Posted on 06/17/2004 2:32:10 PM PDT by haole
[Caution: Explicit language used. Use prudence with young children and some adolescents.]
Our immune system, certainly one of the great marvels of nature, equips us with 100 billion (100,000,000,000) immunological receptors.
Each of these tiny receptors has the uncanny natural capacity to distinguish the self from the non-self. Consequently, they are able to immunize or protect our bodies against the invasion of foreign substances that could be harmful to us.
Marvelous as nature is, it is never extremist. From a purely immunological point of view (from the standpoint of an all-out defensive strategy), a woman's body would reject the oncoming sperm, recognizing it as a foreign substance. But this is precisely the point at which nature, we might say, becomes wise. If our immune system regards sperm as a potential enemy, then fertilization would never take place, and the human race would have come to an early demise with the passing of Adam and Eve.
But something extraordinary occurs, which makes fertilization and the continuation of the human race possible. Traveling alongside the sperm in the male's seminal fluid is a mild immunosuppressant. Immunologists refer to it as consisting of "immunoregulatory macromolecules." This immunosuppressant is a chemical signal to the woman's body that allows it to recognize the sperm not as a non-self, but as part of its self. It makes possible, despite the immune system's usual preoccupation with building an airtight defence system, a "two-in-one-flesh" intimacy.
We have noted two important features about the content of male semen: 1) the capacity of the sperm to fuse with the nucleus of the woman's egg (fertilization); and 2) the mild immunosupressant that allows the woman's immune system to welcome the male sperm as part of her own flesh.
Now that sodomy is talked about as a human right to be exercised by male same-sex couples without discrimination, we may ask the pertinent question: What happens when sperm is deposited in the rectal area rather than in the vaginal area?
Sperm, being blissfully unresponsive to political ideologies or cultural trends, go right ahead and behave strictly according to their nature. They penetrate the nucleus of whatever body cell (somatic cell) they might encounter. This fusing, however, does not result in fertilization, the first stage in the life of a new human being, but, as scientists have shown, can and does result in the development of cancerous malignancies. In an article entitled, "Sexual Behavior and Increased Anal Cancer," published in Immunology and Cell Biology, authors Richard J. Ablin and Rachel Stein-Werblowsky, report that "anal intercourse is one of the primary factors in the development of cancer." According to the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, "Our study lends strong support to the hypothesis that homosexual behaviour in men increases the risk of anal cancer." In addition, the International Journal of Cancer finds that, "Being single and having practised anal intercourse appears to be associated with anal cancer and case reports have suggested a recent increase in the number of cases of anal cancer." The medical references are legion.
Also, we may ask: What happens when the male immunosuppressant is deposited in the rectal area? Scientists tell us that when this occurs, an "immunopermissive environment" is created.
This environment, in which the immune system is not working as it should, is favourable for the perpetration of spermatozoa-induced tumors and other pathologies. It is as if, in this instance, the immune system becomes confused and welcomes its enemies. C. Rabkin et al., in the American Journal of Epidemiology, found a decreasing immunocompetence in a substantial proportion of HIV-positive homosexual men, particularly those with a history of intraepithelial abnormalities.
Depositing sperm in the "wrong place" (like pouring motor oil into the gas line), by nature's standards, is courting disaster. Nature, we might add, demands respect. It does not make accommodations to politically-based ideologies or individual preferences. From nature's standpoint, there is no equality between heterosexual and male homosexual intercourse.
Furthermore, the vagina is totally impermeable to viruses. By contrast, the rectum is designed to absorb up to the last possible useful nutrient that we have eaten. There is an enormous lymphatic network (involving blood vessels) in the lining or mucosa of the rectum. Therefore, the rectal area is designed to absorb, and will absorb, the ingredients of male semen if they are in the vicinity.
The same-sex issue is hotly contested. This is par for the course when it comes to moral issues.
All too often, as it is commonly said, there is far more heat than light. In order to bring some measure of objectivity to the discussion, a close observation of nature, such as science can provide, is extremely helpful. Science, like nature, is immune to political or fashionable trends. But in looking closely and carefully at what the science of immunology can tell us, we have even more reason for upholding and honouring the wisdom of marriage as a union of a man and a woman. And what is more, we have added reason to feel awe when we re-read the first chapter of Genesis, which refers to marriage as a union of "two in one flesh."
Dr. DeMarco is a professor of philosophy at St. Jerome’s College in Waterloo, Ontario. He is the author of The Many Faces of Virtue and The Heart of Virtue.
This article originally appeared in The Interim and is reprinted here with permission of The Catholic Educator's Resource Center.
boogie? thats nasty.
It is likely the moral injunction against anal sex arose from these medical realities. But it should also be noted that these conditions apply for ALL anal sex, whether between two males or a male and a female. While the only kind of intercourse between two males is anal, it is also possible in heterosexual intercourse as well. I wonder if the author intends to criticize the practice of anal sex, or whether he equates it with homosexuality.
Dr. DeMarco writes reasons why anal sex may be a health hazard. His example of homosexual acts as opposed the heterosexual acts may be from a sheltered personal life.
He may not be on the mail list of Vivid's new video releases.
From http://catholiceducation.org/articles/homosexuality/ho0082.html
The meaning of the word “natural.” Our nature is how God designed us, so what's "natural" for human beings isn't whatever you can find some animal doing; it's whatever fulfills our design. Men and women were plainly designed for each other — not men for men, nor women for women.
What harms whom. The idea that homosexual acts don't harm anybody isn't even close to being true; they harm those who commit them at every level, physical, emotional, and spiritual. To begin with the most obvious — the physical — how could it not harm a man to suffer rectal trauma because a large object has been repeatedly forced into an opening which was designed for a radically different function? Lesbian sex is no picnic either; the rate of syphilis among women who practice homosexual acts is nineteen times higher than the rate among women who don't.
Other levels of harm. At the emotional and spiritual levels, the damage of homosexual acts is less obvious but just as grave. Consider emotional harm. God designed the male-female pair to balance each other; by contrast, same-same mating drives the partners to extremes. Instead of balancing each other, they reinforce each other. If you want an example, think of the promiscuous tendencies of men in general. Unbalanced by women, these tendencies lead to the anonymous, no-brakes promiscuity of men who have sex with hundreds, even thousands, of other men. Now consider spiritual harm. In homosexual acts you're seeking union with someone who is only your own mirror image, so in a way, you're still trapped inside yourself. You haven't experienced the power of marital sex to take you beyond the Self; you're rejecting the challenge of union with someone who is really Other. In that way, homosexual acts are less like marital love than like masturbation with another body.
I think the below link is the publisher. I tried to search for the article. It did not show up. Yahoo search returned two results, one one was the above story. Anyone have a citation for this article to verify that it exists?
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/servlet/useragent?func=showIssues&code=icb
Very well put.
A two day old newbie...
This article seems to have highly agitated you. Facts you'd rather not face?
I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that these cites are taken way out of context, and that what is really being discussed is that anal intercourse is linked also to higher occurences of anal HPV infections (genital warts, also linked to cervical cancer). It has nothing to do with the totally bogus idea of sperm cells attempting to fertilize any human tissue they come across. (If that was true, every boy over 13 would have pregnant palms...)
By contrast, the rectum is designed to absorb up to the last possible useful nutrient that we have eaten.
I can't resist pointing out that this has given me a whole new idea about consuming some of the less-than-palatable cafeteria food I've encountered...
Please ignore any inadvertent puns that may be present; I only proofread for spelling...
As a self-professed gay person, explain to me (and everyone else) why gay sex is normal and natural, and not perverted against nature as stated in this article?
Don't get emotional or call names, just state biological factc please.
PC bioterror.
Hey, I agree with him, some of this stuff is scientifically questionable. The vagina is definitely *not* impervious to viruses, as the number of women infected with HIV through heterosexual intercourse attests. I'm also sceptical about the claim that sperm promiscuously fuse with any old cell, as that would pose an equal cancer risk to a woman's reproductive tract if it were true. In fact, the cell membrane of sperm contain markers that only will match with markers displayed on the membrane of an egg cell, so fusion with somatic cells should be impossible.
Anal sex does carry a higher risk of HIV infection than vaginal sex, but that has been attributed to tearing of the protective barrier of the mucous membranes.
I have full access to that journal here and I couldn't find that article or either of the authors. The title is odd, too, for the articles they usually publish.
I tried searching an online journal database for that title in case they mixed up the journal titles in their sources, but didn't get any hits. But it's not a comprehensive database. I did find a 2003 article in Preventive Medicine about an increased incidence of anal cancer among men in San Francisco, saying that this was due to the hypothesized high proportion of homosexuals in this group and citing several sources showing an increased risk. But sperm fusing with somatic cells wasn't among the likely explanations!
It just proves scientifically that there are rings around uranus
Sexually transmitted HPV (human papilloma virus) infects around 60% of all women of child-bearing age in this country (and that includes married women who aren't having sex with anyone but their husbands). One type of HPV has been shown to be responsible for virtually all cases of cervical cancer. The impermeability of the vagina to viruses should be big news to all the women who've died of cervical cancer, or had to have radical surgery for it to save their lives.
Hint to haole: Get your science from science publications, not from religious publications.
By contrast, the rectum is designed to absorb up to the last possible useful nutrient that we have eaten.
Another problem with this article--the small intestine absorbs nutrients, the large intestine's main absorptive role is to absorb water. *sigh*
Outstanding information. Very interesting.
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