I’m republishing an article by Actress Raquel Welch. A very hopeful sign. Thanks to Deena Stephens for sending it along.
(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. 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 saves 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.
Please. Are we really going to keep blaming the Pill for everything that’s wrong with America? First of all, people have been using contraception forever, and it might not have worked every time, but people still tried. So the Pill just made the job easier. And some other misunderstandings. The Kinsey report came out in the mid-fifties–before the Pill was approved for use–and the study found that 1/4 US women had had sex before marriage. And also, Griswold vs. Connecticut marked the first time MARRIED couples could freely access birth control, so even when the Pill was legalized, most people–even the married ones–couldn’t access it.
So no, the Pill wasn’t responsible for the wild promiscuity of the 1960’s. Actually, let’s face it: people then weren’t having more sex than before, it was just publicized and talked about more. The golden age of sexual purity is a myth. In Victorian England there was a wild sexual underculture, and middle class white women sat frigidly atop it while their husbands diddled the maidservants.
The Pill enabled women to get education and good jobs without fear of getting pregnant…AND MANY OF THESE WOMEN WERE MARRIED. I’m glad this redheaded windbag is so self-righteous and could handle both an acting career and raising two kids, but it sure as heck isn’t easy.
My girlfriend is pregnant. We waited a long time before we tried to conceive. I am so happy to be a father, but mostly happy that my girlfriend (and soon-to-be wife, after July) had a choice in the matter. I’m glad she could take birth control and had access to abortion if she needed it, because right now we know we want this baby. It was important for her to finish school…it took a long time, but she did it…and now she feels ready to be a mother and settle down for awhile before going on to accomplish other goals. I know it is going to be difficult but we are both very confident we have made the right decision. I am thankful my girlfriend had the right to make decisions about her own body.
Jake, If there were a form of birth control that was free, ecologically neutral and completely safe for both you and your fiance, that also was 99.9 percent effective if used properly, but that required the two of you to abstain from relations up to 9 days out of every month, would you be willing to make that sacrifice in order to obtain its benefits? You sound like a caring individual and one who will be a good husband and father. I strongly urge you to look into methods of natural family planning–science has brought this method far beyond the days of “calendar rhythm”, making it equal to the Pill in effectiveness. The Pill is not good for the environment and studies are showing all the ways it can adversely impact women’s health. Worse, it does not empower women in the way it should; it demands nothing from men and does not require the kind of inter-couple communication that natural methods of family planning promote. This space is too short for me to build the full case for how NFP is pro-woman and pro-relationships, and the Pill is the opposite of that. I encourage you to look into it!
Here’s an article at Ethika Politika discussing the same story, but with some additional commentary regarding Welch’s dispositions and CNN’s portrayal of the story.
http://cfmpl.wordpress.com/2010/05/09/raquel-welch-on-the-moral-consequences-of-birth-control/
Jake,
The Pill is both cause and effect. It is the effect of people who don’t understand the intricate relationship between our sexuality and the whole of our being, and it’s the cause of too many women being (1) objectified sexually in ways even more contemptable than in past generations (between contraception and abortion, men as a sex no longer have to be responsible for their sexual conduct) and (2) diminished in their self-image and self-esteem as nothing more than a necessary piece of apparatus to men’s gratification.
And I think you are mistaken about the 60s being the time when people only talked about it more. Attitudes toward sex were changing. Girls were more and more willing to yield their virginity outside marriage, it was the beginning of the reduction of sexual intimacy to mere recreation, and it was also the beginning of the trend we now see of treating virginity as a burden to be eliminated at the first possible opportunity.
I was reading yesterday about the virgin martyrs of the Church, and it occurs to me that these women, who chose to be massacred in horrific ways, also lived in a time of sexual idolatry, and their virginity becomes the epitome of their integrity as women. We’ve lost that sense, and society – not to mention the cause of women – is poorer for it.
Sadly, despite her 20/20 hindsight, I think Raquel Welch has helped to shape the sex-saturated culture we today “enjoy”.
Her lack of modesty and of commitment in her own life, professional and personal has helped in the degradation of women.
In the 1960’s culture, everyone mocked the Catholic church for it’s lack of forward thinking and modernity in not accepting birth control.
However, Pope Paul VI’s predictions outlined in Humanae Vitae have all come to pass.
And most of us are so blinded now, that we simply don’t even recognize the damage done.
Hence, all the articles extolling the virtues of the pill.
“Come on girls! Time to pull up our socks! We’re capable of so much better.”
Speak for yourself, honey. My socks are just fine.
It’s true, the Pill hasn’t completely radicalized sex roles. Women continue to be objectified. My point is that we can’t fool ourselves in thinking there was a time when men didn’t mistreat women, when everybody followed the golden rule of marital fidelity (which I agree is very important, by the way!). Illicit sex was just more hidden. When a woman had sex out of wedlock and got pregnant she either dealt with the “problem” herself, was sent away to give birth out of her community’s sight, or she was too poor to cover it up and had to deal with the shame all herself. And though sexism is still a problem today I think giving women more control over their bodies is the right way to go. And by the way this definitely transcends both prolife/prochoice sides of the debate because I believe women should be able to give birth the way they wish, have good maternity leave, the ability to breastfeed at work, and all that. It is just common sense.
Men just can’t deal with women entering the labor force and outdoing them. Sad but true. We feel it’s necessary to impose constraints on their bodies. That doesn’t say much for us as people.
What does virginity even mean? I know virgins with more impure thoughts than mick jagger. I wasn’t a virgin when I met my fiancee. She wasn’t, either. We came to each other and built what I think is a beautiful union above our old experiences, drawing from them and learning from each other. I’m glad I dated other women before settling down. This girl is the one!
Oh and an honest question: NFP seems like it might work for some people but it still seems risky. What if a woman has irregular cycles, or is sick and her body temperature is thrown off? I’m not saying the pill is without its potential health effects but I think I’d take a slight increased risk of heart attack than getting pregnant when I didn’t want to.
Jake,
I’m reading your comments with great interest. Can you substantiate your claims that things always were as they now are? I have data that suggest otherwise, but am eager to see some objective data that support your position.
Thanks.
There is a lot of scholarship out there about sexuality in Victorian England. The basic consensus is that we (society today) look to the Victorians as bastions of sexual purity but the story was more complex. There were prevailing notions about sexual purity but people during this time were contesting dominant ideology and challenging sexual norms. The historian Michel Foucault argues that instead of repressing sexuality society and the state used it to their advantage, like a tool of social control. Fears about women being forced into prostitution were incited to raise suspicion about foreign men and to curb women’s newfound sexual freedom. And with prostitution I don’t mean women necessarily enjoyed the position but it was one of the few occupations that gave them the opportunity to make some money of their own…prostitution was a short-term solution that gave women economic footholds.
So in the Victorian era there were definitely ideas about how people should behave, but people didn’t swallow these roles, or at least without challenging them. We like to hold up Victorian middle class wives as virtuous and pure, but a lot of this stemmed from ignorance about sexuality. And again if a woman “messed up” and had money her family took care of the problem by sending her away to give birth and give the child up for adoption, she got married, or had to deal with the stigma of illicit sex by herself.
Here are some interesting sources:
http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/periods_styles
/19thcentury/gender_health/sex_and_sexuality/index.html
Michel Foucault
and Judity Walkowitz’ “City of Dreadful Delight” is very interesting,
So I definitely think our society needs some kind of reform, but we can’t cherrypick points in history to serve as examples of what we should be like. The Victorians were more complex than we give them credit for.
This is probably too late to be getting in on this thread, but I’ll stick my oar in the water anyway.
Jake, you seem like a good person who wants to do the right thing. I wish you well as you begin your life as a father.
I do think, however, that there are better historians out there than Michel Foucault. First off, he was not what you would call a historian as much as he was a sociologist who interpreted documents in a very clever way. His primary training was in psychology and sociology. The only people who take him seriously are academics in Humanities departments other than history–he is important for literary and cultural critics who operate in a very narrow and particular (but powerful) sector of Academia.
Historians in general, as far as I can tell, do not consider him a serious historian. As someone who did a PhD in Comparative Literature at an Ivy League university, I had Foucault stuffed down my throat ad nauseum. He is very influential in the interpretation of phenomena as social construct, and therefore privileges the “construction” of “meaning” over what we might (naively he would say) call “reality.”
Reading Foucault is not reading history, it is reading Foucault. In years to come, Foucault will not be consulted as a historian, but as a thinker whose interpretations of the past reflected his own pathologies and obsessions.
I do not think anybody with even a minimal sense of history and human nature believes that the past was some sort of utopia, sexual purity-wise. Please give us some credit for knowing something (and I really don’t mean to be rude, but we might know even more than you do.) But if I were to take a page from Foucault’s book, and analyze the modern sexual ambiance using Foucaultian tools, I could use his language and methods to claim something different about the Pill, against the noxious encomiums that have come forth in recent days; namely, that the the Pill is a discourse of control in which women are inscribed as victims of men’s power and violence. We women (yes, I’m a woman) console ourselves by re-evaluating and re-writing our poisoning (yes, it’s poison) as empowerment, in order to overlook the fact that for the men in our lives, we are a “tool of control”– a receptacle of pleasure; we must maintain our appeal as long as possible, to keep the man around as long as possible. We will learn pornography and imitate the models given us; these are the message our daughters are bombarded with day after day.
To return to your original point: the past was not some great pure period. I agree. Anybody who has a basic background in history would agree on this. Anyone who had two great-aunts (as I had) who had out-of-wedlock pregnancies and who were severely punished by society is intimately acquainted with the downside of the old sexual code. However, you might be (as Foucault would say) inscribed and invested in the modernist narrative of “progress” regarding sexuality. I urge you to step outside of question this “liberationist” narrative that has been given you, especially with regards to its impact on women and children.
I wish you all the best and a safe birth for both mother and baby.