> I personally think it is a sign of modern hubris to assume that effective family planning didn't exist prior to 1960s and the advent of birth control.
Effective toward what end?
Having kids when and only when you want them? Sure. "Only have sex when you want a kid" has always been an option.
Having kids when and only when you want them, and fulfilling your biological urges? Not so much.
I'm glad for you that your family planning worked for you and fulfilled your needs, but if you're going to extrapolate your experience to literally all humans throughout history, you aren't really in a position to be talking about other people's hubris.
> Having kids when and only when you want them? Sure. "Only have sex when you want a kid" has always been an option.
> Having kids when and only when you want them, and fulfilling your biological urges? Not so much.
Unsure if you're being obstinate or ignorant, but we've been married a decade and I assure you we have had sex several orders of magnitude more than the three times we conceived.
Baby = Egg + sperm. Keep those two apart and no baby. Not exactly rocket science.
Of course, I assumed that you had sex many times more than you conceived. Keep in mind, I wasn't the other person who commented.
If pulling out, having sex while not ovulating, or whatever you did, is satisfying for you, great! I applaud your satisfaction.
However, as I said not everyone is satisfied by that kind of sex. To say that the limitations imposed by a lack of birth control don't exist, or aren't important, fails to capture the depth, breadth, and variety of human sexuality.
Perhaps in the future you could avoid leading with things such as:
> that's about as useful as a story of how someone prayed and their mom's cancer went away.
All I did was comment and say, "Hey, we did this and it worked for us" and you replied with the equivalent of "Go fuck yourself, I don't want to hear it"
Of course modern birth control opens many doors, I don't think that was ever in question. It's a highly personal choice and I don't think there is anything wrong with that.
> All I did was comment and say, "Hey, we did this and it worked for us" and you replied with the equivalent of "Go fuck yourself, I don't want to hear it"
No, that's absolutely not all you did. You said:
> A bit personal maybe, but my wife has never been on birth control, we don't use protection, and have never had an "oops" baby. We had kids when we wanted kids, and haven't had kids when we didn't want kids.
> It's really just... not that hard...
Do you see the part where you went from "Hey, we did this and it worked for us" to "Therefore everyone else for whom this doesn't work is stupid/incompetent?"
And then you doubled down by accusing everyone who doesn't think what you do of ignorance and hubris:
> I personally think it is a sign of modern hubris to assume that effective family planning didn't exist prior to 1960s and the advent of birth control.
So if you'd like to admit you crossed the line and adjust what you said to, "Hey, we did this and it worked for us", great, that's a much more reasonable thing to say than what you actually said. But everyone reading this exchange can see that's not what you actually originally said.
And I was entirely justified in comparing what you actually said to faith healing, because at a societal level teaching people non-contraceptive means of birth control has historically been about as useful as faith healing.
I'm emphasizing at a societal level because you left that out when you quoted me. Please at the very least when you quote me, quote full sentences: you're only quoting me out of context to try to twist what I said.
You don't get to rewrite history so you can play the victim here.
> I personally think it is a sign of modern hubris to assume that effective family planning didn't exist prior to 1960s and the advent of birth control.
If I am misinterpreting what you said, the problem is your communication skills, not my interpretation.
When someone says, "You're wrong", perhaps you should consider that you were wrong.
If you don't want to admit that what you said was wrong like an adult, fine. But if you're going to continue to try to paint me as if I'm bullying you, you can't be surprised if I step in to defend myself.
In your other comment, you wrote in a kinda magic-wishful-thinking way "you can only get pregnant if you really want kids". That is a contradiction to baby = egg + sperm.
If a woman has sex without some kind of fertility awareness, she gets pregnant. If she knows when she ovulates and avoids sex during that time and 5 days prior, she might not get pregnant.
Thing is: female libido is highest when the fertility in a cycle is the highest. So biologically speaking, women have to actively fight their hormones if they want to avoid pregnancy.
> In your other comment, you wrote in a kinda magic-wishful-thinking way "you can only get pregnant if you really want kids".
I really think you are all just intentionally misunderstanding me.
I am not saying "You can only get pregnant if you want to get pregnant"
I am saying "A couple in a committed relationship can fairly easily and reliably avoid having kids without the use of contraceptives if they don't want them."
Effective toward what end?
Having kids when and only when you want them? Sure. "Only have sex when you want a kid" has always been an option.
Having kids when and only when you want them, and fulfilling your biological urges? Not so much.
I'm glad for you that your family planning worked for you and fulfilled your needs, but if you're going to extrapolate your experience to literally all humans throughout history, you aren't really in a position to be talking about other people's hubris.