{"id":73047,"date":"2015-08-25T15:05:22","date_gmt":"2015-08-25T23:05:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=73047"},"modified":"2015-08-25T16:10:45","modified_gmt":"2015-08-26T00:10:45","slug":"from-sexual-anarchy-to-sexual-terror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=73047","title":{"rendered":"FROM SEXUAL ANARCHY TO SEXUAL TERROR"},"content":{"rendered":"

F. Roger Devlin writes<\/a>: <\/p>\n

It is a clich\u00e9 of political philosophy that the less self-restraint citizens are
\nable to exercise, the more they must be constrained from without. The practical
\nnecessity of such a trade-off can be seen in such extraordinary upheavals as the
\nFrench and Russian Revolutions. First, old and habitual patterns and norms
\nare thrown aside in the name of freedom. When the ensuing chaos becomes
\nintolerable, some group with the requisite ambition, self-assurance and ruthlessness
\nsucceeds in forcibly imposing its own order on the weakened society.
\nThis is what gradually happened in the case of the sexual revolution also, with
\nthe role of Jacobins\/Bolsheviks being assumed by the feminists.<\/p>\n

Human beings cannot do without some social norms to guide them in their
\npersonal relations. Young women cannot be expected to work out a personal
\nsystem of sexual ethics in the manner of Descartes reconstructing the universe
\nin his own mind. If you cease to prepare them for marriage, they will seek
\nguidance wherever they can find it. In the past thirty years they have found it
\nin feminism, simply because the feminists have outshouted everyone else.
\nAfter helping to encourage sexual experimentation by young women,
\nfeminism found itself able to capitalize on the unhappiness which resulted.
\nTheir program for rewriting the rules of human sexual behavior is in one way
\na continuation of the liberationists\u2019 utopian program and in another way a
\nreaction against it. The feminists approve the notion of a right to do as one
\npleases without responsibilities toward others; they merely insist that only
\nwomen have this right.<\/p>\n

Looking about them for some legal and moral basis for enforcing this novel
\nclaim, they hit upon the age-old prohibition against rape. Feminists understand
\nrape, however, not as a violation of a woman\u2019s chastity or marital fi delity, but
\nof her merely personal wishes. They are making use of the ancient law against
\nrape to enforce not respect for feminine modesty but obedience to female whims.
\nTheir ideal is not the man whose self-control permits a woman to exercise her
\nown, but the man who is subservient to a woman\u2019s good pleasure\u2014the man
\nwho behaves, not like a gentleman, but like a dildo.<\/p>\n

But mere disregard of a woman\u2019s personal wishes is manifestly not the
\nreason men have been disgraced, imprisoned, in some societies even put
\nto death for the crime of rape. On the new view, in which consent rather
\nthan the marriage bond is the issue, the same sexual act may be a crime on
\nMonday or Wednesday and a right on Tuesday or Thursday, according to
\nthe shifts in a woman\u2019s mood. Feminists claim rape is not taken seriously
\nenough; perhaps it would be better to ask how it could be taken seriously
\nat all once we begin defining it as they do. If women want to be free to do
\nas they please with men, after all, why should not men be free to do as they
\nplease with women?<\/p>\n

Indeed, the date rape campaign owes its success only to the lingering effect
\nof older views. Feminists themselves are not confused about this; they write
\nopenly of \u201credefining rape.\u201d Of course, for those of us who still speak traditional
\nEnglish, this amounts to an admission that they are falsely accusing men.
\nOne might have more sympathy for the \u201cdate rape victims\u201d if they wanted
\nthe men to marry them, feared they were ruined for other suitors, and were
\nprepared to assume their own obligations as wives and mothers. But this is
\nsimply not the case. The date rape campaigners, if not the confused young
\nwomen themselves, are hostile to the very idea of matrimony, and never
\npropose it as a solution. They want to jail men, not make responsible husbands
\nof them. This is far worse than shotgun marriage, which at least allowed the
\nman to act as father to the child he had sired.<\/p>\n

And what benefit do women derive from imprisoning men as date rapists
\napart from gratification of a desire for revenge? Seeing men punished may
\neven confirm morally confused women in their mistaken sense of victimhood\u2014resentment
\ntends to feed upon itself, like an itch that worsens with
\nscratching. Women are reinforced in the belief that it is their right for men\u2019s
\nbehavior to be anything they would like it to be. They become less inclined to
\ntreat men with respect or to try to learn to understand or compromise with
\nthem. In a word, they learn to think and behave like spoiled children, expecting
\neverything and willing to give nothing.<\/p>\n

Men, meanwhile, respond to this in ways that are not diffi cult to predict.
\nThey may not (at fi rst) decline sexual liaisons with such women, because the
\nwoman\u2019s moral shortcomings do not have too great an effect upon the sexual
\nact itself. But, quite rationally, they will avoid any deeper involvement with
\nthem. So women experience fewer, shorter, and worse marriages and \u201crelationships\u201d
\nwith men. But they do not blame themselves for the predicament they
\nare in; they refuse to see any connection between their own behavior and their
\nloneliness and frustration. Thus we get ever more frequent characterizations
\nof men as rapists and predators who mysteriously refuse to commit.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the only people profi ting from the imposition of the new standards
\nare the feminists who invented them. The survival of their movement depends
\non a continuing supply of resentful women who believe their rights are being
\nviolated; one can only admit that the principles which buttress the date rape
\ncampaign are admirably designed to guarantee such a supply. Feminism
\nis a movement that thrives on its own failures; hence, it is very difficult to
\nreverse.<\/p>\n

Merriam-Webster\u2019s Collegiate Dictionary, eleventh edition, lists the first
\nrecorded use of the term date rape as 1975. Within a few years we find Thomas
\nFleming of Chronicles, for example, employing the expression as uncritically as
\nany feminist zealot.4<\/p>\n

A second instrument of the feminist reign of sexual terror,
\n\u201csexual harassment,\u201d similarly made its first appearance in 1975. In less than a
\ngeneration this has become a national industry providing a comfortable living
\nfor many people. Yet again we find this revolutionary concept blithely accepted
\nby many male traditionalists. They are content to accept without argument
\nthat there exists a widespread problem of men \u201charassing\u201d women, and that
\n\u201csomething must be done about it.\u201d My first thought would be: What did
\nthe Romans do about it? What did the Christian Church do about it? How
\nabout the Chinese or the Aztecs? The obvious answer is that none of them
\ndid anything about it, because the concept has only recently developed within
\nthe context of the feminist movement. Is this not cause for suspicion? Why
\nare men so quick to adopt the language of their declared enemies?
\nThe thinking behind the sexual harassment movement is that women are
\nentitled to \u201can environment free from unwanted sexual advances.\u201d What sort
\nof advances are unwanted? In plain English, those made by unattractive men.
\nAnyone who has been forced to endure a corporate antiharassment video
\ncan see that what is being condemned is merely traditional male courtship
\nbehavior.<\/p>\n

The introduction of harassment law was accompanied by a campaign to
\ninform young women of the new entitlement. Colleges, for example, instituted
\nharassment committees one of whose stated purposes was \u201cto encourage
\nvictims to come forward.\u201d (I saw this happening up close.) The agitators wanted
\nas many young women as possible accusing unsuccessful suitors of wrongdoing.
\nAnd they had considerable success; many women unhesitatingly availed
\nthemselves of the new dispensation. Young men found they risked visits from
\nthe police for flirting or inviting women on dates.<\/p>\n

This female bullying should be contrasted with traditional male chivalry.
\nMen, at least within Western Civilization, have been socialized into extreme
\nreluctance to use force against women. This is not an absolute principle: few
\nwould deny that a man has a right of self-defense against a woman attempting
\nto kill him. But many men will refuse to retaliate against a woman under
\nalmost any lesser threat. This attitude is far removed from the feminist principle
\nof equality between the sexes. Indeed, it seems to imply a view of men as
\nnaturally dominant: It is a form of noblesse oblige. And it is not, so far as I
\ncan see, reducible to any long-term self-interest on the part of a man; in other
\nwords, it is a principle of honor. The code of chivalry holds that a man has no
\nmoral right to use force against women simply because he can do so.
\nAn obvious difficulty with such a code is that it is vulnerable to abuse
\nby its beneficiaries. I had a classmate in grade school who had heard it said
\nsomewhere that \u201cboys are not supposed to hit girls.\u201d Unfortunately, she
\ninterpreted this to mean that it was acceptable for girls to hit boys, which she
\nthen proceeded to do. She became genuinely indignant when she found that
\nthey usually hit back.<\/p>\n

The special character of noblesse oblige is that it does not involve a corresponding
\nentitlement on the part of the beneficiary. On the traditional view, a
\nman should indeed be reluctant to use force against women, but women have
\nno right to presume upon this. The reluctance is elicited by a recognition of
\nwomen\u2019s weakness, not commanded as a recognition of their rights…<\/p>\n

What happens when a contemporary woman, deluded into thinking she deserves a moviestar husband, fails not only to fi nd her ideal mate, but any mate at all? She does not blame herself for being unreasonable or gullible, of course; she blames men. A whole literary genre has emerged to pander to female anger with the opposite sex. Here are a few titles, all currently available
\nthrough Amazon.com: Why Men Are Clueless, Let\u2019s Face It, Men Are @$$#%\\c$, How to Aggravate a Man Every Time, Things You Can Do with a Useless Man, 101 Reasons Why a Cat Is Better Than a Man, 101 Lies Men Tell Women, Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them, Kiss-off Letters to Men: Over 70 Zingers You Can Use to Send Him Packing, or\u2014for the woman who gets sent packing herself\u2014How to Heal the Hurt By Hating.<\/p>\n

For many women, hatred of men has clearly taken on psychotic dimensions. A large billboard in my hometown asks passing motorists: \u201cHow many women have to die before domestic violence is considered a crime?\u201d One is forced to wonder what is going on in the minds of those who sponsor such a message. Are they really unaware that it has always been a crime for a man to
\nmurder his wife? Are they just trying to stir up fear? Or are their own minds so clouded by hatred that they can no longer view the world realistically?<\/p>\n

Internet scribe Henry Makow has put forward the most plausible diagnosis I have yet seen, in an essay entitled \u201cThe Effect of Sexual Deprivation on Women<\/a>.\u201d Apropos of the recent rape hysteria, he suggests: \u201cMen are \u2018rapists\u2019 because they are not giving women the love they need.\u201d In other words, what if the problem is that men, ahem, aren\u2019t preying upon women? All that we have just preying upon women? All that we have just said supports the theory that Western Civilization is now facing an epidemic of female sexual frustration. And once again, the typical conservative commentator is wholly unable to confront the problem correctly: He instinctively wants to step forward in shining armor and exclaim \u201cNever fear, tender maids, I shall prevent these vicious beasts from sullying your virgin purity.\u201d If women need love from men and aren\u2019t getting it, this is hardly going to help them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

F. Roger Devlin writes: It is a clich\u00e9 of political philosophy that the less self-restraint citizens are able to exercise, the more they must be constrained from without. The practical necessity of such a trade-off can be seen in such … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[210,29659,142],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dating","category-f-roger-devlin","category-feminism"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73047"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73054,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73047\/revisions\/73054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}