Let's Talk About Sex

I had an epiphany during an 80+ comment thread on FaceBook about the reason a lot of people have a problem with contraception and its coverage. It has to do with a fundamental view of the morality (for lack of a better word) of sex.

Coverage for contraception and its use is only controversial if you think that sex is something people ought not to be doing. There are many reasons people think this. I believe that the majority of them are steeped,consciously or not, in religious ideology. If you think that sex is supposed to be a certain way (for procreation is a good example) then sex outside of that narrow view is invalid at some level. It might be "recreation" (as someone in the thread kept saying...a thought I find somewhat disturbing) or frivolous or unnecessary or even potentially "wrong" (whatever that means).

On the other hand, if you accept sex as something morally neutral, that almost everyone does and enjoys as part of a healthy adult human life (instead of a means to an end as it is in the procreation-only view) then it changes the conversation. If you accept it as something that people will do, regardless of your shaming them, then it becomes prudent and pragmatic on many levels to prevent a potential undesirable outcome of that normal human activity.

People keep saying that pregnancy is "preventable" and that they "shouldn't have to pay for you to have sex." I think that's a stupid argument. Lots of things are preventable. I pay for all manner of things via my health insurance premiums that I will never use and even some I probably don't approve of. However, no one says to skin cancer patients, "Well, you should have known better than to go outside in the sun." If you break your arm skiing should insurance not cover the repair because you incurred that injury (that could have been prevented!!!) while doing something "pleasurable?" These things are absurd, but not as absurd as pretending that sex is not a normal part of life.

People who pretend that this conversation doesn't, at its core, revolve around the morality of sex and the view and attempted control of women's sexuality are either lying or stupid.

P.S. I realize that this post barely scratches the surface, but if I wrote everything all at once (like the hypocrisy of covering ED drugs and the reasons that employers would get out of health care anyways and the economic and social benefits of preventing unintended pregnancy and on and on The Google would explode...

You Asked For It

More than one person in my life has, of late, tried to convince me to write more about some of the things I comment on frequently in other venues. Anyone who knows me knows that I feel particularly strongly about human rights, especially reproductive rights and LGBT rights and the recent increase in attacks on them by the increasingly obnoxious extremist fringe of the conservative side of the American population. I read/watch the news and shake my head (well, actually I shout a lot) and feel as though I've slipped into some kind of horrible dystopic novel where religious dogma and ignorance has somehow overcome common sense and reason.

So, you asked for it. As they say, be careful what you wish for...