Planned Parenthood

*DISCLAIMER: This entry may contain content not suitable for unmarried people...hehe :) But seriously, as alluded to in the title, sex and birth control are discussed, so if you're more comfortable not reading this, I understand.

I recently read two different, but related articles, and they got me thinking. One was an article from MSNBC titled "Happily ever after? Not really, many wives say." The other was a blurb about the Duggar family (a couple who subscribe to the Evangelical Christian Quiverfull Movement and who have a reality show on TLC called "18 Kids and Counting").

Let me first address the Duggar family and the Quiverfull Movement. I didn't know anything about the movement, so I looked it up on Wikipedia (which, as we all know, is the ultimate source of knowledge on the web). Adherants to this movement believe in abstaining from all forms of birth control, including natural family planning (only having sex during times of lowest fertility: i.e. during breastfeeding, after menopause, and during periods of the menstruation cycle) and sterilization. They believe all children are a gift from God, and only God has the right to decide when and to whom a baby should come. They do not believe in child spacing. As a result, the Duggars have had 18 children over the course of 20 years, and (as the show's title suggests) will likely have more.

Now, I believe that birth control is a very private matter. And as long as this family is happy and are able to support themselves and their children financially, I say right on to them. But I disagree with the tenants of their faith. Mary Pride (who some say started the Quiverfull Movement) argued, "God commanded that sex be at least potentially fruitful (that is, not deliberately unfruitful).... All forms of sex that shy away from maritial fruitfulness are perverted."

Seriously?? What if a couple wants to have sex after menopause? Is that shying away from marital fruitfulness? What if a couple is sterile and can't have children? Should they cease to have sex once they know they can't have children? After all, their sexual relations are not potentially fruitful anymore.

There are all kinds of problems with this line of thinking. Yes, children are blessings from God, and should be received with gratitude. But sex is a wonderful part of marriage that was not created just to "make babies." Sex is an expression of love between husband and wife - it unites husband and wife and makes them one. And someone should not feel worried that they can't express their love to their spouse until they are financially able to support a child.

Baptist preacher John Piper said it well:
"Just because something is a gift from the Lord does not mean that it is wrong to be a steward of when or whether you will come into possession of it. It is wrong to reason that since A is good and a gift from the Lord, then we must pursue as much of A as possible. God has made this a world in which tradeoffs have to be made and we cannot do everything to the fullest extent... As Wayne Grudem has said, 'it is okay to place less emphasis on some good activities in order to focus on other good activities.'"

Now on to the other article. Women's Day and AOL Living did a poll of 35,000 women to find out how they feel about their marriages. The result? Many women aren't that happy. It seems that once they got married, their relationships went downhill. In fact, 72% of the women polled said they have considered leaving their husband at some point, and 57% sometimes regret marrying him!

I bet I can give a guess as to why - more than 60% said they rarely or never have a date night with their husband, and more than half replied that their sex life is "dull," or that they can't remember the last time they were intimate with their husband. A whopping 79% of the women polled say they want to have sex more often.

And would you have guessed it? The number one most important thing women wish their husband would do? Spend time with them. Close behind was "do housework."

I took a class in college about marriage and family relationships, and our professor said something that I have remembered well: intimacy is directly related to the rest of your relationship. You don't have sex to build a good relationship. You have sex because you already have a good relationship. Do you think your wife is going to want to be intimate with you when ignore her? When you don't take her out on dates and spend time together, just the two of you? When you don't help out around the house and expect her to do everything? On a related note, do you also expect your wife to look good for you when you've let yourself go? 12% of women said the most important thing they want their husband to do is hit the gym.

For those of you who don't see the connection between these two articles (which may be most of you), I want to reiterate the purpose of sexual intimacy. Is it to help create children who will come into and bless our lives? Yes. But it is also to strengthen the bonds of love within marriage. It is to express what cannot be expressed any other way. People sometimes ask why in the LDS church we teach our members to wait until marriage to be intimate. Why? Because sex is bad? No! It's not that it's bad, but because it is so good that we need to wait to experience it with our spouse. It's only within marriage that we can share absolutely everything with someone, and only there is it proper to show that highest expression of love.

So in other words, I think the Quiverfull Movement is definitely missing something.

David Letterman Under Fire

I'm not sure how many of you saw or heard David Letterman making crude jokes about Gov. Sarah Palin and her daughter (Bristol Palin, the 18-year-old unwed mother). I didn't, but they've been all over the news lately. Letterman made three inappropriate jokes about the Palins:

• Letterman commented that Gov. Palin had a "slutty flight attendant" look.
• He said Palin had a hard time keeping Eliot Spitzer away from her daughter.
• He also joked Palin's daughter was "knocked up" by Alex Rodriguez.

Now suddenly, Palin-supporters are up in arms that he would make such shameful jokes. And people are calling for him to be fired. Have these people never watched his show? He makes inappropriate jokes about everyone. As he himself said in response to the criticism, yes, the jokes were in poor taste, and he regrets making them (he then adds that he's regretted telling thousands of jokes on his show).

Unfortunately for Letterman, Palin wasn't traveling with Bristol, but with Willow, Palin's 14-year-old daughter. So even though the jokes were obviously made in reference to Bristol, who, as Letterman said, "was knocked up," and whose...ahem, morals...could be called into question, these people are determined to prove that he meant to promote statutory rape.

Puh-leeze! Are you serious?!

Now, did I think these jokes were funny? No. Were they inappropriate? Yes. Do I think people should support him and his program when he continues to tell these types of jokes? No. But do you honestly believe that he was sending the message that it's okay to rape someone? Or that sex with a minor is okay? Give me a break. These are just people trying to gain a little extra spotlight. And I include the Palins in that group. She's just early campaigning for 2012 (I won't be voting for her, that's for sure).

Oh, and I'm willing to bet that many of those people who are signing that online petition are the same ones who laughed at all the equally inappropriate jokes made at the expense of dozens of other public figures. Let's not be hypocrtical, shall we?

Facebook Friends

Let me preface this post by saying it's going to sound harsh. Although, those of you who read this probably already know that. My friend Sarah once responded to one of my posts this way: "I think you are one opinionated boy!! You always know where you stand and exactly how you feel about things." Well, that's partially true. I am very opinionated, and I tend to voice those opinions a lot. Whether wrong or right, I feel how I feel. But that doesn't mean I'm unwilling to look at things from another viewpoint and possibly change my mind.

Today I did some housecleaning on my Facebook list. I had about 450 "Facebook friends," of which I'm sure less than 20% I talk to, look at their profiles, or follow anything going on in their lives on a regular basis. I'm even willing to bet the number is lower than that.

Does that genuinely come as a surprise to anyone reading this? How many of your Facebook or MySpace friends do you stalk (I use that term loosely - don't ever stalk people - it's creepy and could get you a restraining order)? How many of your "friends" do you talk to? How many of their profiles do you even look at once a month?

With the advent of social networking, it seems like the cool thing to do is to "get back in contact" with as many of your former friends as possible. The thing is, people don't tend to do too much to stay in touch (let's face it, it's hard to keep up with the goings on of hundreds of people). For someone like me who moved around a ton, getting back in contact means that dozens of people I hardly remember add me as their friend, maybe look at my pictures once and make a comment ("Oh cute!"), then are never heard from again.

Or sometimes I get a person who knows someone I know, or who has seen me in a play, who wants to "be my friend" (I put this in quotes, because all they usually want is to add me to their Facebook friends list - they don't typically care about meeting me/getting to know me in person).

I don't begrudge anyone wanting to get to know me, to talk to me, to be my friend. Those are all wonderful things. But let's face it - the majority of people with whom I interact on Facebook (either talking with them, looking at their profiles, checking out their pictures, even chatting with them) are people I interact with outside of Facebook. I talk with them on the phone, chat online, see them from time to time... In other words, I make some effort to be a real friend - not just their "Facebook friend."

And I'm sure I'm just as guilty of this as most people. I've added people I barely knew simply because they were in a class or play with me, or who were good friends with ex-girlfriends. I've found people I knew in high school, but who were more acquaintances than friends, and added them to my list.

So we end up with huge lists of people we never talk to, never interact with, and the worst part of it is that when you go to remove any of these acquaintances from your list, you feel guilty. You worry they'll be hurt or offended that you removed them. Maybe they looked at your profile more often than you looked at theirs. Maybe they cared more than you did. That's always the concern, and I don't have a solution for it.

However, maybe we can eliminate the worry in regard to old high school/middle school/elementary school "friends." With your friend request, send a message: "Hey. I know we haven't talked in a dozen years and were never really that close to begin with, but I saw your name on someone else's profile, and wondered what you were up to. Can you add me so I can check out what's been going on, and then I'll remove you since I'm not incredibly interested in staying in touch - only getting in touch?"

Now there would be an honest message, and one I would be totally fine getting. Unfortunately, it will never happen.

Back to my housecleaning. I realize that there may be people who read my blog who I "un-added" from my Facebook friends list recently. If that's the case, you're probably one of those people I felt guilty about removing, because you care more about keeping up with me than I thought. I apologize if your feelings were hurt, but I don't apologize for un-adding anyone, because I haven't had any interaction with anyone I removed in months (at the least).

Moral of the story? Be real friends with people...then add them to your friends list.