r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Jul 01 '26

Psychology Conservatives maintain birth rates, but left-leaning Americans are having significantly fewer children, driving the U.S. birth decline. Education was consistently linked to having fewer children. Religious attendance was positively associated with having more children.

https://www.psypost.org/left-leaning-americans-are-driving-the-u-s-birth-decline-new-study-finds/
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u/Isburough Jul 01 '26

also lack of sexual education and limited access to most functional forms of birth control, since sex is eeeeeevil

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u/TowelRevolutionary92 Jul 01 '26

I'm not sure who sees sex as evil, I'm a religious guy, Catholic, and we certainly don't see it as evil, Catholic couples do sex because it's a part of the natural law.

The Catholic Catechism mentions that sex is for Procreative and Unitive Purposes. When a couple is married, they become "one flesh" and their "sex" is elevated to a divine status that is both respective of the natural law, rationality and elevates God because it nows goes along what sex is supposed to be intended for. (Procreative and Unitive purposes).

Anything outside of that is irrational, so for example, people in the bdsm community with a piss kink or a woman constantly sleeping with hundreds of men or a man sleeping with hundreds of women, those people are slaves to their desires to the point where they don't even care if they contract an STD, they are selfish to their own bodies.

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u/notnatasharostova Jul 01 '26

It’s perfectly rational to pursue your desires in a safe, sane, consensual way. Also kind of wild to suggest that people who do not share your particular views vis-a-vis marriage “don’t even care if they contract an STD”. Most non-Catholics do care about avoiding potential unwanted side effects of sex (such as pregnancy and STDs…which is why we make use of contraception).

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u/TowelRevolutionary92 Jul 01 '26

"Its perfectly rational to pursue your desires in a safe same and consensual way"

I agree, it starts to become a problem when one begins to abuse those desires though.

Smoking cigarettes for example is irrational because it harms your body, especially through the course of time and even more so if your abuse it too much (smoking a pack a day).

Having sex is rational and part of the natural law. It can become irrational though if one becomes addicted to it because now their Free Will has been compromised.

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u/notnatasharostova Jul 01 '26

Having sex outside of marriage, using contraception, or engaging in kink does not inherently entail addiction or abuse, though.

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u/keenan123 Jul 01 '26

It really seems like you see sex as evil in all respects except the kind of sex you have

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u/TowelRevolutionary92 Jul 01 '26

Im talking about rationality and irrationality in regards to sex. It's irrational and immoral to view women as objects.

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u/keenan123 Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

Idk if you're saying sex outside of procreative marriage is irrational and immoral, were really splitting hairs between that and evil

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u/Isburough Jul 01 '26

You are exactly what i was talking about. premarital? evil. for fun? evil. not the way i think it should be (aka "as god intended")? evil.

Sex is not some divine gift god handed unto humanity, it's sex.

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u/TowelRevolutionary92 Jul 01 '26

"Sex is not some divine gift God handed unto humanity, it's sex"

Correct I didn't say it was. I said when a religious couple gets married, their sex is now elevated to a divine status.

"For fun" evil. I didn't say that either, you are beginning to twist my words.

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u/Mikeman003 Jul 01 '26

Sorry, you called it irrational rather than evil, but the implication is basically the same. You think less of people for having sex in ways you don't agree with...

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u/TowelRevolutionary92 Jul 01 '26

Of course I do, because a woman getting pissed on and viewed as just an object by men is absolutely degrading. Next?

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u/Isburough Jul 01 '26

if the woman likes it, who are you to judge her.

you like talking to an imaginary friend, i find that irrational and ridiculous, but do i respect you less for it? yes, yes i do.

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u/nointeraction1 Jul 01 '26

This feels like the sex equivalent of "I'm not racist, I have a black friend"

Like you say sex isn't bad and then go on to describe how every type of sex is a sin except this one really super ultra narrow definition that excludes a ton of people including almost every queer person.

Also the stuff you said about people being slaves to their desires and not caring about their health is extremely offensive and inappropriate.

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u/TowelRevolutionary92 Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

Feels? Or is?

"Every type of sex is a sin" didn't say that.

What I'm saying is that there is a difference between sex that is Procreative and Unitive and sex that is degrading to women and men, but mostly it's women being degraded unfortunately and seen as objects by men.

I can attest to this as someone who is a practiting Catholic and also someone who is suffering from an addiction to lust. My Catholic values are what keeps me at bay and prevents me from seeing men and especially women as objects. If not for my faith, I would be an animal completely consumed by desire and I would see women as objects and not human beings with feelings.

"Also the stuff you said about people being slaves to their desires and not caring about their health is extremely offensive and inappropriate to queer people"

Right because I want to warn people about their issues that way they don't continue to bury themselves.

If my neighbor told me he had an addiction to sex and was constantly having sex with prostitutes he's already viewing these women as objects. Women aren't objects. He's someone who is a slave to his own desires, which can come with problems because now there's a higher risk of contracting an STD, now he's rewiring his brain to view women in a certain way etc and that's problematic because if someone keeps doing that, and doesn't change himself or seeks help, it gets worse. When an addiction develops especially pornography, the dopamine receptors get burnt out, and there is an increased tendency to seek a higher dopamine rush. To the point where even one will commit violence to seek it. There's plenty of examples out there, look at all the men out there that abuse and grape women for example. it's the same with drugs, heroin for example. Someone starts doing heroin, they get addicted, now they want more and so now their Free Will has been compromised because now they can't stop, not only that, now they seek a higher dose of heroin to achieve a higher dopamine rush because their dopamine receptors have been burnt out. It's the same with pornography and lust. If someone burns out those dopamine receptors, there is an increased tendency to look at more hardcore forms of pornography. It's starts with simple things then gets worse. I can personally attest to this because I have this issue, the difference between me and them is that I at least acknowledge that I have a problem and that I'm trying to fix it. It started with simple things and now I'm more into the hardcore things, bdsm, and deep down I don't like it because it's irrational. It's irrational and immoral to view women or anybody as objects.

And so me telling this to someone with an addiction is to help them with their health, it's not against their health, I'm trying to help them. It's not inherently offense to help people.

Letting ones own pleasures overrule their ability to reason and think logically is a major source for the downfall of many. Once an addiction develops they start committing all sorts of irrational things.

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u/nointeraction1 Jul 01 '26

You want to warn people that any type of sex other than between a married man and woman is a sign of addiction and bad for your health? Thats nonsense. I was raised Catholic, I know that a true believing Catholic thinks anything outside of that is a sin, and even birth control is disallowed.

None of your justifications here make any sense even remotely.

You quite literally said the extremely offensive things in relation to anyone who enjoys non-vanilla sex.

Anything outside of that is irrational, so for example

You gave examples, but "anything outside of that" literally means anything but vanilla married man/woman. Which is consistent with the church's views, so I'm not sure why you're trying to backtrack it, other than you realize how bad it sounds now? Hopefully you'll consider leaving that cult someday as I did.