You'll want to change the authored-on date from the one this post had when you saved it as a draft so that people actually see it, of course.
I knew that, believe it or not, but I forgot to do so.
Don't we have a proof of the existence of God right there? "Without God, happy, guilt-free incest would be possible!" Beats Augustine and Aquinas and Anselm and Descartes and Pascal all to hell.
I suspect a trolley-car problem, though. Is this an actual person writing?
Actually, the answer to Dreher's "So what's the problem?" is "Nothing," provided everything he stipulates is actually true. Incest taboos revolve around rape and inbreeding.
It seems to me that if you inbred the healthy members of a given healthy family, eventually you'd have a concentration of good genes and no bad genes. Neither of my sisters have uteruses any more, though.
I seem to recall Haidt asks a similar question about incest, so I guess I'm not sure Dreher is that out there. I'm fine with "It's creepy as fuck" as an explanation--because I'm not a sick bastard--but others need more.
It's creepy as fuck because Dreher's stipulates rarely turn out to be true.
Immanuel Kant rejected not only the ontological argument but the teleological and cosmological arguments as well, based on his theory that reason is too limited to know anything beyond human experience. However, he did argue that religion could be established as presupposed by the workings of morality in the human mind ("practical reason"). God's existence is a necessary presupposition of there being any moral judgments that are objective, that go beyond mere relativistic moral preferences; such judgments require standards external to any human mind-that is, they presume God's mind.
So basically Dreher is following Kant.
Haidt indeed uses incest as one of his "moral dumbfoundedness" bits. The philosophical trick is to take a general rule that's justified by some fact that doesn't obtain in all instances of the rule violation, and then point to those exceptions and say, WELL? what about THEM? Yawn. I think the interesting issue here is the delineation of moral and non-moral infractions.
I really hate philosophical arguments from need. "If we didn't have X we wouldn't have Y, and we really need Y".
10: when I was in college, I called these "reductio ad unpleasant." I still kind of like that phrase...
What I said, or what Kant said, or what an anonymous internet said about Kant?
13: what that part of the internet said about Kant. And what you added at the end. I think that if Kant had Dreher's conception of the foundation of morality, the will would be heteronomous.
What the anonymous internet said about Kant is wrong.
That comment of mine might have been more useful a couple minutes earlier, but maybe not.
Dreher, I take it back. My imaginary friends know Kant, and you, sir, are no Kantian. We regret the error.
I think the interesting issue here is the delineation of moral and non-moral infractions.
Can you spell out what you mean?
The Craigslist article is much more interesting than the stupid dribblings of Rod Dreher.
20: sadly I can and will. I mean it's sometimes hard to tell the difference between "that's morally wrong" and "that's gross/nasty/creepy." What's going on here is (in part) Dreher evoking the "ick" reaction in a big way and more or les assuming that it's a moral response rather than a "mere" ick. Have we had this conversation before? It sounds familiar.
They're careful not to risk reproduction, its always been consensual, they enjoy it, and they don't feel guilty.
How could whether or not they feel guilty possibly be relevant? I mean, it's relevant to what advice you'd give them, but so are tons of other obviously non-moral considerations.
22: I don't remember it if we did. You need a catchy name for it that move, to help it stick in our memory.
24: how about "that idea I managed to stretch into 100 pages in my dissertation"?
10: My original example was Plato saying something like "If the Ideas didn't exist, we would have no true knowledge". So as a pragmatist skeptic, I said, "OK, no true knowledge, just a bunch of pretty-good knowledge". I was even willing to grant the Platonic Pythagorean theorem and Platonic calcium and Platonic canidae and so on, but he was always trying to slip Platonic Justice and Goodness and Truth and Beauty over on us.
No, I think we should reserve "The Dreher" for a more Rod move, like, going on about Simple Truths in order to avoid having to work the jobs that the salt-of-the-earth types who lived by those Simple Truths had to bust their asses at in order to feed themselves.
No, I think we should reserve "The Dreher" for a more Rod move, like, going on about Simple Truths in order to avoid having to work the jobs that the salt-of-the-earth types who lived by those Simple Truths had to bust their asses at in order to feed themselves.
Plato was truly the David Hasselhoff of Greek philosophy. And Neo-Platonism was Hasselhoff's administrative assistant.
They're careful not to risk reproduction,
Still, gay incest is much safer.
25: Haidt stretched it farther than that. Isn't his claim that "ick" is the brick that builds our moral intuitions?
Interesting fact: there's much more incest in gay porn than in straight porn. I blame Heebie for my saying this.
It never fails to boggle me, living here among the salt of the earth VFW farmer churchgoing types, to see the weeniest people in the world (Gerson, Dreher, and Brooks) affirming their values. I imagine them coming on a ceremonial visit to be one with the real Americans, and then taking a ritual bath on their return to the Big Apple or wherever.
33: I think that's his claim, yeah, but he didn't rhyme it the way you do. Congratulations, you now have tenure.
ICK! IS! THE BRICK!
(to the tune of "These Are The Breaks")
36: Next stop: a shot at Cornel West's chair.
35: yeah, all of those guys need to be brained with a shovel on that visit. Can you make this happen?
39: I've seriously thought about it. What if a TV crew came to the local bar to be one with the America People.
Garrison Keillor did come here, but he's not a Republican operative.
Brooks's ideal American is actually exurban and middle class, but he calques it onto the old fashioned salt of the earth heartland farmer thing.
It is always amusing to unlikely scenarios developed as philosophical counterexamples happen in real life. It is like seeing a real life trolley problem.
But really, whether something is a complete thought experiment or actually happens once in a blue moon doesn't matter philosophically. It is still a bad idea to build your moral theory around unlikely cases.
Haidt is right to say that the ick is the brick that founds morality, but as he notices himself, the icks have different sources. We are still free to disregard icks from some sources. I personally would like to see us ignore the icks that come from from the purity intuition alone, even if it means periodically eating weird counter examples.
My fantasy of the Shovel of Justice is going to be as endless a source of frustration as my fantasy that someone would tell Tim Russert to cut the blue-collar crap on live tv.
I think I've already said here that I utterly lack the trait of being automatically squicked out by other people's sibling incest. Presumably this is because I'm an only child, and yet, even so, it seems a bit defective of me.
Certainly, Westermarck effectishly, I have absolutely zero sexual interest in any of the people I've known since I was really young, but in my own mind that aversion feels more like happenstance than the manifestation of some deeply-felt rule.
It is still a bad idea to build your moral theory around unlikely cases.
Zigackly.
I personally would like to see us ignore the icks that come from from the purity intuition alone, even if it means periodically eating weird counter examples.
You sick bastard.
Reading articles like that I immediately think "OMG what if those were my kids!" I'm mostly counting on biology to keep them away from things like incest.
I think if she were my kid, the main thing I'd tell her is: "For Gods sake, for the sake of the baby Jesus and the family honor, don't write about this in the Times of London."
8 is not correct.
I kinda wonder. By 'God', Dreher probably has at most the Abrahamic god in mind, and probably something much narrower: does he think everyone else thinks it's okay to poink their sister? Like, the question has never come up anywhere that didn't get Leviticus? Is this one of those things where 'divine command' and 'absolute' are getting conflated?
(I'm guessing it's in Leviticus where it says don't poink thy sister, but I'm not bothering to look it up.)
44 -- Actually, the only children I've known best all have that trait. I had a friend (only child) who'd play what she'd call the "incest game" as a party trick -- slowly describing ever more hardcore stories about brother/sister sex until everyone got too icked out to stay in the room.
I'm not an only child, and I get the slight welling of nausea at even the mention of brother/sister sex. Actually, I'm getting that as I'm typing this.
Just as evil as the phony "heartland" bravado -- and just as important to the worldview -- is the ludicrous overemphasis on sexual shame in their concept of God. No, assholes, God does not exist to justify your fear of getting laid.
49: The mention of brother/sister sex doesn't squick me. The potential actuality of it is as far from my ken as Pluto is from being a planet.
I think I would have stronger moral intuitions about this if I had a sister. Especially an attractive sister.
I have an attractive sister. You wouldn't.
slowly describing ever more hardcore stories about brother/sister sex until everyone got too icked out to stay in the room.
Ha! Excellent.
Living here with my cute, slender, blonde sister, my no-relationship principle, which she shares, saves me.
No, it's not possible to have a casual relationship with one's sister. They want you to be all serious and intense. That's why I doubt the Times article.
"My sister and I were just good friends, but from time to time when we were between lovers....."
54: Nahh, that wouldn't be incest. I'd just do my best to kill you for completely irrational reasons.
Clearly the real advantage of the sibling-incest taboo is that it ensures that we will always be able to have stories in which two people love one another but are not free to consummate that love.
The story was not very believable. Also, this:
it still came as a shock when he told me he wanted to marry her. However, I was more shocked when he said: "You only have to say and I won't marry her, but then I want us to stay together and not see anyone else.
He basically simultaneously proposes to two different women. Total skeeve.
My fantasy of the Shovel of Justice is going to be as endless a source of frustration as my fantasy that someone would tell Tim Russert to cut the blue-collar crap on live tv.
Dig him up and tell him yourself. You could probably get on the local news!
Certainly, Westermarck effectishly, I have absolutely zero sexual interest in any of the people I've known since I was really young, but in my own mind that aversion feels more like happenstance than the manifestation of some deeply-felt rule.
But then it would, wouldn't it?
Is it OK that I cannot remember which one is Ross Dreher and which one is Ron Douthat? are there any significant differences that would make something applicable to one not applicable to the other?
Clearly the real advantage of the sibling-incest taboo is that it ensures that we will always be able to have stories in which two people love one another but are not free to consummate that love.
Or ones in which they are. The link in 58 is as cute as the rest of the thread is squicky.
I dunno. Reading the story it sounds less like a casual sex happy story and more like a fourteen-year-old girl who gets assaulted and isn't sure how to process it because it isn't violent.
are there any significant differences that would make something applicable to one not applicable to the other?
One of them would do anything for love?
I'm with 44; as an only child, I just don't get the ickiness. At any rate, wouldn't everyone agree that the trouble with Van/Ada was that Van was a jackass, not that they were siblings?
But then it would, wouldn't it?
Well, yes. But it's not like I get the ICK reaction from hearing stories about people who grew up together and then sleep together.
I think I would have stronger moral intuitions about this if I had a sister.
I think I might be less fascinated by the female body if I had had a sister. As it was, girls were completely and totally mysterious, and to some extent, still are.
There was an article a while back about daughter-father incest and how the young lady's fiancé would come upon her and her father doing it anally or whatever and she'd be all "I LOVE MY DAD, OKAY??" That seemed a lot more ick-producing to me than sis-bro incest.
At least, as Ada runs, I believe they're half-siblings, and she's also fucking her full sister. From what I understand, lots of girls with sisters do it with each other. I don't have sisters, so I know nothing.
Clearly, we all need more sisters. Strictly for data.
Compare ick: all of this thread minus 70 vs. 70?
66: The moral depravity of only children is well known by the rest of us.
71: Vote early, vote often, vote Obama.
After 67, I read 73 as The moral depravity of only chicken.
Slol, Haidt has a bit about dead chickens that you might enjoy...
I think the family romance doesn't include enough talk about siblings. At least in my family, siblings were considered the sort of baseline of attractiveness against which one measures future partners. That is, my brother was supposed to be an example of "acceptable," and that I was supposed to "do better." So I tried to date his friends several times, to no avail. When he married a woman who's not very nice or pretty or honest, my mother pulled me aside and said, "They're going to end up divorced. She's not even as pretty as you."
I guess it kept my brother and I from ever developing any pervy interest in each other. We were the worst each of us could do.
76: I'm pretty sure I don't want to hear anything about incestuous chicken necrophilia.
The squick factor of this thread is slightly enhanced by the recent "how many siblings do you have and does that make you a team" thread.
(Examples include: having sex with a chicken carcass you're about to eat, wiping your toilet with a national flag, and, as we'll see, brother/sister incest.)
I had a friend (only child) who'd play what she'd call the "incest game" as a party trick -- slowly describing ever more hardcore stories about brother/sister sex until everyone got too icked out to stay in the room.
This totally cracks me up. One of my favorite mean games is to occasionally joke with Mr. B. about his having sex with his sisters. Totally flips him out.
I'm not an only child, but I don't have a brother.
From what I understand, lots of girls with sisters do it with each other.
ICK.
Why aren't we talking about the Craigslist thread? I can't recommend too highly the plan of being sexually semi-conservative in one's youth (as regards one's own behavior, that is, rather than being all moralistic and young Republicanish) and then jumping into online personals casual sex in middle age. Much safer and more fun than the other way around.
B, does that account ring true to your ears?
77: I don't have any brothers, so my sisters took to shivbunny very cutely. (We have a big brother now! What are we supposed to do? Tease him, I think.) The fact that they're all stunning has been the focus of several jokey comments from his family when looking at the wedding pics of him and them: 'is this an American tradition? Get married and then get surrounded by hot women?'
"I want my vagina to have call-waiting."
The jokes! The three-way calling, flashing over to the other line, flashing back! Ack! I can't pick just one!
70: :At least, as Ada runs, I believe they're half-siblings, and she's also fucking her full sister
They quickly figure out that they are half-siblings rather than cousins but then subsequently work out that they are actually full sister and brother from some clues from an album from Marina's (their shared real mother) stay in a Swiss sanitarium. (which album supposedly contained a "Pudendron" aka the Hairy Alpine Rose.)
66: That the trouble with Van/Ada was that Van was a jackass, not that they were siblings?
Yes. My gloss of one of the subplots: Hello, my name is Van Veen, you I we fucked my cousin half-sister sister, prepare to die.
88a: Oh, right. It's been years.
From what I understand, lots of girls with sisters do it with each other.
Hi, my name's AWB, and what I know about American families I learned from porn.
Interesting fact: there's much more incest in gay porn than in straight porn
I blame the fact that you 1) know this 2)are willing to admit you know this and 3) think it's interesting all on your habit of reading right-wing blogs. We told you it was bad for you.
87: "I set my vagina to forward all incoming calls to Labs' colon."
My first thought on reading the Dreher bit was that he was basically falling into the fallacy of Arguing from Adverse Consequences (reductio ad unpleasant is pretty much equivalent?). But then again I guess that is not a "fallacy" for many kinds of moral or normative argumentation where the precise point is avoiding the adverse consequence rather than discovering some truth (though I am not sure that Dreher is not pushing for the 'true" rather than just the 'useful" here). But it still seems like question begging in that it leaves unexamined the '"rightness" of the ick reaction. (Sophomoric restatements of points made better upthread 'r' me.)
The jump from this particular example to the need for a God, absolute moral truth, or even the human creation of same seems risible.
Tangential question: is the "ick" factor for sibling sex really any stronger than the "ick" factor of thinking of one's parents having sex?
94: For other siblings? Naah.
83: It'd be interesting to see what that article from the dude's perspective looked like.
That's "naah, the linked story doesn't squick me out appreciably more or less than thinking about my parents having sex". But someone sitting in the room recounting more and more graphic descriptions of sex might eventually make me leave, no matter who the descriptions were of.
94. Damn good question. I actually have a complete "ick" bypass for both, although I would recommend very good contraception in the case of sister/brother sex. I honestly believe it's a learned response at some level. AFAIK no other apes worry unduly about it, and though you can overdo that kind of comparison, you have to ask what trauma occurred on the veldt to make us suddenly get squeamish about incest.
Now you could answer that it was the realisation that sex led to pregnancy, and that the offspring of incestuous unions were often not very well. I'd be fine with that, but it's still a conscious thing, not an instinctive "ick", even if society has built taboos round it ever since. And now that sex no longer necessarily leads to pregnancy? No big deal.
From what I understand, lots of girls with sisters do it with each other
Right, and lots of girls with dogs do it with the dogs.
it was the realisation that sex led to pregnancy, and that the offspring of incestuous unions were often not very well
I'm not inclined to answer this at all, because I think it's largely bunk. It may be a socially-learned taboo, of course, but it might also be an instinct, even though other apes seem not to have it; after all, we've evolved a fair bit (haven't we?) since breaking off. Not a lot, but some. And I think one of the things we're pretty good at--apes are good at it too, but I think we're better--is recognizing kinship relations, as distinct from other kinds of close-but-not-related-relations. It makes sense to have an incest/kin-sex taboo for social reasons as well as genetic ones, but given that social instincts are pretty much part of who we are, that doesn't necessarily mean it's not "innate."
Of course, it also doesn't mean it is.
It makes sense to have an incest/kin-sex taboo for social reasons as well as genetic ones
Does it? I'm not arguing you're wrong, because I've no data, but why? I'd have thought that, absent the genetic issues, kin-sex would lead to greater group solidarity, which would be advantageous to the individual and the group.
My (half-assed) memory of anthropology stuff on the issue is that non-kin-sex helps establish out-group alliances; it makes the kinship group safer, basically, because it involves others in protecting it.
OK. Half-assed memory is better than I can do. Makes sense. Of course kin-sex is prevalent at a slightly further degree is some modern societies. Our neighbours and good friends are Kashmiri, and first cousins. It appears to be more common than not there. It was an arranged (not forced) marriage which had been presaged for years in the family. The kids are seriously bright and healthy, as are their parents.
Previous Kashmiri neighbours who were also first cousins had two seriously disabled children, mentally and physically, though who knows how much their parents' genetic closeness contributed.
You can find practically every social arrangement you want to look for somewhere on this planet. The main thing that distinguishes H. sapiens from other animals is that it appears to be much better able to buck its instincts if it has reason to do so. So, to return to the question, in a society which has reliable contraception, what's wrong with incest if it makes both partners happy?
It makes sense to have an incest/kin-sex taboo for social reasons
the need for a God, absolute moral truth, or even the human creation of same seems risible logical.
Cf:Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents
Cf: Allen, Crimes & Misdemeanors
Cf:Auschwitz, Rwanda
"Ick" factor:It is hard to argue, within a social group, that its taboos are non-rational and not justified. Social group:an organization formed to turn personal preferences into group taboos, locally (Trekkers, blogs?) but preferably universally (Geneva Conventions)
Dreher is probably more right than wrong, and it strikes me that reason & science are practically inadequate as justifications of taboos.
Even Spock had a violent mating ritual.
PS:Dreher's argument was not, of course, really about brother/sister incest.
It's dangerous because it's very hard to keep your moral bearings if you cannot just take it to be obvious that smashing a kid's head against a rock is a bad thing, and that people who applaud people who smash kids' heads against rocks are making a deep moral mistake. ...hilzoy, link on request
"8 O Daughter of Babylon,
doomed to destruction,
happy is he who repays you
for what you have done to us-
9 he who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks" ...Psalm 137
105: Good to see that you're following up on some of the suggestions for misanthropy literature.
103: the need for a God, absolute moral truth, or even the human creation of same seems risible logical.
Nicely truncated. Of course the full quote referenced the specific instance not the general case. Are you sure you don't work for Fox News? The disingenuous nature of much of your "performance art" here has much in common with their's.
196:My nightly movie last night was Moody Swingers, an interpretation of Martin Amis' Dead Babies. After some Amazon browsing, I did wonder why Amis wasn't recommended.
Dreher's question was "Why not brother/sister incest" It is interesting and revealing to me that this blog chose to explore "Why not brother/sister incest in a rationalist empiricist mode rather than more important "Why not brother/sister incest?"
Thought I might help, just a little. "Why not smash your enemies' babies heads against rocks?" Let's have a rationalist empiricist exploration of that question.
107:Isn't it wondrous how those group taboos are enforced?
"Why not smash your enemies' babies heads against rocks?"
Am I supposed to be arguing with a 5th century BC tribal poet? Er, because it's a waste of good potential slaves? (NB The Old Testament is all about genocide, or at least several books of it are. The author of this psalm, like the author of Joshua, illuminates an aspect of the Iron Age psyche that archaeologists prefer to downplay.)
Or am I supposed to be arguing with you? Fuck you, clown.
I recall reading that even non-related children who were raised together ended up respecting the incest taboo towards each other. There was supposed to be some key age range, like 3-7 or something, during which the relationship became cemented as sibling-like.
There was supposed to be some key age range, like 3-7 or something, during which the relationship became cemented as sibling-like.
Does this mean that siblings who are born a decade apart are less likely to be "ick" at the idea of sleeping with one another?
If I'm reading Bob's cite correctly, if we don't believe in God we might be unwilling to smash our enemies' babies' heads on rocks. What I say is that even if weare not believers ourselves, we should be careful to hire theists to do the necessary baby-head-smashing.
In Taiwan there have been studies of marriages in which the bride is taken int the family in early childhood by her future parents-in-law. As I remember, these marriages tend to be unhappier and more fragile than the average.
Brooks's ideal American is actually exurban and middle class, but he calques it onto the old fashioned salt of the earth heartland farmer thing.
He's not all wrong about that, though. Generally speaking, the first generations of suburbia (the ones who settled the inner ring suburbs) were migrants/refugees from the city. Their formative experiences, and later their vestigial memories, were urban in origin. Contemporary exurbs (in particular the fast growing ones in the sunbelt) are closer to rural / small town culture, both geographically and demographically. It's no accident that country music (which, in its contemporary form, is animated by exurban nostalgia for and celebration of the experience of rural childhood) experienced explosive popularity growth in the same period that the exurbs took off.
I know a guy who was sleeping with his sister. They were about a year apart in age and had been doing the bone dance off and on since their mid teens. When I knew him he was in his mid to late twenties. Keeping the incest secret had seriously damaged his (an his sister's) ability to relate to his parents, so eventually they told the parents about it. The parents were not thrilled.
As incest becomes more accepted, the parents will probably come around.
I think Cala in 64 has a good read on the article.
I'm not all that squicked out by the idea of sibling sex as long as I keep it very abstract. Once I start thinking about actual people, it gets icky fast.
110:Or am I supposed to be arguing with you? Fuck you, clown.
Dreher's implicit point was about taboos. There was above some discussion of Haidt, and a glancing mention of the 5 normative axes( justice, fairness, purity, loyalty, ?). Now, just as Freud predicted, the taboos have shifted among the enlightenend evolved crowd from sex to violence/aggression and this thread is a great example.
Now I am not sure what audience Dreher had in mind, and why he thought incest would be shocking, but it very obviously didn't work for this crowd. So I try to shift the argument to violence, the taboo nature of which I have often observed on this blog.
Would you rather it be torture than murdered babies? Ok, I have sometimes argued that the consequentialist arguments against torture weren't gonna work, that it had to be made a taboo for those who work on all five axes. I was mostly ignored, because the enlightened liberal crowd doesn't want to recognize the value of non-rational taboo, because they are insistent that only the first two of the five axes be available for public reason.
I have been reading on the Enlightenment, and most contemporary books shift very quickly from the Continental Rationalists to the British Empiricists. Empiricism provides a better grade of bullshit, I suppose, as in "7 of 10 studies show that increasing the minimum wage lowers teenage employment" vs "no, 3 recent studies show the opposite" vs "dammit, people just should get a living wage, efficiency be damned."
KR, could you resend that email to me?
Does this mean that siblings who are born a decade apart are less likely to be "ick" at the idea of sleeping with one another?
Keegan and Cassidy are ten years apart and only half-siblings. Hmm.
Compare ick: all of this thread minus 120 vs. 120?
Emerson, you have consistently critiqued both analytic philosophy and neo-classical economics, but I am not sure that you have explored their common source in the late 18th century Anglo-American/Scottish Enlightenment/Empiricist and their split from the Continental Rationalist/German Idealist Romantic blah blah. And in a sense, I think you are wrong about the post WWII causes. England/American avoided both the extremes of far left and far right.
Whatever. We do have a core irrationalism that is not really available for examination/reformation. Dewey/Rorty probably provide the bridge, but there is still a lot of interesting resistance.
Tangential question: is the "ick" factor for sibling sex really any stronger than the "ick" factor of thinking of one's parents having sex?
I find this question almost nonsensical. But I've always been quite comfortable with the idea of my parents having sex, in a 'good for them!' kind of way. Even as a pretty little kid.
You people could do to change the subject, say to authoress fashion
118. Bob, if that's your argument I'd rather it be about dashing your enemies' babies brains out, since I guess that's probably more acceptable than torture in many circles these days - with the proviso that you do it from a safe distance, like a B52 or the command tower of a submarine. There is no taboo, merely a question of good taste.
Consequentialist arguments convince those who are inclined to consequentialism. If you're a religious nutbar, as this Dreher appears to be, they're irrelevant unless you can persuade your opponent that dashing your enemies' babies brains out puts him (usually) in danger of damnation. But the religious nutbars normally have an escape clause for this.
Damned if I know how to do it. People have been trying to erect your taboo for millennia, and look where we are.
There was supposed to be some key age range, like 3-7 or something, during which the relationship became cemented as sibling-like.
This, particularly. No need to postulate an angry God to suspect that maybe having different kinds of loving relationships in the way our society has been structured is important to health (and maybe survival, if we want to go the veldt route, but I don't like such arguments even when they're friendly.)
Does this mean that siblings who are born a decade apart are less likely to be "ick" at the idea of sleeping with one another?
I think this refers to the age of the child, not the age range of siblings. Somewhere between 3-7 the kid figures what relationships it's in and what people are important.
||
I'm only just now starting to recover from dinner last night, which involved a three hour (no, really, three hours) argument between two partners of my firm, over whether Bush is merely the "most underrated President in American history", or is actually "the greatest and most prescient President in American history". (The partner who held the view that Bush is merely the most underrated President in history maintained that Reagan was actually the greatest, because he was more skilled at working with Congress.) I drank heavily and cried inside. This morning I don't feel well, and my illness is as much psychological trauma as hangover.
|>
I think this refers to the age of the child, not the age range of siblings. Somewhere between 3-7 the kid figures what relationships it's in and what people are important.
Well, okay, so that implies the younger sibling may feel some "ick" about sleeping with the older one, but the older one should feel no "ick" about sleeping with the younger one. Or am I misunderstanding?
Bob, here's my history of the XXc:
The villain is militarized statism. WWI was pointless and more destructive than anyone could have imagined, and it was the work of mainstream establishment centrists. There were extremists at work before 1914, but they weren't making things happen. 1914 was the hinge of history, not 1932 when hitler took over or 1917 when Lenin took over.
1917-1945 was a perfect storm of depression and war. Nazis and Communists stepped in in place of the discredited centrists who had fucked things up so terribly. They fucked up things worse.
America, England, and France remained liberal with slight socialist flavors, though France was conquered. These were the best actual alternatives at the time and probably since. I'd love to see something better.
I really have an aversion to the German tradition especially. And excess of seriousness and intensity seems to fuck up the German mind. I don't see any evidence that German philosophical depth has done Germany any good. Nietzsche half agreed, and Heine almost completely agreed.
After WWII various German traditions (logical positivism, Straussianism, critical theory, etc.) came to the US. We'd have been better off staying with indigenous pragmatism.
Neoclassical econ and analytic philosophy are anti-populist technocratic developments supporting administrative liberalism. They both have Austrian roots, though they're indigenous too.
is the "ick" factor for sibling sex really any stronger than the "ick" factor of thinking of one's parents having sex?
Blume's pwned me in 124. Sure, I may not want to picture my parents having sex, or ever see it, but that goes for all couples over age 45 and 99% of all those under it. But as an idea? Hell, I hope my parents are fucking right now and loving it. Not only does it keep them happier, but I'm 50% one and 50% the other, so I want old-age boning in my genes, dammit!
Does this mean that siblings who are born a decade apart are less likely to be "ick" at the idea of sleeping with one another?
But then you have the problem that one sibling has very clear memories of the other one being a baby. Even worse!
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128: There's supposedly a study showing that better informed ideologues become more fanatical, not less.
The Bush administration was an elite collapse. They needed some know-nothing votes, but the people behind it were top-drawer leadership.
I think of it as an especially violent slit within the governing class, when one faction, possibly even a minority faction, went for broke and tried to destroy the other faction. They've been very successful.
For the Democrats' taking power to mean anything, they really have to go on the counterattack an disable the other side permanently. I don't expect to see that. All along Obama has been about putting the old dissensions behind us, etc.
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I think that molestation of much younger siblings by brothers and half-brothers is the most common form of incest.
129: Maybe. But it would mean the younger one of the pair would definitely not be positioned to be okay with the relationship. (Or that if one is fourteen and one's sister is four, one's relationship is close enough to parental that a whole 'nuther set of taboos gets pulled in.)
I don't want to generalize, or anything, but I think the fact that the Unfoggetariat would rather discuss Rod Dreher's opinion of brother-sister incest than article about middle-aged women having hot sex thanks to the wonders of the internet is strong evidence that you have must have made the wrong decision at every key point in your life to reach this point.
That article was really long, Walt. Who are you, Harold Bloom? This is the internet, we don't have time for things like that.
Also, while the 'ick' factor might be part of the taboo, it doesn't mean that everyone has to feel the ick factor equally in order for the taboo to exist.
137: Or that they don't click through, and FL excerpted the latter.
Haven't we stipulated the wrong decisions part already? We don't really need incest to make that argument.
140: That explanation occurred to me, but in the interests of trash talk I went with the alternative explanation. Though "It's all FL's fault" is a hypothesis with striking explanatory power.
The thread at Alternet is interesting, just to see the people who are offended by the article attribute the behavior they don't like to American consumerism. American consumerism can now be invoked to attack any behavior whatsoever. Do you know why some people are so anti-American consumerism? Because they are a product of American consumerism. The indigenous peoples of the world don't make showy acts of non-consumption, they just take what opportunity gives them. It's only in the empty unhappy lives of Americans and other Western nations that they must console themselves with acts of non-consumption.
I recall reading that even non-related children who were raised together ended up respecting the incest taboo towards each other.
Yes, this is the Westermarck effect I mentioned in 44.
Actually, many non-American peoples frown on conspicuous consumption, for example traditional Chinese.
And yet the Chinese are known for their love of gambling.
Damned if I know how to do it. People have been trying to erect your taboo for millennia, and look where we are.
Thank you. This is partly what I'm about.
I should have been clearer.
if you cannot just take it to be obvious that smashing a kid's head... ...hilzoy
This looks to me to an Intuitionist argument, giving the Kantian hilzoy the benefit of the doubt that she is not arguing from Revealed Truth. The Psalm was a pretty brutal refutation of the "obviousness".
The thread preceding hilzoy's, post by publius, is a fairly interesting moral discussion, I would contend using largely Kantian grounds:the facts of the case, extenuating circumstances, tribalism and power assymetries.
What I found interesting is that hilzoy and publius didn't really want to argue. They wanted to assert a taboo. At least that is my interpretation.
So how do we erect these taboos? Perhaps we should abandon empiricism and reason in moral argument, and return to the tried & true methods of millenia. It is certainly counterproductive to attack the concept of taboo as taboo.
I am in no way attracted to Dreher's religion, but I would like to find a substitute.
Further (I think) to Cala in 127 & 139 & earlier, somethng being a "taboo" certainly does not require whatever conception of "God" or absolute moral truth that Dreher is imagining, and does not even need to not be rationally constructed (with most people (or adults at least) aware that it is). Now, I understand that for most of human history taboos have been "ickified" through various powerful socialization techniques and the invocation of powerful controlling forces "beyond" mankind itself, but this is a contingent (although admittedly probably powefully rooted in the basic mental and emotional makeup of human beings) rather than necessary fact. And since the enlightment/scientific revolution/industrial revolution there is an increasing erosion of the power of these "unquestioned" taboos in the face of the tools, techniques and procedures of everyday life for an increasingly large segment of the global population.
109: 107:Isn't it wondrous how those group taboos are enforced?
Ooh, me, me, me! I get it.
Bob here seems to using the fact that the commenters at this blog function as a group that enforces its own taboos to further illustrate his larger point on taboos. Subtle.
In other words:
I Am Become STORMCROW, Enforcer of All Internet Traditions.
I'm only just now starting to recover from dinner last night, which involved a three hour (no, really, three hours) argument between two partners of my firm, over whether Bush is merely the "most underrated President in American history", or is actually "the greatest and most prescient President in American history". (The partner who held the view that Bush is merely the most underrated President in history maintained that Reagan was actually the greatest, because he was more skilled at working with Congress.) I drank heavily and cried inside. This morning I don't feel well, and my illness is as much psychological trauma as hangover.
I feel your pain, Brock. Having lived with this phenomenon for some time now (and it gets worse over time, because the left-of-center types are much better represented among beginning associates than among senior partners, IME), there are two good solutions (apart from finding a new job, which would be frankly a selfish thing to do, in view of the parenthetical immediately previous):
1. Move to Europe. There, even the most right-wing senior professionals hate Bush;
2. Concern troll them. Play the part of an earnest conservative, and bait them by attacking Bush (and Reagan--it can be done) from the Right. Point out how he has done irreversible damage to the conservative movement by abandoning fundamental conservative principles. The point is not for you to get in an argument with them, but to engender arguments between the partners. "Can there really be any doubt that Reagan would have vetoed the Medicare Part D Bill / the Patriot Act / ?" is a good start. If you've had a few drinks under your belt, try "Reagan would have bombed the shit out of Bin Laden in February '01, just to clean up Clinton's unfinished business from the U.S.S. Cole."
Another good one: "What I don't get is how all the talk radio hosts who used to be honest conservatives sold out to Bush. Rush Limbaugh sure never kissed Bush's father's ass like that!"
149: I was thinking maybe introducing a red herring. "Actually, I think Herbert Hoover is the most underrated President ever, it is so sad that he takes the blame for what was essentially a massive failure of will among the American populace."
In my job as well I am continually annoyed by the asymmetry of allowable discussion, although the Bush love has at least died down, now it is generally confined to ridicule of any politician in favor of the tiniest bit of a progressive agenda.
Jesus Christ, is this entire thread going to be devoted to the two icky topics of ROD DREHER and INCEST, when we have a fantastic article full of Craigslist orgies to talk about? What the fuck is wrong with you people?
151: The article on Craigslist orgies isn't kind of icky? It sorta seemed that way to me.
Also, they say they've been using it for hookups for like 10+ years, but only have something like 13 sexual partners from the experience? Weaksauce. (I'm not sure on exact numbers since I read it last night and am certainly not going to that page while at work)
153: It can be argued that devoting yourself full time to sex with strangers over the internet is icky...but that's still a more interesting topic than arguing over Rod Dreher and religion (bor-ing), and bound to be less icky than incest. I wonder whether Emerson views it as a viable alternative relationship model for people who actually like sex.
Also more likely to evoke icky personal confessionals from posters, but probably everyone else views this as a bug and not a feature.
Icky personal confessions only happen when it's off-topic. It's the Iron Law of Unfogged.
Po-Mo: It was 11 months, not 10 years.
It was 11 months, not 10 years.
Oooohh, that makes a lot more sense. Good for them then.
154: Well, it's not the devotion to casual sex that I find icky, no matter what route it's sought through. I guess I just don't really like hearing about strangers' sex lives very much. Plus, I've realized that the people having the most interesting sex lives are often those I really don't want to imagine having sex, which has really ruined any prurient interest I formerly had.
I think it's because we generally don't want to discuss people that we are envious of here.
151: We are all special flowers with special interests, PGD. Why do you think you get so angry when you think about Rod Dreher and incest?
I've had friends who did the CL thing, and it always sounded really miserable to me. Everyone's on the defensive all the time from trying to sort through the thousands of totally-wrong people they email and meet. So everyone's a lot meaner than they have to be, or, conversely, a lot more grasping and needy.
I put up an ad once, just to see what kinds of responses it would get. Dozens of emails flooded in, despite the ad being extremely specific and written to be off-putting to most people. There was no physical description or picture, nor a call for anyone else's physcial description or picture. About ten included photos of guy's cocks, and most of those were from men over 65yo. Others were from guys who clearly do not read or write English well, looking for "nice American girl." Some were asking to pay me for sex. And loads and loads of them were from people who thought I seemed marriageable and romantic. The ad was most definitely not marriage-friendly or romantic. I guess because it didn't say "I SUCK UR COCK FOR $$$$$$$. - SKI BUNNIE" it goes in the "hopeless romantic" category.
I wrote one guy back, if only because he didn't say much in his first email and was kind of cute, but his second email was all stalkery and manipulative, so I just told him I didn't think we'd be compatible, but thanks for writing. That pissed him off mightily.
No, I don't know how people can tolerate doing CL. All the abuse you have to sort through just to have a single decent date is excruciating.
CL can work out alright for gay dudes.
I guess I just don't really like hearing about strangers' sex lives very much.
The sex is fine, but all that icky relationship stuff bothers me sometimes.
CL Breathing can work out alright for fairly cute gay dudes
It's pretty impressive how easy and relatively hassle-free the casual sex seems to be for my cuter and better-adjusted gay friends. Even random internet sites are full of fairly normal, nice people just looking to get off with someone of comparable attractiveness.
Also, I should modify 160 slightly, as I've certainly run into some interesting writing on sex and casual sex here (though y'all are in an odd category that certainly isn't "strangers" but would feel odd to call "friends" as well since I've really met none of you). The article seemed to be a bit of a laundry list concentrating on who did who, where, how they traveled to get there, and whether the guy was sane or not. It was pretty boring, and lacked the actual insight people have gone into here where they describe why they went to CL, what sort of dynamics they found there and what are the deeper explanations for those dynamics, what seemed fulfilling and why, etc. You know, non-trivial stuff outside of:
"We had sex. Turns out when you're older and richer, you can also have sex with people in other states with some frequency. Sometimes sex is quite good, and sometimes it flops (heh heh, nudge nudge)."
159: That's what I would have expected, so it's interesting that these women's experience is (apparently) so different. It could be either that they are in the Bay Area, where sexual experimentation is more normal, or that they have a high tolerance for junk email.
I've known women who liked fairly casual sex and went to sex clubs. It seemed that the sex club (since to get in as a man you had to come with a woman) served as a pre-screening for the bigger assholes.
I have women friends who are into the sex club thing, but they're mostly married (open relationships). There's something about the privilege granted by having a stable primary partner that seems to make casual sex a lot easier, even for the partner. Like, if someone's a total asshole to my friend at a sex party, she and her husband can laugh it off together in bed later. She reports that the single women at these things tend to be really needy and obnoxious. I keep trying to tell her that it may have something to do with the relationship-status thing.
164 makes a lot of sense to me. It's certainly easier to meet/date/mess around with people when the possibility of rejection is irrelevant to your sense of self. This is probably a lot easier for many people when they are in a stable relationship and already know they're valued. Not that it shouldn't work anyway, but in practice ....
I have a good friend who briefly went the open marriage direction. Both he and his wife are pretty attractive, and he's a charmer. But he still couldn't compete with all the attention an attractive woman gets on that scene. I remember once he called me up all freaked out and directed me to a web site where there was this modeling portfolio for this GOR-GEOUS guy. Just stunning. Six three, half black half norwegian, true washboard abs, the whole nine yards. He was like -- this guy is totally into her and she can't resist him! They're making dates alone all the time! He likes her too! etc.
I said, "is he smart"? He said, "no, stupid and pretty boring, just thinks about sex and fitness". "Don't worry then, she's not a man, she'll be sick of him in a few weeks". And so it was. But that experience and others like it made him decide that the whole open marriage thing was actually much better for women than men, and they quit the scene. (No harm done, they have a great marriage).
that the whole open marriage thing was actually much better for women than men
I guess I see that as an instance of the (not always true) bromide that any reasonably attractive woman will have more sexual opportunities than the best looking guy. The whole thing seems fraught to me.
166: My friends report that one of the problems is that, no matter what the terms of the scene are, there are always incredibly annoying pestery single guys who hang around saying shit like, "I'm gonna fuck your old lady! You wanna watch me fuck your old lady?" But there are also a lot of decent single guys who like the lack of attachment involved in screwing wives, too. Although it's easier for my girlfriend to find men to screw around with, she is a lot pickier than her husband is about his own extra-marital conquests, in that she's not sexually attracted to dumb people, and her husband can be. She also seems to feel a lot more responsibility for her husband's feelings of jealousy than he does about hers, in part because she only screws interesting people about whom one might be tempted to feel jealous. YMMV.
I could never manage non-monogamy, even in very short sexual relationships (excepting 3-person sex, natch), because complexity and confusion are big turn-offs for me. One does what one has to in order to protect one's sanity. My gf is incredibly emotionally complex and resilient, possibly because of the stable-relationship thing, and I'm just not.
any reasonably attractive woman will have more sexual opportunities than the best looking guy
Possibly, in some on-the-veldt sense, but IME guys are far more capable of screwing around with someone they feel no particular fondness for. Most of the women I know, myself included, would be fine with screwing around with people with whom we have no emotional relationship, except that that so often results in guys being completely cruel, to make sure we don't "get attached." Thanks, bub.
I don't think you can pigeonhole this stuff. I've know a lot of people in various versions of open marriages/ polyamorous / lying cheating relationships etc. Most of the ones that I've seen to be a notably failure were going to fail anyway. In some cases it's like the having a baby will bring us back together fallacy. In some cases it's just people afraid to move on, or to admit where they are etc. In all cases these weren't healthy relationships, and I don't think the sex with others broke anything that wasn't broken.
By comparison, the happy ones seem to have good communication and a good idea of why they were having sex with others, if they even were (you can have a nominally `open' relationship that is in practice at least as closed as an average relationship....)
any reasonably attractive woman will have more sexual opportunities than the best looking guy
This doesn't ring true to me really. At least, if you control for opportunities that you'll actually act on. A woman can easily find numerically more interest (assuming only hetero here) but that doesn't mean much of it is welcome. Any reasonably attractive man can find the sorts of places to go to easily find people who are receptive to hook ups too. In both cases, it's got to be a question of what you're actually looking for.
171: Exactly. If you count the hulking, sourfaced guy who makes sneering kissy-faces and anatomical compliments at me every day on my way to work, I get propositioned several times a week. It's so awesome to be a woman and so sexually appreciated.
In both cases, it's got to be a question of what you're actually looking for.
I don't disagree, but, in the case where you've got a primary mate, with all of the emotional support that implies, I imagine that the field of view broadens a fair bit, and raw opportunities matter more. This is pretty much subsidiary to AWB's point. I think.
If you count the hulking, sourfaced guy who makes sneering kissy-faces and anatomical compliments at me every day on my way to work, I get propositioned several times a week. It's so awesome to be a woman and so sexually appreciated.
I definitely didn't mean that.
172: Yeah. All of that didn't make any sense to me at all (I mean, c'mon, it has to be actually lowering your chances of getting laid if anything --- so what's in it for these guys?) until I started to think of it as an issue of power dynamics, not so much sexual dynamics.
I imagine that the field of view broadens a fair bit
Yeah, but you can only have sex with a limited number of people at one time, right? The point is, it really isn't hard to find someone too have sex with if that's your only goal, regardless of gender. Things get complicated the more additional constraints you put on. But I think the idea that it's so much easier for women is mostly mythical. Ymmv, of course.
One thing that might be true, as a corollary to 173, is that guys don't feel the need to be as dickish to a woman they're having casual sex with if she's married. Like, they don't have to do that condescending, "I am NOT going to be your BOYFRIEND, OK?!" thing. Someone my married friend had an affair with then started flirting with me for sex, and it was really crazy how different he treated us.
Someone my married friend had an affair with then started flirting with me for sex, and it was really crazy how different he treated us.
bizarre. I can't understand that head space, but you may right about the motivation.
178: That makes a certain sense. The entire thing would seem to be structured differently. Some persona we sort of know* wrote a post arguing that it's hard for any woman to know if she'd be a total nympho, because the social conditions--primarily safety, as I recall--don't really allow for unconstrained choices. Which makes me think about how important all of those social constraints are. In the situation you describe for your married friend, a lot of the social constraints drop out.
Or what Emerson said.
* I can't remember under what psued it was written.
Ymmv, of course.
Soup, you should just make this part of your pseudonym.
Also, even though 177 seems correct, it still kind of feels like imposing the constraint of "someone pretty hot" (for your personal definition of hotness, of course), which is a fairly important constraint for casual sex as far as I'm concerned, leads women to have more options than men.
Though I think, from what my female friends and the people here have mentioned, it seems that the counterbalance is when you impose the constraint "someone pretty hot who's also not a jerk and is fairly stable", which seems to winnow out more men than women and leaves both genders facing poor odds.
AWB, I'm going to delurk to defend the "I'm not going to be your boyfriend" conversation. Many people, male and female, assume that sex means you're on the fast track to exclusivity or marriage or some such. They may not articulate it but the expectation is there. If that's not the case, early communication of that fact can prevent a good amount of drama and heartbreak. Of course it can be done with or without a certain amount of tact... You are obviously not one of those assumers but someone who sleeps with you wouldn't know that until you have the talk.
I know what you mean, eohippus. Maybe I've just not been impressed with the particular words and tone that have been used to convey this information. Like, it wouldn't insult me if I was fucking someone who just said, "Yeah, romantic relationships just aren't up my alley right now" rather than implying that, of course, because I'm having sex with him, I'm obviously trying to make babies or something. The former would allow me to be like, "Totally, relationships are a drag. Let's fuck!"
It's pretty impressive how easy and relatively hassle-free the casual sex seems to be for my cuter and better-adjusted gay friends.
if women's sexuality really was just like male sexuality, then straight sexual life would look a lot more like it does for gay males.
because the social conditions--primarily safety, as I recall--don't really allow for unconstrained choices. Which makes me think about how important all of those social constraints are.
If women's sexuality really was just like male sexuality, then the social constraints just *would not matter*. Males are much more willing to take crazy-ass risks for sex.
Soup, you should just make this part of your pseudonym.
Really? I don't feel like my experience is that far out.
183/184: This is an important conversation to have "I'm really not looking for anything serious" vs. "I'm dreaming of picket fences and 1.75 kids" are very different places to be dating from. However, how you put things matter. If you start off defensively from the assumption that the other person is trying to `get' something from you to don't want to give, well, that's pretty assholish.
Males are much more willing to take crazy-ass risks for sex.
Fuck that, PGD. Women are mostly willing to make exactly the same kinds of crazy-ass risks for sex, except not when the stakes are as high as they are for women. Probably the craziest shit I've ever done was with women, and if I tried to imagine having done that stuff with a man, I'd also be envisioning ending up in a dumpster somewhere.
Males are much more willing to take crazy-ass risks for sex.
I'm with AWB here, this is pretty much bullshit.
185.2: Now that's a really tough statement to make, since there are few if any situations that men can get into with women that resemble what a woman does when she goes home with a man. I mean, maybe we can look at behavior of twink boys who are really into bears, but it'd be very hard to think of any sexual situation where there's comparable physical and societal mismatch against a guy.
186: You've been saying a lot of reasonable stuff in all the various sex/relationship threads, and a fair amount of it seems pretty universal. I just found it funny how many times I've seen you finish up a fairly reasonable comment with "YMMV, though." It is true though, as human Ms always seem to V a lot.
186: Ah, ok. I'm just disclaiming selection bias, cause occasionally something comes up that reminds me experiences vary widely. Maybe I should just leave it as implicit...
The thread at Alternet is interesting, just to see the people who are offended by the article attribute the behavior they don't like to American consumerism.
And the people who are offended by the idea that middle-aged women wanting sex is somehow political. Gah.
It is bullshit that women won't take risks for sex, but it might well be that, in general, the male sex drive is higher. Blah blah hormones. It's hard to say, given that social constraints *do* exist.
It's also bullshit to say that men are better at no-strings attached sex than women are. Just fyi.
184: Like, it wouldn't insult me if I was fucking someone who just said, "Yeah, romantic relationships just aren't up my alley right now" rather than implying that, of course, because I'm having sex with him, I'm obviously trying to make babies or something.
I've never been able to figure out where the apparently felt fear that women are inevitably looking for a Relationship comes from: it's obviously media-enforced, but doesn't seem media-generated. (And by media I don't necessarily mean tv and movies; simply a lot of established 'wisdom' out there that this is the case. Perhaps it's not more mysterious than centuries of characterization of women as domestic.)
The assumption does lead to rude behavior on the part of many men.
To add onto 194, it's not just the stereotype that Women are Looking for a relationship. It's that all Men are Running from a relationship. In my experience, whether a person is looking for a relationship is dependent on many more factors than just gender. (There seemed to be a point with most of my male friends where they went from being a guy who dated to a guy Looking for A Partner.)
To go all old-school, I think this goes back to times when masculinity was a performance of constantly demonstrating superiority over women by wooing them for sex without marrying. If I were, say, the daughter of a family without much property in 1750, and someone wanted to have sex with me without marrying, the scandal could be enough to render me unmarriageable, especially if I got pregnant, and make me a burden to my family for the rest of my life. So, in that situation, yeah, I'd probably be in a rush to find a potential husband and make sure he didn't fuck me before the marriage was settled and sure.
In any situation in which women can't be financially stable without husbands (who are assumed to want virgins), yeah, they're going to withhold any really risky sex until they've guaranteed marriage is going to happen. I didn't grow up in a world in which I expected to need a husband to survive, nor in a world in which protection from scandal, pregnancy, and disease is hard to find. But sure, there are still women in America who are raised to think about the world that way. No one will love you if you lose your virginity, condoms always fail, you can't raise children without a money-making husband, etc.
I have sympathy for them, because, well, I actually was raised in a church that said all that shit, but I also had a pretty awesome mom w/r/t all those issues.
It's that all Men are Running from a relationship.
True. I paused a bit before posting 194 because most of the people I know don't sort into female:relationship and male:just dating,* but rather into stages of life, or of desires and wishes, and it doesn't particularly seem a function of gender.
* Assuming heterosexuality, as most of my experience is in that realm
It's also politeness. "I'm not looking for a relationship right now" sounds better than "I'm not looking for a relationship with you."
I have gotten 198b. It was unnecessarily barbed, I thought.
196, cont'd: And I think there's a lot of pressure from the Religious Right as well as general misogynist dickheads to pretend that the social situation in 196 is treated as ahistorically true, whether it's "genetic" or "God's will" or whatever, because it's a good deal for the patriarchy (not for individual men, necessarily) to say that men like sex, women don't, men hate marriage, women love it, etc. Takes all the cruelty out of the way men have treated women under that system. They just can't help themselves! (Oh, but women are the frivolous ones. Men like getting Important Things Done.)
198: It's really circumstantial. I have gotten 198b, and it made perfect sense to me (I'm not going to have children, so if I'm seeing someone who wants them, an explanation up front to that effect is fine, not rude, just honest and appreciated up front).
I suppose it lets you off the hook of thinking that someday that prince will want a relationship with you, if that's a problem.
Why is this so hard? Men don't want to raise other people's babies. Women know that the child they bear is theirs. The only way a man can be sure the child is his is to have sex with a virgin and then lock her up until the birth of his child. Certain social constructs were developed around these premises. Now that sex does not always equal babies, the social constructs are trying to be revamped, with some experimentation. I'm sorry that ya'll are the lab rats.
It's a game of spot the false statement!
I didn't say that men can't or won't raise other men's children, just that it is least desired.
John Huston raised someone else's baby (John Julius Norwich's, specifically).
Do you have any evidence that this is a timeless verity, TLL?
205: That, plus, locking up the former virgin post-conception hardly seems necessary (she's not going to get pregnant again), and what you're postulating seems to go better with a guy impregnating virgin after virgin, as opposed to finding one and having tons of kids.
As for evidence, Counselor W-lfs-n, I point to "The Patriarchy". It has been mentioned before, I think.
That's not at all convincing, for reasons mentioned in 200.
Actually, come to think of it, the whole 'men like virgins to ensure the children are their own' makes even less sense when one considers that there's a pretty reliable monthly cycle that indicates whether one is pregnant.
There's also a huge step between "My wife had sex with someone before she met me" and "My wife is probably a gigantic slut and fucking around while we're married."
208. Well, certainly after it is known she is pregnant, but until that time it is best to lock her away. As to the serial deflowering, I'm sure that some would agree. As for me, I can only handle living with one woman at a time.
If I were, say, the daughter of a family without much property in 1750, and someone wanted to have sex with me without marrying, the scandal could be enough to render me unmarriageable, especially if I got pregnant, and make me a burden to my family for the rest of my life.
Is this actually universally true? I thought I remembered reading that it was an (for lack of a better word) upper class ideal, for marrying princesses or for social climbing, but not true of the majority of people.
212b has nothing to do with open marriages, of course. I'm just saying that lack of pre-existing virginity does not have much to do with whether your wife is cheating on you.
The cuckhold is the most unsympathetic comic character.
202 to? If to 201, I don't understand.
214: Specifically, it matters most for families with some but not much property. (Or, as I often say to my classes, "Chastity is a middle-class virtue.") The class-blind obsession with virginity an invention of 18th-c Europe, as far as I know, which isn't surprising given the fantasies of class mobility that arose around then.
Yeah, I almost said 'middle-class' but didn't know if that word made sense.
To 201, but an impersonal "you". I can imagine that to someone who would hold out hope for a relationship, a polite and deceptive "I'm not interested in a relationship right now" would be heard as "but check in with me after a while, and that might change" when it really wouldn't.
But no, I was not trying to gauge you-parsimon's state of mind.
219: It doesn't, but there is a lot more muddy middle ground by the end of the 18th, creating a lot of anxiety about maintaining or achieving status.
Awesome. Pre-Enlightenment chicks put out! At least the groundlings' daughters.
Of course, not all stepfathers go this route, but honestly it shouldn't come as a big newsflash that human males don't generally prefer to raise the children of other human males. Humans aren't alone in this.
Obsession with premarital virginity isn't universal but is hardly native to 18th century Europe. The issue is probably not really whether the fact of virginity is going to reassure you that the offspring are yours. More important, I should think, is that it's (percieved to be) easier to control women whose first and supposedly only sexual experience is of their husband; female independence begets fear of adultery and cuckoldry.
I'm just saying that lack of pre-existing virginity does not have much to do with whether your wife is cheating on you.
It implies that your wife may enjoy sex, which means she may desire to have sex when she isn't being induced to do so by her husband. I think it makes sense as a heuristic, unless you presume that the typical non-virgin's only sexual experiences consisted of being raped. That would be more likely in some societies than others.
220: Right. I remain a bit puzzled. Let's put it this way: many of us like to begin involvements in a "hey, we're really enjoying each other's company a lot, let's pursue this and enjoy further, see where it goes" spirit. If there are actually built-in limits to seeing where it goes, one wants to know that.
I doubt we're at odds here; I just didn't understand your tone. No worries.
223: Um, wow. Guess it's really a good thing I broke up with the Libertarian...
I've never been able to figure out where the apparently felt fear that women are inevitably looking for a Relationship comes from: it's obviously media-enforced, but doesn't seem media-generated.
In large areas of society it is true. A stereotype can have quite a lot of truth without being universally true. People here, especially the women, are trying to redefine female identity in a process that's been going on for decades. There's a lot of still work to be done.
There are cultural variations on the virgin-bride theme. Among wife-stealing peoples, whoever ends up with the woman and her children is the winner. Among many peoples, children of any origin are regarded as valuable in themselves, not as burdens.
Our contemporary world isn't a lot like any previous world, anyway.
226: It's always a good idea to dump a Libertarian, Di.
I've never been able to figure out where the apparently felt fear that women are inevitably looking for a Relationship comes from
It's not that women are inevitably looking for a relationship, it's that if they are and you aren't then hell hath no fury, etc. and it feels like you're doing serious injury. As can be observed in several threads here about the Perfidy of the Guy Who Dumped Me.
But this cannot really be avoided by some bullshit "warning" up front, so best to be alert to whether you're actually compatible.
it's that if they are and you aren't then hell hath no fury, etc.
Do you think that women are more likely to throw a fit in that scenario than men are? (It's possible that none of us who's chiefly heterosexual is qualified to say.) Surely it would have at least something to do with a failure of communication early on; and/or with dumping in a rude rather than a compassionate manner.
Or perhaps we can just fall back on the old 'Women tend to Express their Feelings' theme.
Wasn't meaning to say men are less angry than women or anything. The "hell hath no fury" thing is a little sexist because it reflects surprise that women are humanly angry.