The Salon article on Maggie Gallagher is probably worth bringing into the conversation.
I don't think we can explain this simply through misogyny or fear of feminine sexuality, etc., because there are plenty of misogynists in the world who don't make a point of picking a fight with the president of the United States over birth control.
Similarly, serial killers who target women can't be explained simply through misogyny, because there are plenty of misogynists in the world who don't make a point of picking fights with the president on the women-killing issue.
2: So what you're saying is, Kotsko's piece is a load of rubbish.
I am as you might expect, orthogonal to this conversation, although a commenter at Kotsko's brought my position up. Neither "Sex is for babies" nor "Sex is for fun" but "Sex is a pain in the ass." It's a prostrate old man thing.
No, really, it was a young man's thing too, and involved asceticism and abstinence as not a morally superior position but simply an aesthetic choice, an amoral possibility. Fasting and simplification etc may produce a different consciousness, but almost certainly would produce a different sociality. This is not new, and I don't think necessarily tied to patriarchy and hierarchy.
The denial of celibacy as a positive option leads to Huxleyville, I think.
Depending on what you mean about one thing being explained "simply" through another, isn't it (potentially) true that serial killers who target women can't be explained simply through misogyny, but rather must also be explained by whatever it is that explains their misogyny taking the form it does/their acting on it the way they do?
5: neb, I think I can agree with you that serial killers may not be "simply" misogynist, but that isn't what Kotsko is arguing. The fact that serial killers disagree with Obama's policy preferences in a way that is not universal among misygynists tells us nothing about whether serial killers are misogynist. Kotsko separates two clauses with the word "because," when in fact those two clauses have almost nothing to do with each other.
3: Ned, Kotsko is a friend of the blog and a genuinely interesting thinker. I would strive very hard not to say such a thing directly.
You have to admit the aside about Tertullian is interesting.
Actually it now seems to me that the second linked article does provide some support for Adam's thesis. Something like this:
seems more concerned with sex in general than with chyx having sex. And I read while googling around prior to posting this an article (by a guy I met a conference recently, actually) that was explicitly concerned about the relation between nonprocreative sexings and "other forms of sexual deviancy" (sic!) which is, again, not directly misogynist, but seems more concerned with maintaining a certain order as a whole.Thus, there will be those who will see that Anscombe's argument holds, namely that if contraceptive intercourse is all right then so are all forms of sexual activity. But, don't expect this to act as an argument against contraception. To them these other acts are perfectly permissible provided that's what people want to do. Those who have been termed "degenerate moderns" will conform truth to their desires rather than conforming their desires to the truth.
Not that I think one can just ignore misogyny here. But "not simply misogyny" seems reasonable.
Haven't read the second piece yet, but it seems to me that one might easily argue that the Catholic stance on contraception isn't rooted in "misogyny or fear of feminine sexuality, etc.," but that's what sustains it today.
And even the "not rooted" argument seems weak. Kotsko's description of Clement suggests that Clement has a pretty significant problem with feminine sexuality. The fact that he's also got a problem with masculine sexuality doesn't mitigate that.
I may lack the scholarly chops to make the argument, but it seems to me that Kotsko has the cause-and-effect backwards. Looks to me like the phenomena we now call misogyny and homophobia resulted in doctrines that stigmatized non-reproductive sex, not vice-versa.
7: Yes, I am compelled to admit this.
I believe most of the hardcore misogynists of the contemporary USA, whether of the MRA/Tom Leykis persuasion or the young earth baptist persuasion, are totally OK with contraception, so clearly something more than simple misogyny is necessary to explain the Catholic position on contraception, which is what Kotsko is trying to do, in an interesting way (though the comments point out some potential issues in the theological/historical account).
Yes, yes. Something more than simple misogyny is necessary to explain all misogyny, because there really is no such thing as simple misogyny, or simple anything else.
You want to lynch African Americans? That's not simple racism, because that behavior is inevitably a product of complicated historical circumstances.
Strange but true: Many racists share Obama's aversion to lynching.
I like the counterpoint, the quasi-musical form that ends This Chapter. I hadn't remembered the modernism
But his reputation?""What do I care about his reputation?"
"They say he doesn't like Obstacle Golf."
"They say, they say," mocked Lenina.
"And then he spends most of his time by himself-alone." There was horror in Fanny's voice.
....
"I once had to wait nearly four weeks before a girl I wanted would let me have her.""And you felt a strong emotion in consequence?"
"Horrible!"
"Horrible; precisely," said the Controller. "Our ancestors were so stupid and short-sighted that when the first reformers came along and offered to deliver them from those horrible emotions, they wouldn't have anything to do with them."
Look, I really don't have a lot of respect for those who base their analysis of social sexual controls in a Eurocentrism and anti-Catholicism. I could tell you things about Neo-Confucianism and Tokugawa Japan.
It's hopelessly shallow.
It's always hard to make arguments that cause-and-effect should be reversed from what the conventional wisdom believes. Especially when the conventional wisdom is that a supremely well-defined concept like "misogyny" is the "cause".
And a statement "Anybody opposed to socially forcing everybody to fuck like bunnies allday allnight is horribly misogynistic" is itself despicably essentialist and misogynistic.
Well, this was an unexpected post-stomp.
Also, the reason they don't like birth control is easy: it interfere's with God's punishment system. People are free to commit crimes, but God will punish the sinning sinners and their supple bodies pounding away, pant, pant. Separating Eve's punishment from Eve's body makes them crazy-angry.
12 Back in my grad student days when I would talk to students about the Holocaust and how Poles reacted, I remember some of them had a hard time understanding this and its flip side. That is, yes most Poles were anti-semitic to one degree or another. However, in terms of active reactions that had a lot less to do with things than what you might think - e.g. plenty of rabid anti-semites involved in helping Jews at the risk of their lives, and also that the primary motive for crimes against Jews wasn't racism, but that this was a group which you could rob, rape, or murder, not only with impunity but even get a reward for doing so.
Also, the reason they don't like birth control is easy: it interfere's with God's punishment system. People are free to commit crimes, but God will punish the sinning sinners and their supple bodies pounding away, pant, pant. Separating Eve's punishment from Eve's body makes them crazy-angry.
Reminds me of the frequent fundie objection to evolution: "If Genesis is wrong, there was no Original Sin. And if there was no Original Sin, then Christ's sacrifice was unnecessary."
Well, that's a good thing, right? Except for Jesus, I suppose. .
"If Genesis is wrong, there was no Original Sin. And if there was no Original Sin, then Christ's sacrifice was unnecessary."
Everything about that strikes me as the stupidest thing I have ever read in my life. Such stupidity can only be willful.
24. Not everything. The second sentence is logically consistent, if somewhat bizarre. The first sentence, of course, is vacuous.
For us to assess the necessity of reconciliation in Christ would constitute the sin of presumption.
25: I don't consider it at all obvious that the first sentence is true. Or its inverse, for that matter.