October 26, 2015

This is absolutely boilerplate anti-choice rhetoric

and I am quite surprised at the number of people who seem unfamiliar with it!

Of course, it's usually spouted by people whose ancestors were never enslaved. To get a descendant of enslaved persons to put it out there - they must be beside themselves with the thrill.

It is part of the litany that includes the assertion that the only difference between a fetus and a human being is "location location location".

That difference is then, of course, dismissed as inconsequential. Inside a woman's body, inside a Toyota Corolla, it's all the same thing.

And, of course, the next thing we can expect from him (if it hasn't come already; I haven't kept careful track) is the tale about how Planned Parenthood is in the business of genocide, targetting African-Americans for extinction by abortion ...

October 25, 2015

I'm in my sixties

I have no difficulty at all "getting it".

You, unfortunately, don't seem to have "got" what either Wente or the author she was disagreeing with was saying, given that nothing you are saying appears to have anything at all to do with anything either of them said.

Just for future ref, dismissing someone's ideas and ascribing emotions to them based on their age, even someone right-wing and anti-feminist, is not really wise.

October 25, 2015

I find this an odd charge

"Bitterness"?

Wente was born in 1950 and at university by the late 60s. I assure you, we who were there had all the sex we wanted, whether that was none or nightly one-night stands.

Observing the sex lives of today's student-age population, I find little to be bitter about, myself, so I can't think what Wente would have. Much as I dislike what she had to say, I would not characterize it as you have.

Basically, she will hop on whatever horse is convenient, to take a charge at feminists and feminism. This is just the latest.

And again, to know what she is talking about, it is important to read the piece she is purporting to critique. Wente is not the originator of the bad-sex thesis she is critiquing; she is rejecting the thesis of the young feminist who wrote it:

http://nymag.com/thecut/2015/10/why-consensual-sex-can-still-be-bad.html?wpsrc=nymag

October 25, 2015

it's worth reading the piece that is Wente's subject

rather than just her slant on it. Coincidentally, I read it a few days ago.

http://nymag.com/thecut/2015/10/why-consensual-sex-can-still-be-bad.html?wpsrc=nymag

So it was only natural that when feminism was resurrected by young women creating a new movement, it was self-consciously sex friendly, insouciant in its approach to the signs and symbols of objectification. No one would ever mistake these feminists for humorless harridans or frigid dick-rejectors. But the underpinning philosophy had shifted slightly. Sex positivity was originally a term used to describe a theory of women, sex, and power; it advocated for any kind of sexual behavior — from kink to celibacy to conscious power play — that women might enjoy on their own terms and not on terms dictated by a misogynistic culture. Now it has become shorthand for a brand of feminism that was a cheerleader for, not a censor of, sex — all sex. Feminism’s sexual focus narrowed in on one issue: coercion and violence. Sex that took place without clear consent wasn’t even sex; it was rape.

In this line of thinking, sex after yes, sex without violence or coercion, is good. Sex is feminist. And empowered women are supposed to enjoy the hell out of it. In fact, Alexandra Brodsky, a Yale law student and founder of anti-rape organization Know Your IX, tells me that she has heard from women who feel that “not having a super-exciting, super-positive sex life is in some ways a political failure.”

Except that young women don’t always enjoy sex — and not because of any innately feminine psychological or physical condition. The hetero (and non-hetero, but, let’s face it, mostly hetero) sex on offer to young women is not of very high quality, for reasons having to do with youthful ineptitude and tenderness of hearts, sure, but also the fact that the game remains rigged.

It’s rigged in ways that go well beyond consent. Students I spoke to talked about “male sexual entitlement,” the expectation that male sexual needs take priority, with men presumed to take sex and women presumed to give it to them. They spoke of how men set the terms, host the parties, provide the alcohol, exert the influence. Male attention and approval remain the validating metric of female worth, and women are still (perhaps increasingly) expected to look and fuck like porn stars — plucked, smooth, their pleasure performed persuasively. Meanwhile, male climax remains the accepted finish of hetero encounters; a woman’s orgasm is still the elusive, optional bonus round. Then there are the double standards that continue to redound negatively to women: A woman in pursuit is loose or hard up; a man in pursuit is healthy and horny. A woman who says no is a prude or a cock tease; a man who says no is rejecting the woman in question. And now these sexual judgments cut in two directions: Young women feel that they are being judged either for having too much sex, or for not having enough, or enough good, sex. Finally, young people often have very drunk sex, which in theory means subpar sex for both parties, but which in practice is often worse (like, physically worse) for women.

Wente can maunder on about the innate nature of men and women all she likes, but unless and until those factors - yeah, the entitled men one and the sexist culture one - are eliminated, we do not have the conditions for an experiment to prove or disprove her thesis.