Thanks for the link! Very nice blog, I've put you in my blogroll!

Hi Patty,

You're welcome...and thank you! :-)

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.

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.

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.

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.

Hi Mirele,

Thanks for your comments. I'd like to respond to them in a separate post. I can't do this tonight but I'll be able to sometime this weekend.

Mirele, I understand your points, but you're arguing points that I didn't try to make. I don't believe women are owned. I believe two committed people wind up in a mutually self-giving relationship that strengthens the other, not takes away. Women don't owe men sex, nor do I want to take away anyone's rights to do with their sexuality what they want.

I think women owe themselves better than what we have been doing to ourselves and each other for the last 40 years.