Happy Sex, Happy Families

December 22, 2006 · Filed Under Feminism, Psychology 

I had no idea….it’s a little pat, but I’ll buy it: from alternet

Listen to the apocalyptic rhetoric of the religious right and you’ll find an important theme emerge: The introduction of contraception, which permits people to have sex for fun, is bound up with all of society’s ills, from the imagined breakdown of the family to an undocumented surge in crimes against children. It’s a cornerstone of right-wing thinking. And, no doubt, it’s also the reason that not one pro-life group in the U.S. supports the use of contraception even though it’s the only proven way to prevent abortion.

Sadly, most Americans seem afflicted by some strain of this prejudice. If they credit the pro-choice, birth control movement for anything, it’s for the dubious honor of protecting vice. Planned Parenthood has never been tagged as a pro-family values group. A greater oversight has never been made.

The religious right is right in this: Birth control is the source of seismic change. Family planning has led to a transformation of our society so rapid we’ve only recently had the occasion to take stock. For example, the past century has actually witnessed a steep decline in extramarital affairs as a result, it would seem, of the very changes that drive the pro-lifers wild: The more lengthy and thoughtful trying-out of marriage partners in combination with greater candor about sexual desires within marriage.

Studies conducted in 1948 and 1953, found that 26 percent of women and a whopping 50 percent of men had an extramarital sexual experience. But today, in our sex- and sin-saturated culture, the number of married people who have had an extramarital affair has plummeted to 6 percent of women and 10 percent of men, according to (conservative) Ben Wattenberg in his book The First Measured Century. (Editor’s note: Statistics show a wide variation in the percentage of extramarital affairs, as high as 55 percent of women and 60 percent of men.)

Preaching about faithfulness didn’t lead to this family value upgrade. Rather, the uptick in fidelity today is the result of a society that accepts our sexual urges as natural and couples that can look within marriage for fulfillment of desires once branded indecent. (It is also this belief system that supports gay marriage and the children that result from it. To us, family is so important we believe everyone has a right to make one.)

Cristina Page is the author of, How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America (Perseus Books, 2006) and a spokesperson for Birth Control Watch < http://www.birthcontrolwatch.org/>.

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