On Using Women

Versus Loving Them

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By Mark Connolly

The previous post received some comments that required some sort of a response. So, I am quoting and replying like so:

OK, I don’t disagree. And if your aim was to throw out a sound-bite in the name of dialogue you have succeeded, because I think there is a lot to talk about in this. I hereby take the bait!

Yay! This is a topic that is worthy of dialog and argument. Argument that is of a type not seen much today. GK Chesterton noted the purpose of argument is to differ in order to agree. The failure of argument is to agree to differ.

Context: as opposed to “abortion is a female issue”? Redefining abortion as something other than a problem for the woman to deal with (or a right she alone possesses) sounds like a good start.

I am indeed trying to reintroduce into the discussion the fact that it takes two to tango. Women fundamentally don't conceive by themselves.

“If men would stop using women” says to me that women are victims, is this true as a general statement?

Whether women are victims or not was not really the point of the statement you quote. It is however a potential consequence. Men can use a hammer to build a bench, but the hammer is not a victim. The hammer was designed to be used in this manner. It is fulfilling its purpose. Are women designed to be used in some capacity by men? Is that their purpose?

Framing women as victims was not my intent, however. Rather, I want men to think about what they are doing.

“Dumpsters for our lust” is likely true for us guys, but it occurs to me there are motivators on the female side of this equation as well, though they may be different motivators. This might loop me back to the “victim” part, I suppose.

Love and Lust are the concepts being held up for examination, though Love was not specifically mentioned in my original post.

I quote here from a book by Ronald Rolheiser a statement regarding this issue:

"We live in a system, a cultural one, within which it is acceptable for men and women to have sex with each other even though they are in no way committed to each other and do not wish to have children with each other. In such a system, abortion is inevitable and no laws and no law enforcement can stop it because the system will continually keep producing someone (who could be anyone) who finds herself pregnant and isolated in a way that would make the birth of this child from this man at this time an existential impossibility for her." - The Holy Longing, p 170

Men don't want to think about these things in the heat of the moment. But, men are not dogs and women do not go into heat. Dogs are incapable of reasoning through the consequences of their actions to their logical conclusions.

Your statement alone will not eliminate abortion, the human capacity for self-justification runs wide and deep.

Too True.