she be exposed to the intricacies of pulling an electric-blue condom onto a banana that towards the fifth period on a balmy April afternoon in a state sometimes called a “Gate to the American South”, achieved a quality that in a human model might, rather subversively, have called for a little blue pill.
Furtively glancing through a glass one-way insert in a handsome blond wooden door, a never-been kissed virgin, I used to ask myself, was she even more of one for not learning about gonorrhea, fetal alcohol syndrome, an uneasy trail of a spunky spermatozoon hurrying toward its female counterpart.
I still can’t tell you. And no, this won’t turn into a cautionary tale of a naive teenager catching AIDS through her very first exploration of sexual identity through bouts of unprotected sex. As far as I know, after graduating in the upper 10% of her class, she’s gone on to pharm school on a partial scholarship, and no, there was no telltale bulge under the watered silk of her prom gown.
What it WILL turn into is a rant against the reactionary stand of the Catholic Church. Though not at all germane to the current topic, from my own pulpit, I am going to say that with the multiple abuses perpetuated under its don’t-ask-don’t-tell-no-really-keep-your-mouths-shut policies, the today’s Holy See has rather lost its moral high ground — and one that, even retained, STILL wouldn’t have given it a leg to stand on while preaching (literally, in this case) on condoms not making a dent in skyrocketing infection rate in populaces as badly hit as those of most African nations.
With some members of its clergy involved in fine, commendable, often heroic work in the affected regions calling for the relaxation of Vatican’s draconian anti-contraception laws, on what possible scientific — or even, commonsensical — basis does its head continue to form policies liable to affect not thousands, but ultimately, millions of lives?
“You can’t resolve it with the distribution of condoms,” the Pope Benedict XVI told reporters aboard the Alitalia plane headed to Yaounde, Cameroon, where he will begin a seven-day pilgrimage on the continent. “On the contrary, it increases the problem.”
Does it, really? Certainly, abstinence would do a far better job, but how realistic is it to expect no sexual intercourse outside of marriage, especially as we are evolutionary geared to quite the contrary behavior. It has long been proven that extreme species-wide stress can lead to increased birth rates to make up for the high mortality rates of the offspring and the low median age. In less scientific terms, the population is attempting to insure its own survival by having more kids to offset those, perishing due to unfavorable living conditions.
That being said, how does withholding the only means of preventing both conception AND the spread of disease in any way takes care of what is widely seen as an escalating problem? In fact, how does granting free access to these means exacerbate the occurrence of AIDS?
Yes, my classmate has done quite well having been shielded from the dangers inherent in Sex Ed. Whether she has done so through remaining “pure” until her “I do’s” to an equally untouched male partner or via finding a way of circumventing her parents precepts is hardly an issue. She is only one person. Even should the former be proven the case, there is another, equally individualized, one to offset it, that of Governor of Alaska’s teenage daughter, Bristol Palin. In a recent interview, she paints a picture of abstinence as a failed method of solving the teen pregnancy epidemic. Just as easily, her account may be applied to the spread of AIDS.
And that's an order!
Obviously, the fundamentalist stand of the church is based on what it sees as the violation of the basic rights of its unborn, in fact, not yet conceived flock. But isn’t it time to start thinking of the rights of those already here — and denied the courtesy of making a guilt-free decision that might well save their lives?
Already the welfare of the Holy See as an entity in its own right has been placed over that of the kids violated and made to keep their peace to protect the offenders. If any trust in the Catholic Church is to be renewed, it needs to look to its heretofore inviolate doctrines and adapt them to truly benefit those, looking to it for salvation.
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