Natural families and "normal" sexuality?

I much prefer the contents of this essay re the vexed situation of sexuality altogether.

http://www.dabase.org/freersex.htm

Plus a unique understanding of marriage as a profound calling and psycho-physical discipline.

http://www.dabase.org/2armP1.htm#ch3b

Plus an essay on the root cause of the disintegration of the family. Namely the adolescent "culture" of competitive individualism, of which Capitalism, especially in the USA, is easily the most advanced form.

http://www.dabase.org/sacrstat.htm

Demographic Winter? The human population is now approximately SEVEN BILLION.

That's amazing!

I never knew that by living my life as I do now, exactly the same as all the married married couples I know, I am so disadvantaged.

All I have to do is spend a day in a church and I will live longer and be healthier, my kids will be healthier in mind and body and get higher grades and be less likely to take drugs or go to jail.

Added to that, I can stick it up to would-be French Revolutionaries,Communists in Russia, German National Socialists and Maoists in China!

All this, just for going through a half hour ceremony, and signing a piece of paper.

I'm sold!

"First, allow me to explain what I mean by “natural marriage”. It doesn’t take more than a fourth-grade education to know that men’s and women’s bodies in some sense “complement” each other and this often leads to procreation. Natural marriage is between a man and a woman."

This coy explanation sounds like a very hydraulic understanding of the expression of sexual love. I guess these natural marriage advocates don't do the other stuff. Like Bill Clinton, it's not sex unless you get hydraulic.

What the author of this article is saying is that safe and stable relationships produce the best environment for children and for adults to prosper. Couldn't agree more.

However, to insist that "natural marriage" is the only way to create these safe and stable environments is rubbish.

What is it with these people? Like the Christians, it's their way or the highway. What is their problem with difference? Why are they so threatened by any lifestyle other than their own, that they have to threaten the rest of us with hellfire if we don't agree?

Societies collapse because they didn't observe "natural marriage" and so will we?
Oh, man.

Briar Rose

>> This coy explanation sounds like a very hydraulic understanding of the expression of sexual love. I guess these natural marriage advocates don't do the other stuff. Like Bill Clinton, it's not sex unless you get hydraulic. <<

ROFL

Well said, your post summed up my take on this article.

People eat better in marriage? That's worth a belly laugh. Though when the laughing ends its important to remember the phrase "correlation does not imply causation". Research shows an awful lot of things but its always worth reading carefully to understand what we can really take from it. We don't need to take direction from marginal findings that tell us very little. For instance, unmarried women with no children live longer, on average, than other demographically described individuals. Does that mean we ought not have children and men should have a sex change? I guess we should look at how much longer - a couple of decades or a couple of months? And longer for all - or, a marginally larger proportion of the unmarried, non-mother group lives marginally longer than any other group. Its great to see reference to evidence. But that alone aint good enough. Let's see the correction for social-economics. Doh! Didn't publish that. Now lets see the historical comparison where we compare outcomes based on socio-economics rather than on marriage. Doh! Never did research on that sort of stuff in the past so when we talk about the wonder of yesteryear - basically just making it up. Now lets think about the actual rate of marriage breakdown in the past which goes below the fact that divorce was first not legal and subsequently not affordable but separation happened all the time. Ahh .... there is a little bit on that. Interesting stuff. I can't imagine there's anything wrong with marriage beyond the refusal in many places to extend the invitation to all people in love. But why oh why do some marriage advocates feel the need to argue so hard against alternative models. Note to self: must remember to eat well. Well, that is, not lots.

Meanwhile the Howard Center promotes the American apple pie myth of the freedom loving, self-sufficient, rugged individualist, and his nuclear family, as the foundation of USA uniqueness/exceptionalism.

This is a myth, even a down right lie. A myth which hides a very dark shadow. But Americans (in particular) are not very good at seeing Reality True. They prefer anodyne soporific Morning in America speeches by the great communicator Ronald Reagan

These references provide an alternative perspective--there are of course countless others.

The Way We Never Were

http://www.stephaniecoontz.com/books/thewayweneverwere

Columbus and Other Cannibals

http://nas.ucdavis.edu/Forbes/CANNIBALS.html

American Holocaust

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/History/American_Holocaust.html

Plus the work of Vine Deloria Jr via God is Red, Red Earth/White Lies, and his work altogether

It is interesting that the term nuclear family only emerged after World War II, We all know how that ended.

Robert Oppenheimer, the "father" of the atomic bomb was named father of the year by the American Family Association. A very exemplary father indeed.

A bumper sticker I once saw in the USA.

The nuclear family is bomb waiting to explode.