At the Edith Stein conference, Vicki Thorn identified several physical and psychological dangers of “the pill.” In a lecture entitled “The Biology of Theology of the Body,” she drew on scientific findings which appear to support, at least pragmatically, portions of the Catholic Church’s teaching on human sexuality.
Thorn began by describing the biological differences between men and women. Women relate to one another in a large degree by pheromones and hormones. She explained the phenomenon of women’s monthly cycles syncing after living in close community with other women as an evolutional mechanism to ensure the survival of orphaned infants. Women’s bodies synchronize using a pheromone communication system, as shown in some recent studies.
Thorn proceeded to discuss personality differences between men and women. She explained that men often think linearly, while women generally hold everything in their minds simultaneously. Lest anyone believe that gender preferences are only a result of cultural conditioning and parental treatment, she related her experiences with gender-neutral parenting. When her children were small, she gave her tiny girls trucks, and her son a doll. The girls named the trucks, carried them around in blankets, and had parties for them. The boys used the dolls as footballs.
Thorne argued that women on the pill are biologically handicapped in finding a well-matched husband. Women’s bodies are attracted to two types of men – family-type, with a very similar immune system, and partner-type, with a different and complimentary immune system.
Ordinarily, women are sexually attracted to men with complimentary immune systems by pheromones. A pregnant woman is physically drawn to fathers and brothers who will protect and care for her and her baby.
A woman on the pill, however, is sexually attracted to men with father/brother type immune systems, similar to her own. In marriage this produces less immunologically healthy babies, which may have contributed to the explosion of auto-immune diseases today, such as allergies and asthma. When a woman stops taking the pill, she no longer finds her partner sexually attractive, which may contribute to increased rates of divorce.
Another health issue for women is microchimerism, a mechanism by which women carry cells from any children they have conceived, for any length of time, in their own bodies for life. If these fetal stem cells were conceived with an immunological compliment, the partner-type man, they are able to find diseased cells in the woman’s body and repair them, which combats cancer. If the children were conceived with a father/brother type, however, the cells fight the woman’s own immune system.
Conception and contraception aside, Thorn ended with an exhortation to think carefully before one engages in casual sex, and with some information on the hormonal effects our bodies have on one another. Seminal fluid lives in a woman’s body for 17 hours, and triggers her body to produce many hormones, including those for bonding. According to Thorne, when a woman has been in contact with one man’s fluid for 6 months, her body identifies him as her lifetime partner. Our systems are not capable of forming this kind of bond countless times.
She also said that early in a relationship, PEA hormone, which lasts 4 months to 4 years, causes infatuation, obsession, and highly subjective judgments which physically push us to commit and reproduce. Later, oxytocin takes over, which makes us more objective and helps a couple stay together long-term and care for one another.
Rachel Talley is a junior biochemistry major who can be reached at rtalley1@nd.edu. She wants you to know that more information on Vicki Thorn’s work can be found at jmjmediagroup.com and that she is willing to take questions at vickithorn2004@yahoo.com.
