The Right's view of sex is basically Catholic dogma

[MicaelS]

That is, the essential purpose of sexual intercourse is creation of new life, and having sex just for pleasure, (whether married or unmarried), is immoral. The use of contraception is immoral because it prevents the creation of new life.

So, my question to the Right is this:

Once a married woman reaches menopause and is thus no longer fertile, does this mean the man and woman should cease sexual intercourse?

[librechik]

1. except for the pentecostal evangelist types, some of whom are like Catholics on steroids

they think Catholics just aren't strict enough.

[HappyMe]

5. +1

It isn't just Catholics.

[hlthe2b]

2. or if either is infertile?

Yes. hypocrisy of the nth degree.

[Drale]

3. The problem is

you actually think that these people think these ideas through and go into the issue that deeply.

[Goblinmonger]

4. This thread is useless without some Monty Python

[librechik]

13. well done n/t

[Avalux]

6. Well, they'll say the woman must stop having sex. The man however.....

he gets a prescription for Viagra then finds someone else to fulfill his sexual needs.

[Liberalynn]

7. +1

Many are such hypocrites. Just one of the many reasons why I am an ex-Catholic and belong to no other organized religion either. Not saying they are all like this or all bad, just saying in my case, I am not willing to put up with the ones that are, on a regular basis.

[TheMastersNemesis]

8. If You Follow The Logic Technically Yes

Officially the Church does not say abstain after menopause. However, if you follow the logic the answer would be technically yes.
And if you are divorced the law is NO SEX for the rest of your life. As a Catholic you cannot be divorced and have sex if you want to remain a Catholic in good standing. The Church doe not recognize a divorce. One married you are always married to the first person you married.

Then again there is Newt.

[davidthegnome]

16. Er, there really is no such official law.

There are plenty of Catholics considered by their church to be in "good standing" after having had a divorce. Some have re-married in the church (my Father, though no longer a practicing Catholic was one of them, though he did require an annulment of his previous marriage) and others rightly decide that it's none of the Church's damn business anyway. I have never, at least in my neck of the woods, heard of such a draconian law.

Few, even among the Priests I have known, honestly expect Catholics to live by the "sex for procreation only" rule. The vast majority of Catholics really aren't that fanatical. I'm a former Catholic, or a non-practicing Catholic, depending on your point of view, but these concepts are very outdated for the majority of all Catholics. In fact I once had a Bishop suggest to me that it was good to make love to your spouse as often as possible as it was one of the most wonderful parts of intimacy and helped maintain marriage itself. He suggested God would approve. He certainly wasn't full of this Catholic dogma I keep hearing so much about.

Certainly, there is a great deal of Catholic dogma. There are very few (Catholics) though, who have views similar to Rick Santorum's.

[unblock]

9. well, not exactly. remember, these are hypocrites we're talking about.

that's the public view that they put forth, and that's the only view they want their daughters exposed to.

behind closed doors, however, they're into the sickest, most deviant sexual crap you can imagine.

they just believe in hiding it and feeling guilty and asking christ the redeemer for forgiveness should they ever get caught.


the bigger sin, to them, is not engaging in non-procreational sex; rather, it's talking about it as if it's ok.

[YoungDemCA]

10. Eh? Much of the Right is fundamentalist Protestant...

Catholics in America are generally more progressive than that (aside from a rather vocal and influential minority of conservative Catholics).

[JHB]

12. See my post below...

...the fundy Protestant obsession on this was deliberately cultivated. It has taken on a life of its own, but this was something that got started by essentially a propaganda campaign to split working-class Democratic voters over a non-economic issue.

[JHB]

11. We should note, it wasn't always that way, completely...

The fundamentalists and evangelicals didn't used to oppose contraception and abortion strongly (after all, those were Catholic obsessions, and they regard Catholics as satanists anyway). They were still obsessed with sex, but as long as you publicly treated it as dirty and kept it well-hidden... well....
And of course, for women getting pregnant meant it couldn't be hidden (especially if you weren't able to ship her off someplace for the duration) so that kept things down to a certain extent.

What they couldn't stand was the openness about sexuality that came with the pill, the feminist movement, and the empowerment of women (and worst of all, empowerment of women about sex), so they were at their wit's end. That undermined paternalistic authority, so to them it was evil on a stick.

Enter RW operatives like Richard Viguerie trying to get evangelicals more politically engaged in order to undercut the New Deal working-class coalition, teaming up with Jerry Falwell and others to mobilize the Religious Right for Republicans, and they started pumping up non-Catholics on these issues. After all, being righteous about "saving babies" is a much nicer face to put on it than being a moralizing sex scold.

[Dawson Leery]

14. See this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002396182#post11

[Yavin4]

15. And We Should Take Sex Advice from an Organization that Shelters Pedophiles Because????

Because?????