Revolution Redux

Mirele posted some comments (and also blogged them) to this post. She took exception to Patty's post and my agreement with it. I decided to respond to her in a separate post rather than in the comments. If you're not interested, you can skip this.

If you're still with me, I'm going to excerpt Mirele's points and then give my response:

Ok. There seems to be this mistaken idea here from Patty (and LilacRose, by extension) that women lost the sexual revolution because we put out and the only reason we stay with men is due to sex. Frankly, someone's got rocks in her head, and that person is not me.

It may not be you or me, but a lot of women do have "rocks in their heads." They've bought into the lie that "sexual freedom" means sleeping around and acting like men at their worst. But, men and women are different. You can't get around this. To see what I mean by this, read this post by Steve H. at Little Tiny Lies. He gives a man's perspective on Patty's post. He's brutally honest, and, I think, on the mark.

Let me propose something different. Before the sexual revolution, women's sexuality was owned by others: her father, then her husband. She did not have the right to tell her husband no to forced sex, and she certainly couldn't accuse him of rape, because it was considered that wives had to put out for their husbands. Remember, men in those days had raging hormones, and it was the wives' job to satisfy their husbands' lust, just as it was an unmarried woman's job to keep her beau chaste. So this is my question. What is the difference? The difference is that women now own their own sexuality, for good or for ill. I rather prefer this than to go back to the good old days, when my sexuality was dictated because of the ownership relationship between myself and my male relations. It should also be noted that with freedom comes responsibility and a lot of women have made hash of that. That doesn't make the principle of self-determination wrong, it just indicates that more education about choices is necessary.

I don't think anyone here is in favor of husbands forcing themselves on their wives, or of unmarried women being "owned" by their fathers. I don't know why pointing out that some women have been poor custodians of their sexuality means that one thinks women should be owned by anyone. The point is that women are free to make their own decisions -- and in some cases these decisions are bad ones that have far-reaching effects.

If a woman decides of her own free will to subscribe to the many different versions of female subordination present in the USA (where I live), then she is making her choice and who am I to gainsay her? My problem is with those who (for example) insinuate that marital relations between men and women are put together with "sex glue" (which is, in my opinion, unwarranted hyperbole) and are doomed to fail.

I don't think Patty was saying that all martial relations are put together with "sex glue." What she is saying is that some relationships are held together only with that glue and not with something more substantial. I think what Patty calls "sex glue" is exactly what Paul was talking about here and here -- one flesh. C.S. Lewis also explains this very well in The Screwtape Letters: "The truth is that wherever a man lies with a woman, there, whether they like it or not, a transcendental relation is set up between them which must be eternally enjoyed or eternally endured."

Going back to the past, where wives were given responsibility for their husbands' sexuality, while at the same time not being able to say no to their husbands' demands for sex, and girls were made responsible for boys' sexuality (which is still the case in some American religious organizations I'm familiar with) is not desirable. Women should be free to make choices about their own sexuality. And we should be warned in advance about those consequences. Ultimately, it is up to women ourselves, because we are not property.

But women do have a responsibility for men's sexuality. Men also have a responsibility to women. I believe that the sexual revolution has eroded that sense of responsibility among many men. That's why women have come out the losers in this whole thing. Of course women are not property; of course they are free to make choices, just as men are. But some choices are bad ones that affect more than just the person making the choice.