The public discourse remained strangely euphemistic about sex last week. If neither Desmond Connell nor Monica Lewinsky actually referred to the birds and the bees as such, anyone over the age of reason could sense something fishy in the tales they told.
Desmond Connell, Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, proved yet again why good men should sometimes stay silent. Monica Lewinsky, a former wannabe Mrs Bill Clinton II, showed good girls why it can be wiser to keep your lips sealed. Both left trails of ambiguity winding in their wake.
But first, the science bit. It starts with semen. Soulful semen. Monica's stained dress was the kind of evidence acceptable not only to prosecutor Kenneth Starr in Washington DC, but also to pioneering Greek philosophers in Athens BC. Tiny little humans inside this viscous stuff were already fully-formed when they left the man's body, according to the old Greeks; they merely incubated in the woman. Obviously, science's power of observation has moved on in the meantime.
Next, the theology. The ancients believed that men had a higher spiritual rank than women because only men could produce this soulful semen. Quaintly logical, we can admit. So "bun in the oven" is an old euphemism for a disproved hypothesis. But the mistake is still a matter of considerable gravity within some Christian churches, despite the discovery of the ovum in 1829, and DNA in the 1950s.
On this is built the entire sexual, reproductive and gender politics of the Roman Catholic Church. It is marketed differently now, because the church recently changed its tune from that of science to a nebulous argument on the grounds of tradition. At base, its sexual theology and politics are more spiritually and intellectually lightweight than ever before in history. Which makes them arguably more dishonest.
We need to recite this litany of footnotes because the spat we've just had about contraception is nothing to what we are about to face. This spat, awful as it is, may actually be a means of teasing out attitudes and beliefs likely to surface with far greater passion and division in the coming debate about abortion in Ireland. Why celebrate the 30th anniversary of Humanae Vitae now? The anniversary was last year.
You may think the archbishop is shooting his mouth off yet again. You may be right. But what that means is that the rest of the hierarchy are smarter than him in the area of communications, at least. His theology is their theology, and while they may appear to be sick as parrots at the fine mess he has got them into, the archbishop may be proving a useful stalking horse. Like the media, all it takes is for the hierarchy to permit him enough rope.
I interviewed Archbishop Connell during the inter-communion row. I asked how he felt about being perceived to preach a gospel of denial. Was it wise to speak out on absolutely everything?
"I don't speak out on everything. I choose very carefully what I speak on," he replied.
But his ministry might risk becoming distorted. "That's a judgment I have to make," he reckoned, "but on the other hand I would be very worried about evading my responsibility."
"The problem for the church," the archbishop continued, "is that what's coming over is a series of negatives, but isn't that bound to be the case when the media are the people who diffuse the ideas in the country?"
"Did it occur to you when you were writing your piece [explaining what he had meant by the word `sham'] that you might perhaps put a line in saying, `I'm sorry if my words have given unintentional offence'?" I ventured. He did not seem to realise how hurt people were, and was clearly upset at the prospect.
"Well, you can put it in if you like, if it will help. I'm very sorry for the offence, I blame that offence very much on the way in which The Irish Times put its headline, `Taking Church of Ireland Communion a sham, says archbishop'. That was very bad."
It's worse now. The kind of negotiations taking place over the last few days - what he said, what he meant, what we think - put the linguistic politics of the Belfast Agreement in the ha'penny place. But an interesting shift has happened, away from examining what the church actually teaches and towards isolating Archbishop Connell as the source of all ills.
THIS man will be retiring within two years. It may be time to understand the Machiavellian good cop/bad cop routine into which the church has cast him, one which encourages him, and others, simultaneously to claim responsibility while rarely making that personal.
The aspect of this case which should really make us sick as parrots is the history of Humanae Vitae itself. This is what we need to remember in the days to come.
The majority recommendation of the expert panel who spent years studying artificial contraception for its theological, scientific and social implications was that the church should permit it within the sacrament of matrimony. The Protestant churches almost all adopted the same position, admittedly with considerable internal debate.
Humanae Vitae was to embody the spirit of Vatican II. But John XXIII's successor, Paul VI, was the sitting Pope when the experts reported, and he had never fully embraced the openness his predecessor celebrated. Paul, supported by the same officials who had canvassed for his election, overturned the report. Only one expert agreed with him.
Soon after, the soulful semen theory was replaced by a dazzlingly arrogant innovation which insisted that male spirituality was innately "Christological". From thereon in, new theories about "the dignity of women" began to appear with increasing regularity, paralleled by a worrying cult of Mary, especially emphasising her as Virgin Mother.
In terms of the real dignity of women, that interpretation of Mary gives her all the force of a theological Barbie. If she deserved better, so do we.
Desmond Connell and Monica Lewinsky were last week's leading advocates of two quite distinctive ethical systems: he reasons, she feels. Each measures the world in those terms alone. He called the church his mother. She called her mother a writer, when the book her mother wrote was actually a kiss and tell. Neither told it as it really is: love has always been a four-letter word, just like that other word, Eire.
If the imminent combination of so many euphemisms is bound to be explosive, a single truth did emerge from all of last week's rumbles. We cannot be scape-goated for our own humanity. That at least is worth getting straight.