We can count on the Catholic Church’s fey-footed leader for some pretty predictable rhetoric, but in a stunning about-face, Pope Benedict XVI is coming around on condom usage. But only for homosexuals paid by the hour.
Writing in his new book Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times, to be released Tuesday, the pope maintains his opposition to condoms as a contraceptive, but approves of them if gay hookers slip ’em on to prevent the spread of HIV. Saying his position is “a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way of living sexuality,” the pope calls male prostitutes using rubbers reasonable “in the intention of reducing the risk of infection.” That’s a whee bit of a different position he seems to have had last year, when he said condoms could not have a positive impact on Africa’s AIDS epidemic, and in fact “increases the problem.”
The larger revelation here, however, is that the pope thinks about male hookers. And what they do with their cocks. Yes, Pope Benedict XVI has had the mental image, at least once, of a dude slipping a condom over his member. Sultry! He also appears to have gotten over the moral dilemma of prostitution — a profession alive and well even in Jesus’ day — in favor of fighting AIDS; after all, he could’ve just said that condoms are bad no matter what, and AIDS is the punishment gay hookers deserve. But he didn’t, so cherish this moment!
FWIW, the pope (nee Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) also writes in his book that if a pope cannot longer physically, psychologically or spiritually meet the qualifications of leading the Catholic Church, he has has the “right, and under some circumstances, also an obligation to resign.” Just in case you wanted to start chronicling any bizarre tick’s you seen in this man.
How about we take this to the next level?
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Sug Night
If there’s anything PB XVI and his Vatican buds ought to know about, it’s male prostitutes.
Jeff
i’m sure he’ll have to clarify this. it seems way to liberal for the church to even admit there are male prostitutes. must be one of those mental ‘ticks’ you’re talking about.
aon
So the man is interested in males (like in male priests?) being protected, but women can just get infected and die? And their babies?
Nice guy. As always. But I agree this is a bit of a revelation.
jason
Women spread diseases too. I don’t see why condoms or other barrier methods should be the requirement for males only.
Women are perfectly capable of spreading viruses or bacteria. These pathogens don’t discriminate on the basis of gender or orientation. They don’t know if you’re Karl or Karen.
Girls, we in the GLBT community are NOT going to let you get away with the notion that males are responsible for spreading venereal diseases. You are just as capable.
j
@jason: Jason I don’t think you’ve ever spoken to a woman so how can you stop them?
aon
Jason: Of course males and females both spread diseases. However, when it comes to HIV, women are a little less likely to spread the infection than a male – but that was not my point at all.
My point is that the pope obviously can sympathize with males wanting sex, so in order for them to protect themselves he doesn’t demand that they stay celibate or else, but allows them to use condoms. Women on the other hand can bear children, and because he does not want them to be able to control their reproduction, he rather they run the risk of dying. The have to practice abstinence or die.
Of course he is fully aware of the fact that women in many countries do not have that choice, since sex for a male is seen as a right – infected or not. He doesn’t care. He probably also knows that women have a libido too, but he doesn’t care about that either. To make their lives hell is his goal.
To the sperm of course, the essence that needs protection at all costs, it doesn’t matter. They’ll die in the condom in any case.
jason
There’s been a trend in recent years to paint men as perpetrators and women as victims, especially in the context of HIV. I’m sick of it. It takes two to tango.
Moreover, no disease can discriminate on the basis of gender or orientation. The only diseases that can discriminate on the basis of gender are genetic/chromosomal defects.
Let’s stop playing the gay pity card in relation to HIV and AIDS. This pity card is a discriminatory notion that ultimately demonizes male-male sexuality and men in general. We are damaging ourselves as men and as lovers of men if we subscribe to this pity card.
aon
Well, the trend of women as victims and men as perpetrators has been well and alive for thousands of years and will probably live on for a bit, because women usually are the victims. Especially when it comes to sex, and especially when it comes to religious bastards demanding obedience to their rules about sex. Such as the pope.
But it’s difficult not to see the humor in the notion of the pope thinking that the only ones that can have fun in bed and protecting themselves while doing it, are male prostitutes! His heart goes out to them, he understands that celibacy is too much to ask! When he should understand that protected sex is everyone’s right – men, women, gay or straight.
queerty blows...so to speak
“What is Pope Benedict saying?
We must note that the example that Pope Benedict gives for the use of a condom is a male prostitute; thus, it is reasonable to assume that he is referring to a male prostitute engaged in homosexual acts. The Holy Father is simply observing that for some homosexual prostitutes the use of a condom may indicate an awakening of a moral sense; an awakening that sexual pleasure is not the highest value, but that we must take care that we harm no one with our choices. He is not speaking to the morality of the use of a condom, but to something that may be true about the psychological state of those who use them. If such individuals are using condoms to avoid harming another, they may eventually realize that sexual acts between members of the same sex are inherently harmful since they are not in accord with human nature. The Holy Father does not in any way think the use of condoms is a part of the solution to reducing the risk of AIDs. As he explicitly states, the true solution involves “humanizing sexuality.”
Anyone having sex that threatens to transmit HIV needs to grow in moral discernment. This is why Benedict focused on a “first step” in moral growth.”
It’s like the managers of this site and many of the posters strive to misinform, lie, delude themselves and others.
What an embarrassing existence.
Mike
A more cynical person might consider that if the “rent” is permitted to use condoms then there’s less chance that they will give the priest who is paying for their time something unpleasant.
If such a cynical person considered this then of course it might come as no surprise that the head of the catholic church is only trying to protect his own employees.
Of course such cynical thoughts would never cross my mind.
peteNsfo
Look, the dinosaur talks!!!
jazzmin9
It’s so transparent, why doesn’t the main stream media see it? Male escorts are who are servicing the Vatican, and have been for a very, very long time. All he’s doing is protecting his brethren. Disgusting, and typically hypocritical.
randy
Undoubtedly, some priests in the Vatican have contracted AIDS from male prostitutes. So it’s now okay for them to use condoms to prevent this from happening. That’s all I read in to this.
Tommy
I actually think this is good. We’re making progress albeit a little at at time. He’s acknowledging that people are having sex outside of marriage and you have to do something to save someone’s life. It’s one step at a time. Progress is slow, but eventually the Church will embrace condoms for everyone to save lives.
Shane
Seriously… WHY does this matter? With all due respect to His Holiness, do you really think male prostitutes stop to think, “Hmm… I wonder if God is cool with me using a condom to screw paid tricks?”
B
Hey look on the bright side of his latest missive: All gays have to do is to set up a piggy bank by their beds and put a penny in their partner’s jar after sex. Declare it as income to the IRS so you have documentation and when you arrive at the Gates of Heaven, you tell “Saint Peter” that it’s cool because you paid your partner after using a condom, and the Pope said it was OK. If they try to send you to the boiler room, you sue for “bait and switch”. After all, the Pope claims to be God’s earthly representative. If he got it wrong, he’s the one who should go to Hell in your place. Fair is fair.
Otis Criblecoblis
Does anyone care about the bizarre pronouncements of this freaky & hateful fossil? Pope Rat presides over the largest criminal empire in the world…enough with these strange & closeted weirdos!
Gregor
Please read again the comment left by no. 9 here.
Now, the Pope did not strictly write this book. It is written by Peter Seewald who interviewed the Pope and it is most interesting that the Pope did not receive the questions beforehand. And he did not refuse to answer a single question. This is also a “first” for a Pope.
I think one should buy the book titled “Light of the World” (Amazon or Ignatius press)already has the English version. This pope has always been quoted and discussed by mass media and bloggers who get their diluted and skewed views from this media. Better to read for oneself what the Pope has actually said and this always means looking from a much broader view than that held by our current culture who seems to only be able to think in sound bytes. Now wonder the entire globe is always up in arms about everything and everyone. We are fed – and accept – a very meagre diet of sound bytes. Wrong!
robert in nyc
So, why isn’t he saying anything about straight single males who have indiscriminate sex, multiple female partners? Why single out male prostitutes? Oh I forgot, straights really don’t get HIV/AIDS that much, that’s a gay disease in the eyes of this evil roman cult.
geri
A lot of male prostitutes have sex with women as well as men. Some of them don’t even consider themselves bisexual let alone gay.
David Ehrenstein
http://fablog.ehrensteinland.com/2010/11/20/fait-diver-where-the-rubber-meets-the-pope/
GaryG
Anyone who looks to some old man in Rome to tell them what they should do and how they should live their life, really has a lot of problems to begin with. I don’t like any religion, but the Catholic church really takes the cake as the looniest.
Jeffree
So far, this is just a quote in a book “by”/about Benny Sixteen, so it’s not part of official Church teaching. Based on the up roar on the Catholic blogs/newspages, I doubt this will ever make it into an encyclical from the Vatican….
Riker
Well, really, this info from the pope would be to all those practicing Catholic male hustlers. All, what? 23 of them? No one else gives a shit what this former leader of the Catholic Inquisition thinks about anything.
Daez
@Shane: Apparently, males stop to think, “I wonder if God is cool with me using a condom to commit adultery and fornicate,” or else we wouldn’t even be having this discussion.
If a woman doesn’t want to have children with her husband then there are more effective ways to prevent that than condom usage.
ewe
That Nazi is EVIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
GregorVonK
Lessee if I get this straight (no pun intended). It might be OK for a MALE prostitute to wear a condom, but NOT OK for a female prostitute to insist that her client wear one (or supply him w/ same)? Could that be because she might also be preventing a pregnancy in the process?? Hmmm. Bizarre, just bizarre!
Daez
@GregorVonK: I think if you are getting paid to lie on your back then you are not thinking rather God will be pissed if you ask the guy to wear a condom.
As I have said, if you follow the church’s belief of what acceptable sexual contact is solely (and so does your partner) there is absolutely no need to use a condom.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
Will they also suggest the boy diddling priests wear condoms???
robert in nyc
Daez, the only really effective way to avoid a pregnancy is not to have sex and in this day and age, few men will accept “just say no” from any woman. There have been cases and they are few, where women on the pill have actually become pregnant. Nothing is safer and more efffective than abstinence during the woman’s fertile period every month. There are also female condoms, “femidoms” as they’re often referred to. It shouldn’t just be incumbent on the male to take precautions, straight or gay for that matter. The rhythm method, the only one the roman cult accepts is unreliable and not effective. Human nature being what it is, in the case of the straight male, its not going to act as a deterrent to avoid pregnancy.
Plays well with others…..Actually there are priests who diddle girls too. During the molestation scandal in the U.S. the media sensationalized it by implying that the victims were all boys. They weren’t. The reason why it appeared that way is that there were more boys available to them than there were girls. Even today, some women are coming forward who were abused in their childhood by parish priests, but the roman cult has made no pronouncement on how they weed out the straight offenders among their ranks or those entering the seminary. How would they perceive a would-be straight molester I wonder during an psychological evaluation? I’ve not seen any criterion for that.
customartist
CNN is reporting about this comment but they are not including the word “male” to go along with “prostitutes”.
Are they watering this down, by eliminating the reference to anal sex, or to homosexuality, for morning mainstream news, or did the Pope actually specify “Males” in his atatement?
Whis is accurate? This is an important distinction in th story.
robert in nyc
That homosexual male prostitutes are singled out by the Vatican is revealing. I don’t think it occurs to Ratzinger that many straight males married or otherwise engage in anal sex with women, but that isn’t addressed as if its strictly the domain of gay men which it isn’t, and not all gay men have a preference for it either. This is painting one group of people with the same brush in my view, biased, but then that’s nothing new when it comes to religious cults and LGBT people.
TomMc
Papa Razzi finally done sumthin’ OK eh?
kt
For clarification, he’s singling out gay males because gay sex can’t lead to children. It’s not okay for people participating in straight sex to use condoms because they’re killing potential babies. That’s Catholicism. Travelling to the third world and basically telling people they’re going to burn eternally for protecting themselves-birth control is what they’re against. So gay men and women can protect themselves from diseases, but straight men and women should catch all the diseases and pass them onto their unplanned children. Further questions- why did he focus on gay male prostitutes? Are condoms okay if one of the straight partners is infertile?
kt
And that is the straight kind that can lead to kids. No idea how he feels about non-vaginal sex between straight partners. All in all, very confusing stance by the Pope.