Let’s get serious for a moment.   

In order to have a successful and meaningful set of principles, the overall health of society must take precedence.  Reproductive principles must be based on the overall ecology of our planet.  The days of unrestricted human breeding are numbered.  We are defiling our planet with our progeny.  To put it bluntly, we are shitting in our own nest.  

We have never before faced this problem.  But now that we have succeeded so profligately, we must forever bear the burden of managing our own birth rate.  Until now, wars, disease and famine have thinned the population effectively.  But China’s experience should be a warning to all of us.  Overt population control is now an indispensable part of our survival.  And if we don’t do it at the individual level, we will have to do it at the governmental level, as China has learned.  So pick your poison.  Use birth control or starve to death.  

Catholics are not stupid.  They know how to deal with this.  But their leadership continues to bury their heads in the sands while the rest of us quietly go about the business of managing our sexual behavior in a more practical way.    

The conservative mantra has always rested within the confines of religion.  And that is why it is necessary to change the way religion deals with human procreation and sexuality.  At the core of the conservative agenda is the desire to protect the innocence of our children.  Only parents, they say, can decide when a child is ready for sexual information.  But we all know that some parents simply do not accept that responsibility.  Et Voila!  Children have sex and children have children.  The conservative program is an abstinence only program.  Great idea.  It does not and will not ever work.  It is blatantly naive.  So the stork continues to bring babies to the ignorant masses while schools are forced to abdicate their role as the purveyors of human sexual education.

When I was in the fifth grade, I remember sitting in the basement one day, painting one of my monster models.  I believe it was the Mummy.  My younger brother, Tim, came bounding down the stairs looking for trouble.  

“You still painting that thing?”
“Go away.”
“Come on, man.  Let’s play catch.”
“Go play with yourself.”
“You’re a queer.”
“No I’m not.”
“Yes you are.  Steve told me you don’t know about screwing.”
“What?”
“Stevie told me that you don’t know anything about it.”
“I do so.”
“Do not.”
“Do so.  What is it?”
“Screwing is when a man puts his diggy wacker into his wife’s pussy to make a baby.”
“What?  That’s nasty!  Mom would never let Dad do that.”
“Yes she would.  She did it 5 times already.  That’s how you get babies.  There are 5 of us.”

And right on cue, my older sister, Cathe walked down the stairs.  

“Ask Cathe,” Tim said.
“Ask me what?” Cathe said.
“Ask her if Dad and Mom screwed.”

Cathe and Tim immediately started laughing.  I didn’t see what was so funny.  

“Mom and Dad would never do that.  Cathe, tell Tim to shut up,” I pled.  

Tim and I stared at Cathe.  Tim had a smirk on his face.  For once, he was the older wiser brother and I was the stupid little kid brother.  Cathe tried to stifle her laughter.  

“Cathe?”  I knew Cathe would tell it straight.  To this day, Cathe is still the go to girl when it comes to pure, frank honesty.

But Cathe wouldn’t say it.  She just shook her head and said, “Man oh man, Rod.  Don’t be stupid.”

“You gotta be kidding me.  Why would God make them do that?”  I tried to square my religion with reality.  My religion would certainly not be in favor of such a nasty thing.  God would not make people do that.  It just was not possible.  But there it was.  

“How do adults keep from thinking about it all the time?”  I asked myself.  And for days, weeks, months, years and decades I have never been able to go more than an hour or so without thinking about it.  Stunning.  But the question that plagued me for days after that conversation was this:  Why would God create something so nasty?  And I was immediately grateful for the Immaculate Conception.  At least Mary was pure.  
Throughout my life, encounters with sex have been some of the most traumatic moments of my life.  The loss of my virginity was the first in a long line of really bad sexual encounters.  

My Grandaddy was in the hospital for a heart attack.  He was recovering nicely and I was asked to go home with Grandmother and watch over her for a few days until he got home.  It was a great responsibility and I took it very seriously.  

I was a freshman at University of Louisville and I had the lead in my class play.  I told my Grandmother I was going to my first rehearsal and told her I would be back before midnight.  She asked me not to be too late because she knew she would worry.  The great irony here was that I was supposed to be there to help relieve the stress.  I was supposed to make her more at ease.  I was supposed to do the right thing.  

When the rehearsal was over, I called Grandmother to tell here I was going out with my friends for a little while and that I would be home before long.  That was my honest intention.  

As we left the auditorium one of the actresses ask me to come home with her.  She and the other girls had correctly guessed that I was a virgin.  She wanted to be first in line.  It was an offer I just could not refuse.  I forgot my promise to my Grandmother and followed my erection to its inevitable destiny.  

Betsy was sweet and determined.  She tried to get me to make the first move but I was too frozen with fear to initiate the action.  I had never been asked to come to a woman’s apartment and I thought maybe I was jumping to conclusions.  We had a few drinks and she wanted to know if I would like a tour of her place.  Unbelievably, I said no.  So we sat there waiting to get things going.  Eventually it dawned on me that a tour might be just what the doctor ordered.  The clock had drifted will past midnight by now and my conscience nearly kicked in and saved me.  But the chance to finally score a touchdown was just too powerful to ignore.

“How ‘bout that tour?” I said, stupidly.  And we made our way to the bedroom.  I sat on the bed making chit chat instead of taking charge.  She finally realized she was running the show and disappeared into the bedroom.  I was struck with fear.
 
Should I take off my clothes?  Or does she just want to smooch?  I took a chance and removed my pants and slid under the covers.  When she reentered the room, it was clear that I had guessed right.  As if!  

She was a large woman and I had to struggle to figure out exactly how to tackle the logistics.  I eventually managed to get down to business.  A few kisses and some awkward rolling around got me close to the goal. It never occurred to me to reach down with my hand and guide the process.  And in retrospect, maybe she thought it was my idea of foreplay.  But when I finally got plugged in I barely had time to get in more than a few good lunges before I was finished.  I can remember her pleading with me to slow down.  And I remember her saying over and over....”No, no, no.”  And finally, “Shit.”  

I got up immediately and grabbed at my pants.  Suddenly, the weight of my misdeeds fell upon me as the blood rushed back into my head.  

“Wait.  Wait.  Wait,” was all she could say.  But I was half dressed and on my way out the door before she could grab me.  

“You can’t leave yet,”  was the last thing she said before I bolted through door and ran down the staircase skipping every other step.

When I finally got home it was past three o’clock and Grandmother was crying when I threw open the door.  Of all the mortal sins I have committed in my life, to this day, this is the absolute worst.  My Grandaddy gave me the chance to show that I was a man.  But I let him down miserably and hurt my Grandmother deeply in the process.  Fortunately she was so relieved to see me that she went straight to bed and fell sound asleep within minutes.  I never slept that night.  But I also knew that confessing these sins was going to be impossible.   I committed fornication and I hurt my Grandmother.  The fornication sin was mortal and the pain I caused to
my Grandmother was venial.  But I knew which sin was grave and which was unimportant.