When I hear people talk about sex as if it’s no big deal, as if it’s no different than eating a steak or going for a drive on the freeway, when I see ads comparing voting to losing your virginity, or when I hear social conservatives slapped down when they voice their objections to a licentious culture, my heart grieves.It's not a toy. It's not a game. How strange we have forgotten that so obvious, so terrible a truth.
That’s because I’m picturing the girl walking home alone after having sex on the beer-drenched floor of a fraternity house with a guy too drunk to remember her name. The tears on her cheeks. The tightness in her chest, the sick feeling deep inside, and the already-hardening effect of knowing she will do it again.
I’m remembering a young girl who came to me with scars on her wrists and tremors in her soft voice as she told me about the day she aborted her baby. She wept uncontrollably in my arms for an innocence, a life, she would never have again, her dark eyes filled with a sorrow that only the greatest amount of love and grace could ever wash away.
I’m thinking of the boy who sits in a bathroom, alone, staring at a lab report that says he is HIV-positive. A sense of hopeless desperation wells up within him like a flood of dark water as he tries to breathe, to fight back the overwhelming fear that threatens to drown him. His life is forever changed. A precious gem exchanged for a handful of dust. I hear his sobs as he leans on the side of the tub begging for comfort no human can fully give.
Here's a Woman with Something to Say
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26 comments:
I don't believe we've forgotten. There has been a systematic campaign to depersonalize the activity so it's even less personal than, say, going for a walk. This flies in the face of experience and what we instinctively know, but the sound of the chanting carries us along in spite of what we intuitively know as truth and drowns out our common sense.
I would guess that this is instrumental in destroying the core family unit and therefore must be made anathema.
William sends.
It's funny. I can't write casual, passing-in-the-night sex scenes in my novels and stories. There's always meaning and a certain seriousness, even between playful and happily married husbands and wives. Sex has too many consequences, be they emotional, spiritual, physical, for me to write it as something inconsequential, even in light fiction.
LittleRed1
As it does for us all. Though some may desensitize ourselves, much like we may do with certain phobias, and thereby mitigate the lows thereof resulting and sacrificing the highs inherent in those very emotional, spiritual, and physical engagements. Much like prozac it's a net loss.
William sends.
Livestock need not concern themselves with reproduction. That is handled at a higher level, administration wise.
I have had discussions with my daughter about this, and my son. I grieve that it means so little to them, her, especially. I grieve that she will surely experience something bad....she has come too close already. Hollywood, schools, media and politicians all assisted in the process, and I am not enough to prevent or reverse. I grieve.
Thanks for posting this, Grim.
Good Lord. Some of the comments over there are enough to make baby Jesus cry:
...a young male is nothing but a raging hormone with feet --- how are we going to go about fixing something which is so aggressively hard-wired into both his physiology and his psyche? Yes, sex can indeed hurt him . . . but, unlike young women, he considers that to be nothing more than an occupational hazard. By all means, warn the young women as well as the young men of this danger . . . but don't expect the young men to listen.
Maybe some of you can explain the low expectations on display?
I am trying to imagine raising my sons to think that so long as their actions never harmed *them*, they could do whatever they wanted to? That attitude right there is a BIG part of the problem, and it's one we can't blame on progressivism.
You can blame it on modernism, though, with its emphasis on materialist explanations. The medieval and ancient thought was that there were at least two causes for every event, formal and material; the new way, that there is only the material.
So if the form of the man is his soul, as we used to say, his soul as well as his body are involved in any of his willful acts. But if there is only the material, well, who can deny the hormones as easily as they can deny the soul? And since many do deny the soul, why believe in it? So there is only the body, only one cause for our actions, and it is the material.
Of course, it turns out that you find that you can do things that your body wasn't programmed to do, because you have decided they are right (or even just prudent). That's a good reason for thinking that the material alone isn't doing the work: there's something more going on.
And once you've come to that conclusion, you have to begin to ask what it is -- and, once you recognize its power, to ask what it demands of you.
In any case, sexual morality certainly can be taught to young men. As with other things, the teaching requires patience and example, and sometimes people will fall down and need to be helped back up again. But it can be taught that it is shameful to exercise your lusts at the cost of others' pain.
[I]t turns out that you find that you can do things that your body wasn't programmed to do, because you have decided they are right (or even just prudent).
I don't need anything more than the material to arrive at a right answer. The material alone makes it harder, and it will be much harder for some than for others to reach a right answer.
But hard means possible. And that means no excuses for not reaching the right answer. If one man (or boy) can do it, all can.
Eric Hines
I'm not sure they always think it is possible. The material explanation is that there is evolution and hormones and reproductive advantages, and these things really ought to be deterministic given that they are the material mechanisms.
Why not do what is reproductively advantageous -- for yourself, and for your "Selfish Genes"? That it hurts another is quite beside the point; indeed, from the perspective of the genetic explanation posited by Dawkins et al, that it hurts you is beside the point.
I'm not sure they always think it is possible.
You're right on that. But that's their error, not ours. Nor does it refute "possible" or "no excuses;" it only denies them.
"It's natural" has been a fatuous argument from its inception.
Eric Hines
I'm not sure they always think it is possible. The material explanation is that there is evolution and hormones and reproductive advantages, and these things really ought to be deterministic given that they are the material mechanisms.
That's why I always push back against the "we're just wired that way" argument. OK, you're ("you" in the generic sense) wired that way.
So what? You're wired to do all sorts of things civilized societies don't tolerate. So am I. So are we all.
I've been laughing a bit as the sudden progressive flirtation with the Science that says there's no such thing as free will. I don't think they're going to like where that leads :p
You can blame it on modernism, though, with its emphasis on materialist explanations. The medieval and ancient thought was that there were at least two causes for every event, formal and material; the new way, that there is only the material.
No, I really don't think we can blame it on modernism, Grim. These arguments have been around since the dawn of time. They were around in ancient Greece and Rome and throughout western Europe. Every age finds them useful, and most people don't form their opinions from the writings of thinkers.
They're just rationalization, which doesn't need much of an assist from anyone.
I don't know who you're thinking of, Cass. The Greeks certainly believed in a quality -- sophrosyne -- that allowed the soul to master itself, and rule over the body. They didn't believe it was equally shared by all, but that wasn't used as an excuse to align social mores with bad behaviors: rather, it was precisely those who demonstrated the capacity who were thought worthiest to be elevated to leadership and the art of making laws.
Likewise the Medievals argued that the ability of reason to rule over the soul was not equal in all people; but this was not offered as a reason why we should align the law with animal instincts. Rather, it was a reason why those who didn't show the ability to do it as well ought to be subject to greater controls by those who were able.
The Stoics were all about reason coming to master the passions, so that life could be lived with a kind of dignity in spite of the dismay caused by animal impulses. The Epicureans wanted to perfect reason's control of animality in such a way as to perfect access to a life of the greatest possible pleasure and the least possible pain -- which giving in to animal impulse would not at all guarantee.
There were certainly religious cults that celebrated bestiality, but chiefly to constrain it to certain agreed-upon festivals so that it wouldn't overwhelm the rest of life. How well that worked is debatable, of course.
What we have in modernism, and especially in its advanced forms -- from the mid-19th century onward -- is a kind of intellectual version of the beast cults. If the material is all there is; if reason and free will are an illusion; well, why should you think you can be more than a beast? Why should you wish to be more than the beast you were made to be? Why not strive to be that animal in the fullest possible degree?
Grim, as usual we're talking about two different things entirely.
You always want to trace every human thought back to some philosopher, as though people never rationalize on their own (or perhaps as though their thoughts have no independent existence outside of the formal realm of philosophy). There's nothing wrong with wanting to find a counterpart in your field, but that's a very cramped view of the real world (a place in which most people know little or nothing about any of that stuff).
Human nature causes people to invent excuses for their own misdeeds. They don't need Plato or
Aristotle or anyone else to help them do this - they're quite capable (and motivated) on their own.
People were making excuses back in ancient Rome (I can't help myself - I'm a slave to my passions) and in all ages before and since then. "Modernism" didn't cause this age-old human tendency to spring into being just in the last few centuries.
... that's a very cramped view of the real world (a place in which most people know little or nothing about any of that stuff).
Most people are speaking out of philosophical traditions without knowing it. Especially that's true in our period, when we have a poor but universal system of education that provides people with an introduction to some basic ways of thinking about the world -- the fault for the particular claims you were objecting to is doubtless some basic education in a health class that taught teenagers something about their drives, and told them that they were powerful drives that it was difficult to control. There's a philosophy built into that which was probably not examined closely by the people who wrote the textbooks or taught the course, but it's there all the same.
In earlier ages, people got a basic understanding from their church or religious tradition. For example, you would have learned a lot about the basics by going to confession, and being told by the priest just what parts of what you had done or thought were blameworthy and deserving of penance. Without knowing the philosophers' names, you'd have absorbed a lot of their model through the practice.
The point is, I think it's the materialist tradition that has come to the conclusion that it's OK to be a 'slave to your passions,' however the common people of the age visualize that; indeed, that you are authentic and honestly being yourself when you do it as much as possible. What earlier ages would have seen as discreditable is now taken as a positive quality, a kind of honesty, because the new understanding reduces you to the material and that's what the material wants.
Most people are speaking out of philosophical traditions without knowing it.
Maybe, maybe not. I think you are putting the cart (formalized rationalization) before the horse (the human tendency to rationalize).
One could just as easily say that philosophy is an attempt to formalize (or alternatively, examine or evaluate) what all people already do naturally: that it springs from human nature.
Well, yes. But when you speak of 'human nature,' and that nature being built around a kind of rational storytelling, you're speaking out of a philosophical tradition too. That's Aristotle's framing, which is important to you because it's been important to so many people before you -- including the founders of your church, and the church out of which it grew. It's totally different from, say, the Hindu way of thinking about what human beings are and what we do.
So even if you get down to the levels of Americans who are much less sophisticated than you are, they are willing to talk about "human nature." They don't know what Aristotle meant by the phrase, but they are sure it means something real and important.
The basic material of thought is concepts. You can arguably think without words -- emotions, impressions, these are certainly part of consciousness and seem sometimes to carry meanings. But you can't think without concepts. The basic conceptual structure of your world is something you have inherited, and except for a few people it remains unexamined as an assumption about what the world is really like.
That's why I take philosophy to be as important as I do: not because I think that only a few high and rarefied people are qualified to think about human problems! Rather, because so much of what most people think -- though it follows logically enough -- follows from the assumptions they don't even know that they've made.
Perhaps the point will be clearer if I sketch the difference between this Western understanding and the Hindu one.
"What is the significance of these stories we tell ourselves?"
West: All living beings have a nature, which is to say, a thing that governs how they grow and move and act. Human beings are a natural kind of thing, as are horses or dogs, and all three of these different natural kinds have different natures. Both the natural kinds and their natures are actual, real things that are important (and this is true whether we speak of the principle governing how we grow and move and act as "a nature" or as "our DNA" or as "my hormones"). Human nature is rational, which means that human beings think about what they do. It is possible to do this well or badly, though: to think about what you do well is to accord it with the laws of reason, and is called reasoning; to do it badly is to accord the thoughts with the laws given by your animal impulses, and is called rationalizing. Their stories about why they are doing what they are doing are thus not equal, and must be judged according to the standards of rationality to see if they are ethically worthy. Only someone who strives to be sure their actions line up with this independent reason is morally worthy.
Hindu: Human beings don't really exist as a natural kind. They don't, therefore, have anything like a real nature. Rather, what is going on is that the god of ultimate unity is everything. The stories about our place in the world and why we do what we do are therefore not ours, but his; and they are utterly important to us, because they define our place and our duty in his world. Our ethical duty is to live according to the stories, not to judge the stories according to some kind of detached or disinterested "law of reason." We have a duty that is given by the story, and since our only existence is as a player of a role in this drama, we ought to play that role fully and completely. Someone questioning their role or society according to a detached reason is quite likely trying to avoid this duty, and that is morally wrong.
Which set of assumptions you come up with defines a lot of your choices. Is human nature real? Are human beings real in the sense of being material objects, or is there only a dream in which everything is ultimately one? Is the universe conscious, or is it cold matter? Are our stories likely to be nonsense we make up to justify what we want to do anyway, or are they more important than we are ourselves because they are given by an ultimate divine?
When you say 'it is human nature to rationalize,' you're talking out of a philosophical tradition. It's there in the background, and it's changed in important ways during the Modern age. At least some of those changes were mistakes. That's all I'm arguing.
I am pretty sure that human nature precedes philosophy and makes it possible, not the other way 'round :p
Heck, Adam's first response in the garden of Eden was to say, "The woman tempted me". How could he resist? He was tempted?
Reading the Roman sexuality article on wikipedia reminded me of Hollywood and DC.
It's another power hierarchy.
The religious dogma of the Left is behind much of modern America's cultural decadence. Random human nature would normally not lead to this consistent a result. Human sexual markets are the Western adaptation, since the Left weaponized or killed most of the existing traditions and locks. Whether that's sufficient or not, is difficult to say, since girls market their soujo ness (virginity) on ebay. Whether that's enough to pay for an entire economy in the US is probably a different issue.
But at least that's better than the Planned Parenthood puppet masters that seek to create a euthanized, genetically pure race via planned reproduction, aka planned extermination of inferiors.
A human market that makes profit is one thing. A human conspiracy that uses profit for evil, and evil for profit, is not so easy to alleviate, reform, or get rid of.
I am pretty sure that human nature precedes philosophy and makes it possible, not the other way 'round :p
There's an ambiguity here. If by "human nature" you mean the concept we understand when you use the phrase, it doesn't: philosophy invented it. But if you mean to use the phrase to name the thing we normally believe it names, then of course it must (as Aristotle would be the first to agree) -- at least, it must if we are right that this thing we have named "human nature" exists.
We are, of course, almost certainly wrong about exactly what "human nature" is, just as we always have been. But we remain certain that it's something real, even if we can't quite say what; and so we keep talking about it. But the reason we are able to talk about it is that some philosopher developed the concept of what it is to have a nature, and of what "human nature" therefore is.
So, if we're right about the structure of the world, then of course human nature is prior to philosophy. But the only reason we can say it is -- or even think it is -- is because of the philosophical inheritance.
But the reason we are able to talk about it is that some philosopher developed the concept of what it is to have a nature, and of what "human nature" therefore is.
I don't actually agree that this is true, though. It's quite possible to describe human nature in terms of things people do (their behavior). I don't need a philosopher to tell me that people form social or family groups, that they trust, bond with, and make excuses for members of their own groups while viewing members of other groups with suspicion and even hatred, or that they'll tolerate things from people they have bonded with that they won't tolerate from total strangers. I don't need philosophy to tell me that people tend to get defensive when criticized instead of calmly considering whether there might be some merit to the criticism and rejecting it if it's unfounded.
I can see that for myself just by watching the people around me. Some of all of these behaviors may be shared by animals - it can be part of human nature and also be quite natural for dogs or elephants.
I can see that humans (unlike dogs or elephants) can spend years writing long books about abstract questions with no definitive answers :p
Philosophy attempts to describe something that already exists: human nature. That which we *already* are, before anyone attempts to describe or explain it.
I can see that for myself just by watching the people around me. Some of all of these behaviors may be shared by animals - it can be part of human nature and also be quite natural for dogs or elephants.
Then you're doing philosophy! "Natural philosophy," as it was called at the time. (The Greek word from which we derive "physics" actually means "nature.") You're building the concept of a "human nature" and what you think it contains, and how it differs from the natures of other kinds of beings. That's just how it was done: by empirical observation, and thinking about what you saw. It seems natural to you because you were raised to think that way.
But it is not the only conclusion you might come to about it all, had you been born four thousand years ago. You could have come to the conclusion that the apparently different forms weren't properly different at all, just other manifestations of a unitary god who was expressing himself that way as part of the story he wanted you to play out and explore. Then there's only one 'nature,' and the expressions are acts of will for a divine purpose.
But yes, if we're right, the philosophy (even natural philosophy) follows the coming-to-be of the observing, wondering human nature. It's what drives us to create concepts like "human nature," which bats seem to do well without.
But we aren't right, of course; not quite right, anyway.
I think it's in our nature to wonder about these things. I don't think we wonder about them because of some external force called philosophy, but rather than we are by nature philosophical beings (who invented philosophy because it aligned with our already extant drive to understand the world around us).
Yes, that's what Aristotle thought too. You're right in the center of the tradition. :)
Westerners have a way of thinking about things that differs from the more centralized, ambiguous Eastern tradition.
It's probably rooted in the language itself.
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