Does America Hate Women?

Bob Herbert's op/ed column, "Why Aren't We Shocked," in today's New York Times is must reading for Christians. You'll need a hard copy of the newspaper because the column is not available online except for "TimesSelect" subscribers, all ten of them.

Herbert takes up the cultural roots behind such actions as the recent Pennsylvania gunman who separated girls from boys, killing only the girls. Herbert, correctly I think, identifies an increasingly violent misogyny in American culture fed by commercial corporatism and sexual libertarianism. He opens his column with a caption from an Abercrombie and Fitch T-shirt for sale in a mall near you: "Who needs a brain when you have these?" Herbert wonders why, after ten years since the death of Jon-Benet Ramsey, we are still watching the sexualized images of this prepubescent child dancing around in make-up and high heels. He further points to gangsta rap depictions of women and commercial advertisements of products such as Clinique makeup that evoke imagery from pornographic depictions of women.

Herbert concludes:

You're deluded if you think this is all about fun and games. it's all part of a devastating continuum of misogyny that at its farthest extreme touches down in places like the one-room Amish schoolhouse in normally quiet Nickel Mines, Pa.

Bob Herbert and I would disagree on the solution to this problem. He sees more egalitarian feminism as the answer; I would argue it is the conspiracy between feminism and libertarianism that provoked this plight. He would probably find the solution in a more rigorous application of the ethics of Gloria Steinem. I would find it in an application of the woman-affirming Christian ethic of Peter, Paul, and Sarah.

But, even if just for a moment, we can agree that something has gone horribly wrong in a commercial culture in which women are regularly depicted as objects of loveless sex and ruthless violence.

Comments

[GL]

If I may apply Ronald Reagan's rejoinder to Jimmy Carter to myself, well, here I go again:

Consequences of Artificial Methods

17. Responsible men can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid down by the Church on this issue if they reflect on the consequences of methods and plans for artificial birth control. Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.

HUMANAE VITAE: ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PAUL VI ON THE REGULATION OF BIRTH, JULY 25, 1968 (emphasis supplied).

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.<<<

Well, here I go again, too.

How often are we going to hear this kind of reductionist drivel? You would think that, prior to the advent of the pill, that women everwhere were treated with absolute respect and dignity, that there was never any brutality or coarse behavior towards them, that, in fact, the world was absolute perfection in that regard.

Truth is, though, that throughout recorded history (and in all likelihood, well before then), women have been objects of male aggression and abuse, not only in Western society, but throughout the world. Women throughout history generally have been treated as property, as spoils of war, as recepticles for male sexual urges. A simple review of history shows this to be the case. Contraception had nothing to do with that.

Moreover, if we look around the world today, the places in which women are treated most badly are precisely those places in which the pill is not widely available or used. In fact, in the places where women are most objectified by men (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Somalia), artificial contraception is illegal and its use and possession can be punished by death.

So, say what you like about the culture, but trying to pin everything down to one cause, the disappearance of which will fix everything, is naive, anachronistic, and, as I said, reductionist. It ignores the complexity of human behavior, and it ignores the inconvenient details of thousands of years of human history.

Perhaps one would be better advised to look at those places and times when the status of women was particularly high, and their treatment by men characterized by respect and dignity. Finding commmon factors there would point you towards a better understandng of what has really changed in our society in the past half century.

[James A. Altena]

Dear Stuart,

Your post is patently unfair to GL; indeed, it is a reductionistic treatment of his point. Nowhere did he say or imply that contraception is the one and sole cause of men mistreating women or of unchastity. And please recall that, in the previous lengthy debate regarding contraception on the "Evangelicals and Contraception" post, GL specifically said (in response to the question I raised) that he did not consider contraception to be intrinsically immoral. Rather, the quoted passage from "Humane Vitae" points out (quite correctly, I think) that contraception facilitates (and has facilitated) such mistreatment. Its use may or may not automatically reduce a woman to a "sex object" used solely for male pleasure, but it most certainly has proved a powerful and seductive lure and means for so doing. Even if one believes that there are certain licit uses of contraceptive means within marriage, the manifold evils that have resulted from a freely "contraceptive culture" are from a Christian standpoint incontestable.

While I continue to remain undecided regarding the morality of contraception, I am now at the point where (barring truly exceptional medical necessity) I believe that Christians presently have a pressing prudential obligation to refrain from use of contraception, as a quiet witness and self-sacrificial ascetical discipline, a form of fasting and taking up of the Cross, one performed in secret but which (we pray) the Father will reward openly in the renewal of the now widely despised virtue of chastity.

[Peyton Reed]

Stuart, would you be so kind as to post places and/or times when the status of women was particularly high. I ask, not as a cynic, but as one not as well acquainted with history as I should be. Thank you.

[GL]

I believe James has correctly presented my position. Pope Paul VI did not predict some new, radically divergent consequence from the use of contraception. He extrapolated from the ever present tendency of many men to objectify women to what would happen if a major constraining restraint was removed. Of course men have always objectified women. The question raised is why it is so much worse now. The almost universal acceptance of -- no make that the practical mandate to use -- contraception has without question contributed to this just as Pope Paul VI (an many others) predicted.

I would add, that the acceptance of -- and again, mandate in many instances to use -- abortion has also contributed to this. Augustine and Chrystosom were correct, to have intercourse while prevent the prospect of motherhood has the effect of making women whores in the minds of many men.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Stuart, would you be so kind as to post places and/or times when the status of women was particularly high. I ask, not as a cynic, but as one not as well acquainted with history as I should be.<<<

With the caveat that class structure tends to override sex roles when it comes to the status of women (e.g., a female aristocrat has far more status than a male serf), I would point to the following periods:

Late bronze age Anatolia (women were pretty free in both Luvian and Hittite culture).

Imperial Rome from the Flavians through the Severans (a good time for everybody, but women in particular were allowed to own property and had considerable social and political influence--free women, that is: slaves are "talking tools").

Byzantium from the 5th-7th centuries: aside from having a lot more legal rights than in the past, in this period women perhaps reached the zenith of their influence over both civil and Church affairs. The impact of Christianity on attitudes towards women became noteworthy, and the double standard, if not eliminated, was severely mitigated by the stress the Fathers placed on the ontological equality of men and women. See, for instance, the various sermons of John Chrysostom on the subject.

Colonial America and the early Republic--though many legal restrictions on women were on the books, the reality of the times made women co-partners with men in opening up the continent and in establishing the economy of the new nation. On the frontier especially, the relative scarcity of women led to a rise in their status and much better treatment for them.

Victorian England--the moral reforms implemented from the 1830s onward established a high ideal for the treatment of women, who were not nearly as supine as the late 20th century stereotype of the Victorians would have it. This carried over into the United States, though in some parts of the country, men were a bit rough around the edges. And in both England and the United States, one must recognize that urban poverty created an entire underclass of women who were sexually exploited by men. Though there was a high ideal with regard to women, men often did not live up to it. Nonetheless, the blatant mistreatment of or disrepect for women was not tolerated in public.

Surprisingly, World War II elevated the status and treatment of women in the United States, the UK and Australia, even though it tended to brutalize women elsewhere. I think here it was the attitude of the American GI that had the most beneficial effect. Most of these boys (they really were boys) were brought up in religious (and overwhelmingly Christian) families, had limited sexual experience before going overseas, were desperately lonely and treated women almost as goddesses. That the typical GI private had more cash in hand that a British officer didn't hurt. That said, sociological studies conducted by the War Department concluded that the typical GI had sex with at least four different women during the war This must have been in Europe--where they could find women in the Pacific Theater beats me. Of course, there was always Australia, most of whose men were either in North Africa or New Guinea. Ozzie girls found GIs remarkably refreshing in that they actually wanted to spend time with women, and not with their mates (Tracy Ullman did an hillarious take on Australian foreplay, when her Australian woman golfer tells a sex therapist that she "likes to be kissed once or twice, and rubbed a bit before the actual act". "Nothing unusual about that", says the therapist. "There is if you're Australian", she replies). Extracurricular sex aside, American soldiers placed women on a very high plane and were terribly put off if anyone treated women badly in their presence.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>> He extrapolated from the ever present tendency of many men to objectify women to what would happen if a major constraining restraint was removed.<<<

The problem, of course, was that if Paul VI or any of his immediate predcessors had simply looked out the Vatican window across the sweep of the City of Rome, and thence to all of Italy, he would have found himself gazing at an entire country that objectified women and had been doing so for centuries. And, of course, the same thing applied to all the classically "Catholic" countries of Europe. So what was the constraint about which he was so worried?

>>>The question raised is why it is so much worse now.<<<

But is it so much worse now? I wonder. One can pick and chose a period in time, but are we better or worse, than, say, Restoration or Regency England? Than Weimar Germany? Than Periclean Greece? I don't know. My own belief is that these attitudes run in cycles which are dictated by the interplay of many factors, of which elite opinion is probably the most important. I think, though, that we are now nicely positioned for a reaction as the Boomers begin to die off and their offspring, products of their parents disfunctional relationships, look for the stability and security their parents denied them.

[angel]

Stuart,
I agree with you that women have never been treated particularly well throughout history. Mistreatment of women did not begin after the advent of reliable contraception.

[Matthias]

Try the John Rawls test: you have your choice of living the life of a randomly selected woman in any culture in history. Which culture would you choose?

Is there anybody out there who would not rank modern western society very highly in this test?

[David Gray]

>But is it so much worse now? I wonder.

Certainly worse than it was 30-50 years ago in America.

[GL]

First, sorry for my typos: it is, of course, Chrysostom.

Second, I never said mistreatment of women began with the advent of reliable contraception. What I did was quote Humanae Vitae. I am sure Pope Paul VI was well aware of the piggish behavior of men in Italy (and every other nation in the world). Understanding what men were like when the fear of an "impertinent bastard" existed to constrained them, he was able to predict what would happen when that restraint was removed. Indeed, he was able to look around him in 1968 and already see what was happening before the eyes of the world when such restraint had already been removed.

But I have no time to resume a debate which we carried on ad nauseam a few weeks ago. So you may have the last word.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Certainly worse than it was 30-50 years ago in America.<<<

OK, let's buy into that. First, let' examine why that was the case, then look at the entire spectrum of social changes that occured in the intervening years. Finally, we can try to fix the relative impact of contraceptives on the change.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Understanding what men were like when the fear of an "impertinent bastard" existed to constrained them, he was able to predict what would happen when that restraint was removed. Indeed, he was able to look around him in 1968 and already see what was happening before the eyes of the world when such restraint had already been removed.<<<

The problem, GL, is that to accept this, you first have to accept that things are so much worse now than they were at previous points in history.

That said, I do not deny that there is a major cultural problem today, or that our society tends to denigrate the dignity of women. I refuse, however, to adduce the the problem to one single cause. After all, back in the 1920s, sexual morality loosened up considerably without the benefit of the pill. Back then, a number of social critics attributed the decline and fall of the Western World to the advent of the automobile. In the late 1950s and early 60s (again, pre-pill), people looked at the introduction of the motel (which allowed one to come and go without passing a doorman or concierge) as simply inviting illicit fornication. You can pick and choose all day, but the fact remains that human behavior is too complex to reduce to a single stimulus.

[David Gray]

>Finally, we can try to fix the relative impact of contraceptives on the change.

Do you believe the impact to be negligible?

[DGP]

Not to be neglected are ways in which contraception affected these matters besides the threat of the "impertinent bastard." I'd argue that an even more important effect of contraception is its effect *within* established marriages, where family size, husband-wife relations, and the spacing of children are all strongly influenced by the advent of hormonal contraception.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Do you believe the impact to be negligible?<<<

No, I believe that contraceptives had a contributory and enabling effect. However, the broader social movements--antinomianism, free love, relativism, nihilism--all had deeper and more ideological underpinnings. Moreover, these were movements from above, not mass movements from below. For better or worse, it is the elites who set the tone for an entire society. When the elites abandon not only established social mores, but the very idea of mores itself, then inevitably society will deteriorate; the fish rots from the head down. What makes this time different from other times is that, in the past, the elites might have been decadent, but had the common sense to maintain the facade of social morality for the sake of stability and maintaining their own prositions of privilege. Today, this is not the case.

Because of this, the social decline we have today would have happened whether or not the pill had ever been invented. It began before the pill was invented. The pill may have accelerated the process, may have made it easier to occur, but it was going to occur regardless. That there have been similar periods in the past when sexual morality was as--if not more--loose despite the absence of the pill and the presence of impertinent bastards, demonstrates that declining sexual morality is not a cause, but a symptom of deeper social malaise.

[James A. Altena]

Perhaps we can broadly agree that while contaception is not a singular cause of the sexual degradation of women, that it is a means that easily and greatly facilitates it in conjunction with causal factors, and as such a means powerfully expresses the underlying attitudes of those factors.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I'd argue that an even more important effect of contraception is its effect *within* established marriages, where family size, husband-wife relations, and the spacing of children are all strongly influenced by the advent of hormonal contraception.<<<

This is another phenomenon that predates the pill, one that in fact began with the industrial revolution (if not with the commercial revolution of the 17th-18th centuries). Family size has been declining for at least two centuries at least in countries which have moved out of an agricultural and into an industrial/commercial economy in which the value of large families is considerably lower. The process accelerated significantly with the decline of infant mortality, which meant that one did not have to have six children to get two survivors. The introduction of national pensions and social welfare programs probably had more to do with the decline of family size than the pill, since these enabled people to ensure their care in old age without the benefit of an extended family (so blame the New Deal!).

By the way, family size varies over history. Remember that Caesar Augustus worried frantically that Romans weren't having enough kids to populate the legions, and passed laws fining men who remained unmarried and granting privileges to women who bore numerous children (especially sons).

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Perhaps we can broadly agree that while contaception is not a singular cause of the sexual degradation of women, that it is a means that easily and greatly facilitates it in conjunction with causal factors, and as such a means powerfully expresses the underlying attitudes of those factors.<<<

Concur.

[Bobby Winters]

A few years ago I taught college algebra and there was a young man in the front of the class who typically came to class wearing a baseball cap and a t-shirt. The t-shirt always sported self-revealing messages through which I learned of his fondness for beer etc. However, my favorite was a take-off of a hoity-toity brand name and read "Brab her booty and pinch." As the scripture said, I looked at the boy and loved him because I knew his sins and knew they were according to nature rather that against it.

I later saw him at the Newman center and mentioned this to a Catholic friend of mine. He recalled an incident wherein the priest was warning a group of young men against premarital sex and one young man (probabaly the boy in my class) "But I ain't gonna marry any of these girls..."

My question to Stuart and the rest is does this young man like women or hate them?

[GL]

>>>Perhaps we can broadly agree that while contaception is not a singular cause of the sexual degradation of women, that it is a means that easily and greatly facilitates it in conjunction with causal factors, and as such a means powerfully expresses the underlying attitudes of those factors.<<<

Concur.

Ditto.

In our earlier lengthy exchange, I believe I noted the same fall in fertility over the entire course of the 19th century. Acceptance of contraception was a consequence of changes well underway and of long standing. I understand that.

As to Rome, early Christians were in fact responding to the situation of pagan Rome when they condemned contraception, abortion and infanticide. They were the agents of change and the ones introducing a new (to pagan Rome) sexual ethic which held women in much higher regard than did the culture around them.

My point is not that widespread acceptance of contraception is the sole cause of the problems we see today, but that it is one of the key changes that has brought us to the point where girls and young women dress is tee shirts from A&F which demean them as objects valued only for their use by men to satisfy our lusts and not as fellow children of Adam and Eve made in the image of God and worthy of respect.

Industrialism, urbanization, feminism, abortion, secularism, materialism have all also contributed along with other factors.

[Rob Grano]

Whatever one may think of E. Michael Jones's opinions on other things, he has some enlightening points on this issue in both "Degenerate Moderns" and "Libido Dominandi."
One of his key points is the idea, borrowed from St. Augustine if memory serves, that whoever controls the passions controls the man. Modern commercial culture has latched onto this idea with a vengeance; the whole "sex sells" thing is one manifestation of it. Another is the huge market for pornography.

[GB]

Stuart, I had to chuckle at your response to Peyton re: the elevation of women in history. I can't imagine that any historical period you mentioned makes your case. Rather, the examples you cite make Bobby's case: Did his student love women or not? NOT.
Bottom line, PPVI got much closer to hitting the nail on the head re: the dignity of women than you have. Additionally, JPII's continuing theme, that, by reducing either men or women to objects, the dignity of both is diminished, can't be overlooked in this discussion.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>My question to Stuart and the rest is does this young man like women or hate them?<<<

Yes.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Stuart, I had to chuckle at your response to Peyton re: the elevation of women in history. I can't imagine that any historical period you mentioned makes your case. Rather, the examples you cite make Bobby's case: Did his student love women or not? NOT. <<<

Recognizing man's fallen nature causes all to sin, one must then look at whether the society as a whole recognizes the sin for what it is, or rather accepts and excuses it. During the periods I cited, even though the treatment of women fell short of the proclaimed ideal, in fact the ideal was recognized. At other points in history, there was no ideal. In some cultures, there is an ideal that recognizes and respects the integrity of women, even if it falls short. In others, the ideal does not exist at all, so what we condemn as abuse of women is accepted as the natural order of things. Who would not rather be a woman in decadent Western culture than one in a traditional Islamic one, or a traditional Confucion or Hindu one?

[Fr. Dcn. Raphael]

Additionally, JPII's continuing theme, that, by reducing either men or women to objects, the dignity of both is diminished, can't be overlooked in this discussion.
I think that is a great point. The fates of men and women are joined; Eve after all, having been formed from Adam's rib.

When pitted against each other, both lose.

[luthien]

"My question to Stuart and the rest is does this young man like women or hate them?" As a young woman, I would have to posit that he likes the distinctive physical attributes of women, but doesn't like us so well as human beings; he probably likes women with big busts and behinds and little brains and low GPAs, a preference apparently endemic to the human male. All I can definitely say is that I really don't like him or his ilk;)

Mr. Koehl, for what it's worth, isn't contraception kind of a moot point for Eastern Orthdox Christians anyway? If you're obeying the church's disciplines, conjugal relations are off limits so many days of the year that I can't figure out how the Orthodox ever manage to have more than 3 or 4 children, let alone have any need for contraception.

[Bob Gardner]

"Moreover, if we look around the world today, the places in which women are treated most badly are precisely those places in which the pill is not widely available or used. In fact, in the places where women are most objectified by men (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Somalia), artificial contraception is illegal and its use and possession can be punished by death."

Yes, but this hardly seems germane to the question of American culture. Of course, the areas mentioned have their own difficulties that tend toward the oppressing of women, but that doesn't mean that they are necessarily wrong in making artificial contraception illegal.

I believe that women (and men) are more objectified in the American culture then in times past, and the advent of reliable contraception does have something to do with that. To think otherwise is to not have a firm grasp of reality. Are there other factors? Sure, but AC is one of the biggest ones.

[luthien]

Doesn't the death penalty for using AC seems a little disproportionate?

[Kamilla]

Rob,

Did you make it all the way through "Libido Dominandi"? I couldn't make myself do it - I checked it out from the library because his "Monsters from the Id" presented what I thought was a fascinating argument about the genesis of horror.

LD was simply too dark, and at times seemed a bit voyeuristic or prurient.

Kamilla

[Rob Grano]

Hi Kamilla,

Yes, I made it all the way through but it wasn't always an easy go. I didn't find it prurient although it was pretty dark at times -- expected I guess, given the subject matter. I got somewhat bogged down in some of the historical detail, but I found his thesis so interesting that I slogged on, and found the book ultimately very enlightening.

If you haven't read it you should give 'Degenerate Moderns' a go.

[David Gray]

>Perhaps we can broadly agree that while contaception is not a singular cause of the sexual degradation of women, that it is a means that easily and greatly facilitates it in conjunction with causal factors, and as such a means powerfully expresses the underlying attitudes of those factors.

Agreed.

[Firinnteine]

Observation: the amount of "non-revealing" nudity in television has spiked up very sharply over the last five or ten years. It is now quite common (based even on my practically nonexistent television watching) to have people (or women anyhow) wholly naked (or close enough that you can't tell) on regular evening television programming -- well, okay, at least science fiction shows. :-) They don't "show" anything -- meaning viewers are left to the powers of suggestion and imagination to fill in the details of what they can't quite see, probably because there's an equally naked-looking man in the way. (It doesn't take much suggestion or imagination at that point.)

I'm slightly perturbed by the tendency of certain young women I know to discourage myself and other men from watching such things, while nevertheless watching them themselves. Are men the only people objectifying women? Is it really wise to support such shows, given all the other men who are watching some of them? (Leaving out the fact that some of them have really clever characterization, plots, etc, and they ultimately wind up being recommended to us by other sources, including other young women.)

Luthien -- little brains and low GPAs are not required provided other factors are present. Nor are such men much discouraged in their endemic preferences or encouraged to anything better by the, ahem, physically blessed young women who keep Abercrombie and Fitch t-shirts (etc.) flying off the shelves.

Welcome to the pornographization of America.

[Christopher]

"...for what it's worth, isn't contraception kind of a moot point for Eastern Orthdox Christians anyway? If you're obeying the church's disciplines, conjugal relations are off limits so many days of the year that I can't figure out how the Orthodox ever manage to have more than 3 or 4 children, let alone have any need for contraception."

LOL! I will let some other EO person address this...I am looking forward to the smile...:)

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Mr. Koehl, for what it's worth, isn't contraception kind of a moot point for Eastern Orthdox Christians anyway? If you're obeying the church's disciplines, conjugal relations are off limits so many days of the year that I can't figure out how the Orthodox ever manage to have more than 3 or 4 children, let alone have any need for contraception. <<<

Only if you happen to be an Evangelical Protestant convert to Orthodoxy who brings an extremely literalist mindset to his new faith. Because asceticism is about spiritual growth, not collecting merit badges or obeying the letter of the law.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Yes, but this hardly seems germane to the question of American culture.<<<

It's entirely germane, unless you feel that Western culture can only be evaluated in a vacuum against some abstract set of standards, and not put into context within a continuum of cultures.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I believe that women (and men) are more objectified in the American culture then in times past<<<

But less objectified than in other times past. So, let's say we have our ups and downs, and that their causation is a rather complex set of phenomena.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Observation: the amount of "non-revealing" nudity in television has spiked up very sharply over the last five or ten years. It is now quite common (based even on my practically nonexistent television watching) to have people (or women anyhow) wholly naked (or close enough that you can't tell) on regular evening television programming -- well, okay, at least science fiction shows. :-) They don't "show" anything -- meaning viewers are left to the powers of suggestion and imagination to fill in the details of what they can't quite see, probably because there's an equally naked-looking man in the way. (It doesn't take much suggestion or imagination at that point.)<<<

So much for Elizabethan theater (even though all the girls were guys). Perhaps the Fathers were right--Christians should abstain from the theater (and by extension, the movies and television), and Christians who become actors should be excommunicated (the canons are still on the books, in case we decide to go that way).

[James Altena]

I'm not EO myself, but having spent a good amount of time among them, I'm puzzled as to what "disciplines" Luthien references. I have never seen anything in EO circles mandating that days of abstinence from food are necessarily also days of abstinence from marital intimacy. Even if they are, that's about 200 days of the year, leaving another 165 for conjugal activity. That seems like plenty to have lots of kids, and sufficient licit pleasures as well. It just requires conscious advance planning of the schdule.

An EO priest told me an amusing story of seminary students being run through a manifold array of special abstinence rules for clergy in this regard (I don't recall the details), that effectively ruled out virtually all nights and mornings. A distressed student raised his hand and said, "But when are we supposed to have sex with our wives?" The professor shot back, "And why do you think God created afternoons?"

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I'm not EO myself, but having spent a good amount of time among them, I'm puzzled as to what "disciplines" Luthien references.<<<

In some monastic circles, there is the belief that one must abstain from marital relations during the four major fasts, as well as the day before receiving the Eucharist. But these are not "official" disciplines, just recommendations from some of the more ascetic monastic fathers. No self-respecting Orthodox would even dare approach that recommendation without the advice of his own spiritual father, to say nothing of the concurrence of his spouse (in keeping with the teachings of St. Paul). If the Orthodox can tailor their fasting of food to match their individual spiritual development, how much the more for something as elemental as conjugal relations within marriage?

Now, there are somewhat stronger canons (remembering that most Orthodox canons are more advisory than prescriptive) that insist Presbyters abstain before celebrating the Eucharist. This may have something to do with the fact that daily celebration of the Divine Liturgy is not the rule in the Byzantine rite except at cathedrals (where there are several priests in attendance) and monasteries (where all the priests are celibate). And then there is Sunday afternoon. . .

[Bob Gardner]

"But less objectified than in other times past."
If we confine it to American Culture in keeping with the spirit of the thread, "Does America Hate Women?"

I am wondering what other period was more explicate in its preoccupation to be lust filled, sex craved, and promiscuous than our own? From the types tee-shirts that have already been referred to earlier, to what passes for entertainment.

"So, let's say we have our ups and downs, and that their causation is a rather complex set of phenomena."

There is more to it then just AC, so we are in agreement.

[luthien]

Hmm...I'd read that all fasting periods, Wednesdays, Fridays, and saturdays are off limits. That'll teach me to check canonicalicity of websites. Thanks for the clarification.

Firinnteine, if the little brain thing isn't necessary, how do you explain Jessica Simpson's populatiry with young men?

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I am wondering what other period was more explicate in its preoccupation to be lust filled, sex craved, and promiscuous than our own? From the types tee-shirts that have already been referred to earlier, to what passes for entertainment.<<<

At various tmes in the United States, I could point to the Western frontier; to the urban slums of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston; to the Prohibition Era and several others. O temora, O mores! The world is ALWAYS going to hell, precisely because it is the world.

Outside the United States but within the confines of what one could call Western Christian civilization, Britain in the Restoration period, and throughout the 18th and 19th centuries to the 1880s; France in the Revolutionary period and the Second Empire; Germany in the period during and immediately after the Thirty Years War and during the 1920s; and several other examples.

People point to T-shirts, but what are we to make, then, of predominant women's fashions, say, in the French Directory, that consisted mainly of high-waised, diaphonous gowns that clung to the female form and, in their translucency, revealed a total dearth of undergarments? At other periods in time, women have gone about with their busts artificially lifted and 90% exposed, or , without actually exposing their backsides, used miracles of architectural couture to to enhance their assets for the express purpose of attracting lecherous males.

[Ranee Mueller]

Stuart said: In fact, in the places where women are most objectified by men (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Somalia), artificial contraception is illegal and its use and possession can be punished by death.

I know you are correct about Iran, unless the new Ayatollah has changed the laws, I don't know about the Sudan or Somalia, but your are incorrect about Saudi Arabia. Birth control is quite a part of that culture.

[Bob Gardner]

"Doesn't the death penalty for using AC seems a little disproportionate?"

Yes

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I know you are correct about Iran, unless the new Ayatollah has changed the laws, I don't know about the Sudan or Somalia, but your are incorrect about Saudi Arabia. Birth control is quite a part of that culture.<<<

The Saudis certainly don't give evidence of it, if you look at their demographics. Now, if you mean that the ruling elite is incredibly hypocritical in its behavior--sustaining Wahabbi extremism and imposing it on the masses on the one hand, while watching decadent European satellite television and quaffing 12-year old single-malt on the other, I'll agree with that. In that context, upper-class Saudi women using the pill doesn't seem outrageous--I mean, we're talking about people who get hymen restoration surgery. But one doesn't get such a disproportionate number of young people through dilligent application of family planning.

[Bob Gardner]

GL started this off by brining up contraception in relation to the ‘objectifying,’ and thus hatred, of women. This is undoubtedly a worthy line of inquiry, but if you would bear with me I would like to posit another underlying & related cause. In his short work the Abolition of Man CS Lewis prophesied that the poor education that he saw during his time would result in forming a generation of ‘men without chests,’ or virtue. I am wondering if the “American hatred of women,” doesn’t stem from the American hatred of men? Does postmodern American truly understand what it means to be man? There have been Touchstone articles in the past that have dealt with the lose of true masculinity. If our ‘men,’ aren’t truly men, and indeed are in rebellion against what it truly means to be one how else will they treat their women? It isn’t only contraception (the evil of AC is that it enables men to, under the guise of safe-sex, indulge their passions), nor is it simply poor education. The problem is as Stuart put it “The world is ALWAYS going to hell, precisely because it is the world.”

So to the question “Does America Hate Women,” I would answer in the informative, but it does so because it hates itself, or as Christ said, “this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light because their works were evil.” What is the truth concerning every man, woman, and child? That they are fallen & need a savior, that their true life is hidden in Christ (Col 3:3), but they choose to ‘go their own way,’ and not realize the people God intended them to be. The eastern fathers insisted that man was ‘good,’ and when we sin we go against nature, that sin is, in fact, a perversion of our nature, not cooperation with it. Therefore, when we sin we sin against God, but also against ourselves. How then can ‘secular,’ self-defacing man love anyone when he loathes himself?

[GL]

I am wondering if the “American hatred of women,” doesn’t stem from the American hatred of men?

Bob,

I think that you are correct in this observation.

Ranee and Stuart,

I looked up Saudi Arabia's TFR (total fertility rate) in the CIA World Factbook. In 2003, it was listed as having the 12th highest TFR, with 6.15 children per women of child bearing age. By 2006, its TFR had fallen to an estimated 4 children per woman of child bearing age, with a rank of 53rd. Either the data is bad or something dramatic is going on in Saudi Arabia. That is a tremendous drop in TFR in just three years.

[James A. Altena]

Bravo to Bob Gardner's post. That point has of course been made and debated on previous blogs (e.g. the one about the alleged Duke University rape incident). Truly virtuous, manly men will not hanker after trollops. And women who act like trollops do so because it attracts what passes nowadays for men -- all groin and no chest or backbone or brain.

[Hannah]

"In fact, in the places where women are most objectified by men (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Somalia), artificial contraception is illegal and its use and possession can be punished by death.

I know you are correct about Iran, unless the new Ayatollah has changed the laws, I don't know about the Sudan or Somalia, but your are incorrect about Saudi Arabia. Birth control is quite a part of that culture."

You are both quite wrong about Iran. Birth control and family planning are very big there. True that Khomeini was against all family planning because Muslims should be making "soldiers for Islam", but after the resultant baby boom they radically changed policy. I don't know if abortion is officially practiced, I'll have to ask, but it is easily obtainable.

Abortion is very common in the Middle East, even when officially illegal. Women often take herbal potions to induce miscarriages. It's not about a culture of life, it's about either avoiding shame or poverty or avoiding havine more daughters.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Either the data is bad or something dramatic is going on in Saudi Arabia.<<<

My bet would be on bad data. The Saudis fudge their stats to meet their diplomatic/political objectives. The high Saudi fertility rate, and the chronic underemployment of young Saudi men became a pressing issue after 9/11. it would not surprise me if the Saudis simply produced numbers that they thought would assuage the concerns of the U.S. and its allies.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Firinnteine, if the little brain thing isn't necessary, how do you explain Jessica Simpson's populatiry with young men?<<<

I can think of two big reasons.

[luthien]

"I mean, we're talking about people who get hymen restoration surgery." They do WHAT??? Please say you're kidding. That has got to hurt.

Is it possible for the fertility rate to drop by 2.15 babies/woman in 3 years? That seems waaaay too big.

Mr. Gardner, you're probably quite right, although perhaps one could even say that the American hatred of wmen stems from the American hatred of human life of both sexes.

[Bob Gardner]

"Mr. Gardner, you're probably quite right, although perhaps one could even say that the American hatred of wmen stems from the American hatred of human life of both sexes."

Yes, I would. John Paul's 1995 encylical, Evangelium Vitea, calls this the culture of death.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>"I mean, we're talking about people who get hymen restoration surgery." They do WHAT??? Please say you're kidding. That has got to hurt.<<<

I wish I was, and I wouldn't know, respectively.

It seems that young Saudi princesses (of whom there are many) are often sent out to those ritzy European boarding schools to get a well-rounded education. Which, in Europe these days, includes more positions than are found in the Karma Sutra. But when it is time to go home and marry the rich young Sheikh, little Fatima has a problem--Saudi princes like their princesses virgo intacta (even while they spent their school years tomcatting through Geneva, Berne, Paris, Amsterdam, Stockholm and so on). But thanks to the miracles of modern reconstructive surgery, Fatima gets a do-over.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Yes, I would. John Paul's 1995 encylical, Evangelium Vitea, calls this the culture of death.<<<

This begs the question: where in human history can we find an example of a "culture of life"?

[Bob Gardner]

"This begs the question: where in human history can we find an example of a 'culture of life'?"

The period right before Cain invited his brother to go him out in the field out in the field with him. :)

[Bob Gardner]

For those who don't speak gibberish allow me to translate my last statement:

The period right before Cain invited his brother to go 'out in the field' with him.

[Matthias]

For a discussion of the, ahem, fascinating medical issue, from an Islamic point of view, see
http://www.islamset.com/bioethics/vision/salami.html

Be prepared to enter an entirely different worldview. Highlights:

The opinion widely acceptable and known is that if husband makes virginity a condition, or if he does with his wife what is usually done with virgins have a brush with her and does not find her virgin, he is then entitled to repudiate marriage and take back the "mahr" if he finds her not virgin, whether he hymen was lost owing to fornication or due to another factor, for it is a right related to a legitimate purpose and for acquisition of which money has been expended.

and

It might be deemed acceptable in my opinion that for the girl who loses her virginity at an early age so that the doctor can definitely say that the cause is not sexual intercourse for she was not capable of that, only in this case he is permitted to perform hymenorrhaphy. Still, in any other case he is not to undertake such an operation, except in the presence of the husband and when the latter so wishes, for the right is his. And in any case whether he performs hymenorrhaphy or not, it is prohibited for him to divulge what he has learned by virtue of profession.

[GL]

You are both quite wrong about Iran. Birth control and family planning are very big there.

I would guess that you are correct here. The CIA World Factbook lists the estimated TFR for Iran in 2006 as 1.8, well below replacement levels and a level that almost certainly reflects widespread use of contraception.

[GL]

Hymen restoration is also growing in the U.S. Several months ago, the Wall Street Journal published an article on this. It particularly noted how some wealthy women were doing this as a birthday or anniversary gift to their husbands, wanting to give him a night with a virgin (something most of them had been able to do for him on their wedding night). Some women were even having hymen restoration done multiple times. In addition to wealthy women, some Hispanic women were doing this because of the still extant belief in Hispanic cultures that a woman should be a virgin when she marries. Once again, fact is stranger than fiction.

[GL]

The WSJ article, U.S. women seek a second first time with hymen surgery, is still available as a reprint here.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I would guess that you are correct here. The CIA World Factbook lists the estimated TFR for Iran in 2006 as 1.8, well below replacement levels and a level that almost certainly reflects widespread use of contraception.<<<

Don't put too much credence in the World Fact Book. It draws entirely on open-source materials, which in this case, means it relied on the Iranian Government's own statistics, the accuracy of which are belied by other demographic data, such as the age distribution of the population.

[Rob Grano]

>>>I am wondering what other period was more explicate in its preoccupation to be lust filled, sex craved, and promiscuous than our own?<<<

While I agree that there were other cultures that may have been pretty awful in this regard, I believe ours is the worst yet because of a number of factors:

1) the universality of sexual imagery in the media. Unless you live in a cave, you can't escape it. One can't walk into a grocery store without seeing a picture of a near-naked woman on the magazine stand; likewise, turn on the TV and you're bound to see a scantily clad girl doing something on stage that a few decades ago would have been confined to the burlesque hall.

2) the universal availability of pornography, due to the internet. Depictions of the most vile perversions are only a mouse-click away, when before, a person wanting such things had to frequent sordid, dimly lit shops, get it through the mail, etc.

3) Related to number one, the realization and utilization in the advertising industry of the idea that "sex sells." There always was some of this prior to contemporary culture, but it is now practically universal.

4) As mentioned above in another post, the link between feminism and libertinism. Of the fact that there has been a double standard in sexual behavior there is little doubt. Men's promiscuity was winked at while women's was condemned in very strong terms. What feminism has done is to reduce the double standard not by encouraging men to eschew promiscuity, but by enabling and encouraging women to be promiscuous as well. Instead of telling men not to behave like dogs, feminism has told women that it's okay for them to behave like dogs too.

5) The universal availability and use of contraception and abortion. People can now fornicate with little regard for the consequences, either procreational or pathological. If a man gets a woman pregnant, there's little need for him to take responsibility and 'do the right thing by her.' All he needs to do is shuck out a couple hundred bucks.

There are other factors as well, obviously, but these five came immediately to mind without even having to dwell on the question much.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>the universality of sexual imagery in the media. Unless you live in a cave, you can't escape it.<<<

A visit to Pompeii would disabuse you of that one. At least we don't have herms everywhere, and it's still not cosidered polite to put fornicating nymphs and satyrs on the walls of your dining room.

>>>the universal availability of pornography, due to the internet. <<<

Again, one can look to the ancients for inspiration, to say nothing of the Victorians, who had some pretty racy stuff of their own.

>>>Related to number one, the realization and utilization in the advertising industry of the idea that "sex sells." There always was some of this prior to contemporary culture, but it is now practically universal.<<<

There was more than just "some of this" in earlier eras. And I wonder how much of it takes, in any case, since advertising becomes mere background noise.

>>>As mentioned above in another post, the link between feminism and libertinism.<<<

Now you're getting somewhere. Not that we didn't see the latter in previous eras, but the main difference today is the adoption and open advocacy for this mode of life by societal elites--the academics, artists, performers and even politicians. In earlier eras, these groups recognized that while they might wish to indulge their baser instincts, it was essential to maintain a hypocritical front so that the masses would toe the line. They recognized that while the upper classes could get away with it, being insulated by wealth and status, the lower and middle classes needed the stability and order of family life and rigorous sexual morality. In other words, the Victorian upper classes were just as randy as the Hollywood crowd today, but they knew enough to be discrete in their philandering.

>>>The universal availability and use of contraception and abortion. People can now fornicate with little regard for the consequences, either procreational or pathological.<<<

Actually, concern for the consequences never seems to have slowed man down, in any time or place.

[Rob Grano]

"A visit to Pompeii would disabuse you of that one."

Yes, I know Pompeii. But it was one city in a large culture. Such imagery doesn't seem to have been universal in a culture-wide sense like it is today. Pompeii stands out, does it not?

"Again, one can look to the ancients for inspiration, to say nothing of the Victorians, who had some pretty racy stuff of their own."

It wasn't close to being universally available, though, like it is today. Hell, it wasn't even close to being universally available when I was in high school!

"And I wonder how much of it takes, in any case, since advertising becomes mere background noise."

The only reason it has become background noise is that it has become so commonplace. Our sensibilities have become deadened to it because of its sheer ubiquity.

"Actually, concern for the consequences never seems to have slowed man down, in any time or place."

Perhaps. But what may have been previously a slight deterrent nowadays isn't one at all.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Yes, I know Pompeii. But it was one city in a large culture.<<<

All Hellenistic cities were pretty much like that.

>>>Such imagery doesn't seem to have been universal in a culture-wide sense like it is today. Pompeii stands out, does it not?<<<

Pompeii stands out only because it, like nearby Herculeanium, has been preserved intact. But archaeologically, what you see there is pretty much par for the course as far as the First Century AD goes. And for several hundred years on either side of that date.

>>>It wasn't close to being universally available, though, like it is today. <<<

You'd be very much surprised. As an example, I can recommend a recent book, "The Story the Soldiers Wouldn't Tell: Sex in the Civil War" by Thomas P. Lowry, which gives a pretty good survey of the quantity, variety and availability of Victorian pornography, contraception and venereal disease in mid-19th century America.

>>>The only reason it has become background noise is that it has become so commonplace. Our sensibilities have become deadened to it because of its sheer ubiquity.<<<

Like the herms. Consider this: would a statue of a huge rampant phallus erected (sorry!) along a major thoroghfare get your attention? Well, how about if there was one at every major crossroad? After a while, you'd stop noticing them--which is precisely how the Greeks and Romans treated the herms.

>>>Perhaps. But what may have been previously a slight deterrent nowadays isn't one at all.<<<

Given that everyone lies about sex, I would be very surprised if the degree of sexual activity today is any greater (or less) than in previous times. We just talk about it more--but not, I am sure, than the Anglo-Saxons did in their day (and even the Puritans were surprsingly frank in their discussions of sex).

[GL]

"Actually, concern for the consequences never seems to have slowed man down, in any time or place."

So, Pope Paul VI, Walter A. Maier, Sr. (who made the same point in the 1930s), those bishops within the Anglican Communion who opposed the resolution to approve the use of contraception who pointed to the same concerns, etc. were all wrong even though the very thing they predicted would happen did. This reminds me of liberals who deny that Reagan and his policies had anything to do with the fall of the Soviet Union and the tearing down of the Berlin Wall when those same people sharply rebuked Reagan for dangerous rhetoric and warned that his policies would lead to a nuclear war when he predicted and implemented policies designed to achieve something that actually did come to pass and which they denied at the time ever would.

>>>I would guess that you are correct here. The CIA World Factbook lists the estimated TFR for Iran in 2006 as 1.8, well below replacement levels and a level that almost certainly reflects widespread use of contraception.<<<

Don't put too much credence in the World Fact Book. It draws entirely on open-source materials, which in this case, means it relied on the Iranian Government's own statistics, the accuracy of which are belied by other demographic data, such as the age distribution of the population.

Cite a source that actually contradicts the CIA World Factbook in this regard. It has been widely reported for some time now that Iran has below replacement rate fertility. For another source to support that see RECENT CHANGES AND THE FUTURE OF FERTILITY IN IRAN.

[Rob Grano]

"Consider this: would a statue of a huge rampant phallus erected (sorry!) along a major thoroghfare get your attention? Well, how about if there was one at every major crossroad? After a while, you'd stop noticing them."

And, what, this is an excuseable thing, that we've become just as jaded as the pagans?

>>>It wasn't close to being universally available, though, like it is today. <<<

"You'd be very much surprised."

Indeed I would. Without the Internet and digital photography, it can't possibly have come close, even if every single Civil War soldier had multiple packs of dirty playing cards.

"Given that everyone lies about sex, I would be very surprised if the degree of sexual activity today is any greater (or less) than in previous times."

Really? So the large numbers of people who used to claim they were virgins when they married (tough to prove for a man, but not quite so for a woman) were mostly liars? And nowadays if you're a virgin after you're 20 you're considered some kind of freak?

[GL]

Stuart,

I don't believe anyone denies that men and women in all generations have been sinners and specifically committed all the variety of sexual sins known today. The issue of this thread is what about our society makes it so common, public and acceptable to demean, debase and dehumanize women. I would hazard to guess that every perversion practiced today was practiced in the 1950s, but it wasn't celebrated and enjoyed by millions of virtual voyeurs through TV and popular music.

Last night after my Cardinals defeated the Mets, I flipped through the channels to find what else was on, not yet being sleepy. On Oxygen (a station I now plan to add to my blocked list) was a show on the Secret Lives of Women. I did not watch the whole thing, but the segment I saw a part of showed a man dressed up as a horse being led around by a woman. A caption on the screen said that they only occasionally have sex as part of their "horse play." Catherine the Great may (or may not) have had sexual intercourse with horses, but my guess is that had TV been available in Russia during her reign, not very many people would find a show displaying her actually acting out her perversions to be entertainment. Yet in 2006, a throw away channel in my cable system (I pay only for the very basic service -- $9.95 a month -- which includes local broadcasts, C-SPAN, Local Whether, a few other low viewer options) can find enough eyes to watch it to sell ads to support such trash. I doubt that such shows would be accepted in the 1970s. Indeed, there have been ads on during the early innings of the games (we send our kids to bed before the games are over) which have caused me to change channels so that my children wouldn't see them. When I was growing up in the 1970s, my family watched baseball on TV. There was never anything in the ads between innings that would make my very morally conservative mother blush. You can't tell me that our society as a whole has sunk deeper into open moral depravity than was the case even 30 years ago.

[GL]

Correction:

You can't tell me that our society as a whole hasn't sunk deeper into open moral depravity than was the case even 30 years ago.

[Bob Gardner]

" Indeed, there have been ads on during the early innings of the games (we send our kids to bed before the games are over) which have caused me to change channels so that my children wouldn't see them."

Just to piggyback on GL’s excellent post I have (as we all have) experienced the same thing with my tike. For instance, this past Sunday I was watching football, the advertisement was for the morally corrupt sit-com 2 and a half men – the ad had one of the characters ask another “how’s the sex?” I suppose it is better then another ad I saw for the same show with the guy in bed with 3 women in lacy lingerie, but not by much. You’d think you could escape it by perhaps attending the game in person, but that isn’t the case. When we have taken our son to baseball games we are treated to raunchy rock-n-roll songs such as the vile AC/DC song “You shook me all night long,” and this is suppose to be a “family” environment. Plus the brutish, base behavior of the fans is another cause for concern. I went with my wife to a hockey game last year, and was offended by the behavior of some of the people in our section. They yelled sexually explicit comments all night, even though there was a young child present. It got so bad I told an usher about it. I felt ashamed of them, and a culture that has told them that it is acceptable. Did guys always talk that way? I would venture to say yes, but in previous generations I think they would have held their tongue with a child and a lady present.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Cite a source that actually contradicts the CIA World Factbook in this regard. It has been widely reported for some time now that Iran has below replacement rate fertility. For another source to support that see RECENT CHANGES AND THE FUTURE OF FERTILITY IN IRAN.<<<

I notice that the source for all that information is, at the end of the day, the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education. In a closed, totalitarian society such as Iran, one must treat ALL government information with a big chunk of rock salt, if not with an outright "hermeneutic of suspicion" (I remember all too well the CIA claiming in the 1980s that East Germany had one of the fastest growing economies in the world). Total fertility rate just does not collapse as quickly as the Iranian government is claiming, unless one is dealing with a coercive program--and even there, China's "one child" policy did not result in as rapid a decline.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>And, what, this is an excuseable thing, that we've become just as jaded as the pagans?<<<

Were the pagans "jaded"? They probably didn't think so. They took their religion quite seriously (had they not, the Christians would not have had as many problems with them). While the herms undoubtedly faded into the background, had they been mutilated or removed, the pagans would have noticed--and been scandalized. In fact, exactly that happened when Alcibiades was accused of mutilating the herms. To switch to another metaphor, kids who grow up around animals don't pay much attention when the sheep, the horses or the cattle begin mating right before their eyes; city slickers gawk. Are the farm kids "jaded" about sex?

>>>ndeed I would. Without the Internet and digital photography, it can't possibly have come close, even if every single Civil War soldier had multiple packs of dirty playing cards.<<<

A lot of them did, as a matter of fact. We called them "French pictures"--because we all know about the French, right?

>>>I would hazard to guess that every perversion practiced today was practiced in the 1950s, but it wasn't celebrated and enjoyed by millions of virtual voyeurs through TV and popular music.<<<

Well, there you've made my point for me: the problem isn't so much that this generation is more depraved than any other, but that, uniquely, in this generation the elites have embraced depravity not only for their own personal behavior (that's old news), but have exalted it as normative behavior for all. That's the real difference between today and yesterday. That's the "root cause"--everything else, from contraception to abortion to pornography to advertising to the commodification of sex--those are just symptoms.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Really? So the large numbers of people who used to claim they were virgins when they married (tough to prove for a man, but not quite so for a woman) were mostly liars?<<<

A comparison of marriage and birth records for Massachusetts in the 18th century seems to indicate that either two thirds of all brides were not virgins when they went to the altar, or that, for some peculiar reason, most first children were born prematurely.

As to the sex habits of our grandparents, you might be very, very, VERY surprised. I read a lot of World War I and II diaries and conduct a lot of oral history interviews; I also have examined many of the studies conducted by the Department of War dealing with the behavior of soldiers during World War II (Stauffer et al.'s monumental "The American Soldier"). Let's just say that the evidence would seem to indicate that during the 1940s at least, women were more "flexible" with regard to their virginity than the Hays Code would have you believe. In fact, contrary to what feminists would have you believe, even prior to the 1960s, most women really, really, REALLY enjoyed sex.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>You can't tell me that our society as a whole hasn't sunk deeper into open moral depravity than was the case even 30 years ago.<<<

I never said that--though I think if we looked closely enough, we could find other kinds of depravity going on. My main point is that this generation is not particularly unique in human history, that all societies go through cycles of decadance and recovery, that the causes of decadence cannot be reduces to one particular factor, and that we are actually pretty well poised to begin claiming back the culture.

[fdr]

Actually, concern for the consequences never seems to have slowed man down, in any time or place.
I disagree. While a libido can diminish the importance of the future, in the conflicted aroused young man, it is indeed what stopped me on a number of occasions when I really was prepared to "go all the way."

I would like to think that I am not that unusual. I will agree, concern for consequences does easily get places on the back burner in such instances.....a good reason to avoid such instances.

[Rob Grano]

"...the problem isn't so much that this generation is more depraved than any other, but that, uniquely, in this generation the elites have embraced depravity not only for their own personal behavior (that's old news), but have exalted it as normative behavior for all. That's the real difference between today and yesterday."

That's one of the differences; add to it the fact that the hoi polloi have largely accepted the notion that it's normative behavior. You can ascribe that partially to relativist ethics. As Richard Weaver said in the 40's, man has become a moral idiot.

"Everything else, from contraception to abortion to pornography to advertising to the commodification of sex--those are just symptoms."

They are symptoms, no doubt, but they cannot be called JUST symptoms. That's like saying pneumonia is just a 'symptom' of AIDS. It may be true, but only in a rather limited sense, as it's the pneumonia that kills you, not the AIDS. In the same way these things are not just symptomatic of the problem but contribute to its exacerbation.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I disagree. While a libido can diminish the importance of the future, in the conflicted aroused young man, it is indeed what stopped me on a number of occasions when I really was prepared to "go all the way."<<<

As my daughters would say, "Way too much information!", but that aside, was it merely fear of adverse consequences that deterred you, or was it a deeper moral formation? You see, sex ed classes put a lot of emphasis on adverse consequences. They reduce chastity to a pragmatic issue, but that approach usually fails because anyone who can do the math can figure out that the odds of catastrophe do not outweight the sensual gratification. This was my principal objection to having my daughters attend sex ed classes at their school: I did not want them remaining virgins until marriage because getting pregnant could ruin their careers, or because of the risk of getting a sexually transmitted disease, or even because of the emotional hassles that teenage sex involves. I wanted them to remain virgins because, as a Christian, I believe that sex can only legitimately express love within the bonds of marriage. Because the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and all that jazz.

One of the things I have noted about secularists is their claim that they do not need relgious sanction to lead moral lives. They fail to realize that they are living off the moral capital accrued by Judeo-Christian culture over the past 2000 years, and that this is quickly running out. When it does, they will have nothing left on which to fall back except a rough-and-ready utilitarianism, and that, as history proves, will not suffice.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>That's one of the differences; add to it the fact that the hoi polloi have largely accepted the notion that it's normative behavior.<<<

The hoi polloi typically look to their betters to set the example. That's why there was a concept of "noblesse oblige" back in the days when status was determined by birth rather than by merit. I am not sure that wasn't a better system: since the aristocracy knew that they owed their positions entirely to accident of birth, and that it wasn't for the most part, "earned" or "deserved", they truly felt they had an obligation to lead, to set the example, and even to sacrifice themselves for the system that granted them so many privileges.

On the other hand, today's "meritorcratic" elites believe that they owe their place in the world entirely to their own hard work and accomplishments. They believe they have earned their privileges and deserve them, and as a result, they owe nothing to no one, and feel no obligation to lead, to set an example or to sacrifice.

>>>You can ascribe that partially to relativist ethics. As Richard Weaver said in the 40's, man has become a moral idiot.<<<

And, as C.S. Lewis wrote, "What do they teach them in the schools these days?" Since the "hoi polloi" look to the elites to set the tone, and since the elites have adopted and teach ethical relativism, what should we expect other than a society in which a large number of people are relativist? The really remarkable thing is how many people in this country still hold to absolute moral standards. The contrast with Europe (Old Europe, that is) is truly amazing in that regard.

By the way, I place a large portion of the blame at the feet of the Christian and Jewish religious leaders in this country. Their failure to uphold Christian and Jewish moral values, their total collapse in the face of the secularist challenge, their pathetic desire to avoid giving offense to the very people they are supposed to be leading, and their even more pathetic desire to be liked and accepted by the very secularist elites that dispise them, is a large part of the problem in the country today.

But even that is turning around.

>>>They are symptoms, no doubt, but they cannot be called JUST symptoms. That's like saying pneumonia is just a 'symptom' of AIDS. It may be true, but only in a rather limited sense, as it's the pneumonia that kills you, not the AIDS. In the same way these things are not just symptomatic of the problem but contribute to its exacerbation.<<<

If someone just has pneumonia, and you treat him for pneumonia, he gets better. If someone's pneumonia is caused by the suppression of his immune system by AIDS, then treating him for pneumonia not only won't make him better, but is likely to kill him, too. So it is with all of the individual problems that have been cited here: if it was just those, then addressing each in turn would yield results. But it's not--there is an underlying compromise of the social immune system (thanks--AIDS turns out to be a perfect metaphor!). The elites, who are supposed to be the T-cells of society, stomping out dangerously pathogenic beliefs and behaviors, have lost the ability to do so. Worse still, the pathogenic social viruses have penetrated and mutated the protector cells, so that everything they do supposedly for the benefit of society turns out to undermine it.

[Rob Grano]

"By the way, I place a large portion of the blame at the feet of the Christian and Jewish religious leaders in this country."

I'm with you there.

"Thanks--AIDS turns out to be a perfect metaphor!"

Not in the sense you're using it; it still doesn't mean that we can call all these degeneracies mere symptoms. That was my point.

[GL]

I notice that the source for all that information is, at the end of the day, the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education. In a closed, totalitarian society such as Iran, one must treat ALL government information with a big chunk of rock salt, if not with an outright "hermeneutic of suspicion" (I remember all too well the CIA claiming in the 1980s that East Germany had one of the fastest growing economies in the world). Total fertility rate just does not collapse as quickly as the Iranian government is claiming, unless one is dealing with a coercive program--and even there, China's "one child" policy did not result in as rapid a decline.

Well, here I go again, cite a source that contradicts the sources I have cited. I don't know and you don't know if the sources I cite are correct, but I cite sources published by government agencies and international bodies and you cite nothing. I have read in many places over the past few years about Iran's sub-replacement rate fertility and its promotion of "family planning." Your posts to this thread are the first that I have seen which deny this. On what do you base your denials?

You do this a lot Stuart, and no one ever calls you on it. Cite a source which refutes the assertion Hannah made about Iran, which the sources I cite corroborate. I cite a source for Saudia Arabia's dramatic fall in fertility to support Ranee's assertions about that nation and you refute it as a lie by the Saudi government, but offer no source to support your claim that her assertion is wrong. In my profession, we require evidence of facts, not just unsubstantiated opinions. If you are going to refute what other posters say, particularly when they cite sources, give us some evidence. You may be correct, but we have no basis to judge that absent some supporting evidence. In the absence of such, I have no choice but to accept the sources I have or, at most, assume that both they and you have no real hard evidence to support your competing positions.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Not in the sense you're using it; it still doesn't mean that we can call all these degeneracies mere symptoms. That was my point.<<<

You're right--they're pathologies. But if we treat them symptomatically, we will only be creating a temporary appearance of health. The underlying infection goes untreated and will erupt with even greater virulence, unless it is eradicated first.

Fortunately, nature is working with us on that one: the "Long March Through the Institutions" that the radical Boomers began during the Sixties is about to end with the impending retirement and subsequent demise of its participants. Those now coming up through the ranks, having seen the damage wrought by their seniors, are much more in line with traditional values. Moreover, people holding traditional values breed; those who do not remain childless. Children of parents who hold traditional values themselves tend to have traditional values, and thus have children. Demography is destiny.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Well, here I go again, cite a source that contradicts the sources I have cited. I don't know and you don't know if the sources I cite are correct, but I cite sources published by government agencies and international bodies and you cite nothing. <<<

I'm not going to cite anything, because all of the sources you've cited in their turn rely on just one source, which remains highly suspect.

[Rob Grano]

>>>Not in the sense you're using it; it still doesn't mean that we can call all these degeneracies mere symptoms. That was my point.<<<

"You're right--they're pathologies. But if we treat them symptomatically, we will only be creating a temporary appearance of health. The underlying infection goes untreated and will erupt with even greater virulence, unless it is eradicated first."

I don't think anyone here would disagree with that. On the other hand, I don't think that we need to make a radical either/or decision between treating the "pathologies" or treating the actual disease. Some pathologies need to be addressed.

"Demography is destiny."

Correct. And it is on our side. Not sure about time, though.

[GL]

I'm not going to cite anything, because all of the sources you've cited in their turn rely on just one source, which remains highly suspect.

I take that to mean that you have no sources to cite which support your position that all the published accounts of dropping fertility rates in some Muslim nations (e.g., Iran and Saudia Arabia) are wrong and that all the secondary sources which cite them are authored by people who have been duped and lack the training and experience necessary to verify their information. This is somewhat the same approach you have taken in dismissing the views of Pope Paul VI. I think I'll accept Hannah's and Ranee's views.

I'm curious, since you cannot cite any sources, on what do you base your rather dogmatic opinions?

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I take that to mean that you have no sources to cite which support your position that all the published accounts of dropping fertility rates in some Muslim nations (e.g., Iran and Saudia Arabia) are wrong and that all the secondary sources which cite them are authored by people who have been duped and lack the training and experience necessary to verify their information. <<<

Well, let's put it this way:

I deal with the CIA on a fairly regular basis. I've worked with JPRS, the branch of the CIA that compiles the World Fact Book. I know their methodology, and I also know their track record. I further examined available reports on the Iranian fertility rate, and find that all reports concerning the alleged decline in the birth rate there originate with the Iranian Department of Health and Medical Education. That is, the JPRS report, the World Health Organization and all other third party reports trace their source to this one agency, which is under the control of the Iranian government, an entity not known for its dedication to accuracy. In the intel business, this is what we call a "circle jerk".

I then evaluated the data in light of other sucessful population control programs and can find nothing similar to the kind of demographic collapse claimed by the Iranian government. You don't go from a TFR of more than 5 to one of less than 2 in the space of five years. It just doesn't happen. It would mean nobody had ANY babies for several years running, and sorry, I'm not drinking the bathwater.

[Judy Warner]

Those now coming up through the ranks, having seen the damage wrought by their seniors, are much more in line with traditional values. Moreover, people holding traditional values breed; those who do not remain childless. Children of parents who hold traditional values themselves tend to have traditional values, and thus have children.

Stuart, I believe it is true that the younger generation holds more traditional values. Yet the baby boomers' break with the past was severe, and affected almost all institutions in our society. It affected not only values, but also education and therefore knowledge of the past. The young people attempting to move to more traditional values do not always know how to do this, or what it is they are trying to do. They often do not have the moral basis or the intellectual basis or the vocabulary to re-establish the moral order that we have lost. Because of the education system and the popular culture most of them are not able to think complex thoughts or read complex material. There is a will, certainly, but I worry that there might not be a way.

[luthien]

"In fact, contrary to what feminists would have you believe, even prior to the 1960s, most women really, really, REALLY enjoyed sex." And had more of it than their modern counterparts-I'll see if I can find the reference. It was from some junky rag like Cosmo (I was bored *blush*), but seemed to be a perfectly legitimate study.

Thank y'all for the explanations of hymen restoration-very scary indeed. I thought the point of being a virgin at marriage was doing the virtuous and right thing, not giving one's husband physical pleasure-is this another of my half-baked ideas? I still don't understand why men would want the experience of intercourse with a virgin again after their wedding night-pain and blood?? sounds like sadism (and hatred of women!) to me. This thread is going to scare me into a convent yet.

Mr. Gardner, I suggest going to minor league baseball games-it's not the best baseball ever, but at least the games are truly family-friendly: rowdy attendees are booted out, there are alcohol-free sections (not that my family would ever sit in an alcohol-free section:-p), and tickets and parking are way cheaper than at major league games. Inter-inning entertainment is usually some sort of silly competition-no raunchy music (the worst you'll ever get is the opening few bars of Green Day's Holiday or some such song when a player walks up to bat-and that's not even raunchy, just liberal;)

Mr. Koehl, the Iranian data sound fishy to me, too; I can't find the references just now and will have to go get the figures from a professor tomorrow or Friday, but I'm fairly sure that even during and immediately after WWI when European birthrates, esp. in France, plumetted (having 60% of men between the ages of 18 and 28 dead or permanently maimed will do that) you wouldn't have found a drop of more than 3 children per women in 5 years. Iranian fertility rates could have dropped and left a demogrphic hole, but by so much that *no* babies were born?? Yeah right. I trust Iranian gov't statistics about as much as I'd trust Saddam Hussein's information minsiter.

[Bill R]

“The problem isn't so much that this generation is more depraved than any other, but that, uniquely, in this generation the elites have embraced depravity not only for their own personal behavior (that's old news), but have exalted it as normative behavior for all. That's the real difference between today and yesterday. That's the "root cause"--everything else, from contraception to abortion to pornography to advertising to the commodification of sex--those are just symptoms.” --Stuart Koehl

St. Paul beat you to the punch, Stuart:

“And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done….Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.”--Romans 1: 28, 32 (ESV)

I doubt that one generation is “worse” than any other in an absolute sense, excepting only perhaps the generation leading up to Noah and the Flood. What differs today, as we know, is that the “mediafication” of our society allows our elites to parade their ethical inversion daily before our eyes.

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil…Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and shrewd in their own sight!”--Isaiah 5: 20, 21 (ESV)

[William Meisheid]

Should we surprised that after a generation of secular culture (led by women) telling men they really need to be women, that at some level there is not a revolt and that the revolt is against those who have systematically attempted to emasculate them. I am not saying it is right, but it is understandable.

Without biblical fatherhood and sound biblical masculinity, men who are not under the restraints of Christian conscience will grow to despise and eventually actively denegrate those whom they feel denegrated them.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>It was from some junky rag like Cosmo (I was bored *blush*), but seemed to be a perfectly legitimate study.<<<

If you read it in a waiting room, it's OK.

>>> I still don't understand why men would want the experience of intercourse with a virgin again after their wedding night-pain and blood?? <<<

It's an honor culture thing.

>>>Mr. Koehl, the Iranian data sound fishy to me, too; I can't find the references just now and will have to go get the figures from a professor tomorrow or Friday, but I'm fairly sure that even during and immediately after WWI when European birthrates, esp. in France, plumetted (having 60% of men between the ages of 18 and 28 dead or permanently maimed will do that) you wouldn't have found a drop of more than 3 children per women in 5 years. <<<

While the French population dropped between the wars, the actual fertility rate did not. The women who could find eligable men married them and had chidlren. Usually, in the aftermath of war, the fertility rate rises, as if to compensate for the loss of life. The Iranians were already recovering from the losses of the Iran-Iraq war, which ended in the late 80s. Even as late as the middle 90s, Iran still claimed a TFR close to 5.0.

[Bob Gardner]

"Mr. Gardner, I suggest going to minor league baseball games-it's not the best baseball ever, but at least the games are truly family-friendly:"

Being from Pittsburgh I am all too familiar with baseball ‘not being at its best,’ ;-) Thanks for the tip.

[luthien]

"It's an honor culture thing." It's not those men who scare me-it's the ones whose wives have the surgery as an anniversary present for them.

"Should we surprised that after a generation of secular culture (led by women)...." Why are women always to blame? Does not the ideal of patriarchy imply that the buck stops with men? Men are at least as much to blame for today's moral degeneracy as women-perhaps more so.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>"Should we surprised that after a generation of secular culture (led by women)...." Why are women always to blame?<<<

Men have fallen back on that excuse since Adam tried to tell God, "She made me eat it!"

[Bobby Winters]

>>>Why are women always to blame? Does not the ideal of patriarchy imply that the buck stops with men? Men are at least as much to blame for today's moral degeneracy as women-perhaps more so.<<<

While the members of a couple might righteous one anothers, they sometimes also are partners in their joint degradation. Eve trusted the serpent more than God and Adam desired to please Eve more than God. Only when Man and Woman have the proper submission to God can they approach Him.

[William Meisheid]

>>> I still don't understand why men would want the experience of intercourse with a virgin again after their wedding night-pain and blood?? <<<

If you research Islamic culture you will realize how important a sense of private ownership of their women is to these men. What the virgins mean to those men is that these twenty odd women are theirs and theirs alone. No other man has defiled their women. So they will have twenty women to please them and them alone who are theirs and theirs alone. And since "heaven" is totally Sharia, those women will never even be seen by other men because they will always be appropriately clothed, never alone, and never unfaithful, because they are in the paradise of Islam.

>>>Why are women always to blame?<<<
Sometimes I dispair of the future when I see how little critical thinking remains in those who consistently demonstrate a deminished understanding of the comprehension of the written word. Would that we had less eisogesis and a little more exogesis. ...never said women are always to blame, but in the context of the discussion men will generally react to the feminization of their culture and its emasculation demands, and unless they have internal moral strictures in place (such as most Christian men have) they will react in distructive ways against those whom they believe, to use an apropos colloquial term, dissed them.

[fdr]

As my daughters would say, "Way too much information!",

My apologies for my candidcy, but I am after all, a child of the Dr. Ruth era. I think with all the shortcomings of modern society (such as the current discussion), one postive is a more openess and frankness about sex. It came as a huge relief to me, when I discovered that I was not the only young man who struggled with lust and the bad habits that nurturing that lust developed.

I am a child of a sex addict and abuser. I know that at heart of his problem is the reluctance to admit that he has a problem. This lack of contrition, destroyed not only him, but our family as well....its taken its toll on all of us.

Forgive me for my frankness, but I am a sinner who has no wish to hide the fact.

but that aside, was it merely fear of adverse consequences that deterred you, or was it a deeper moral formation?

Well, that I knew it was wrong, was indeed a product of my upbringing. But truly, in the heat of the moment, I didn't care if it was wrong. I didn;t lose sight however that there would be consequences. I thank God for that.

I have recently been reasing about the Holy Elders' teachings on the stages of spiritual growth: We relate to God as a slave, then an employee, and finally as a son. They say that even when we are advanced (which I certainly am NOT) we sometimes slip into the earlier stages. A slave is steered by threat of punishment...consequences.

Ideally a sex-ed program would cover all three stages; we abstain from sex because of the bad consequences of sex outside of marriage. We abstain from sex because there are rewards and benefits of chastity. Ultimately we live chaste lives as an act of love to the lover of our souls.

This was my principal objection to having my daughters attend sex ed classes at their school: I did not want them remaining virgins until marriage because getting pregnant could ruin their careers, or because of the risk of getting a sexually transmitted disease, or even because of the emotional hassles that teenage sex involves. I wanted them to remain virgins because, as a Christian, I believe that sex can only legitimately express love within the bonds of marriage. Because the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and all that jazz.

Yes. My kids are still pretty young, but unfortunately I still need the stick as well as the carrot! YMMV.

One of the things I have noted about secularists is their claim that they do not need relgious sanction to lead moral lives. They fail to realize that they are living off the moral capital accrued by Judeo-Christian culture over the past 2000 years, and that this is quickly running out. When it does, they will have nothing left on which to fall back except a rough-and-ready utilitarianism, and that, as history proves, will not suffice.

Amen. I appreciate your posts. BTW, did you used to post on AOL's Orthodox boards back in the mid '90's or so?

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>BTW, did you used to post on AOL's Orthodox boards back in the mid '90's or so?<<<

Occasionally. More often on the Catholic ones.

[fdr]

No, I am not running for office.....I meant "Candidness."