Feature
- Do You Hate Your Partner, Too?
- California Teen Avoids Heavy Sentencing by Passing the Buck
- Wanna Buy Your Teenager a Padded Push-Up Bra?
- Vampires in Texas!
- These Guys Are As Bad As Westboro Baptist Church
- Funny Letters Sent to Women's Magazines
- Women's Ski Jumping: Still Not a 'Real' Sport
- Will the World Be Pro-Choice Soon?
- Are We Getting Too Lazy to Even Divorce?
- Forever 21's Maternity Line: Glamorizing Teen Pregnancy?
In light of Raquel Welch’s new book, “Raquel: Beyond the Cleavage,” Welch sat down and had a one-sided diatribe heart-to-heart discussion with CNN regarding women, contraception and their sexual empowerment.
Welch states that the upside of beginning a birth control regimen during the sixties was that women could delay childbirth until after a career was established. Luckily for women, that notion continues to be true to this day. However, the former model/actress also states that there were plenty of downsides to liberating a women’s uterus through contraception: the consequences of copious amounts of free sex. Welch claims that free sex was never a good option and remains that way to this day:
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.
So, I’m not saying that ostentatious amounts of uncommitted sex are the way that I would choose to direct my own life (it’s not), but why judge women who do choose that path if they’re acting responsibly enough to make the conscious decision to get on the birth control pill in the first place? I realize that there are far worse consequences to free sex than an unwanted pregnancy, but is it not at least a step in the right direction? Did it not give women the same type of freedom that men always enjoyed with their option of condoms? When condoms were designed way back in the early times of man, did society subject the men who used them to wanting to the stigma of engaging in free sex from every willing woman, or was it a method of birth control for them even then?
While I’m not an advocate of “have as much sex as you can, ’cause life’s short,” that’s my personal opinion — but I do not think that a woman who lived through the sexual revolution has any place whatsoever to judge other women who aren’t in a committed, monogamous relationship with another person. It’s not realistic for everyone.
As far as Welch’s outrage at teenagers performing fellatio or cunnilingus, this is, unfortunately, the way of today’s world. Our children are going to learn these things in this day and age whether we want them to or not, and the best we can do is equip them with the right arsenal and education so that they can better learn that there are sometimes severe consequences to hasty decisions.
Despite the fact that Welch got pregnant at age 19, she can’t say she wasn’t aware of birth control and its advantages for women of all walks of life. It was her choice; she made it herself.
Saying that birth control is only good for preventing pregnancies with your husband or monogamous partner is like saying that sex is only used for procreation purposes.
At the very end of the article, CNN reassures its readers that the opinions presented in the piece are solely those of Raquel Welch — and that’s a good thing. I’d be a little concerned if most people agreed with Ms. Welch, even though a startling amount probably do, as it were.
You Might Also Like ...
-
-
13
Gonna get flamed for this, probably, but I don’t think she’s so far off the mark.
Then again, I’m the type of person who finds the idea of having sex with someone you aren’t madly in love with completely unfathomable, so take that as you will, I guess.
I think I would agree with her that it seems that a lot of people think free sex means that they should never have to be able to form genuine commitments. It’s kind of ridiculous.
I’ve had random hookups before, and I think they’re great for some people. I eventually realized that I prefer sex with someone that I care deeply about because part of what makes intimacy great, for me, is having an emotional connection. But that’s the thing – it’s what I want. I’m not going to try to make other people live in line with my own views. If two adults want to hump like bunnies then have at it, just use protection. I don’t think it would be ethical or responsible of me to judge the behavior of other people. Sex is fun, some people like it one way, other people like it another way. It bothers me when someone tries to claim there’s a “right” way.
It also bothers me that Rachel likens choosing someone to have sex with as choosing a life partner in the past. Um, excuse me? I’m pretty sure that for most of the past 2000 years, women did not get to CHOOSE their life partner. It was a business transaction that involved transferring ownership of a woman from her father to her husband (who was chosen by her father). How is that any more sexy and romantic than random hookups? Let’s not rewrite history here. Implying that women really ever got to choose their life partners in any part of history is irresponsible, and a clear attempt to change the facts to fit the point Rachel is trying to make. If she has to do that, then it’s not a very solid point, is it?
Actually, the facts point to the opposite conclusion – the sexual revolution gave women the right to choose life partners out of love, instead of societal expectations or patriarchal decisions. The fact that some women have chosen to go further with this, and try out a few sexual partners instead of choosing one for life, is a natural extension of this. I don’t get why Rachel is judging it.
Oops, I meant Raquel obviously, not Rachel. I don’t really know who this woman is, can you tell?
Women did get some choice for a little bit before then, but it was more socially acceptable to automatically get married. PLUS, in this between period a lot more couples got married too fast because they couldn’t have sex outside of wedlock and got trapped in marriages they shouldn’t have been in. Playing the field helps people choose their life partner (should they decide to go down that path).
Anyway- even nowadays there’s a pretty clear correlation between countries that let women sleep around, and countries where a woman can choose who she marries.
An article addressing women on these topics is just putting women back in that same backwards place again – implying that men are only after sex and it’s our job to say no – as though we had no sexual desires of our own and as though men had no control over their own bodies or desires. I hate talk that does that! I was exposed to tons of it growing up, and I think it really messes with your mind. It teaches you to use sex to control men, to feel that it’s some kind of bargaining chip, and to feel like there’s something wrong with you when you have sexual desires of your own. It’s exactly this kind of message that women do not need!
“Our children are going to learn these things in this day and age whether we want them to or not”
Kids have been doing this forever. The only difference is that it’s talked about now. My great grandmother lost her virginity at 13, and it wasn’t to her husband.
Sex is not new. The age at which people have sex is not new. The only thing that’s “new” about the situation is how much is discussed and admitted. And if you go back a few hundred years, you’ll discover that even talking about it isn’t new.
[...] Raquel Welch Speaks To CNN About Contraception & Women’s Empowerment – Zelda Lily [...]
I think there is something to the notion that a lot of people today do not take a serious look at the risks involved – sex really is a lot more complicated today that it might have been in the past. Some things have always been around, but some are pretty new.
I think it is reasonable to suggest that people do not take a serious look at the risks they are taking when they choose to have sex.
But bashing the pill? I strongly support any steps towards mastery over our bodies. I HATE being a slave to biology..
[...] Not gonna lie, being on the pill makes casual sex with numerous partners simple and painless (minus the STI factor, of course). When I was in high school, having one of those seashell cases was a freaking rite of passage. You got it at the Clinic so your parents didn’t know, you took it in the bathroom during lunchtime (or, if you were feeling very blatant, yelled out in the middle of class, “Oh, shit, I forgot to take my pill!” then snapped the thing opened and popped it while everyone—including the blushing teacher—watched), and you had sex with your boyfriend if that was your thing … or you took the smorgasbord approach. Some did … that’s okay. The pill made it all okay, even though some thought it made things worse. [...]
The introduction of the BC pill and the “sexual revolution” has backfired. Women may be free to “hook up” and sleep around (like men, admittedly, always have), but look at what easy sex has done from a societal standpoint: the divorce rate has skyrocketed in the past 50 years, and the percentage of kids born out of wedlock is nearing 50% in most communities. In the black community it’s nearing 80%, and bringing with it all of the dysfunction you get with a whole generaton of fatherless children. Abortion rates have skyrocketed, because the expectation of birth control demands that in the event of failure, abortion be available. And who suffers most with this collapse of the bedrock of society? Women. Ask any single mother struggling to put food on the table, hold a job, help with homework, pay the rent and the car note, somehow attend the kids’ games and still have adult friends – there simply aren’t enough hours in the day. Raquel Welch has it nailed in this article.
If you look at the divorce rate spike it really coincided with women’s liberation, when it became a problem to beat the shit out of your wife, and when women were actually able to get a decent job so they and their children wouldn’t starve to death a lot of women left the horrible marriages they were in and I say thank the gods we have better protection/options today. Abortion rates have not skyrocketed and there are plenty of statistics to prove it, abortion has existed since the beginning of civilization ever hear of those wonderful “tonics” you could get in ancient Greece? You may not like all societies advancements but with progress comes problems and you don’t get to keep only the good and I doubt very many women want to go back to forced marriages or lovely visits to family for a few months to cover up a child, or having no where to turn if your husband beats you, and man not enough hours in the day? that’s always been and always will be the case at ANY point in civilization.
Well said!