“So today’s would-be Lysistratas need to develop ways of stigmatizing young women who too readily say yes to sex, just as unions do to scabs and strikebreakers. What a feminist triumph that would be.” says James Taranto, discussing hook-up culture and the arguments about it.
Call this an update to earlier discussions or a segue from Carl’s latest on Damsel’s in Distress.
November 24th, 2012 | 1:25 pm
[...] too readily say yes to sex, just as unions do to scabs and strikebreakers. What a feminist Source: Postmodern Conservative Category: Blogs and Websites [...]
November 25th, 2012 | 2:35 am
I realize there are a lot of words in the english language, but doesn’t the “SLUT” label still exist?
Of course Rush Limbaugh already tried this with Sandra Fluke. This I suppose would be the answer from the Right.
Going for the Union approach seems to me to be an effort to make us more like Europe.
Seeing as how Germany has a union for prostitutes, women who too readily say yes to sex are something like scabs! Or at the very least if there is a professional organization with an actual economic interest in satisfying the aggregate demand for sex, then loose women are suddenly on the RIGHT, or part of the industrial reserve army that is all about depressing wages. So in germany they really are scabs and strikebreakers, but in germany you actually have a union.
Unionize prostitution as they did in germany, and you create “corporate speech” that does everything James Taranto wants. It really is in the economic interest/business of prositutes to create a moral language that demonizes/stigmatizes the competition. i.e. get non-prostitutes to demand+nag for so much in exchange for sex that men will prefer the honest commercial transaction (and this commercial transaction will have barganing leverage that comes about from supply restrictions).
Of course then this would mean that ironically social conservatism ends up being “corporate speech” in the service of unionized bordello’s.
In this sense the idea reminds me of our nations experience with Lysistratas of a Puritan disposition. The demonization and banning of booze was quite useful for the mob (often times catholic/irish opportunists). Restricting supply just made the lesser quality supply skyrocket in price. A good catholic mobster sat in mass and donnated to the suffragettes, forming an alliance to tip off federal agents against the “others” who were running liquor.
While I am often times confused about “Right” and “Left”, there is no doubt in my mind that Lysistratas will always be unconscious champions of prostitution.
Of course the ancient republican legacy of moral hypocracy is partially economic, but in some sense part of what makes Rush Limbaugh so repugnant. Rush was never a liquor running mobster, and without a doubt the “left” legal position requires due process and a statute of limitations. It would also require a 403 objection to tarnishing the Republican brand with loose associations drawn from the copyrighted Boardwalk empire. Still it is so easy to see Rush Limbaugh as a classical pill popping social conservative hypocrite. Denigrate my competitors as “Sluts” and then open up a whorehouse on the down low.
Personally as a guy without aspirations of opening up a Cat House, I have no interest in stigmatizing young women who too readily say yes to sex.
Unlike ending war (the original Lysistratas) or prohibition, or suffrage I don’t understand what the political point is. Of course using sex for leverage is fine I suppose, but again as a guy I am not going to sit here and cheer for it. (You would only do this hypocritically in the Mobster at Mass sense).
November 26th, 2012 | 11:29 am
One of the points of morality is that behaviors labeled immoral have practical consequences that erode society and individuals. I know, I’ve been told, the young don’t see that or care about it, but perhaps that is because of the attitudes they have been raised with. Looking at history, moral behavior has been the exception rather the rule, so we cannot call it old-fashioned, really.
Taranto is suggesting self-government as the answer to the problems we encounter as a result of the hook-up culture. The 40% rate of births being to single woman has societal consequences, among them a vast entitlement expense to taxpayers, even to single men like yourself, assuming you are working. Massive taxation to pay for those consequences erodes the liberty of private property and inhibits enterprise. What is the best answer? To those arguing for smaller government it is for an increase in the smallest government; self-goverment.
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