A while back I was thinking about the rationalizations that the anti-sex crowd uses to support public policies like abstinence-only education, discouraging use of contraception, and demonizing abortion, and I was trying to think of a concise and pithy way to emphasize the inconsistency and, frankly, inhumanity of their positions. I didn't come up with anything thoroughly satisfactory at the time, but just today, the concept came back to me and I thought up a graphical way to demonstrate it. So I made this comic:
My stick figure skills notwithstanding, my roommate informs me that I don't have a very effective sense of humor, even though I thought the comic was very witty. But perhaps it's also a little dense. I was merely trying to point out, in a humorously ironic way, the inconsistency of the rationalizations this anti-sex crowd makes. Instead of just admitting that they don't like sex and don't want you to have it (which would, admittedly, not be a very compelling argument), they look for ways to justify their positions. Sex is dangerous - it can lead, primarily, to unplanned pregnancies and disease.
Now, if they were actually concerned for the people involved, you'd think they'd support tools to reduce the risks of sex - i.e., contraception, or things like the HPV vaccine, which is vigorously opposed by the Catholic church. But no, that's not how it works. Making sex safer is just going to make people more likely to have it, and that's not what they want. They don't actually come out and say, "sex needs to be riskier" (at least not in those words - they do sometimes cite "increased promiscuity" as a negative) - instead they come up with bogus explanations like, it goes against god's plan, or condoms don't work - but you know that's what they're thinking.
And frankly, that's more than a little scary. The anti-sex crowd would rather you be punished with an unwanted child (to say nothing of how the child may suffer - but their suffering is inconsequential next to the suffering of premature fetuses aborted before they've even had the chance to rue the day they were born) or venereal disease, than to let you enjoy safe sex, because perverts need to be punished for their sins. Hell, AIDS is a godsend when viewed from this perspective. It's exactly the same justification people use when they tell women they deserve to be raped because they wore a skirt that's too short, or acted too flirty at the bar. These people want sex to be dangerous, because they want to be justified in telling you not to have it. That's their prerogative, but the rest of us need to realize how truly fucked up and dangerous that viewpoint is.
"Sex has consequences. If you don't believe us, go ahead and try it, and we'll do whatever it takes to make you suffer, just to prove ourselves right." It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. In closing, imagine the following conversation between a moral pundit and a libertine:
"Don't have sex!"
"Why not?"
"Because it's immoral."
"I don't care."
"Well, it's also dangerous."
"But we have tools to make it safer."
"Then they should be outlawed."
"Why? Do you want people to suffer?"
"Only those stained with sin."
"Whatever, dude."
"Wait! You know that contraception doesn't work, right?"
"If that were true, then shouldn't you be supporting it?"
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