Thanks! Looks like that's just about religious folks having more sex and doesn't mention contraception. The claim was that couples that don't use contraception have more sex. Do you have anything that speaks to that?
I don't think you're asking in good faith if you're asking what joy is and why it's good.
As for the source of joy: it's various! Sex is a form of physical intimacy that fosters closeness and relationships (they call it making love for a reason). Also it feels good and is fun.
That's cool that people that don't use contraception have more sex! Feel free to link the study if you have it, I'd love to read it. As to your question: That sounds very likely to be a selection effect to me and unlikely to be causal. For example, those actively trying to conceive are going to be younger, healthier, and have an additional motivation to have sex. Regardless, my claim isn't that sex wouldn't happen without contraception -- it would still happen, it's just a matter of whether it would involve unwanted pregnancies and disease transmission
I can't find anything that justifies the claims you're making, could you please point me to some studies? I doubt we'll agree on whether premarital sex is good or not (I think it is!), but I would at least like to understand where your non-moral claims are coming from!
That is strange, Substack sends me notifications by email and through the app and sometimes it seems really random, something shows up one place and not another.
The pessimism isn't from anything you said directly. The article just enforces my conviction that the moral way is to wait until marriage and then of course have as many children as God blesses you with.
The pessimism comes from realizing that the prospects of achieving anything approaching that moral ideal successfully and happily are grim. All the structures and frameworks supporting and enabling marriage have been eviscerated to the point that it's not even the same thing anymore, and describing it with the same word is hardly correct.
Unfortunately the churches are no exception to that. Besides the fact that they have little actually authority to support their ideals.
So when you remove any acceptable avenue to have even the shallowest approximation of an intimate relationship, as morally correct as you might be, the rest of life from a young man's perspective can look just a little more bleak, just a little less hopeful. Some may be blessed with the gift of celibacy, but I guess the rest of us are relegated to cultivating a mind and will of steel.
Ah, well, maybe I can increase your optimism. By working very hard, and talking and preaching a lot about the Biblical way of marriage, I got all six of my children married and I have 25 grandchildren. So there is a way to do it.
Thanks! Looks like that's just about religious folks having more sex and doesn't mention contraception. The claim was that couples that don't use contraception have more sex. Do you have anything that speaks to that?
Counter-point: sex creates joy, joy is intrinsically good, and contraception makes it easier to have more sex
I don't think you're asking in good faith if you're asking what joy is and why it's good.
As for the source of joy: it's various! Sex is a form of physical intimacy that fosters closeness and relationships (they call it making love for a reason). Also it feels good and is fun.
That's cool that people that don't use contraception have more sex! Feel free to link the study if you have it, I'd love to read it. As to your question: That sounds very likely to be a selection effect to me and unlikely to be causal. For example, those actively trying to conceive are going to be younger, healthier, and have an additional motivation to have sex. Regardless, my claim isn't that sex wouldn't happen without contraception -- it would still happen, it's just a matter of whether it would involve unwanted pregnancies and disease transmission
Can you point me to the studies showing the relationships you're describing?
When I've tried to look up evidence for the claims you're making, what I've found is 1) actually couples who use contraception have more sex (https://hub.jhu.edu/2016/01/27/sex-for-married-couples-contraceptives/), and 2) Trends in premarital sex haven't become more common at least since the 50's, even as contraception became more widely accessible (https://www.guttmacher.org/news-release/2006/premarital-sex-nearly-universal-among-americans-and-has-been-decades).
There also only seem to be negative relationships between contraceptive use and unwanted pregnancy (e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/06/science/colorados-push-against-teenage-pregnancies-is-a-startling-success.html) and rates of unwanted pregnancy have decreased during historic periods of increase contraceptive use (https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/unintended-pregnancy-united-states).
I can't find anything that justifies the claims you're making, could you please point me to some studies? I doubt we'll agree on whether premarital sex is good or not (I think it is!), but I would at least like to understand where your non-moral claims are coming from!
Yeah, a couple of small logical holes in that big enough enough to drive a Mac truck through.
Thank you for the well researched and presented article. There's a lot to think about here, it leaves me feeling both convicted and pessimistic.
Weirdest thing, I couldn't find this comment from my phone, had to get on my computer.
I will say I wasn't shooting to make anyone pessimisitic, though, so I'm a bit confused by that comment.
That is strange, Substack sends me notifications by email and through the app and sometimes it seems really random, something shows up one place and not another.
The pessimism isn't from anything you said directly. The article just enforces my conviction that the moral way is to wait until marriage and then of course have as many children as God blesses you with.
The pessimism comes from realizing that the prospects of achieving anything approaching that moral ideal successfully and happily are grim. All the structures and frameworks supporting and enabling marriage have been eviscerated to the point that it's not even the same thing anymore, and describing it with the same word is hardly correct.
Unfortunately the churches are no exception to that. Besides the fact that they have little actually authority to support their ideals.
So when you remove any acceptable avenue to have even the shallowest approximation of an intimate relationship, as morally correct as you might be, the rest of life from a young man's perspective can look just a little more bleak, just a little less hopeful. Some may be blessed with the gift of celibacy, but I guess the rest of us are relegated to cultivating a mind and will of steel.
Ah, well, maybe I can increase your optimism. By working very hard, and talking and preaching a lot about the Biblical way of marriage, I got all six of my children married and I have 25 grandchildren. So there is a way to do it.