Congratulations Ladies, We are Now Reaping the Hard Won Benefits of Feminsim, ...or, You Asked for It; You Got it, Girl...

By Alfred W. Elmore (1815-1881) (Giclee Print)
 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I was asked, over my break, what on Earth "condoms have to do with religion".  I knew immediately that a post would have to be written.  It's a reasonable question, and, I'm sure, seems a long stretch for the non-religious.  This, though, is not that post.  That post has not been birthed yet. In the meantime, I have a story to tell.

So...gather around dear friends, and listen to my tiny tale...

Once upon a time, there was a man, and there was a woman.  The woman was specially designed to nurture, to emotionally protect, to bear life, and to infuse life with joy and contentment.  The man was specially designed to assist in the creation of life and to sustain life by providing it with food and by protecting its physical safety.

The woman and the man loved, and it was good.  They knew that their loving was a choice to open themselves to the possibility of producing new life, and to the responsibility of protecting and providing for it.  They knew that they would have to stay together to do this completely and well.  They made that choice, because they loved one another.

They could have done one another's jobs, but neither job was more important than the other, and it seemed most practical, natural, and fulfilling for each to do the job that he or she was best equipped for.

Things weren't perfect, but life seemed to work best when you use things for the purpose for which they were designed.  Life, was good.

Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant [Public domain], 
via Wikimedia Commons

Then, human nature perked up and inserted itself into the blend.  The man began to state that his job was more important, and the woman began to believe him.  The woman had some pretty amazing talents and abilities, so she decided that she would take the more important job. She began to stretch and kick and stick out her chest, and declared that she, too, could provide food and protection.  Well, of course she could; we've already established that.

The woman still had her own job to do also, because the man could not bear life. The demands of doing the man's job, along with her own, were too much to bear, so she needed to leave the care of her children to another woman, whose heart was not tied to them by a mother's love, to allow her extra time to get the man's job done.

The man had no job at all now, except to provide for himself.  He felt crushed and worthless.

The woman needed the man to assist in forming the life that she could bear, but this was all that she needed him for.

There was pleasure associated with the creation of life, so he continued participating, but, the woman took his offspring from him after that.  She made sure that he knew that he wasn't needed.

By Tanemori (HatenaFotolife) [CC-BY-2.1-jp
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.1/jp/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons

One day, potions became available that allowed the man and woman to gain the pleasure, without the offspring that used to come of it.  This allowed the man and the woman to gain pleasure without accepting lifelong commitment and responsibility.  The man thought this was a great idea, and the woman said that she did too, because she still wanted to prove that she could be like the man.  So, the woman swallowed it.

Under this new arrangement, there was pleasure without ties to the creation of life and its related responsibilities, and the man had no purpose left at all, save the pursuit of his own personal wants and needs.

Now the woman was alone with full responsibility for the life that she had produced, because the production of life was no longer tied to love or responsibility, but only to the service of ones own pleasure.

The woman could still do what she was designed to do, and, what the man was designed to do...but a difference had arisen.  Now she had to do both jobs; she had no choice. The man began to say that if the woman wanted him to do the things he was designed to do, she was being selfish, because she had declared that she was capable of doing them herself.  His own job was the pursuit of his own pleasure, and providing for his own personal needs.

The man wandered without purpose and social value, alone.  The woman had a tremendous load to bear.  The children were separated from the powerful impact of a father's presence and love.

By Max Kurzweil [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

One day the woman and the man entered a theater to enjoy some entertainment.  They brought a child they had produced together, and a child that the woman had produced with another man that was outside wandering.  Some said that the entertainment contained a level of violence that the elder child, with only four years of life, was not old enough to process, and that she and the new baby should not be in a loud theater at midnight. But the woman and the man did not care. They had an eye single to filling their own individual stores of pleasure.

By Algr [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0
 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

An evil, monstrous beast entered the theater and began stealing life in order to destroy it.

The man followed the pattern that he had developed,and used his talents to preserve his own safety and his own ability to pursue future pleasure.  He did this by fleeing alone, and abandoning the woman and the children to the beast.

By Convenevole da Prato (Carmina regina)
 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Another man, with only 19 years of life, felt in his bones the old ways.  He took charge of the protection of the woman, and of the children that she had produced, and led them to safety.

Once the woman and the children were safe, the original man, who had fled, reappeared.  He attempted to reestablish, with the woman, their tenuous contract for the exchange of pleasure by asking her to marry him.  The woman accepted, and those who remembered the old ways, and felt them in their bones, shuddered, and feared viscerally, for the coming age.

                                 ~~~~~

If you would like to know more about the man and the woman in the theater, their story is here.

If you would like to know what their story has to do with condoms, consider the prophetic words of Pope Paul VI, penned in 1968, in response to the advent of the contraceptive pill:

"Indeed, it is to be feared that husbands who become accustomed to contraceptive practices will lose respect for their wives. They may come to disregard their wives' psychological and physical equilibrium and use their wives as instruments for serving their own desires"...."Consequently, they will no longer view their wives as companions who would be treated with attentiveness and love."...

Lest we should be left disconsolate by this tale, however,...

...Once upon a time, there was young knight with only nineteen years of life...

~~~~~~

(P.S....The feeling in the bones endures.)

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