Yesterday, I posted a note on the 50th anniversary of the birth control pill. A couple of posters asked me some questions, for which I was not able to give full answers. But, today I found this editorial piece by an “aging sex symbol” (her self-description) that has some thoughtful reflections on the birth control pill. Normally, I do not quote an article in toto, but the one below is worth it. I do not agree with everything the actress says, nevertheless, her editorial is worth reading:
(CNN) — Margaret Sanger opened the first American family-planning clinic in 1916, and nothing would be the same again. Since then the growing proliferation of birth control methods has had an awesome effect on both sexes and led to a sea change in moral values.
And as I’ve grown older over the past five decades — from 1960 to 2010 — and lived through this revolutionary period in female sexuality, I’ve seen how it has altered American society — for better or worse.
On the upside, by the early 60’s The Pill had made it easier for a woman to choose to delay having children until after she established herself in a career. Nonetheless, for young women of childbearing age (I was one of them) there was a need for some careful soul searching — and consideration about the long-range effects of oral contraceptives — before addressing this very personal decision. It was a decision I too would have to face when I discovered I was pregnant at age 19.
Even though I was married to the baby’s father, Jim Welch, I wasn’t prepared for this development. It meant I would have to put my career ambitions on hold. But “the choice” was not mine alone to make. I had always wanted to have Jim’s babies, but wasn’t at all sure how he would react. At the time, we were 19-year-old newlyweds, struggling to make ends meet. But he was unflinching in his desire to keep our baby and his positive, upbeat attitude about the whole prospect turned everything around. I have always loved Jim for how he responded in that moment.
During my pregnancy, I came to realize that this process was not about me. I was just a spectator to the metamorphosis that was happening inside my womb so that another life could be born. It came down to an act of self-sacrifice, especially for me, as a woman. The act of conception is no ordinary thing, for it requires taking care of your body right from maintaining the hygiene of your body—with products like Balance Activ—to ensuring the inhabitant of your womb not feel the slightest discomfort. But both of us were fully involved, not just for that moment, but for the rest of our lives. And it’s scary. You may think you can skirt around the issue and dodge the decision, but I’ve never known anyone who could. Jim and I had two beautiful children who’ve been an ongoing blessing to both of us.
Later, I would strike out on my own, with my little ones, as a single mother to pursue a career in the movies. It was far from ideal, but my children didn’t impede my progress. They grounded me in reality and forced me into an early maturity. I should add that having two babies didn’t destroy my figure.
But if I’d had a different attitude about sex, conception and responsibility, things would have been very different.
One significant, and enduring, effect of The Pill on female sexual attitudes during the 60’s, was: “Now we can have sex anytime we want, without the consequences. Hallelujah, let’s party!”
It remains this way. These days, nobody seems able to “keep it in their pants” or honor a commitment! Raising the question: Is marriage still a viable option? I’m ashamed to admit that I myself have been married four times, and yet I still feel that it is the cornerstone of civilization, an essential institution that stabilizes society, provides a sanctuary for children and save us from anarchy.
In stark contrast, a lack of sexual inhibitions, or as some call it, “sexual freedom,” has taken the caution and discernment out of choosing a sexual partner, which used to be the equivalent of choosing a life partner. Without a commitment, the trust and loyalty between couples of childbearing age is missing, and obviously leads to incidents of infidelity. No one seems immune.
As a result of the example set by their elders, by the 1990s teenage sexual promiscuity — or hooking up — with multiple partners had become a common occurrence. Many of my friends who were parents of teenagers sat in stunned silence several years ago when it came to light that oral sex had become a popular practice among adolescent girls in middle schools across the country.
The 13-year-old daughter of one such friend freely admitted to performing fellatio on several boys at school on a regular basis. “Aw come on, Mom. It’s no big deal. Everyone is doing it,” she said. Apparently, since it’s not the act of intercourse, kids don’t count it as sex. Can any sane person fail to make a judgment call about that?
Seriously, folks, if an aging sex symbol like me starts waving the red flag of caution over how low moral standards have plummeted, you know it’s gotta be pretty bad. In fact, it’s precisely because of the sexy image I’ve had that it’s important for me to speak up and say, Come on girls! Time to pull up our socks! We’re capable of so much better.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Raquel Welch.
Now, Raquel is not saying that she is a pro-lifer. And, she is definitely not a conservative Christian. But, would you not say that she has quite a reasonable grasp on the effect of the birth control pill on this culture? She helps answer the question of why I had mixed feelings about the 50th anniversary of the pill.
You know, its funny. I am of that 60’s generation-raised in the 50’s came of age in the early 60’s, but I NEVER saw the pill as a free path to let loose and party. Maybe because it was not available during my formative years and when it did come out, we were fearful of it and what effects it might have. I was what used to be called a “good girl.” I have been married several times (consider marriage the cornerstone of society), but I have never had indescriminate sex with someone to whom I was not married . Most of the people I knew in the 60’s and early 70’s were not into indescriminate sex either and I lived in a commune at one point and was a part of some of the “hipper” moments of the age. The people I knew were either in long term relationships or marriages and using birth control (not just the pill but other forms as well) as a responsible way to limit family until financially or otherwise able. Now I am not saying that there were not people who saw it that way–I am wondering if perhaps the difference is WHEN in that era one came into adutlhood. When I was growing up there was still that definate division between loose girls and good girls and girls who got pregnant dropped out of sight and there was the sense that one saved oneself until marriage. I am wondering if the difference was those who came of age in the mid 70’s after the idea of the pill was established…….just food for thought.
Now the people who are made fun of are the virgins. You see that in show after show and movie after movie. Because better methods of contraception have helped to lower the fear of pregnancy, I think that Raquel has a point. You can tell that she was also raised when there was a difference between a good girl and a bad girl. However, I will agree with the feminists when they call us to notice that there is no equivalent concept of good boy and bad boy. If a boy managed to “ruin” a girl, he could still go on to a good job and career and a future good marriage.
More efficient methods of birth control made it possible for the claim that one cannot and should not resist one’s biology overly much, and that sexual experimentation was totally normal to be believed. In fact, the new mythology is that abstinence does not work despite the many centuries when it did. Again, sadly, during those centuries, much of the pressure was only on the “girl.” This is what has given abstinence such a bad name. We need to admit that in many cultures and many religions, abstinence has been a woman’s issue and not a people’s issue.
But, having said all that, the Orthodox never fully bought into the extreme idea that sex should only be for the procreation of children. Thus you find Metropolitan Kallisto’s comment about consulting with your spiritual father. The pill did indeed stop the advent of the yearly child, which was all too common among many.
I guess I am not old enough to understand this perspective. I was born in 1981. When I was in highschool, it seemed that girls my age knew sex could have a lot of complications, even with protection, but valued social standing above those things. Moral rightness barely seemed to figure in, as long as you were serially monogamous. I don’t think an increased chance of pregnancy would have changed their hearts or even their actions significantly. A girl at school had a child, it didn’t dampen anyone’s ardor. On every subject, from drugs to class attendance to sex, the dominant opinion was “do whatever you like, suffer if it goes wrong”. From looking at the way the financial crisis worked, it seems our elders were on the same plan. Those of us who disagreed were seen as zealots or brown nosers. I definitely see the ongoing march of relativism, but do you think consequence sparing technologies are are the cause or a symptom?
Oddly enough, I see the non-abortion birth control technologies as being neither the cause nor a symptom, per se. Let me explain. A kitchen knife is not the cause of a death when it is used to murder someone. It is the person who wields that knife and misuses it and changes it from a kitchen implement to a murder weapon. It is true that the knife is the immediate cause of death but it is not the ultimate cause. The ultimate cause is the person who wields the knife.
In the same way, for non-Roman Catholics, the pill makes possible the attitude you describe, in the same way that morphine makes addiction possible. But, it is the misuse of the pill (or the misuse of morphine) that leads to the attitude that you described when you were a teenager. It is true that our babyboomer generation set your generation up to think that you are free from restrictions. But, it is also true that this attitude was made possible because the pill made pregnancy a more remote issue.
I suspect that if the pill were to be used only by couples and only for a reasonable control of conception, that the moral debate over the pill would be greatly lessened. BTW, there are actually legitimate medical uses for the pill that are unrelated to conception.
I know them well, I took it for PCOS for a long time.
In one sense the pill is a “neutral” thing in that it can be used either to act in an immoral way or can be used in a more morally neutral way by married couples to space children and so on (under guidance of one’s spiritual father). Yet, over the course of time, technological developments, and the freedom/lifestyle they permit, very much *do* shape behaviors on a larger scale.
If we take other examples from the past few decades … let’s look at cell phones, for example. It is a “neutral” technology, for certain. Yet its now ubiquitous presence has impacted behaviors — in good or bad ways, depending on context. It is certainly “good” for one to be always able to contact 911, or for parents to be able to contact their children and so on. It is certainly “good” for people to be able to be more mobile and yet still in communication with others. Yet, cellphone use also causes many car accidents, some of which are fatal. Cell phones have certainly also been a boon to extra-marital affairs and infidelities due to the ease of “hiding” that they provide. And, as we can see in particular among the younger set, cell phones can serve as the locus of bullying through text messages, or the spread of “sexting” type messages among teens and so on. The issue isn’t t to say “cell phones are bad”, but rather that the advent of cell phones has brought about new options for human behavior, and some humans will, of course, use the new technology to access these bad options.
The same can be said, for example, of the internet — a great boon in so many ways, yet also a huge source of pornography addiction, a primary source of prostitution solicitation, and, regrettably, a medium that is playing a significant role in marital break-down across the culture.
Again, that isn’t to say that “the internet is bad” — it’s neutral. But, as with the pill and the cell phone, it’s important to point out that the immoral uses of these new technologies have a way of shaping society and social behavior. We can tell people that it’s bad to talk on their cell phones in the car, but this behavior has become ubiquitous already and is a social norm. We can tell people that looking at pornography on the internet is immoral or, for the secular folk, simply bad for you emotionally and sexually and so on — but that doesn’t stop what has become a nearly ubiquitous behavior from mushrooming in the culture, having all kinds of effects in all sorts of ways. At some stage, even though the technology is, itself, “neutral”, one can nevertheless make an assessment of the broader impact of technological developments in terms of “normatizing” new behaviors or, perhaps, facilitating older problematic behaviors.
All of this points, of course, to the need for moral norms. If we do not have strong moral norms, the technology and the opportunities it provides begins to shape behavioral norms in a vacuum — kind of like what we are seeing in the Welch article.
Very good reply, I like what you said. In passing, the same printing press that brought us the Gutenberg Bible also eventually led to Playboy. Yet, the printing press changed Christianity, by making the Bible available to anyone at anytime. So, yes you are ever so correct!
Just found your blog and was browsing….
There are some facts that point to oral contraceptives being at least potentially abortifacient (as in one cannot know whether or not the pill is acting as a true contraceptive or as an abortifacient at any given time). I certainly hope that any Orthodox Christian does some real soul searching, consultation with their spiritual father, and some serious homework on any type they are considering. In my opinion and what I perceive to be the traditional teaching of the Church, contraceptive use of any sort should be saved for seriously exceptional circumstances among Orthodox Christians, and families should welcome children. Unfortunately, it is also my observation that we tend to just follow along blindly with the norms of our culture – (which is currently waiting via contraceptive many years to have a child, going back on contraception, having maybe one more, and either going back on contraception or sterilizing of one spouse.) I think sometimes people think they cannot afford to care for more than 1 or 2 children, but in reality, most times they are simply unwilling to reprioritize their lives. They like nice things, free time, dual careers, expensive vacations, and convenient life.
Frankly, there are big debates in the Orthodox Church about contraceptive use. And, it is not a conservative/liberal divide, since our “divides” are different. We all agree that certain types of contraception are prohibited because they are not contraception but mini-abortions.
Nevertheless, you make some good points. However, I would also add that one hopes that any Orthodox Christian also does some real soul searching before having many children. Some of the TV reality shows that concentrate on people with numerous kids are also quite sad. Remember, that an Orthodox option is always celibacy in marriage, provided that it is by agreement and with prayer. One does not have to have intercourse, and that would certainly be an allowed form of birth control.