Tuesday 7 August 2001

(Sorry, no pic of the day. I have an idea, but it requires far too much time to do today.)

Bush vs sex

I was peacefully sitting on the bus yesterday reading the news headlines on my Pocket PC. And there it was: "Bush against sex". And I thought: Now that's gonna be a fight to attract viewers. And I have a pretty good idea who most of them will be cheering on.

To call it the match of the century must certainly be an understatement. The last occasion that springs to mind was around a thousand years ago: King Canute against the tides. (The result was, as you may remember, Canute 0 - tides 1. There was never a rematch.)

Contrary to popular retelling, it seems that in the original story the king himself arranged the futile commanding of the tides to demonstrate that there were limits to what a ruler could do anything about: Forces of nature, for instance. I wish this lesson had been learned so we did not need to see it again.

***

I know this sounds like a strange things to say for a guy that's approximately as celibate as the Pope. But there's a lot of background history for that, which I won't pummel you with yet again. And besides, there is the question of religion.

Christianity certainly mandates pre-marital abstinence from even moderately sexual activity. But it is worth noticing that in the original religion, it also mandates miraculous healings and the occasional resurrection by the very same power. Do you really expect Random Young Heathen to do any of the above just by virtue of living in a nominally christian country? I think that is absurd.

And let me add: At that time, young men reached puberty a year or so later than now, and married around 18. Today when an education often lasts into your late twenties, we're talking about a forced celibacy of 10 or in extreme cases 15 years. Words become small on such an occasion.

"Therefore go and make mock disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit whether they know it or not, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you whether they want to or not." No, that's not how it's written, and that's not how it should be practiced either. A millenium and a half of that stuff is enough, I say. Let's try another approach. How about meeting people where they are and walking with them from there?

***

Now don't get me wrong, it would not hurt if people could be friends without feeling forced or pressured into having a physical relationship too. There's a lot of work to be done in that area. And I'm aware that if you for instance hand out contraceptives to 14 year olds, you're hinting something pretty clearly. On the other hand, research shows that it is far more important what they believe their friends do, who are their own age. And furthermore, in the USA at least, most teen virgins believe they are practically the only one left; this is far from true. If there was some way to make kids be honest about sex, it would probably save a lot of grief, and even a few lives.

But somehow I don't see the "back to the 50es" faction and their puppet president accomplishing that. Quite the opposite.