Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Dude Bussy Lmao's avatar

This is a fantastic article; I have always disliked the demand on the far left and right that we should basically treat women as not being fully adult and equally capable of making decisions as men are. I agree that it is wrong to try to use someone's personality flaws to manipulate them into making a choice they otherwise would not have (such as taking advantage of a woman's agreeableness to pressure her into sex). But I will never cross the line into believing that the women in question lacked the agency to consent.

I will at least give the rightoids credit that they are more upfront about wanting to treat women as children. The worst is when the leftoids demand that I treat women like children but that I also pretend that I'm treating them as strong and empowered, its infuriating 😫 just let me be a soy fucking lib and treat them as individuals with the same agency as any other mentally developed adult 😫😫😫

Expand full comment
Paul's avatar

I like this framing of the argument you're making. I agree that woman (and men) should have agency with their sexuality and people/government should permit their choice. I would posit that all uses of agency do not equally good (support individual and communal flourishing) and a conservative sexual ethic is superior when freely chosen.

Men (and by extension women) need rules of engagement: when is it acceptable to engage without social repercussions? How do I appropriately signal interest? etc. The rules of engagement accepted by the culture poses a trade off of risking/permitting collateral damage (rape/coercion/icks) and agency/social repression. My view is a moderately conservative sexual ethic allows agency by both the women and man in that both can freely enter adult relationships, but ties sexuality to some level of commitment creating an expectation that time is required to assess compatibility and sexual expectations. If those are the norms, men are incentived to build relationship to access sex which is in itself beneficial to all parties and society. You get clearer stigma on pushy and rapey men. As relationships tend to lead to more total sex, most people end up better off in terms of access to sex. The cost is patience and constraint but not a loss of agency.

Obviously there will always be hookup subcultures with sex as recreation outlooks. I don't think these should be destroyed, I just find them to be morally inferior norms as they create more collateral damage and less social stability.

Expand full comment
29 more comments...

No posts