LIFEIN THE REARVIEW MIRROR

My philosophy of life is, “You are born, you die and in between you do something.” While doing that something, you learn something. My posts on this Blog are not attempting to change anybody’s mind. I know I can’t do that, but maybe after my seven decades plus of life experience, I can shed some experiential light on another way to think. Life gives us something to do and I believe a big chunk of my life’s something is giving others something to think about. Think about that.







Saturday, May 4, 2013

ABSTINENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER


                                                   

God said to Adam and Eve, “You guys have it pretty good, the whole world is at your disposal (except for that apple thing), you are free to come and go, sleep as long as you want, dress or not dress as you wish, but that is not really why I made you. I have a master plan and here it is. I didn’t spend seven days creating all of this to have it end with you. So, I have in mind something called children. Those will be little yous, and they will contain all of your knowledge plus what ever knowledge they can pick up, thus multiplying the world’s knowledge, base. They will then have children (that you can visit, spoil, and later go home) who will again add knowledge. Get the idea, pretty neat, eh?” 

Adam and Eve weren’t born yesterday (wait, actually they were) but they could see that they had a good gig going so they wondered aloud how having to watch over some untrained, undisciplined poop factories would be of any benefit to them.   God saw their point, so he said, “I realize I’m asking you to take on a tough assignment, and the best I can do to get this process going and for you to willingly create these people I call children, I will provide for you the most pleasurable act, both physically and emotionally, a human can experience. But, you must use it wisely. I have designed this act (I’ll tell you later what it is. You’re not going to believe it!) primarily to produce children to keep the human race “stocked” with new folks. But, if after a couple of appletinis you and Eve as a special couple wish to use “it” to reconfirm your love for and commitment to each other, I’m good with that.”

OK, maybe that’s not exactly how it happened, but you get the idea. Sex has a specific place in human nature.

The government’s latest policy of allowing girls age 15 and over to get the morning-after pill, providing condoms like candy and taking the parents ever so surely out of the sexual aspects of their children’s lives, all with the demented logic that “They are going to have sex anyway, let’s just accept and prepare for it.”  It may just be my age, but I’m sorry I just don’t buy it.

Every action has a consequence, and that consequence informs us if we want, or don’t want, to do that action again. That’s what moves us forward and ultimately determines who we are.  I find more and more that we, as a society, try to remove the natural consequence of an action if that consequence is unpleasant. Heaven forbid we should have any unpleasantness in our lives.  Sex is very pleasurable when done for all the right reasons (and truthfully, all the wrong reasons also), but it can produce negative consequences, e.g. unwanted pregnancies, STDs and strained or broken relationships. It seems we spend an inordinate amount of our time trying to obtain the positive and artificially eliminating the negative.

Abstinence completely eliminates the negatives of sex. It is 100% foolproof,  but that would mean in order to not bring unwanted children in to the world, to not have or give life long medical problems, or to not break the heart of another human being, a person would have to give up momentary pleasure until all the right pieces are in place. Thus the rub! Our society has declared, through its actions, that we are humanly incapable of that degree of self-control, so abstinence is completely off the table as a form of “birth control.” Any speaker going to a school today and preaching abstinence (as if they would ever be invited) is viewed as some out-of- touch religious kook worthy of the maximum dose of ridicule.

I am not naive enough to believe that many people today will practice the lost art of abstinence, but I am disappointed that society has so given up on its young. Society has given up on teaching them the realities of action and consequences, the reality that life is not fair and equal, and the truth that just because they can do something doesn’t mean they should.

Shouldn’t abstinence at least be considered an option? Should we throw our hands in the air (or our pants to the ground) and just give up?



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