The ongoing religious right's assault on reproductive rights brings me back to a dining hall conversation in the '60s during my Jesuit university undergraduate days. At one bull session I recall a priest informing us emphatically that any...ANY sexual activity without a procreative purpose was sinful even for married folks who despite being married must confine sexual relations to procreation as the sole goal.
I have since wondered how that impacts the post-menopausal and the infertile...but have never gotten a satisfactory answer. However, another Jesuit later added that the Church does recognize the value of sex as an expression of affection and love, but I didn't get the impression that love and affection was at the top of the list.
So it's hard to dispute that the real heart of the issue for both the Catholic Church and the Religious Right is: SEX!
Sex is a basic human drive operating within all of us along with hunger, thirst, self-preservation and many others. Sex is undeniably the source of highly pleasurable experience which when active often becomes relentless if not overwhelming. Sex is also fraught with emotional and psychological complexities which may exact a high price for its pleasures.
Sexual guilt is one price many people pay especially if they were taught to believe that they were violating a cultural taboo or even "God's law." So it is a short leap to see sexual guilt as a very handy tool for religious authorities to use to control behavior and ease their own burden of keeping people in line. If I thought that masturbation were going to land me in hell, then why would I take that chance? Good question...and one that any current or previous adolescent can answer...it feels good and it won't go away without me doing something.
But is there more to it than that? Am I oversimplifying and missing the procreational point? Does propagating the species (now approaching 7 billion) really demand an elaborate and rigorously enforced code of sexual conduct? Does defining and "defending" the procreating family lie wholly within the jurisdiction of religious authorities?
I'm not at all convinced. (and invite you to meet me below the fold)
Before I continue, let me say that I'm no expert and in a highly "credentialed" world, I have none beyond a BA in sociology from way, way back and then from the aforementioned Jesuit university. However, as with many others here, I have tried over time to be a conscientious observer and have always tried to expose myself to diverse views. That said, I have also eschewed traditional organized religion and describe myself as an "agnostic" which means "I don't know" in Greek...which pretty much sums up my approach to religion.
Now back to sex, procreation and the price paid for its "unauthorized" indulgence.
Have you ever asked yourself what harm could possibly be caused by masturbation--male or female? One of my great terrors as a child was having to confess to my parish priest (who knew full well who I was despite the darkened confessional) that I had committed x-number of "impure acts." I was terrified that he would ask, "What kind of impure acts?" But he never did and now that I think about it, I'm not sure where I got the idea that masturbating was such a great sin because the nuns or the priests (and certainly not my parents) ever talked about it. It was unspoken, but somehow, my classmates and I all knew that this was a serious sin which (even more terrifying) would send us straight to the eternal (long, long time) fires of hell if we died without confessing this evil deed.
So let's jump to the present. Right wing Republicans (seemingly) at the behest of their Religious Right component are relentlessly continuing to encumber abortion with every obstacle that they can get away with. These folks call themselves "pro-life" and proclaim that their sole purpose is to "protect the life of the fetus." We can't see into their hearts and souls, so we can never know for sure what their true intentions are, however, by also now condemning masturbation, by demoting women to breeding stock, by trying any means to persecute homosexuals, by trivializing rape and exalting straight men to "lord and master" their issues clearly extend beyond "preserving the life of a fetus."
The unmistakeable conclusion is that the real issue is preserving their own flavor of patriarchalism. The Catholic Church along with its evangelical and fundamentalist Protestant allies (and Islam) have always taught the predominance of men. From a male-only Catholic hierarchy and clergy to evangelical "pastors" who are always men, all of the so-called "Abrahamic" religions place men at the critical intersection of authority and self-determination.
So to the Republican claim that "there is no war on women" I would have to call BS. But I would also add that the "war on women" is about a lot more than a war on women.
Controlling the sexual practices of the entire population was certainly on Rick Santorum's mind during his primary run in 2012. In fact I found his comments (see above link) to be well in line with the Catholic thinking I mentioned at the beginning of this post: It's a vital way to keep the masses in line...and not one they appear to have any intention of letting go of easily.
Laura Clawson's excellent post in today's DailyKos quotes a variety of Texas Republicans freely disclosing their mission to prohibit all sexual activity not falling within their strict and narrow focus. Laura writes :
As Texas Republicans have fought to limit women's access to abortion, they've offered staggering ignorance, in the form of state Sen. Bob Deuell's contention that only "accurate intercourse" causes pregnancy and state Rep. Jodie Laubenberg's belief that rape kits are "where a woman can get cleaned out." They've offered mindboggling condescension, in the form of Gov. Rick Perry's insistence that "It is just unfortunate that [Wendy Davis] hasn’t learned from her own example." And they've been awash in hostility toward their opponents. So, so much hostility.
Laura succinctly spells out the misinformation, disinformation and just plain ignorance of those cited above. The rest of us may just shake our heads, roll our eyes and wonder how these right wing folks can be so dumb, misguided and mendacious. My thought is that they are: (1) So authoritarian/totalitarian in their views that they don't really care what the rest of us thinks about what they think; and (2) They don't get out much...which is to say that these guys live completely within their own silos and seldom if ever talk to anyone who doesn't agree with them.
Bottom line, the "war" is on all right, but it ain't just women they are gunning for. They are desperately trying to hang on to a rapidly failing approach to a soon-to-be non-existent world...their world...after all, "it's a man's world."
You can see the desperation in Perry and Kasich and Walker's shoving through extremist legislation in the dark of night without debate or discussion. You can also see their confusion and frustration at being thwarted by forces that they clearly feel are way beneath them. Yet still they persist and appear so far to be getting their way...albeit with blunt force trauma.
These are all moves of frightened authoritarians. You can ask the Bourbons, the Romanoffs or the Ceaușescu's how that strategy worked out for them.