“And here I thought birth control acted to prevent pregnancy and abortions. I must have been brainwashed by the feminists. Sigh, I wish I could write this off as irrelevant extremism but with the continuing fight over EC, insurance coverage and pharmacy refusals, I'm afraid this thinking isn't fringe at all.�

Well, its not fringe.. its more like common sense. I believe the point they make is more metaphysical then biological. The idea, (in my understanding- and its one I subscribe to) is that the nature of the sexual act with birth control as apposed to without birth control, is one of kind not degree. This phenomena is magnified as an entire culture succumbs to the notion of sex under a regime cheap, reliable, female controlled birth control. If one is truly interested, the works of scholars like Robert Michael at the University of Chicago, or most prominently, Nobel-prize-winning economist George Akerlof of the University of California at Berkeley – use an economic model to show how the introduction of the pill dramatically restructures our concept of human sexuality and its value.
To be curt, one can accurately say that sexual intercourse is seen in contemporary society as essentially recreational rather than procreational. Indeed, this is a dramatic departure in terms of human understanding of sexuality.
I don’t see anything “extreme� about this understanding. People may disagree on if or how it could be reversed. Or you may find it to have been a panacea. Buts its difficult to suggest its had no impact at all. Considering the recent New York Times Magazine article, perhaps its better to try and understand this viewpoint than make fun of it?

If sex as recreation is such a new thing then why is Prostitution often called "the worlds oldest profession"? Face it, it's not about sex for recreation, it's about women having sex for recreation. Men have been having recreational sex since the beginning of time.

"....and greater rates of child neglect and abuse.�

Birth control caused this? Some supporting documentation, please.

Even if we were to accept your hypothesis, Fitz, that the pill has changed sexual intercourse into a recretational rather than procreational activity, what can you point to as the harm? Your theory doesn't prove, ipso facto, that the pill has resulted in abortions, unwanted pregnancy, or the general downfall of civilization.

"....and greater rates of child neglect and abuse.�

Birth control caused this? Some supporting documentation, please.

You'll have to direct that question to Operation Rescue Boston, as that ridiculous statement came from their promotional materials.

Verbify

No- not ipso facto

That 40% of women have had a surgical abortion by the age of 45 - Has anyone seen this before or know how true this is... It's news to me!!

Are they all part of the 50% who have got divorced recently :)

It's actually more like 33%-- not 40%. The Guttmacher Institute estimates one in three American women will have an abortion in her lifetime.

Uhm...hasn't sex /always/ been recreational? Even our primate cousins do it for fun and prestige, not just baby making.

Oh wait, right. Forgot. No evolution. Punishing Eve. Can't punish Eve if she's not always fearing that there's a baby waiting to making her scream on the way out.

And before someone blurps out the idea it's ok for primates to do it because they don't use birth control and babies will result as God intends, let's keep in mind chimps control population through another method. Called snack attacks.

See, the contraceptives get you in the anti-baby mindset. Apparently not wanting to be pregnant is the same thing as hating all babies and wishing for their death.

niles, great post, but "snack attacks"? dang. that's harsh. true, but i mean... i'm not going to be calling my noshing a "snack attack" for quite a while now.

Yeah, Fitz, tell that to women who used to have as many as 11 to 15 children and often died by age 40 because of health complications from giving birth so much. And being forced to have sex by her husband even though it could harm her health because it was his prerogative.

“Birth control caused this? Some supporting documentation, please.�
“If sex as recreation is such a new thing then why is Prostitution often called "the worlds oldest profession"�

“..what can you point to as the harm? Your theory doesn't prove, ipso facto,�

“Some supporting documentation, please.�

“Even our primate cousins do it for fun and prestige, not just baby making.�

“Yeah, Fitz, tell that to women….�

I'm sure their are more than a few posters on this blog who are more intellectually honest than this.

It's always struck me as whimsical that the cultural left can both take credit for the sexual revolution while simultaneously pretending it never happened.

Fitz,

first, left and right are both absolute bulldada... they're just two poles on a nonlinear scale, trying to divide power so that they can, between the two poles, maintain power over the rest of the 3 dimensional world of politics...

but that's beside the point...

to the point, sex has been for pleasure as well as procreation since before recorded history... i mean, dang, take a look at greek vases, passages in the old testament, and niles's point about other primates is not without relevance as well.

certainly, something of a sexual revolution has happened, and fitz has said that sex has shifted from being "essentially" for procreation to "essentially" for pleasure. he never argued that sex used to be "exclusively" for procreation. i'm still not sure if his point is true.

i mean, if it were, there wouldn't have been such an impetus for certain religions to proscribe sexual behavior so severely (masturbation, homosexuality, etc., which are clearly not "essentially" for procreation).

also, i'm not sure if, per niles's comment, other primates primarily engage in sexual behavior for pleasure/ social reasons or for procreation. that'd be interesting to look into.

further, it's important what RayCeeYa pointed out - that sex for pleasure used to be more socially acceptable (and still is, to a degree) for men than for women.

also, it is true (i'll work on digging up some data when i get a chance) that the avg life expectancy for women before medical sterility was an accepted practice, was much lower than for men due to pregnancies. i recently visited an historical town in upstate new york where the "apothecary" was talking about how, after people reached their late twenties, populations their generations' gender ratios were severely thrown off by such deaths.

gotta keep working, but i'll do my best to look into it.

peace and blessings