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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol 35 no. 18. 27th July 1972

Unstimulating

Unstimulating

The family and marriage do not meet the needs of most people for stimulating, warm human relationships - from childhood to adulthood, these institutions restrict the development of such relationships. They encourage selfishness, possessiveness, and competitiveness. These qualities are reqarded in our society - they are basic to it and that is why those who uphold the status quo most strongly are determined that marriage and the present family set-up must remain.

House of lords cartoon

[unclear: ince] everything is geared towards keeping marriage and [unclear: he] nuclear family intact, it is easy to see why women [unclear: ave] had such a hard time to win control over their rep-[unclear: oductive] systems. The present debate over abortion is [unclear: 10] more intense than was the uproar over contraception [unclear: many] years ago. Contraception and abortion are difficult [unclear: o] obtain so that women will be discouraged from having sex just for pleasure, outside the family structure. The discouraging factors don't only include lack of mechanical means to prevent birth - the most pervasive and long-lasting means of discouraging sex is the life-long conditioning women undergo which makes them look upon sex as something dirty, wrong, unmentionable, a duty, something you have to do if you want a baby.

Men don't get the same conditioning, perhaps because they're not going to get pregnant before or after marriage anyway. They might be taught that sex is dirty, but they also know, much earlier than girls, that it's fun.