Clockwood said:
Its not unheard of in animals either. A mother will sometimes eat her babies.
The thing is that this kind of reasoning is sometimes used to justify abortion and infanticide. Like, "Because gorillas kill their newborns, you can do it too."
An acquaintance of mine once actually counselled me this way. She didn't actually say "Because gorillas kill their newborns, you can do it too," but she did say that abortion (induced miscarriage) and infanticide are natural (and listed examples), therefore, there is no problem if I do it too. Basically, that I should plan on this course of action, and find my peace of mind in it, and that sex is more important than any other consideration.
Water: Sex is a rare pleasantry and break from reality in an otherwise mundane and soul crushing world. For a single moment a man and a woman seem to ascend to heaven and time just seems to stop. All thoughts, all worries, everything is ripped aside like tissue paper.
So we are conditioned to think of sex, yes. A romantic, idealistic idea of sex it is.
Are you telling me that this isn't all its cracked up to be?
Saying this very loud "yes" very quietly: yes.
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Jenyar said:
Fortunately, while there are people who would reject unwanted and unplanned children, there are also those who love them (and not out of necessity or guilt, either).
I don't think this is rationally possible -- to love an unwanted child. If it is unwanted, then it is unwanted.
I know some people who are the results of failed contraceptives, people who live even though their parents have not planned them. And they mention it, casually. It is surreal -- I had a classmate whose mother didn't plan her. One day, we were standing in the line for lunch, chit-chatting, and she just casually mentioned how she is an unplanned child.
Then I have a classmate whose pill failed, but she decided to keep the baby. And it seems as this "This child is not wanted" is written all over that family. They spoil it, yet sooner or later they say how they didn't plan it.
And those children pick this up, identify with it. It must be awful to grow up like this. I wonder whether there is a connection between being an unwated child, and then killing one's own children.
All children come unexpected, in the sense that no couple knows when to expect a child until it actually shows up - planning or no planning - and certainly not all parents experience this as an unpleasant surprise.
If one meddles with this uncertainty, trying to make it turn a certain way by using contraceptives, then you are suggesting mental acrobatics.
If a person uses contraceptives, they use them with the intention not to conceive, they use them because they do NOT want to have children.
How can a child become wanted simply because it happens to be there??
What determines whether such a surprise is in fact negative, lies much deeper than mere arguments about contraception or abstinence - it lies with the potential parents' attitude towards any children that might come out of their union, which is culturally and morally determined. A culture's attitude towards human beings - of any age - depends on its internal moral framework, on what they believe it is that gives a human being any value.
I agree. But if the man's desire to have sex is viewed as a NEED, and the women conditioned to comply with this perceived need, then sex becomes valued above any other concern. Namely, women naturally have the tendency to be more careful about their sexuality, as they know they will bear all the consequences. But if women are educated to not care about whether they conceive or not, then they will want sex as much as men do.
How many men do you know who are willing to abstain from sex when they cannot afford or don't want to have children? I know none. They will simply only choose women who will have sex with them, and who will not care whether they conceive or not -- and this is the preferred ideal of a woman.
That such a woman won't make a good mother in case she becomes one, is predictable.
In the Judeo-Christian paradigm (I can't speak for other traditions), the institution of marriage is supposed to imply potential (if not actual) parenthood and thus entering it - regarded by the community as a legally binding procedure - was an unborn child's "insurance policy" against a loveless (and, God forbid, non-) existence. Not to mention the security of both partners. In its religious context, love could mean nothing less than commitment and fidelity - never emotionality or selfishness - and sex was only proper inside its protective walls. There's no need to mention that this paradigm has been eroded somewhat (not least by those who say they believe in it).
And yet this very paradigm dictates sex for pleasure. "No sex, no love," it says. And if the couple doesn't want to have children or cannot afford them -- then it is simply the woman's problem to deal with it, however well she can. Because if she doesn't have sex with her husband, then he will be unhappy and think she doesn't love him.
Of course, Christians won't say this in such blunt terms as I do now, they say it, only more politely, more secretively.