Letter to the Editor: Sex is sacred

While I admire your conviction to abstain from sex before marriage, that strategy has not worked for our nation's children.

Instead, our children should be taught all the STIs, its symptoms, and how to protect themselves from them. A survey of children to took a pledge to abstinence have explicitly said that when they have sex for the first time, they will not be using protection. You may think, well why would they want to be protected if they are waiting for marriage. Usually most if not all of those kids will have sex before marriage. They will be having sex without protection, thinking that nothing will happen to them the first time and they could not get pregnant.

While abstinence is your choice to make, it should not be the only option for everyone else.

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• Posted by davidnta on May 1, 2007 at 8:24 a.m.
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Letter to the Editor: Sex is sacred

Paul of Tarsus would be so proud of you and your gay boyfriend. Sex is no more sacred then defecation or the growth of fingernails. It is a natural part of life and a function of the human organism. Stop blowing smoke and acting as if you are better than others because of your ridiculous aescetism. And, for Zeus' sake, get to screwing already...

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• Posted by s77white on May 1, 2007 at 10 a.m.
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Letter to the Editor: Sex is sacred

"Being in an abstinent relationship doesn’t not mean living an anachronistic life..."

Really top-of-the-line English education there at old KU. LOL

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• Posted by s77white on May 1, 2007 at 10:17 a.m.
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Letter to the Editor: Sex is sacred

You know s77white.....do you just come on these message boards to be outrageous and piss people off?

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• Posted by KUCatholic08 on May 1, 2007 at 4:59 p.m.
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Letter to the Editor: Sex is sacred

I don't think you could really accuse me of being outrageous. In my opinion all of these "anti-sex" letters to the editor are the outrageous ones. You are the one who was spouting off anti-social rhetoric and foolishness just the other day, so your comment about me being outrageous is sort of confusing. Do you come to these message boards so you can be offended and behave in a put-upon manner?

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• Posted by s77white on May 1, 2007 at 5:38 p.m.
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Letter to the Editor: Sex is sacred

Hahahaha.........I like how having religious convictions is antisocial! hahaha......I think I understand how you think you aren't outrageous, but suggesting sex and defecation are the same is simply coarse and clearly shows you have no sense at all of any value for it beyond sexual gratification. Unfortunately for you, I think most people, especially women, take a little more meaning from it.....I also like how you call this person's boyfriend gay, when he clearly is more of a man than any of the people you consider "normal men" because he is actually able to restrain his animal urges and treat his girlfriend as something other than an object of sexual gratification and use.

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• Posted by KUCatholic08 on May 1, 2007 at 8:46 p.m.
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Letter to the Editor: Sex is sacred

"I like how having religious convictions is antisocial!"

Actually, you applauded the Cardinal's attempts at linking homosexual love with terrorism. That is deeply anti-social and bigoted. The fact that you think it is funny is very telling of your warped character.

You might want to work on your reading comprehension pal, I wasn't saying that sex and defecation are the same. I was saying that neither of them could be considered sacred, since they are merely functions of the human organism. What sort of education are you getting at KU that you can't even put that together?

"...he clearly is more of a man than any of the people you consider "normal men" because he is actually able to restrain his animal urges and treat his girlfriend as something other than an object of sexual gratification and use."

That is a fairly jaundiced view of relationships. There is something deeply wrong with a person who views sexual intercourse as a means to objectify women. In fact, that type of opinion is deeply misogynistic and assumes that women are incapable of sexual pleasure. Is that what you meant to imply with your comment?

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• Posted by s77white on May 2, 2007 at 9:45 a.m.
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Letter to the Editor: Sex is sacred

"According to the National Center for Health Statistics, women who have sex before marriage are 60 percent more likely to have a divorce..."

Though this statistic might be accurate, it doesn't convince me that abstinence is any better than premarital sex. Couples who wait to have sex will likely (though not always) hold religious beliefs that look down upon premarital sex AND divorce; the statistic doesn't reveal whether abstinence or religious doctrine contributes to the lower divorce rate. Plus, this statistic presents divorce as a bad thing, which it isn't necessarily. Not all divorces result in broken homes or are a result of two people who aren't devoted to family--just like not all marriages are happy and healthy. The nature of divorces tied to premarital sex is unknown, so the statistic doesn't really lead to any conclusions.

Also, I thought this was funny: "Without sex in the picture, we are free to get to know each other. The time we spend together is not spent in the bedroom or in front of the TV."

Sex = TV???

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• Posted by kat on May 2, 2007 at 4:58 p.m.
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Letter to the Editor: Sex is sacred

KUCatholic: I have been reading your comments on recent stories. I agree with your points and really appreciate your courage to speak up, even though your convictions are not popular. But please, do not laugh at our fellow posters. A person's reasoning can be based on false facts, it can be logically unsound and therefore wrong, but it is not laughable. We must defend truth, but by attacking the arguments, while being very careful to respect the persons behind them.

s77white: what is intended in the article is that sex can be a way to objectify EITHER men OR women. of course women can get pleasure from sex. But if you use another person as a means to get pleasure instead of treating the person as an end in themself, you have made them into an object. And Kant's ethics says it well: " A human being, however, is not a thing and hence not something that can be used merely as a means, but must in all his actions be regarded as an end in itself."

So what does sex look like in a way that it makes a person an end in his/herself? well, we see it is the deepest type of physical intimacy and bodily gift of self. So it should correspond to the deepest emotional/mental intimacy, commitment and complete gift of self.

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• Posted by kennalley on May 2, 2007 at 11 p.m.
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Letter to the Editor: Sex is sacred

Kennalley: Thank you for you well-reasoned response. Believe it or not, I agree whole-heartedly with you about the importance of physical intimacy and commitment. I don't quite understand how you can say the point of the article was that sex can be used to objectify men or women. The point of the article was that the act of intercourse is sacred. The elevating of the act of coitus to some sort of "holy" status rang false to me, hence my response. Aescetism is a zero-sum game, and I don't think Kant would argue that point in terms of relationships. Ritualistic self-denial is fine for the self, but for a couple it seems to be futile (if not damaging to the psyche). Your use of a quote from Kant is also suspect due to the fact that he viewed sexuality through the same paradigm that afflicts KUCatholic08 (which makes sense, they both operate under the presumption that women can be possessed and, as such, are incapable of sexual pleasure). That is not to say that I disagree with Categorical Imperitive. In fact, I agree whole-heartedly with Kant's groundbreaking secular morality. Modernity and women's rights have put the screws to Kant's base-line, we are in a whole different ballgame now. It is time to cast aside the constraints of antiquity and face the facts that things have changed (and changed for the better).

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• Posted by s77white on May 3, 2007 at 10:11 a.m.
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