since only about 1% of Western women ever formally work as whores, we’re going to need a lot of help to make our voices heard. We need all the sex workers (such as strippers, dominatrices and porn actresses) whose fields aren’t currently criminalized, and the sugar babies and other women who have informally or indirectly taken money for sex at least once (which might be as high as 10% of all women). We need all of the men who hire us at least occasionally, which comes to about 20% of the adult male population. We need all of the women who recognize that cops can’t tell the difference between professionals and amateurs, and that laws which can be used to arrest us will also work to arrest you. We need all of those who love porn, polyamory, BDSM or kink, because even though policing of sex usually starts with harlots, it never stops with us. We need all of the public health and human rights experts who understand the necessity of decriminalization in light of their respective fields, all of the libertarians who recognize that governmental prohibition of consensual behavior is both indefensible and dangerous to individual liberty, and all of the feminists who recognize that a woman’s right to control her own body and make her own sexual and economic choices is the primary feminist issue. And we need all of the decent human beings who don’t fall into any of those categories, but are simply disgusted by the idea of armed thugs arresting, humiliating and ruining people for the “crime” of consensual sex.
Some to most of this isn’t to my taste. May or may not be to yours either.
But can we all agree that we need to take the fight to the prodnoses for it is indeed true that what consenting adults get up to is up to those consenting adults and no one else?
Yup. Especially as allowing the bastards to win only encourages them to shift targets one left and start again.
“it is indeed true that what consenting adults get up to is up to those consenting adults and no one else?” Typhoid Mary would have agreed.
More input from the actual women involved…
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/why-im-happy-to-be-a-sex-worker-20130913-2toi6.html
Big choice. The 1% of women on the game or the 2% of the population who will violently keep the off the streets (“This is a Mussssssslim area”)? I know who I want off the streets and it ain’t the ladeez of the night.
It might make the Guardianistas’ heads explode.
It continues to astonish me just how much attention we (as a society) seem to pay to what other people rub their genitals against.
Well, I agree with all of it, but this part is wrongheaded-
Since control and prohibition of sex and (particularly) sex work are the primary drivers of the core Feminist movement, and anti-prostitution, porn etc laws are a primarily Feminist creation. We all know why; in Feminist theory, a prostitute (or indeed any woman) who has sex with a man is automatically losing control of her sexuality and body, because sex is the expropriation of female production, like wot Marx sez about teh capitalist and teh proletariat etc. And the “health and human rights” apparat are firmly in the Feminist camp.
Under Feminist dogma, a prostitute is automatically a victim. Oppressed by the patriarchy, oppressed by capitalism, and if she thinks she wants to be a prostitute, she’s suffering false consciousness that needs therapeutic correction. Women are always victims, men are always exploiters, which is why anti-prostitution laws focus on punishing men and “saving” prostitutes.
Which is the central theme of my general ranting on this and related issues. If you really want sexual and gender freedom and equality, the Feminist movement is going to have to be destroyed as a political and social force. It is the source of the problem. The First Wave introduced the first tranche of anti-sex laws- against prostitutes, “obscenity”, homosexuality, “gross indecency” (particularly, the organised persecution of gays). When that started collapsing in the 1960s, the Second Wave arose to put Humpty back together again. Without that Second Wave, we would now be living in a liberal society, on sexual and gender issues. It’s depressing to contemplate how few deranged women, so long as they’re well organised, it takes to fuck things up.
Ian B,
You’re misreading what the anti-porn and anti-prostitution campaign by so-called feminists is really about. It is the same campaign as the women who sought to wipe out prostitution in the late Victorian era and the Festival of Light brigade who wanted smut off our screens, and that is that they are lacking in sexual allure and seek to prevent their men from getting their kicks elsewhere, so they can control them.
The strongest parallel is that you wouldn’t make a move on any of them in a bar. They lack any sort of charm, humour or allure, and so either they can’t control their men sexually by giving them what they want, or at least fear they can’t. Meet the sort of woman who you might want to take to bed, they don’t have much of an opinion on Page 3 or lad’s mags, because they don’t feel threatened by them.
And just like earlier generations, they don’t say it directly, they couch it in something else – the health of young men, the children, the wimmin.
Stigler,
I’m not misreading that at all and have discussed it a lot on the web in various places. But that’s a matter of motivation, and is thus effectively impossible to prove however convincing the argument. We know what Hitler did, but why he did it is speculation.
The secondary point also is that what inspired Feminists originally does not necessarily describe why women become Feminists now. Many attractive young women join the movement when they are neither old nor ugly, but simply because they’re drawn into it like any cult.
So it’s easier to focus on what the movement does, and what they claim in their potty writings to be the motivation, than accusing people of an emotion- jealousy, etc- which is internalised and impossible to prove.
Hmmmmm………. in my (limited) 61 years of experience, the vast majority of women (99% I’d say) I have met have taken money (or other forms of benefit) for sex…
@ Ian B – and yet when it comes to drugs it’s the poor exploited user, not the supplier we worry about. The supplier is exploiting the desires of the user.
Indeed. Sex work is basically the only market sector in which the seller is considered by Proggies to be the victim, rather than the consumer, who is bizarrely considered the oppressor.
“…and other women who have informally or indirectly taken money for sex at least once…”
As PT points out, a classification that broad doesn’t leave much out, does it?
I thought mainstream postmodern feminism had switched sides on the prostitution/porn and sex in general issue several times. The dominant discourse (groan) is clearly anti-sex though.
A very important point. Let’s stop criminalising consenting adults and start criminalising perverts who traffic unconsenting victims then label them as “promiscuous” with the help of those who were charged with their protection.
” Sex work is basically the only market sector in which the seller is considered by Proggies to be the victim, rather than the consumer, who is bizarrely considered the oppressor.”
Friday night took the writer (purely in a chaperon & interpreter role, you will understand ) to a local establishment where 40 odd hot-to-trot whores were circling a couple of dozen punters like wolves round a herd of sheep. Bloody lucky to get out of the place unscathed. Said chaparonee seems to have returned lodging wards in the dawning hours some 600€ lighter.
No doubt in my mind who the victims are.
all of the libertarians who recognize that governmental prohibition of consensual behavior is both indefensible and dangerous to individual liberty
No I am afraid that we can’t all agree on that. At least I can’t. Sometimes there are consentual behaviours that are extremely damaging to society as a whole. For instance, democracy is highly correlated with monogamy. Autocracy is not only correlated with polygamy, but the more polygamy you get, the less liberal a society is. See the Middle East.
Polygamy is perfectly consentual within limits. We are clearly moving that way. We have a de facto form of polygamy already – Donald Trump has monopolised the prime reproductive years of a series of young women and continues to support those that he discarded.
The result will be an end to the sort of liberal society we all want. In fact we can already see the results of this – inner city America (and to a lesser extent, inner city Britain). If Urban Blacks were their own country, it is inconcievable that they would be democratic.
I would suggest that we have to choose the less of two evils.
(Not to mention that as soon as acts between consenting adults were legalised, people started to lobby hard for sexual acts between adults and children to be legalised. Everyone’s favourite Gay campaigner Peter Tatchell for instance did just this. It is due to the prodnoses that there was a push back and people like Roman Polanski had to flee to jurisdictions with fewer prodnoses. Some edges are indeed thin.)
SMFS: You can’t be serious.
Yes, if people fuck around, underclass style, without consequences –to them–because everybody else is forced to pick up the bill at gunpoint, that is a bad thing. But that has nothing to do with the sexual act itself–the fact is that some people are scum, either because of a scummy system, upbringing or innate evil.
Democracy =monogamy–nonsense, even if you give a rat’s arse about democracy (compared to freedom it isn’t worth shit).
As for the Paedo stuff–that’s an old refrain and one of the very foundations of radical femmis poison–all men are not just rapists–millions of ’em are paedos as well. The slightest relaxation on matters sexual = a paedo’s paradise. Crap.
“Gerry Dorrian”–see the “Honest Courtesan” blog for a vast volume of evidence that “trafficking” is also a crock of feminist/general anti-sex looney propaganda.
Tim adds: That last becomes amusingly circular, given that I’m one of her sources….
You are only one of her sources Tim. She is very knowledgeable about all aspects of sex work and in touch with a huge spectrum of people.
SMFS-
It’s not about polygamy vs. monogamy, at least in the way you portray it. Polygamy is a consequence of phenomenon of clan/extended family systems with strong family responsibility networks.
The Western European model is relatively weak family with weak familial responsibilities, which allows for liberalism and tends towards monogamy. Marriage is based on mutual affection rather than clan politics. And so on.
Clan systems tend to be rigorously sexually controlling and thus puritanical; hence Shariah Law, Jewish Law. Thus, when Middle Easternism is adopted by WE cultures, it brings with it intense puritanism. Christian Fundemantalism- being a ME religion- invariably demands “family values”- the values of extended ME models- and puritanism. The Feminist movement grew out of radical Protestantism and thus cleaves to those values. Of course, in a different culture, they are expressed somewhat differently. Although the puritanism is pretty much identical, the family system is somewhat different.
In particular, the ability of multiple women to financial exploit a male which manifests in the ME as polygamy expresses itself as modern divorce laws, in which a woman can ditch a marriage while keeping the financial income from it, via alimony, palimony, child support, etc. The male must then either remain single, or take on the financial burden of a new wife while still subject to the burden of a previous one; hence, rich men like Trump can afford it.
It is striking how confused social conservatives are; on the one hand being the most vociferous critics of Middle Eastern values while working the hardest to implement them in the West. And this is also why the Feminists- supposedly a rights movement- are so tepid on attacking Islam. It represents, in many respects, precisely what they are seeking to implement in Europe; the latest expression of 2000 year culture war between European “pagan” society- from which arose unique ideas like liberalism and democracy- and the oppressive, repressive, orientalism carried by the Middle Eastern religion, Christianity.
If we take the specific example of this article, the wholesale suppression of prostitution and brothels is not an ancient European tradition, but a late Victorian obsession of religious radicals with their ME model of sexual control by the collective. The weak family, “atomised” society of WE is the root of liberalism; the sexual authoritarian and oppressive family values of the ME are the death of it.
You can have puritanism or liberalism. That’s the choice. Claiming that authoritarianism generates liberalism is oxymoronic.
@Ian B, yer divorce as total ruin of all men is a peculiarly British phenomenon. At least in the extent to which it goes. The rest of the western world has not quite got there yet.
I do not understand why men still consent to marry in Britain given the consequences should it not work out.
JamesV-
As I understand it, the phenomenon is generalised across the Anglosphere; various writers have talked about a mysterious “marriage strike”, leading (predominantly, Bluestocking type) Feminists to write books telling men to “man up” and “do their duty” and so on.
IOW, the disincentives are starting to bite. It’s a pity.
Mr Ecks – “SMFS: You can’t be serious.”
I think I can.
“Yes, if people fuck around, underclass style, without consequences –to them–because everybody else is forced to pick up the bill at gunpoint, that is a bad thing.”
Which is the reality of the modern world. We are not going to go back to a system where children of single mothers were put up for adoption – even though the evidence that this is in the child’s interest must be overwhelming.
So as far as that goes, we seem to be in agreement. But I don’t see quite how it relates to what I said.
“But that has nothing to do with the sexual act itself–the fact is that some people are scum, either because of a scummy system, upbringing or innate evil.”
Well that is a very simplistic way of looking at things. It would be better to say that sex is a hugely powerful motivation. Which leads people to do all sorts of things they would regret later or wouldn’t do if they thought about it coolly. But that it takes powerful counter-motivations instilled through education and religion for people to control those urges. Marginally. Getting drunk and having sex are not the product of evil characters. Wanting to have your own child is not sinful. The evil lies in empowering people who should not be empowered.
“Democracy =monogamy–nonsense, even if you give a rat’s arse about democracy (compared to freedom it isn’t worth shit).”
Well freedom, democracy and a liberal society all seem to go with monogamy. And it is not my conclusion. It is the conclusion of Laura Betzig. See her Despotism, Social Evolution, and Differential Reproduction. So the science is quite good. Countries with long recent histories of polygamy are almost never democratic. Those that are, tend to be countries that have been monogamous for a long time.
As for the Paedo stuff–that’s an old refrain and one of the very foundations of radical femmis poison–all men are not just rapists–millions of ‘em are paedos as well. The slightest relaxation on matters sexual = a paedo’s paradise. Crap.
I made no specific comment on gender at all. I did not say men were pushing for legalising sex with children. I said paedophiles were. As they did. Google Mary Eberstadt’s essay on “Pedophilia chic”.
Even today the Left is still highly protective of paedophiles that are their own. I think they only turned on underage sex when they realised what a great tool it was for attacking the Catholic Church. They have been silent or worse on people like Roman Polanski. Or Pier Paolo Pasolini. Or any number of other people who cruised the Third World looking for children.
The point being that if you say sex is not dangerous and potentially psychologically wounding, if it is just a positive good that should be enjoyed as much as possible, then you leave yourself open to a push to legalise paedophilia. On what grounds can you do it? On the grounds that children cannot consent? It is a very narrow and weak argument – especially given we allow children to join the Armed Forces. And of course no one wants to be seen as a square. So:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/the-sexual-revolution-and-children-how-the-left-took-things-too-far-a-702679.html
Ian B – “It’s not about polygamy vs. monogamy, at least in the way you portray it. Polygamy is a consequence of phenomenon of clan/extended family systems with strong family responsibility networks.”
I would say it is exactly the opposite – it is polygamy that greatly empowers the clan, makes it necessary actually. After all, girls become valuable, grooming gangs are on the prowl. People have no choice but to protect their children by locking the girls up. As you can see in places that used to be open but suffered Muslim conquest like Spain or Greece.
“The Western European model is relatively weak family with weak familial responsibilities, which allows for liberalism and tends towards monogamy. Marriage is based on mutual affection rather than clan politics. And so on.”
Except it must go the other way around. Because Rome did not have weak families. But then they became Christians. Spain sort of did have weak families but then their rulers were Arabs. The result was that Mario Vargas Llosa said that as a child things were more relaxed in the coastal regions with a large Afro-Hispanic population, but where he grew up, you never even saw a woman on the street.
“Christian Fundemantalism- being a ME religion- invariably demands “family values”- the values of extended ME models- and puritanism.”
This does not represent any form of Christian fundamentalism on offer which is, these days, simply watered down feminism and even in the old days was absurdly worshipful of women.
“The Feminist movement grew out of radical Protestantism”
You keep saying this but it is not true.
“In particular, the ability of multiple women to financial exploit a male which manifests in the ME as polygamy expresses itself as modern divorce laws, in which a woman can ditch a marriage while keeping the financial income from it, via alimony, palimony, child support, etc.”
Women as beneficiaries of polygamy? An interesting conclusion. Not one many people would agree with I think.
Polygamy is based on the natural male desire to sleep with as many women as he can. Divorce law is based on an odd alliance between Christian White Knights who want to punish men for doing the wrong thing and Feminists who just want to punish men. I would not draw much of a parallel myself.
“It is striking how confused social conservatives are; on the one hand being the most vociferous critics of Middle Eastern values while working the hardest to implement them in the West.”
Perhaps you have no understood what social conservatives think? They are not about to legitimize polygamy. Although the Left is.
“And this is also why the Feminists- supposedly a rights movement- are so tepid on attacking Islam. It represents, in many respects, precisely what they are seeking to implement in Europe”
You know, claims like this are so irrational it is hard to know even where to begin. Feminists want to stone pregnant rape victims and carry out honour killings do they? Leftists like Islamists because they both hate White people. Not because they like each other’s programmes on women’s rights.
“If we take the specific example of this article, the wholesale suppression of prostitution and brothels is not an ancient European tradition”
That is certainly true. But what has changed in the modern West is the central stage has been taken over by the demi-monde. In fact there is little but that demi-monde left. So instead of being pushed out of sight, as in modern Spain to some extent, it is the mainstream. I think it is possible to be opposed to a total ban without wanting normal life to be a freak show out of the mainstream.
“The weak family, “atomised” society of WE is the root of liberalism; the sexual authoritarian and oppressive family values of the ME are the death of it.”
Absolutely. As I said. We just disagree on the cause of that weak family. Which, I think, comes down to the price of women. In a monogamous society they are cheap and so they are not protected. In a polygamous society they are expensive and so they are locked up. Weak families follow monogamy.
“You can have puritanism or liberalism. That’s the choice. Claiming that authoritarianism generates liberalism is oxymoronic.”
I am not sure I said authoritarianism generates liberalism. On the contrary, I think I said liberalism generates authoritarianism. You can have Western-style puritanism and liberalism, or you can have neither. You can have monogamy and a liberal society, or you can have more sexual freedom for powerful men and autocracy. As we see in Egypt. In fact no Muslim country has managed democracy well except in South-East Asia where the whole range of anti-female policies of the central Muslim lands have not yet taken root.
Nor is it oxymoronic given Aristotle, who knew a thing or two, used to make precisely this claim. Not that I did.
SMFS-
First to address your reply to Ecks. (I will address your reply to me subsequently).
We seriously need to address this narrative that “the Left” are conspiring to implement some kind of sexual looseness, particularly regarding padeophilia. It is commonly stated by people on the Right. Is it true?
On face valiue, it seems baffling to me that anyone could think such a thing. The Left is clearly dominated by Feminism on sexuality; and Feminism is quite clearly a puritan movement. To be obvious, their central aim is, and has been for 150 years, to abolish prostitution, porn, are drivers of the hysteria about paedophilia, etc etc. There is nothing sexually liberal about this. Why would anyone think otherwise?
Well, because there have been two “Left” periods in living memory. The first was the 1960s-70s, when the First Wave Feminist structure collapsed in a reaction. At this point in time, young Marxists were rejecting it, and embracing a hedonist approach, as was everyone. It was at this point that “the Left” got its reputation for sexual looseness.
That period is over. The Left was rapidly recolonised by the Puritan Revivalists under the Feminist banner and indeed, on non-sexual matters, has returned to Puritanism; a reversal famously chronicled by Mr Huey Lewis and his News in the song “Hip To Be Square”, which chronicled how the Woodstock generation, as they aged, had now become fervent “squares”, obsessed with food, health and fitness, and so on. And hence, for instance, we have the current hysterical attempt to repudiate that entire period of time with the Yewtree Witch Hunt. Which has been orchestrated by left-wing Feminists.
Words we now use routinely that were unknown twenty years ago- “paedophile”, “grooming”, “sex trafficking”, and so on, are all in the lexicon because of a rabid campaign by the Feminists. In order to revive the First Wave ideology which- despite your continued denial of it- was motivated by rabid, radical (puritan) protestantism. Josephine Butler, The Pankhursts, Jane Addams, Frances Willard, all clutched Bibles to their breasts, not Das Kapital.
As time went on and the religious fervour ebbed away, the movement split into two camps, a Left side who sought secular justifications, via socialist theory and Marx, and eventually revived in response to 1960s liberalism as the so called Second Wave- notably this time with a very strong Jewish culture contingent (those ME values again), while the “Right” stuck with God and became Family Values Conservatives. In Britain, Mary Whitehouse was the last of the First Wave Feminists, ridiculed as a religious nut- but her programme is now being identically pursued by the “Left” via the Fawcett Society, Feminista, NSPCC etc.
So with that in mind, it is utterly absurd to claim that the Left, on sexual matters, are liberals. For a short phase, during the Feminist interregnum, hedonists clustered on the Left. That is long over now. They’re well and truly back with their Christian (middle eastern) policies of sexual suppression.
Ian B – “We seriously need to address this narrative that “the Left” are conspiring to implement some kind of sexual looseness, particularly regarding padeophilia. It is commonly stated by people on the Right. Is it true?”
Ian, if you want to argue it has not been the Left that has opposed the Church and all its teachings, it has not been the Left that has preached sexual permissiveness, then I do not think there is any point having this discussion or any other at all. You would need medical help. Please do not tell me you are going to do such a thing.
“The Left is clearly dominated by Feminism on sexuality; and Feminism is quite clearly a puritan movement.”
Well yes and no. For a start the anti-sex feminists are a small part of the broader Leftist coalition. Nor have they been all that influential until recently. The feminist movement used to be more sexually permissive – see, well, pretty much anything you like. Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying for instance.
“To be obvious, their central aim is, and has been for 150 years, to abolish prostitution, porn, are drivers of the hysteria about paedophilia, etc etc. There is nothing sexually liberal about this. Why would anyone think otherwise?”
You cannot conflate a small number of weirdos with the entire Leftist movement – or even all feminists. They were not all Andrea Dworkins storming the Bastille.
“That period is over. The Left was rapidly recolonised by the Puritan Revivalists under the Feminist banner and indeed, on non-sexual matters, has returned to Puritanism”
That is not true of the Left as a whole. It has not been the Right pushing for Gay rights. It has not been the Right arguing for divorce and abortion. It has not been the Right insisting that six year olds learning about rimming.
“In order to revive the First Wave ideology which- despite your continued denial of it- was motivated by rabid, radical (puritan) protestantism. Josephine Butler, The Pankhursts, Jane Addams, Frances Willard, all clutched Bibles to their breasts, not Das Kapital.”
I am not sure I would dispute all of that. I would just point out that the Protestants got pushed out by the (mainly Jewish as it happened) Marxists who then split between the pro-sex and the lesbian separatists. It is a lot more complex than you think.
“the so called Second Wave- notably this time with a very strong Jewish culture contingent (those ME values again)”
I am not sure exactly in what way Gloria Steinem represents Middle Eastern values much less Andrea Dworkin.
“In Britain, Mary Whitehouse was the last of the First Wave Feminists, ridiculed as a religious nut- but her programme is now being identically pursued by the “Left” via the Fawcett Society, Feminista, NSPCC etc.”
Not identical. Because Whitehouse was consistent. She opposed men and woman freely expressing their sexuality. The feminists just oppose anything men might enjoy. They are not pro-marriage. Anything but. They are not opposed to divorce or permissiveness. Julie Bindel might sound like MW from time to time, but they come from such radically different places and have such radically different justifications for what they do, that it is pointless to compare them, much less equate them, just because they happen to agree on a few points. Evangelicals agreed with the lesbian critique of porn but that does not make them remotely similar.
“They’re well and truly back with their Christian (middle eastern) policies of sexual suppression.”
If you define the Left as Andrea Dworkin. And yet there is the Democratic Party arguing for more abortion. Their handmaidens in the media covering up for people like Kermit Gosnell. It is not the Republicans. It was not Labour backbenchers that revolted over Gay marriage.
This is not really a point worth arguing. You either accept this historical record and reality or you do not.
Hmm. Okay, let’s think of another radical movement; the Greens. We can imagine a scale of intensity from “light” Green to “dark” Green-
1) Pollution is bad. Let’s do something about it.
2) Mankind must live in harmony with the environment.
3) The Environment must be protected from Mankind’s plunder.
4) Mankind is the enemy of the Environment. Mankind must be prevented from destroying the planet.
5) Mankind must become extinct to save the planet. (Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, “Deep” Green.
As we see, as the ideology becomes more extreme, it stops being about a balanced outcome, and shifts to a model of a class enemy who may even need to be destroyed. Let’s try sexual puritanism-
1) Sexual profligacy is bad. Let’s control it.
2) No sex outside marriage.
3) Sex within marriage only at the wife’s direction.
4) Sex only for procreation.
5) No sex at all. (Ergo, no marriage, gender separatism).
Your model of lesbian separatism arising only in the Second Wave is false. The first Wave (at least, in the USA) was full of it; Willard, Addams and her girls’ brigade in the Settlement House movement and so on). They had already turned up the dial to 11 on sex, and reached stage 5. They didn’t say “lesbian” then (and since they were devout Christians, I personally strongly doubt that any sexual contact took place) but were well known for living in “Boston Marriages”. That’s your Protestant evangelicals, long before the (often Jewish) Marxists of the 1970s. The Radicals were just a revival of the Progressive Era progressives and suffragists who were- without any doubt- driven by puritan christian moral beliefs. Not marxism (the “cultural marxism” theory or otherwise).
They had already shifted in Victorian times from a simple “sexual restraint” puritanism. They had already identified a class enemy- men- and decided they must be prevented from despoiling the environment, I mean, women. It was called “Male Chastity” then. So you already had a movement in which the moderates were simply seeking restrained sexuality within marriage, and the hard core were rejecting marriage and heterosexuality entirely. And so here we see something else; the class enemy’s expression of power was the heterosexual act; and thus the heterosexual act becomes the enemy.
Nonetheless, the First Wavers were fiercely anti-gay. Why? Well, slightly different conceptual model. They saw it as the pinnacle of male perversion. They had no model of “gay” at all, in fact, just a list of ever more revolting acts that men will indulge in unless trained to be chaste. It starts with looking at ankles, ends up with buggering boys. The same model has largely bene put back in place now, but it’s “paedophilia” at the top of the list. Start off looking at Page 3, that’s where you end up, raping toddlers.
So, this supposed divide between “pro sex” and “lesbian separatists” of yours. Where is it? If you’re arguing that the pro-sexers are the ones promoting “permissiveness”, you’ve got the problem that your examples of permissiveness (gays, divorce, abortion) are all enthusiastically promoted by the lesbian separatists and radicals in general- NOW, the Fawcett Society, Feminista, European Womens Lobby- all of whom are ruthlessly opposed to the rest of sex- prostitution, porn, driving the paedohysteria, and actively pushing for girls to only allow sex, at best, within a “committed relationship” which is the new euphemism for “only within marriage” (or at least akin to engagement). There isn’t a single significant feminist grouping which supports casual sex. Not one. Every significant voice, not just overt Feminists but within the Left, promote the new mantra of “within a committed relationship”.
The Feminist regroup in the 70s had to make some concessions to the new liberalism, and it has taken them the intervening decades to gradually re-tighten the noose. Yes, they did a volte face on homosexuality. Partly because that bandwagon was already rolling (though, now forgotten, some groups were opposed to embracing it), partly because it would be inconsistent to attack gays while embracing lesbianism. On the “lesbianism” btw, most of the so-called lesbians appear to be just anti-heterosexuals. Dworkin never had a lesbian relationship in her life, and married a gay man. Bindel has made it clear she “chose” to reject sex with men, as did Sheila Jeffries and Angela Mason (the Angry Brigader now running the Fawcett Society).
Which brings us back to marriage. Mason is “married” to a woman, and they have a child. The Left, your supposed hedonists, have been quietly re-directing gays away from the hedonist 1970s version, to a model of suburban middle class marriage and parenthood. Puritan gays. Who’da thunk? Why do modern Feminists like gays? Every gay man is one less penis trying to rape a woman, one less vaginal invader. It really is that simple, it seems.
On the other issues, they have been promoting divorce, abortion (less consistent until the 60s), contraception and sex education since Victorian Times and- again- all long before the marxists, under their evangelical puritan philosophy. Simply because of that sliding scale at the start; once you hate the sexual act itself enough, your enemy becomes men. Divorce becomes a way to retain the advantages of marriage without exposure to the male sexual demand. Contraception and abortion are ways to avoid the consequences of the male sexual demand. Sex education is in order to get into the classroom and imdoctrinate your values into the young as early as possible. Trying to teach boys to be chaste and teach girls to avoid the male sexual demand or, at least, avoid its consequences. If you can also encourage a few to be homosexual too, all well and good.
None of them want to teach six year olds about “rimming”. They want access to kids for “education” which is why the recent campaign in the (“right wing”) TElegraph fronting for a handover of all sex ed to Feminist organisations. And there is a good example. The Feminist girl fronting the campaign is a No More Page 3 activist. Do you really think someone who is trying to ban pictures of breasts wants to teach kids to be sexual hedonists? Come on SMFS, it’s entirely inconsistent.
Finally-
In fact it does. We’re talking about the motivating ideology. The two camps have different descendent interpretations to some degree, but less than you think and getting closer again all the time. Both agree on prostitution, porn, paedophilia (now so smeared out it is starting to include any significant age gap), “sexualisation of society”, “sex trafficking”, and so on. They disagree on gays, and thus on Sex Ed in schools (the right fear more gay promotion). Neither approves of casual sex. The Feminists are gradually moving back to deprecating sodomy (blaming porn for girls taking it up the bum). They’re both hysterical about sexting and the internet, and so on. There is much less difference between the two camps than you think. And that is because the underlying motivational ideology is the same; it started from the same place and travelled divergent paths.
There is a somewhat popular narrative doing the rounds that “The Left” are committed to using sexual incontinence to undermine the family and thus Western Civilisation. I’m well aware of that. It doesn’t fit the facts. Whatever some stoned hippies might have said in 1970 after reading Eros And Civilisation, it lasted no longer than flared loon pants. The Left these days aren’t reading Marcuse, they’re reading Gail Dines. Dworkin, Mackinnon and Steinem won that culture war.
Ian B
“As we see, as the ideology becomes more extreme, it stops being about a balanced outcome, and shifts to a model of a class enemy who may even need to be destroyed.”
And how is this different from any other ideology on the planet? Conservatism for instance? Even liberals have managed to argue themselves into the need to suppress what they see as the illiberal.
“3) Sex within marriage only at the wife’s direction.”
Sorry but that is not Puritanism. It is the slow infiltration of feminism into the modern Church. The Bible specifically says otherwise.
“4) Sex only for procreation.”
No one argues this. No one at all.
“5) No sex at all. (Ergo, no marriage, gender separatism).”
And only one or two tiny groups like the Shakers have ever argued for this. It is just not a spectrum of beliefs. It is a a grab bag of random attitudes.
“Your model of lesbian separatism arising only in the Second Wave is false. The first Wave (at least, in the USA) was full of it; Willard, Addams and her girls’ brigade in the Settlement House movement and so on).”
Willard as in the twice-married Emma Willard? Or Francis Willard? Of whom no evidence of lesbianism has been found whatsoever? Whatever isolated example of actual lesbian behaviour may or may not have existed – and I don’t think it did – there is no way to describe the WCTU that Willard founded as a lesbian separatist organisation. Founded, as it was, on protecting married women. Not ending or preventing their marriages.
“but were well known for living in “Boston Marriages”.”
Not a single one known to be lesbian.
“So you already had a movement in which the moderates were simply seeking restrained sexuality within marriage, and the hard core were rejecting marriage and heterosexuality entirely.”
Name anyone at that time in the First Victorian Wave who were rejecting marriager and heterosexuality. Not Willard.
“And so here we see something else; the class enemy’s expression of power was the heterosexual act; and thus the heterosexual act becomes the enemy.”
An explicitly Marxist formula that would not have made sense before the Marxists took over the feminist movement.
“The same model has largely bene put back in place now, but it’s “paedophilia” at the top of the list. Start off looking at Page 3, that’s where you end up, raping toddlers.”
Who has ever made that argument?
“So, this supposed divide between “pro sex” and “lesbian separatists” of yours. Where is it?”
If you missed the entire Feminist Sex Wars in the late 1970s and early 1980s you really missed something. Not everyone went along with Dworkin.
“If you’re arguing that the pro-sexers are the ones promoting “permissiveness”, you’ve got the problem that your examples of permissiveness (gays, divorce, abortion) are all enthusiastically promoted by the lesbian separatists and radicals in general”
Sorry but now you’re arguing that radicals do support more permissiveness? Or what? More abortion is not evidence of more permissiveness? Take porn if you like. Those feminists who argued in favour of porn, or BSDM, were not anti-sex. They were and are pro-sex. Some of them are even heterosexual and pro-porn. No doubt you will tell me this is mainstream Tory.
“There isn’t a single significant feminist grouping which supports casual sex. Not one.”
That is hardly true. As we can see with the slutwalks. Yes, the lesbians are doing well within the feminist movement. But they are not the be-all and end-all of feminism.
The Left, your supposed hedonists, have been quietly re-directing gays away from the hedonist 1970s version, to a model of suburban middle class marriage and parenthood. Puritan gays. Who’da thunk?
No they are not. They are pretending that is what they are doing. Lesbians always have done so of course. But Gay men are only doing so because they want public acceptance. Their behaviour is not changing. Nor is this what the Left is arguing. The Left is still arguing for children as young as possible to be having consequence-free sex. And in so far as some feminists do not like male sexuality, they are not in any way arguing for a limit on female behaviour.
Why do modern Feminists like gays? Every gay man is one less penis trying to rape a woman, one less vaginal invader. It really is that simple, it seems.
“On the other issues, they have been promoting divorce, abortion (less consistent until the 60s), contraception and sex education since Victorian Times and- again- all long before the marxists, under their evangelical puritan philosophy. Simply because of that sliding scale at the start; once you hate the sexual act itself enough, your enemy becomes men.”
Sorry but they have been encouraging sex outside and without marriage because they hate sex? This is just not rational.
“Contraception and abortion are ways to avoid the consequences of the male sexual demand.”
That has never been the argument in favour of either. It has always been that they are ways for women to explore their sexual needs without consequence – or marriage.
“Sex education is in order to get into the classroom and imdoctrinate your values into the young as early as possible. Trying to teach boys to be chaste and teach girls to avoid the male sexual demand or, at least, avoid its consequences.”
Indeed. EXcept not that they want males to be chaste but subservient and they do not want girls to avoid sex, but to avoid the consequences. Sex Ed remains sex positive.
“None of them want to teach six year olds about “rimming”.”
You want to bet?
“They want access to kids for “education” which is why the recent campaign in the (“right wing”) TElegraph fronting for a handover of all sex ed to Feminist organisations.”
The Tellie is hardly as conservative as it once way.
“Do you really think someone who is trying to ban pictures of breasts wants to teach kids to be sexual hedonists?”
She will want to teach girls to be.
“In fact it does. We’re talking about the motivating ideology.”
No it doesn’t and yes we are. Their motivations are wildly different. Not even remotely close.
“Both agree on prostitution, porn, paedophilia (now so smeared out it is starting to include any significant age gap), “sexualisation of society”, “sex trafficking”, and so on.”
They can come to the same conclusion starting in different places and working with different assumptions. As they have.
“Neither approves of casual sex.”
Feminists certainly do – if it is entirely on the woman’s terms.
“The Feminists are gradually moving back to deprecating sodomy (blaming porn for girls taking it up the bum).”
Hardly surprising is it?
“It doesn’t fit the facts.”
This remains ahistoric and absurd. Yes it does. Whenever the Left has got into power since 1798, all they have done has been to undermine the family and encourage sex outside marriage. That is their purpose. Every single country. Only America produced some derranged people like Dworkin who took a weird position. But she is not all that representative. Even Dworkin did not like marriage.
SMFS-
This conversation has got very long winded and is going to soon fall off the front page, etc, and I’m working hard today so I’m going to bow out. Also, I cannot really think of a reply which doesn’t just reiterate by paraphrase what I’ve already said. I’m sure we’ll come back to this bunfight in due course 🙂
Unable to resist a parting shot though, I will with light-hearted intent leave you with the ever watchable David Starkey agreeing with me to a degree around the 1:20 mark on this Youtube video 🙂
http://youtu.be/3ecEyrN6vCQ
It’s worth watching anyway just for leftie luvvie Brian Cox making a pompous ass of himself.
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