The next time you’re going to try and defend marital rape by suggesting that women should submit to sex even when they don’t want to or don’t feel like it, do a little reading on the subject first.
(Hat tip to Jesse@Pandagon and Melissa@Shakesville)
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FFS. He isn’t defending marital rape, he’s suggesting that women oblige their partners with sex even if they don’t feel like it. That’s a piece of debatable wisdom, especially from a guy who doesn’t seem to be able to stay married, but it’s nothing to do with marital rape.
Last night my wife was in the mood and I was tired, and instead of saying “geez, how about tomorrow” I said “ok!” We had fun. No big.
Prager’s a tool but the conflation of what he’s saying with the feminist caricature of what guys like him say is ridiculous.
“In Part II, I will explain in detail why mood should play little or no role in a woman’s determining whether she has sex with her husband.” et al.
What a sick fuck!
“A husband knows that his wife loves him first and foremost by her willingness to give her body to him”
Argh, this is disgusting. We gotta “Give” our bodies to them? Sex is about interchange, it’s not about one “giving” and the other “taking” or “possessing”. Why is that so difficult to understand?
And I get so so angry at people who say that, when something goes wrong in a relationship, it`s the woman’s fault! She’s not pleasing her husband right.
I wish there was a special black hole where we could throw assholes like this guy.
Dan: did you read the second link? I’d love to hear you explain the difference. Is it just that Prager tries to leave consent an out by saying “well ok, SOMETIMES you can say no?” That’s just a difference of degree.
Actual conversation with husband:
Me: Baby, do you know that I love you based on my willingness to give you my body?
Him: Um . . . no. (implied what?) There are other ways that I look to to know that you love me.
Me: Oh. Baby?
Him: Yeah?
Me: I’m sorry, but you’re apparently not a man. I hate to break it to you today, of all days, but I’m reading a column right now that explains it all.
I actually agree with Dan. If youre not “in the mood” frequently, maybe you should do it anyway because it is not fair on your partner to deny him or her sex. We’re are talking about spouses who are equals, mind you. Prager is totally wrong about the animal bit though. A lot of women complain that they do not get enough, and they are animals in precisely the same way as men are. Some people have strong sex drive, others have less. As long as the couple have the same expectations it should be fine.
Dan: Show just a little bit of critical thought before getting all exasperated. Here, I’ll help. Prager says that women should have sex with their husbands even if they aren’t in the mood. He is saying that the desire of the woman ought to play “little or no role” in the decision making process about sex. He is saying that the way a woman proves her love is by having sex. He is further saying that this is their holy obligation. Prager says these things with the idea that women are commanded by the lord of the universe to submit to their husbands.
Now, I suppose one could give Prager the benefit of the doubt and not read into that combination at all. We could take him at his word and attend only to the manifest content of his statements. We could assume that, despite being a tool, he isn’t actually defending rape. Which would be true because, after all, its not rape if God commands it now, is it? Its just restoring the natural order of things. Just like gay marriage isn’t about hating gay people, its about protecting straight marriage, right?.
See, the rub here is that men and women can choose to have sex with their partners even if they aren’t particularly interested and thats perfectly ok, but that isn’t what Prager is talking about. Prager is running a con, he’s using misdirection by tying together two unrelated concepts. The situation you described with your wife was fine because you had a choice, you chose to have sex with her. Prager is arguing that a man is entitled to sex with his wife regardless of her desire. That takes consent out of the picture in any meaningful sense. Sex without consent is rape.
“2. If this is true, men really are animals.
Correct.”
Ah. So I’m wondering why they’re still roaming the streets and, like, running our countries and economies and businesses rather than locked up in cages like most creatures that are harmful to people.
What a f’n douche. I just … cannot overstate the douche-ness. Also, I love creepy old white guys attempting to give sex advice and thinking women should actually listen to them.
Or, you know, read this account of marital rape by my mother: http://judith.livejournal.com/2007/09/05/
(trigger warning)
PS – Regarding “men really are animals.” Animals are better than most men. AND – I can tell you with certainty that abuse towards women, towards children, and towards animals is LINKED.)
What Mr. Prager is forgetting that for a lot of men, sex = power = control, and that they don’t give a damn if their wives are in the mood, have a medical condition, are exhausted from work and looking after the kids, are repulsed by their men refusing to bathe, use deodorant, or brush their teeth, find sex painful because their husbands are lousy lovers, or find the sex act their husband wishes them to perform degrading or unappealing. They want to shove it in NOW, and if the little woman doesn’t like it, it means she’s a bitch.
No wonder Mr. Prager has been divorced. No compassion, and no sense whatsoever that maybe, just maybe, sex is a mutual act.
I think someone needs to give me money to study the correlation between women not being in the mood and being married to asshats like Prager.
It’s science, dammit!!!
Um..did anyone take a gander at the first reply? It seemed like the responder was reading from a “pray the gay away” pamphlet…..
Actual conversation with my husband
Me: Listen to this BS [reads part of column]
Husband: what? sounds like the neanderthals I work with (he’s in IT)
Me: you know, I think people who write such stuff have a hard time getting laid,
Husband: yeah, like the neanderthals I work with….
I agree with Dan in Denver, actually. There’s a difference between rape – a situation where a woman’s wishes are being completely ignored – and a situation where a woman makes the choice to say yes even though she’s not really in the mood. Prager is trying to convince women to give consent; he’s not saying their consent isn’t necessary. If he believed that he wouldn’t be addressing women at all, only their husbands.
Upon further reflection I see where I’m wrong. I think the problem I (and maybe Dan in Denver) are having is that we’re thinking about these specific instances of saying yes when you’re not really in the mood in the context of a generally egalitarian relationship. I can’t even remember those times when I went ahead and said yes even though I wasn’t entirely in the mood, and that to me makes it absurd to equate those experiences with rape. It’s just not a big deal to me.
That being said, I think what Hasidic Feminist talks about IS rape, but it goes beyond those individual instances where a woman does or does not say yes. It’s about a larger culture where women are taught to view and value themselves a certain way, and I can see how Prager’s arguments do what Hasidic Feminist’s Kallah teacher did. These words create a world where women feel they have no choice at all – say no and you piss off God and risk destroying your marriage – and THAT most definitely is rape.
Yeah, I guess something like respect wouldn’t figure into Prager’s line of thought, if he has anything resembling thought and women in that head of his.
Ugh, seriously, men are animals? Dammit, I am not a stupid moron lead by my hormones and a hunk of meat between my legs. I am a grown, responsible ADULT who respects women and their FREEDOM of CHOICE.
If I am lucky to be with a woman in a relationship, and this situation arises, we will respect one another’s choices, because in a relationship, RESPECT is on equal level with love.
As the Great Gazoo would say” “What a dumb dumb.”
I just love the anti-feminist’s attempts at logic. Thank God there’s a, well, “God” to bail them out of their own contradictions and baseless assumptions.
this reminds me of nutcase phylis schafly
http://queersunited.blogspot.com
I don’t think Prager forgot that. In fact, he specifically said that his column only applies to women married to good men. I presume that means who who do respect their wives. And also this:
Nowhere does Prager say or imply that husbands may force sex on their wives. He’s talking about women should do, not what they may be forced to do. That’s a BIG difference.
Holly, I get that you disagree with Prager’s approach to marital sex (and I do too) but it’s a far cry from rape. Try, ya know, arguing with him instead of calling him a rape apologist asshole.
Jared and Dan in Denver:
So he isn’t saying it’s ok to straight up rape women, but he is using pressuring and coercion to get women to sleep with their husbands when they don’t want to. That is a part of the pattern of marital rape. He is also placing women in a subordinate position to men who are “animals” which implies that they can’t control themselves the way more “human” women can. These points are used in the defense of rapists quite often.
Ugh, why did I even look? Those creepy, brainwashed christofascists at Townhall are just the most evil people on the planet.
Apparently SOMEONE needs to go to High School. Most animals mate only at certain specific times of the year/month, especially the animals most similar to us, such as higher primates, mammals, and birds. Humans are somewhat unusual in our mating and fertility cycles.
Many female animals can–and do–reject male suitors for multiple of reasons, to the fact the suitor didn’t try hard enough (or beg) for her, he didn’t fight for her, he’s too small, too weak, too aggressive, not aggressive enough… and sometimes, because she just doesn’t fuckin’ feel like it.
Bonobos are the closest related ape to humans (yes, more than chimps). They regularly engage in sex– and the female orgasms every single time. They’re never forced, or coerced with fruit, or threatened that they’ll get kicked out of the bonobo tribe if they don’t give it up. And they also have sex with different and same gender fellow bonobos. For pleasure, not duty.
really Dan & Jared? You see no connection between coercion through fear of being left alone (and without an income in their “traditional” family set-up) and rape? Really? I. do. not. believe. you.
If you are seriously trying to engage, think about it again. Think about telling women that God himself wants them to “submit” and ignore their own needs and “give their bodies.” Can you even imagine someone telling you (as a male) to give your body to someone? No you fucking cannot, because no-one ever will. So think harder before you pop off about sharing sexuality when you are not in the mood. There is no comparison for a male in our culture who grits his teeth and tries to find the mood and a woman who has been convinced through fear and loathing that her body does not even belong to her.
I can’t be bothered to read all (or any) of Prager’s tedious buffoonery, but could someone clue me in as to whether he, at the very least, offered a coin-flip to see if wives should submit to their husbands in a given instance of disinterest.
Or is this all a big ol’ lecture to the wimmenfolk?
You know what…nevermind.
Oh, and opening with “Hey jerkface” was totally and awesomely appropriate.
Men are animals, eh? A hundred years ago, a Bengali feminist named Rokeya Hossein took that to its logical end. We don’t let wild animals loose in the streets, do we? Of course not! We put them in cages! And we don’t hide in our houses because there are criminals out — we get the police to put them in jail!
If men really are the uncontrollable beasts that this jerk says they are, why are they allowed free in public? And why would you ever want to marry one?
Sounds like someone is just looking for an excuse to keep his privilege.
That whole article made me so angry. The sexism, the “men are animals” defence, argh.
William already pointed out the difference between women occasionally choosing to have sex when they aren’t in the mood and women being expected to submit to her husband as often as he likes. But none of the people defending the article seem to have thought about the possibility of communication and compromise. I have a higher sex drive than my boyfriend (yes Prager, it is possible), and yes, while consciously I knew it wasn’t true, him not being in the mood sometimes felt like a rejection. But guess what? I told him how I felt, he told me how he felt, and we found alternative ways to approach sex that made us both happy. Nobody had to submit to anything or “give their bodies” or put up with anything they didn’t want to, and we came away closer and knowing more about each other.
What Mr. Prager is forgetting that for a lot of men, sex = power = control, and that they don’t give a damn if their wives are in the mood, have a medical condition, are exhausted from work and looking after the kids, are repulsed by their men refusing to bathe, use deodorant, or brush their teeth, find sex painful because their husbands are lousy lovers, or find the sex act their husband wishes them to perform degrading or unappealing.
**
I don’t think Prager forgot that. In fact, he specifically said that his column only applies to women married to good men. I presume that means who who do respect their wives. And also this:
Of course, there are times when a man must simply refrain from initiating sex out of concern for his wife’s physical or emotional condition. And then there are men for whom sex rarely has anything to do with making love or whose frequency of demands are excessive.
**
Nowhere does Prager say or imply that husbands may force sex on their wives. He’s talking about women should do, not what they may be forced to do. That’s a BIG difference.
Holly, I get that you disagree with Prager’s approach to marital sex (and I do too) but it’s a far cry from rape. Try, ya know, arguing with him instead of calling him a rape apologist asshole.
Try living with it, Dan. Try living with a “good man” who insists on sex when and where HE wants it, not when both of you are in the mood. Try saying “no” or “hang on, wait a minute” in the middle of foreplay when he suddenly decides that he wants to recreate something he’s seen in a porn loop without warning you. Just try it.
And then try to tell the likes of Dennis Prager, who has all the rationality and taste of a rabid dog. Somehow I don’t think he’ll listen or care.
I dare you.
If you are married to your hubby,
Whether he’s smelly, fat, or chubby,
You have made a commitment, ladies,
Like a tax cut from the Reagan Eighties!
If a husband and wife contracept,
In bed they will not be that adept,
Because between his parts and hers,
A sad little barrier there occurs.
And if a man and woman don’t “Screw,”
Their marriage will melt like honeydew.
But if each night they remember to make love,
They will fit together like a hand and a glove.
So instead of going out to bars,
Boozing it up ‘stead of gazing at the stars,
And playing games at your bachelorette party,
Like “Take the bottle filled with beer,
Drink it up and then put it up your rear,”
Stay home with your hubby and be prolific,
Love him and give him everything terrific!
You’ll find that it’s much more fun to wake up,
And see your newborn smiling pup,
Then to wake up after a long night in the pub,
And see a strange man and not a baby bub!
Conversation with hubbie:
me: how do you know I love you?
hubbie: you always put exactly the right amount of ice in my glass, pour the soda, wait for the fizz to go down and then pour the rest.
me: really?
hubbie: you always make sure my favorite jammie pants are clean.
me: oh?
hubbie: and in the winter, you give them to me directly out of the dryer, when they’re still warm.
me: huh.
hubbie: that’s love. warm jammie pants and just the right amount of ice.
me: *sniffles*
Who’s talking about “insisting” on sex? I think you’re reading a stereotype into Prager. You assume he means a certain kind of guy and impute onto him what you don’t like. Problem is, that’s not what he says.
“Every man who is sexually faithful to his wife already engages in daily heroic self-control.”
oh, thank god for you, heroes! Let me show my appreciation for those heroics by giving my body to you.
*puke*
“Prager is trying to convince women to give consent;”
Then, by it’s very nature, it’s not consent. What’s so hard to understand?
“He’s talking about women should do, not what they may be forced to do. That’s a BIG difference. ”
Have people completely bypassed Feminism 101 around here? Crap.
If there is a “should” there are ramifications for not obeying the “should”. Figure those out first and then come back here and make excuses for the fucknecks that feel entitled to rape their wives. Moreso, if you are a man, you don’t get to fucking dictate what “force” means. You don’t get to tell us that getting fucked by a “loved” one when we aren’t aroused, are sick, are emotionally incapable of sex, etc., is a “should”. Who benefits from that? Women? Hardly. You might not want to call it rape, because if you did, you might have to call yourself a rapist. I understand that, but that’s *YOUR* problem, not ours.
This is the same man that thinks only gay men can truly understand women:
Apparently, he feels that most heterosexual men have no idea how to interact with their mates unless someone lays down the basics, word for word, line for line. With social ineptitude like that, it’s no wonder he has been divorced twice already. In spite of this, he thinks he’s a fount of wisdom for the rest of us.
okay, many multiple posts, but I’m pissed.
“Try, ya know, arguing with him instead of calling him a rape apologist asshole.”
How can you “argue” with a man who insists that all women should submit to men? How, exactly, does that play out?
Oh, wait. IT FUCKING DOESN’T.
that’s why men want women to submit, dumbshit. You’re sitting here thinking that this is about a mutual experience of marital sex. It isn’t even remotely about sex. It’s about using sex as the primary tool of control. It’s about catch 22′s and backtracking and doubling up, all to hide men’s social/psychological need to control women.
This is what it looks like: hey, you’re born a woman. Great! Already you’re going to make less money than your male counterparts when you grow up. You’re likely to get pregnant because birthcontrol options kinda suck and aren’t as readily available as women need (because teh menz are making misogynistic health care decisions for you), and abortion is rare and difficult to obtain. Childcare, once you have your baby is crappy and expensive – and again, you make less than your male counterparts. Sooooo…. you decide to marry. Maybe you even do this *before* you get pregnant, because you realize the economically, you’re worth more as a wife than as an independent woman. It sucks, but that’s reality. So, the price of being worth more just happens to be this crappy sticking point of no longer having complete control over what happens to your body (although, for most women this also happens if you are single, see above about the birthcontrol issue). So, at the very basic bottom line of economic survival, your “choice” and your “consent” don’t mean jack shit. They will never, if you are a woman, equal what “choice” and “consent” equal for men. Never.
So, all you defenders of this crap, tell me, please, what the woman gets out of “submission”? Your answer should be enough to verify what I’ve said. And it should tell you the true nature of that “submission”. Shit, if you had enough reasoning skills you’d realize that it’s impossible to submit to someone who already has control over you or who is already socially dominant over you.
That isn’t submission, that’s survival.
Wake up dudes.
Oh, that Prager quote comes from here, by the way.
Between this guy and Warren, it’s no wonder the U.S. marriage rate is dropping.
Yeah, moral ramifications – not force. E.g., “one should treat others with respect.” That’s an ethical imperative. The consequences are ethical. Nobody “forces” you to respect others; it’s just part of being a moral person.
Why not? Because I have a penis, I cannot comprehend such concepts as “consent” and “coercion”? Really? No. I do get it.
The article we’re discussing is about a mutual experience of martial sex. Prager says so explicitly! I’m trying to figure out what article you’re reading? Do you think Prager’s writing in some sexist code that I just don’t know about?
“The article we’re discussing is about a mutual experience of martial sex.”
Which is impossible if one of the partners has to always be the one to submit. Submission, by it’s nature, is NOT a mutual experience. Shit on a cracker son, it’s not that difficult to see that. Which is why you don’t get to define consent, etc., for women.
What happnes in Prager’s scenario when the wife doesn’t submit? Where is her incentive? Why submit to painful intercourse without an incentive? Just for shits and giggles? I think not.
Why do you assume it wouldn’t work both ways?
Jared: Did you read what he wrote? Fuck. I hate getting into it with you dudes who fail to read beforehand.
Have you read any conservative Christian dogma about wifely submission? Have you read the Bible? Have you read any feminist theory?
I didn’t think so.
Why don’t you let the adults finish this conversation, ‘kay?
We don’t, Jared. Implicit in Prager’s noxious screed is the concept that sex is something men do to women, and not the mutual experience it is supposed to be. No claims of “mutuality” can disguise the reality that Prager is telling women it is their duty to submit to sex they will not enjoy and do not wish to engage in.
There is nothing “mutual” about one-sided sex.
So here’s what gets me. If the argument is that women should say “yes” when they want to have sex and “yes” when they DON’T want to have sex, then consent has just been nullified.
My big question for Prager (and everyone singing his apologist praises) is “Why do you want to have sex with unwilling partners?”
My secondary questions are “Is female submission required to get you off?” “Wouldn’t you rather fuck someone who’s into it?” “Can you tell the difference between someone who is actually into you and someone who is ‘giving you their body’ because they think they have to?”
Also…ick.
“Why do you assume it wouldn’t work both ways?”
Why would you assume it WOULD, when he only writes about women submitting to men? Assuming it works both ways is reading something that isn’t there.
Jared, why do you want to have sex with your partner when they don’t want to? What do you get out of it?
Please explain that to me.
And please don’t say “Well, we’re talking about the article, not me!” because you’re defending the article. And the article states that women should have sex with their husbands even when they don’t want to. You’re defending it, which means that you agree with it. You also clarified that the article says women “should” have sex when they don’t want to, with their husbands, and that this is an ethical imperative. It’s part of “being a moral person,” i.e. a good person.
So, why do you want to have sex with people who don’t want to have sex, and why do you think they’re bad people if they don’t have sex with you according to your whims, and not their own desire?
I only like to have sex with people who actually want to have sex with me, when we both want to have sex. Can you explain to me what’s so great about fucking people who don’t want to, can’t, are in pain, are upset, or don’t like it? Why are you defending it? What do you get out of it?
Jared, why do you want to have sex with your partner when they don’t want to? What do you get out of it?
Along the same lines, Jared…why is it good and healthy for women to have sex they do not enjoy or want?
Been married for thirty years, and we are not talking about those times when we wives lovingly engage despite our lack of immediate desire. I can certainly understand the willing “sharing” [as opposed to giving] of physical intimacy knowing that the Big O was simply not going to happen, but secure that the condition would not be chronic, and happy to care for the Hubster’s comfort and desire.
We’re talking about the concept of one-sided sex as “duty,” and not the mutual enjoyment of one another.
Yeah, moral ramifications – not force. E.g., “one should treat others with respect.” That’s an ethical imperative. The consequences are ethical. Nobody “forces” you to respect others; it’s just part of being a moral person.
Like others, I’m wondering if you’ve actually read the article. There’s a lot more said than simply “maybe you should have sex sometimes when you don’t feel like it to keep your relationship running smoothly”. There’s a whole load of sexism going on, implicitly and explicitly: Men are animals, therefore it’s fine for them to expect sex when their wife doesn’t want it. Women aren’t really sexual beings, but it’s their wifely duty to spread ‘em when the dude wants it. Oh, and never mind the fact that it can be bloody painful to have something shoved up there when you aren’t in the mood.
In a completely egalitarian social context, where there was no expectation of half the population to be submissive and half to be aggressive, it might be okay to suggest that someone have sex when they aren’t in the mood. In that context, it would just be a suggestion that you could take or leave. In our context, it’s a social imperative backed by millennia of domination of women by men. Nobody forces a woman to subscribe to punitive standards of beauty, but there’s shame and self-hatred and ridicule in the offing for her if she doesn’t. Nobody forced me to have years of unenjoyable and sometimes painful sex, but because dominant culture defines sex in male-centric terms which I couldn’t think outside, I thought I was a prude for not enjoying it and kept doing it to keep my boyfriend happy. Nobody forces women to continually submit to their “animal” partners during sex — oh, other than the dominant culture that repeatedly drums into them that they aren’t doing their duty, they aren’t feminine, and they should be ashamed if they try asserting what they want for a change.
Heh. Turns out this guy thinks he knows all about women, so I suppose it makes sense that he’s completely neglected to even mention women’s feelings in an article about how they should submit to their husbands.
From the piece I linked (about the reasons women are depressed):
As one who regularly talks to women, and about men and women, on my radio show and who has informally counseled women of all ages, I would like to offer some explanations that may run counter to currently acceptable ones, but which should shed light on the subject.
I talk to women a lot, I mean LOADS, so of course I know what they want better than they do!
(Predictably, he says women are depressed because of feminism. Nothing like a movement that champions women’s voices to deprive women of what they really want!)
I think Praeger is implicitly pro marital rape. No-one really needs to say anything for the usual give and take of relationships. Praeger, however, wasn’t really talking to women. It’s a classic example of a type of speech where a _x_’ist speaks to his or her target group, but the dialogue isn’t with that target group, but their fellows. If I were Warren, I could try to “convince” gay people that they live in sin and are comparable to pederasts and goat-lovin’. No gay person really listens to that, but Warren’s fellow conservative evangelicals certainly do. Same with Praeger.
Praeger is trying to set expectations of men, not women. The whole “animal” thing? What do you think that statement is for besides give men a reason to not listen to moral logic? A reason to rape?
“I’m sorry, honey–I lost control and raped you! I just wasn’t getting enough and I flew into a rage and took what I neeeeeeed!”
Praeger talks in the way he does such that it’s difficult, somewhat, to accuse him of saying what he means.
So basically, if your husband has more emotional development than a toddler and greater interpersonal acuity than your dumbest pet, you’re secretly married to a chick and your relationship is no longer valid anywhere but Massachusetts, New York, and Canada.
What Shah8 said. Prager is attempting not to show his work, yes. And it’s because when you really diagram the unequal social pressures here, you end up saying some explicitly nasty things. The problem Prager wants you all to ignore is this:
Even by Prager’s ostensible standards, a “good” man would not fuck his wife if she were not interested. A “good” man would much prefer enthusiastic participation and joyful, affectionate contact to the sexual equivalent of your turn to do the dishes. And–as many married/partnered commenters have pointed out–there’s a world of difference between providing orgasms along with clean dishes and clean toilets, and making love to your partner because you enjoy that, too. The former is a chore. The latter is a gift, and a shared activity, and part of a reciprocal arrangement. The former requires two bodies. The latter requires two people. Two happy people.
In other words, a “good” man would not make demands beyond his wife’s genuine desire for physical contact. He would find anything else repulsive. Downright scrotum-shrivelling. He wouldn’t want her more forbearing or less honest or better trained, because he’s not an asshole.
But Prager is saying that, somehow, men who want their wives to give in and give it up should still be thought of as “good” men. This means that his standard for husbandly kindness and wifely charity is a double one. And that even if he is not explicitly apologizing for marital rape, he is defending a marital morality that is anything but respectful of or fair to women.
It’s not a hideous idea for a couple to engage in relations when one is in the mood more than the other. After all, that’s likely to be the case some of the time with gay or straight couples. What’s most hideous about Prager is not the “give it a shot” pep talk, though his approach is pretty retrograde, but his shameless special pleading for men as “heroic” for, I don’t know, not trying to hump the random Starbucks barista? Or claiming that men both perceive love primarily from sex and actually don’t love without the sex? I thought the bullshit stereotype was that WOMEN conflated sex and love, right?
Prager the moralist is giving retrograde men (i.e. the Town Hall base) a pass for being retrograde assholes including an attitude of privilege and presumption about their wives’ sexuality. This sort of attitude promotes rape in the extreme case, but is offensive in any case. That’s why I cannot give Prager the “not guilty” that I was going to before I read shah8′s persuasive comment above.
“I thought the bullshit stereotype was that WOMEN conflated sex and love, right?”
I think the bouncing ball we’re supposed to follow is:
1) Men will fuck anything that will hold still for it, including shopping carts on a sufficiently steep incline.
2) Everybody knows this.
3) Because women know that men attach so little importance to the act of fucking something, they do not conclude anything in particular about a man wanting to fuck them or actually doing so.
4) Women don’t like to fuck.
5) If a woman lets you fuck her, clearly it’s because she loves you.
6) Everybody knows this.
7) Because men know that women do not like to fuck, they also know that it is a Very Important Thing if she’s willing to let you fuck her. They don’t attach any particular importance to the act of them fucking the woman, but they attach a great deal of importance to the woman letting herself be fucked.
8) Women are shocked to find out that men interpret women’s willingness, or lack thereof, to be fucked as a barometer of a woman’s individual love for a man.
9) ???
10) Happy marriage!
So it’s not that the dude’s saying that men conflate sex with love. He’s saying that men conflate love with their wife’s willingness to do things she doesn’t want solely to please him. There’s supposed to be an inverse relationship between her pleasure and his experience of love.
i am so ungodly sick of the idea that sex is something men do TO women, and something women get done TO them.
sex should be a mutual activity, people. geez.
and don’t even get me started on the idea that, if you want your wife to have sex with you when you aren’t in the mood, you are implying that YOU ENJOY HAVING SEX with someone who does not want to have sex with you, and that calls up a whole host of nasty implications about your character.
sorry – when she isn’t in the mood. typo.
Jared:
Because I have a penis, I cannot comprehend such concepts as “consent” and “coercion”? Really? No. I do get it.
No, because the coercing partner is not the one who gets to define coercion, for reasons that should be obvious to a toddler.
I think the mistake you’re making is comparing this with the fairy-tale, best-of-all-possible worlds situation: lots of joyous mutual sex in a loving marriage. Of course everyone would rather that happen, but that’s not really an option for a lot of people.
I know no-one grows up wanting to end up in an unhappy marriage, having sex only because of the fear of being abandoned and left alone. It’s not the stuff dreams are made of. But many people do prefer it to the alternative of actually being abandoned and left alone. There are situations people find worse than having desire-less sex, and if having desire-less sex helps avoid them, then it’s an improvement.
What’s most hideous about Prager is … his shameless special pleading for men as “heroic” for, I don’t know, not trying to hump the random Starbucks barista?
These guys are in kind of a double bind. Their partners (A) don’t want sex, but (B) want to continue the relationship. That’s not an easy thing to be asked for. If I found myself in a relationship where my partner said ‘I’m physically repulsed by you and can’t bear you touching me sexually, but I’d rather like to carry on with the other parts of the relationship I enjoy’ – I’d tell them to fuck right off and leave. Being in that situation must be soul destroying. I can see where Prager’s coming from. These guys aren’t benefiting from staying in a relationship with women who hate having sex with them, it’s not as if their wives are doing them the favour. And to put up with it and continue the marriage in order that their wives are happy, well I think it’s contemptible, but I can see why others could see it as ‘self-sacrifice’.
What on earth makes you think that’s what we’re discussing? The far more common situation is one where the woman still wants to have sex, just not nearly as often as her husband would like her to (whether because she’s tired and stressed or just because she has a lower libido than her husband). Also, if you’d actually read the article you’d see the “heroic self control” doesn’t refer to a man who stays faithful to a wife who won’t have sex with him, but refers to every single man who stays faithful to a woman, even one whose wife never refuses him, because “men have an instinctive need for variety”.
I know no-one grows up wanting to end up in an unhappy marriage, having sex only because of the fear of being abandoned and left alone. It’s not the stuff dreams are made of. But many people do prefer it to the alternative of actually being abandoned and left alone. There are situations people find worse than having desire-less sex, and if having desire-less sex helps avoid them, then it’s an improvement.
But that’s not what Prager’s saying. He’s not saying that maybe having “desire-less” sex could help, and you should consider it as an option. He’s saying that it’s women’s duty to submit to their husbands when they don’t want sex. He’s not interested in giving women a choice about whether to do so at all.
“The article we’re discussing is about a mutual experience of martial sex. ”
Freudianest. Slip. Evah.
What on earth makes you think that’s what we’re discussing? The far more common situation is one where the woman still wants to have sex, just not nearly as often as her husband would like her to (whether because she’s tired and stressed or just because she has a lower libido than her husband).
Or because he doesn’t know how to get her off. Guys who think of sex as something the woman puts up with might not be that good at it, either. Even aside from technique, that’s not an attitude that would help a partner have an orgasm. Prager’s telling women that they should ignore things like stress, exhaustion, and just plain disinterest: a good way to turn a low libido into a comatose one.
Not that female sexual pleasure matters, of course. Women need to be kept comfortable at best, and only so they don’t cut their losses. It’s men who need to be catered to.
Oh Good Heavens, Preying Mantis…I got that Prager was trotting out the classics in his defense of manly entitlements…but I had not considered that he was putting forth so completely warped an understanding of how husbands experience love.
My skin is crawling.
Is there any way I could persuade you to clean this up abit (“fuck” is not allowed) and then post it over at Townhall? Pretty please?
“Is there any way I could persuade you to clean this up abit (”fuck” is not allowed) and then post it over at Townhall? Pretty please?”
I don’t do Townhall, cesspit that it is, but if you want to swap “give themselves” for “fuck” and repost it over there, you have my permission.
No go…apparently comments are suspended.
But you have raised a lively discussion, preying mantis. The kids are carrying your analysis to the conclusion that men, consciously or not, consider sexual pleasure the provenance of the male. If women get some spillover in the process, swell…but female pleasure certainly is not necessary.
“The kids are carrying your analysis to the conclusion that men, consciously or not, consider sexual pleasure the provenance of the male.”
I think the mindset that sort of belief system grows out of spills over into a lot of other areas. The people who hold it tend to be pretty deeply fucked up. Their enjoyment of an achievement or possession or experience isn’t just tied to the objective thing itself but also to it being had at someone else’s expense. Their ice cream wouldn’t taste as good if there weren’t people starving, their promotion wouldn’t be as satisfying if they hadn’t beat out others to get it, and their orgasms wouldn’t be as strong if they weren’t somehow conquering their partners.
It’s just a little bit clearer when it comes to sex, I think, because of the way society frames male-female relations. The men who think this way are encouraged to do so, and to think that doing so is normal, so they’re more prone to just saying that it’s not really about the sex act, but that their partner would deny them anything, that gets their boxers in a bunch. They don’t necessarily want it. If they had a partner who was into it, they might never actually engage in it. But the idea that there are things to which she would not agree (fellatio, anal sex, vaginal sex on demand, etc.) drives them into a tizzy. They feel just as deprived and resentful as if they’d actually had an interaction with a negative outcome. Their desire for it is sharpened by the fact that they can’t, or imagine that they might not be able to, have it.
On top of that, once it gets to marriage, insult is added to the deep injury that is not being allowed to fuck at will by it being the wife who gets to say when and how the fucking occurs. The wife having veto power over the husband’s ability to use his dick however and wherever he sees fit flies in the face of everything these men tend to believe about how marriage is supposed to work, so we have this giant stampede to the bully pulpit to make sure wives don’t exercise the power or, preferably, even realize that they have it.
The cultural baggage of imagining wifedom as a very special sort of martyrdom, with the husband recast in the role of the god and the wife as the saint whose demonstrated virtue is proportional to her suffering, really doesn’t help when it comes to recognizing and avoiding these sorts of miserable pricks.
From the (revolting) comment thread over there:
BTW-what would you say about a woman married to a man with a high six-figure income, completely faithful, generous, does housework, takes equal care of the kids (even in the middle of the night) but gives nothing in return?
That pretty much sums up that attitude to marriage. Men being faithful, generous, doing housework and half the childcare is something deserving of not only reward and gratitude, but reward and gratitude on the part of the wife to the extent where her own bodily integrity and enjoyment are completely irrelevant. Conversely, a woman who is faithful, generous, and does housework and half the childcare is giving “nothing” to her marriage and better hurry up and put out as well, even if doing so would not be an enjoyable experience for her.
Ugh.
I just kept wondering why he didn’t suggest that the husband actually DO something to make sex an interesting prospect. Like… not sucking in bed? Or helping out more around the house, so that she’s less tired when she hits the sheets? Maybe communicating more would help?
Surely, lying back and thinking of the Queen isn’t the best thing modern man can come up with?
This dude’s head is really far up his ass. The pop-up ad for the new Ann Coulter book really added to my reading experience as well.
Weejit- I really enjoyed your long explanation way back in the middle of the thread. A lot of people here have made some great points, and it’s funny how the trolls suddenly disappeared when feminists called them on their bullshit. Unless a moderator banned them, I don’t know.
Surely, lying back and thinking of the Queen isn’t the best thing modern man can come up with?
Actually, fantasizing about Helen Mirren could probably help spice up a lot of marriages. But I don’t think that’s what Prager’s suggesting.
Other commenters–and the original poster! (waves at Holly)–have gone over and over the double standard here, so I dunno if I’m adding anything new. But this is the misogynist definition of marital sexual function: the wife’s chore to succeed or fail at. Male virility can never be questioned either as a focus of sex or in the stud’s individual quiver. This means that his demands can never be characterized as selfish: the marriage should revolve around him, and so should its emotional dial.
Dennis is suggesting that letting your mood determine everything might not be the best idea. Especially of you are often ‘not in the mood’.
How this applies to sex is controversial.
But more generally we should not let moods determine how we go about our daily lives.
Imagine:
Am I in the mood to go to work today?
No.
Am I in the mood to pay taxes?
No.
Am I in the mood to do half of the house work?
No.
Really. To say that Prager is defending rape is nothing more than a slander.
He is instead making the simple point that more factors than just mood ought to be taken into consideration when a woman makes her decision – and there is no doubt that he thinks it is her decision – on whether to engage in sex with her husband.
Imagine:
Am I in the mood to go to work today?
No.
Am I in the mood to pay taxes?
No.
Am I in the mood to do half of the house work?
No.
Sex is only comparable to these things if you think sex is part of a woman’s duty (as bringing home the bread, paying taxes and doing housework are duties) to her husband, rather than a recreational activity that she should enjoy, too. Which is exactly the mindset that the comments here have been arguing against. Read them.
He is instead making the simple point that more factors than just mood ought to be taken into consideration when a woman makes her decision – and there is no doubt that he thinks it is her decision – on whether to engage in sex with her husband.
No, he’s not. He’s saying mood should never be a factor and that a “wise” woman rarely “denies” her husband sex. She has a choice, sure, but it’s not much of a choice if she’s going to be demonised as a bad, cruel and unfeminine wife (yes, Prager does say all these things) if she ever chooses to privilege her own feelings over her husband’s.
Gee, I wonder why these cretins have such unfulfilling sex lives.
Unequal sex drives? MUST be a “problem” with the woman – never the man. He certainly should not take a look in the mirror and ask himself WHY his partner doesn’t want to have sex with him. Though I guess the woman’s sexual desires and emotional needs don’t matter much to these people. After all, women don’t really want sex, they just use their pussies to get the stuff they’re truly after.
Hint: If none of the women you’ve been with don’t seem to want sex, the common denominator might just be YOU!
@Fran
I don NOT believe sex is a duty.
Nor is a duty of a person to get up in the middle of the night and pick up the spouse at the airport or at the train station if the spouse is getting home from some trip. Perhaps one is not in the mood for that. One would rather sleep, but one does it anyway.
Sometimes we do things for each other, even though we are not in the mood and we are not obliged to do so.
To call this marital rape seems exaggerated to me, but I guess it comes down to the definition of the word.
To me the important thing is that the person, man or woman, has the choice to say no – REGARDLESS of the mood the person is in. If the choice is determined by mood, then there really is no free choice anyway.
As a libertarian I will argue that choice is more important than mood.
Simply put, sex should never be an unpleasant task that you feel like you should do even if you don’t want to. It just shouldn’t, because enthusiastic consent is vital to any kind of sex worth having. As soon as you depart from enthusiastic consent, you are heading towards the area of rape. And yes, I do believe there is a grey area, as there is with so many things, since the world isn’t built in black and white. But WHY would you even want to head deliberately into that grey area — why? Is it really worth it to steer your ethical rudder that way? Are there no alternatives? Of course there are.
If you are building your sex life on the idea that it’s an unpleasant but necessary task like going to pick someone up at the train station in the middle of the night, there is something gravely wrong with your sex life, and you should probably reassess what you’re doing.
There are SO many other options for dealing with a sex life where enthusiastic consent seems difficult or impossible to reach. SO many options. “Just grin and bear it even though you don’t want to, like an unpleasant chore” should never be one of them.
This also still begs the question of why ANYONE would ever want to have sex with someone who doesn’t really want to have sex. If you actually get off on that or in spite of it, then there may be something wrong with you as well. Nobody, regardless of gender, should be treating their sex partners like animatronic blow-up dolls where it doesn’t really matter how enthusiastic and engaged they are.
I don NOT believe sex is a duty…As a libertarian I will argue that choice is more important than mood.
Then what’s your point? No-one here is saying that women should not have the choice to have sex when they aren’t in the mood. We are criticising the idea that sex should be a duty, which is what Prager thinks.
Also, what Holly said.
Having lived with a man who basically demanded I have sex with him whenever HE wanted, not carying what *I* wanted, I find this disgusting, and the comments defending this disgusting man.
I think in a relationship there must be some mutual accommodation.
Some middle ground.
The idea, that all sex, except that which is enthusiastically consented to, is rape, is too absolutist for me.
If partners are generally getting along and are helpful to each other, I cannot – to the best of my ability – see the problem in putting out once in a while even when one would rather watch TV.
Imagine a situation in which the man is helpful and considerate. He takes care of the home. He supports his wife’s career ambitions. He does not ask for much in return. She is happy with him, but really she is very often more in the mood to watch TV or some other less physically demanding behavior than sex.
One night she is watching TV and she decides to give her husband a good experience even though she would really rather watch TV. Perhaps the choice might even leave her happier and more fulfilled in the longer run although at first it is more demanding a nuisance.
I believe that sex in a relationship is important. There are many kinds of sex and wildly enthusiastic recreational sex is only one. One that, for the record, my wife and I enjoy regularly.
I disagree with the one-sidedness of the Prager plan, but there is something to what he says. I also know that his article is nested in a whole schema of paternalistic crap, so I am not defending it.
I do think that what my wife and I call “relationship sex” is important. This most commonly happens when one or both of us are tired and not inclinded to a whole-hearted playful romp. One or the other reaches out in a way that says, “I want you.” Now either she or I at that moment may not be feeling a lot of desire and sometimes it goes nowhere. At other times, we come together for what might be a brief, mutually-orgasmic (or not) shag.
I have been the initiator and the responder and the question is not “are you in the mood,” but are you willing to rise to the occasion, so to speak. Now you could characterize this willingness to come to your partner as dutiful sex, but that’s just f’d up. But I do have a duty to recognize that my partner has needs and to be mindful of them and, out of love, to fulfil them to the best of my ability. This duty is reciprocal. Sometimes her (or my) needs are sexual. That doesn’t mean that in the moment of fulfilling them the act is not mutual and it certainly does not negate consent.
And sometimes, we need a reminder of this. I have a friend who gets up early and works hard and at the end of the day is usually pretty fatigued. He tells me that once (and I don’t think she had to do it again), she approached him for sex and he, not for the first time, tried to beg off due to fatigue. Well, she’s latin and he got told. She told him that her needs were important and he could not get away with dismissing them. In effect that he had a duty as a husband to provide for her need for sexual fulfilment. Was she unreasonable to cast fulfilment of her needs as one of her husband’s commitments/obligations/duties?
My wife sometimes jokes in the afterglow about me having fulfilled my marital obligations. The truth often emerges in jest. The bottom line is that it is about connection. When your partner reaches out you need to take the opportunity to connect.
Sex can be about the loneliest experience in the world. The kind of submission that Prager writes about reeks of lonely sex. But there is a nugget of truth (burried in the manure) about selflessness in a relationship expressed by being sexually accessible even sometimes when you are not in the mood.
Um. Just . . . yeah.
Which is exactly why I specifically did not say that — go back and read what I wrote again.
If you want to make sure that there’s no ambiguity about consent and rape, then you make sure you have enthusiastic consent. Do you really want that ambiguity? If so, why?
What you’re describing is a more-or-less unconstrained decision. There’s no law, no religious edict, no moral sermon, and no social pressure on her to do anything but make her own decisions about whether she wants to watch TV, or whether she wants to have sex. And of course if she takes into consideration what her partner wants to do, and weighs that along with her own desires, it may tip the scales so that in fact, she decides that she DOES want to have sex MORE than watching TV.
There is another grey area here, between autonomy (and fully informed consent) of the individual and external pressures, mandates, teachings about what you “should” do to be a good wife, and a whole history of women being disallowed these choices, being forced in various ways into submission and denial of their own agency and own desire, that has to be taken into consideration. This hasn’t been an equal playing field for many millennia.
As soon as anyone starts saying “well you really should have sex even if you don’t want to,” and pressuring people into sex, we have a problem.
And the question still remains — WHY would you want to pressure anyone into sex, if you really think about what that means?
If it’s about getting someone in the mood, helping them relax, and making your desire known, that’s fine. If it’s about using negative emotional and psychological tactics like guilt, shame, duty, bullying, badgering, obligation in order to pressure someone, that’s not OK. Do we really need to spell all this out? I don’t think it’s rocket science. I have no tolerance for anyone who tries to apply pressure to get anyone else to have sex with them, regardless of gender.
This goes for any number of things in a relationship, not just sex. It’s relationships 101. Which is why nobody should be learning from idiots like Prager who evidently is a serious flunk-out in that department.
She was certainly buying into an unreasonable and inhumane framing of people’s obligation in a relationship, yes. I don’t see how that’s unclear. Insisting that a husband have sex with a wife as part of
Look, Jeff Fecke very ably took apart this aspect of Prager’s advice. Of course people have sexual needs, and agreeing to provide for each other is part of many relationships. But when something is not working out to everyone’s mutual satisfaction, it’s still wrong to badger, harass, guilt, intimidate, morally subjugate, or force your own needs.
Of course there are relationships where one person — either person — comes to feel like their needs aren’t being met. Sex is a difficult and emotionally fraught subject, so this part isn’t easy. But it can be discussed, it can be worked on. Mutual agreements involving real consent can be made, even ahead of time. Alternatives can be developed, ways of bringing partners’ needs in alignment with how much each can provide can be worked out. Or, if those things don’t work out, then you can agree to go your separate ways, or agree that sex won’t be part of your relationship anymore.
Holly,
I would prefer no ambiguity. I would prefer that the world was a place of perfect communication.
The world, though, does not care how I would like it to be. It just is.
Until we can read each others minds I would prefer to keep the definition of rape clear cut.
I’m not sure what part of Holly’s explanations you think are confusing, or involve reading other people’s minds. In fact, they very rightly advocate communication.
Point taken Cara about the stereotype.
However, as with most stereotypes there is a grain of truth. Discursive styles are culturally situated and I believe that, though individuals obviously vary, those raised in, lets say, Columbia, are more likely to verbalize their emotions openly than someone subjected to a British upbringing with its emphasis on more reserved discursive styles.
Stereotypes can even be self-supporting — sometimes, since we are social creatures, we behave in ways the world expects us to. But then feministes are very aware of that trap.
Cara,
Holly argues that Prager is defending marital rape. I argue that he is not.
What do you think?
Well Danish this Scarleteen article might help you figure out what Holly is getting at with respect to consent ….
I think that while he is not openly advocating marital rape (and I’m not entirely sure that Holly does either), he is strongly advocating and promoting rape culture.
Danish,
The legal definition of rape is pretty clear-cut. Is that good enough for you?
Marital rape often does not fit the legal definition of rape. We talk about rape in more nuanced ways than the law allows because the world is not a place of perfect communication, because there is a grey area, and mistakes can happen, and grey areas can be taken advantage of by abusers. By rapists.
I’m sorry, you can’t have it cut and dry. Marital rape is not cut and dry. This thread, and the three articles I’ve linked, are full of nuance that responds to Prager’s bullshit.
Here’s something that can potentially be more cut and dry for you: make SURE you are on the right side of the grey area. Do whatever you can to ensure that. If you want it to be cut and dry, don’t risk it. Communicate clearly as you can with your partners about whether they enthusiastically consent, or figure out how to communicate it ahead of time, so that you understand each other as well as two people can in this world. So you know when you both want to, so you can have GOOD sex. Why would you not want to work towards that?
Do I think Prager is consciously mounting a defense of marital rape? No. I’m not even sure he’d acknowledge the concept. But the arguments he’s fighting for are opposed to a practice of real communication, enthusiastic consent, and good equitable sex between partners, whether he realizes it or not. (Perhaps, given his own rocky relationship history and apparent cluelessness, he does not.) All of this amount to a defense of marital rape, if you ask me.
Cara and Holly,
Is it, in your view, possible to argue that a relationship has elements of mutual accommodation without promoting what you call rape culture and/or marital rape?
Randomizer,
Thanks for the link.
Until we can read each others minds I would prefer to keep the definition of rape clear cut.
Oh God, the whole frigging idea is to COMMUNICATE with your partner so that you don’t HAVE to read hir mind. That’s how you avoid the grey area. Clear cut enough, Danish? Or is communicating with your partner something you’d just not bother with?
Yes, that’s certainly possible. If you want it to be as cut-and-dry as you say, it certainly requires communication, equality, mutual understanding and real consent. But of course people can consensually choose to accomodate and care for each other and do things that they might not otherwise want to do. That’s not what we’re talking about here.
I think all of that was clear from my last two posts — that there certainly can be such a thing as mutual accomodation. I even responded specifically to your example. Are you just trying to set up a straw man?
What Holly said.
No, I am not trying to set up a straw man. I just wanted to know whether you were opposed to the idea of mutual accommodation per se.
Thanks for the responses.
GallingGalla,
My argument here has nothing to do with me as a person. I am merely trying to clarify something.
Personally, I simply refrain from having sex at all. In that way I am sure not to do anything wrong in any way.
What we’re talking about here isn’t accommodation though. You seem to be deliberately arguing around the points that pretty much everyone else here have spent going on 100 posts discussing. What Prager is talking about is framed as accommodation but the words he uses are important. Prager uses words like submission, words which have very specific meanings. Submission is not something that happens in a relationship between equals, it is something that happens between a master and a subject. Prager’s argument is that women ought to make themselves sexually available to their husbands because it is their duty.
Take a step back and consider the implications of the system Prager is suggesting. He posits that women have a duty, a responsibility, to be sexually available for their husbands. What does that mean? What happens when you have a duty that you fail to fulfill? What happens if you owe a debt that you do not pay? How does society tend to respond in situations like that? The answer, Danish, is with force. People who fail to live up to their responsibilities are compelled, pressured, or otherwise coerced into doing so.
Prager doesn’t need to follow his suggestions down that road, all he needs to do is frame the discussion in a certain manner. Thats why so many people here accuse him of being a marital rape apologist, because Prager is essentially advocating the system of power and perspective that made socially marital rape acceptable for centuries. He is suggesting, in a somewhat obfuscated way, that men have a right to the bodies of their wives. He is suggesting that women have a duty to provide sexually for their husbands. He is using words like “submission” which, regardless of his protests, clearly communicate the nature of the power dynamic he advocates.
Beyond that, Prager argues that this is just the way things are, that men simply are a certain way. I find that insulting, but I also find it quite threatening. Prager is attempting to set up a norm in which men simply need sex and women are simply responsible for providing it. He sets the context and the ground rules for that sex. Prager is attempting to define how human beings “ought” to behave and control deviations from that standard. Women get the worst of it because they have less power in the social system Prager puts forward, but make no mistake about it, Prager is pushing an agenda of control. It binds men as tightly (though with considerably less pain) as it does women.
“But more generally we should not let moods determine how we go about our daily lives.”
Why are all of your analogs widely recognized as unpleasant tasks that nobody ever actually wants to do? I mean, really, is that how you see sex? Is that how you think women see sex?
William,
If I do not pay my taxes the government will lock me up in a prison for years. The state demands that I pay my taxes, hence it is a duty.
Likewise, here in Denmark we have the draft. So if I do not go in the army the state will also lock me away for many years. That is also a duty.
What Prager suggests is that in marriages without sex because women are not in the mood, the women might CONSIDER trying to give some sex to their men. No one is going to lock them up if they do not.
I cannot see how this is equivalent.
Perhaps then, we should just abandon marriage all together. The irony, gay and lesbian people are fighting for the right to get married. at the same time heterosexual people realize that there is nothing worthwhile in marriage.
praying mantis,
I think different people see sex in different ways, but Prager was addressing a subset of people who apparently saw sex as a nuisance, somewhat in the way most people see their job.
Personally, I simply refrain from having sex at all. In that way I am sure not to do anything wrong in any way.
Your personal life, then, is an excellent example of mutual accomodation. Give credit where credit is due.
What William said. And what Holly said. And what Cara said.
If you find yourself unable or unwilling to deal with a large group of people who each have complex drives and desires, then yes, all sarcasm aside: you shouldn’t be having sex with anybody. Prager’s solution to the problem of two different individuals with potentially different needs is to simply ignore one of them, to encourage her to take herself out of the equation.
You might think that this is cute and trivial, but I find it off-putting if not a little frightening. If any partner of mine obsessed, either in the abstract or in the early stages of our relationship, about all the blowjobs he might not get as demonstrations of my love and appreciation (or all the work he’d have to do to ensure that I wasn’t secretly unhappy and pissed off) …well, I wouldn’t stick around. I’m not there to make book. That isn’t how mutual accomodation works: it’s based on a rather cold-blooded quid pro quo at best, not the idea that your partner is a human being herself.
To rein this reductio ad absurdum back in a little, of course I accomodate my partners. It can be fun, because I like them. On the other hand, sometimes I finish my beer and conk out on their futons. And vice versa. I’ve been the lonely one before, and even then it seemed really churlish to complain that they weren’t ignoring their own preferences enough.
I kind of doubt that the selfish, frigid, paycheck-leeching bitch of Prager’s column exists as a general rule, if only because Prager would then notice and castigate her counterpart: the woman who demands near-continuous oral gratification from her exhausted partner.
Oh, and what preying mantis said about household chores. This is one of Prager’s unstated premises: sexual pleasure is something women provide for men, not something women need and want in equal measure. Any guy who looks at his partner and sees a maid cleaning a toilet on her knees is a guy who deserves celibacy.
I think different people see sex in different ways, but Prager was addressing a subset of people who apparently saw sex as a nuisance, somewhat in the way most people see their job.
People meaning women. Whose libidos, apparently, are just naturally damped.
If this subset of people really feel this way about sexual intimacy, and if those feelings really are immutable, the solution is not to tell them to suck it up. They aren’t obligated to provide that level of intimate discomfort and dysfunction to their partnership. As importantly, an offer to un-scum their partner, no matter how well-intentioned and inhumanly free of bitterness, is not a viable substitute for actual intimacy. It doesn’t even offer the benefits of divorce. Seriously, do you want a partner who sees you as a clogged drain? A heaping compost bin? A few hours in gridlock? Is the open encouragement of that arrangement going to help people love each other more?
If you fail to fulfill your duty, the person to which you are indebted will use force against you. To say that you do not see the connection says less about my point than it does about your awareness of the world around you. Relationships with significant power differentials always have the threat of force lurking in the background. Sometimes that force is physical, sometimes it is emotional, but it is always there.
What Prager is saying is that women should enter into relationships in which they are submissive towards their husbands, he then goes on to suggest that it would be a good idea for them to do their duty and have sex even if they aren’t in the mood. Built into that situation is an implicit threat: this is what you are supposed to do and this is someone who has power over you, do it or else. Marital rape, spousal battery, and emotional abuse are all realities and are all far more common in relationships built around one partner being in power and the other in submission. It would be foolish to think that somehow Prager either doesn’t realize this or is advocating some invisible nuance.
I fail to see the irony. Marriage has traditionally been a business arrangement between two heads of household. The idea of marrying for love or companionship is a relatively modern norm, one which has been hard fought and is still threatened by the ridiculous restrictions we put on individual preference when it comes to forging lifelong partnerships. What Prager wants to do is to revert to an older mode. He wants to turn back the clock to a time when men were in charge and women were the submissive bearers of domestic comfort. Whats really terrifying is that he is pushing nostalgia for something that never exists, for the illusion of some sitcom yesteryear. He’s the atavism of a mass delusion.
Like yours wouldn’t be if you were dating guys like Prager?
Good point. Stress, anxiety, lack of communication: dating Prager would be intrinsically conducive to sexual dysfunction. Maybe Prager is just trying to get himself laid. Ignore the unattractive man behind the curtain, ladies!
Your longer post contains some good points too. Women weren’t the angel between the sheets even before they got to be carnal. They submitted and/or lived with force, because they rightly believed they had no alternative. Prager is attempting to substitute internalized guilt and shame for the old definition of rape and marriage as mutually exclusive.
piny,
Marriage is not solipsistic. When someone enters into a marriage, I think it not unreasonable for the other party to expect certain things from the union. To consummate, so to speak.
If it turns out that one party is not interested in contributing anything to the union, then I guess divorce is the only option.
Now, as a social observer, I have noticed that both men and women are getting ever more narcissistic so the idea that one should share something with another, indeed sacrifice something at times, might seem scary. Hell. There is not much hope for the West if even something that basic is incomprehensible.
Yes, women expecting to have their bodily choices, rights and *gasp* desires (or lack there of) respected is in fact going to bring about the end of society. Evangelicals and others have been telling us as much for a very long time.
William,
Prager’s illusion likely never existed, but your own idea of marriage in the past is also but a grim caricature
The idea that women used to be without a say, thoroughly oppressed in every marriage, does no justice to the diversity of the lived experiences. The interplay and co-evolution of men and women is a long , complex and intricate dance. To reduce all of this to just a master/slave relation is, quite frankly, not fair to reality.
Cara,
You are not addressing my point, but instead attacking a straw man.
I am a staunch defender of women’s reproductive rights and their bodily integrity. I am pro-choice. I believe there is no excuse for violating anybody’s bodily integrity.
But if you see no distinction between the very real observation that women and men are getting more narcissistic and selfish and a defense of fundamental rights, then it really is difficult to archive epistemic progress in a discussion.
I am a big fan of Wollstonecraft, the Grimke sisters, Stuart Mill and many other that fought for the recognition of women’s moral agency and rights, but this does not mean I have to condone every kind of narcissistic and selfish behavior I encounter today.
Men and women can be good friends and grateful to each other, without – hopefully – being suspicious all the time about the risk of giving more than they get.
Once again…sex is supposed to be a mutually pleasurable activity. If it is not a mutually pleasurable activity…it is simply masturbating using another person.
As few of us go through life with both hands tied behind our backs…I fail to see why people need a partner to masturbate.
Danish, can you not see the difference between one person in a coupling of equals deciding on hir own that, ok, “I’d rather drink my beer and watch the tv, but what the hell, I’ll roll in the hay with my partner tonight because I love hir” versus DEMANDING that an entire class of people, namely women, SUBMIT without question to another entire class of people, MEN, as Prager is doing?
For fuck’s sake, you’re about to make me pull out my copies of Dworkin’s “Intercourse” and “Women Hating”, and I do not do that lightly.
And your examples of going to jail for not paying taxes, in the context of your overall blindness to the issue of marital rape and the culture that enables it, sounds like an endorsement of similar punishment for women who refuse to submit to men.
Danish,
Not to butt in here,* let’s take a different tack. Let’s remove the word “marriage.” Marriage is a concept laced with meaning and fraught with sexist bullshit. So let’s replace marriage with friendship.
You have an obligation to your friends. Those obligations are not written down anywhere. You didn’t sign a contract. The obligations of friendship are social in nature. Determined by the context of the friendship and shared expectation.
To some (perhaps a large) extent expectations are shaped by a gendered society. Women should hug when they see each other. Men do the fist bumpy thing or weird handshake thing sometimes combined with a hug…but a MANLY hug. Men and women hug but with a pat instead of a squeeze.
These shared expectations are socially enforced through repetition and peer pressure. There is no LAW saying men and women who are friends can’t kiss each other on the cheek, but (in my social circles) it would be perceived as odd and awkward for everyone involved.
Some of our gendered social expectations are gendered by not necessarily patriarchal (fist bumps vs. hugs). Others are patriarchal (men get the door). More specifically, some actions reinforce the idea that women are the weaker sex and that men are the stronger sex.
That power dichotomy harms both men and women. Women are people. They are both strong and weak. They are individuals. Being viewed consistently as somehow less is wrong. Similarly, men are people. They are both strong and weak. They are individuals. Being viewed consistently as the bulwarks of the universe is also wrong.
But to return to our example, there isn’t necessarily anything wrong per se with a man opening the door. Outside of the social context, its just one person doing something nice for another person. However, in the social context, it is less nice. It is an extension of the idea that women are weak and need men to take care of them.
Now a particular man opening the door for a particular women may not see his action as part of a larger social experience. Indeed he may not know that the woman has social experience that differs from his own. (One of the “best” benefits of privilege.) He may not intend to participate in the subjugation of this particular woman…but within the social context he has done so WHETHER THAT WAS HIS INTENTION OR NOT.
Which brings us back to what you said.
Marriage is not solipsistic. When someone enters into a marriage, I think it not unreasonable for the other party to expect certain things from the union. To consummate, so to speak.
The issue here is your understanding of what those expectations are, where they come from and what their consequences are.
Prager is arguing that society should expect and enforce the expectation that women (as a class, not as individual people) should provide their husbands with sex on demand. He frames this discussion not as something an individual woman may negotiate with her individual partner, but rather as something women (as a class, not as individual people) need to be socially coerced into doing.
In doing so he relies on a number of sexist assumptions/arguments which Preying Mantis described succinctly.
Most importantly for the marital rape comparison:
1. Women don’t like sex.
2. Husbands (BY DEFINITION) are entitled to sex “with” their wives.
3. Women are wrongfully withholding sex.
Therefore, society and husbands can “pressure” their wives to “give” them sex.
Now, these assumptions are all wrong. Lot’s of women (myself included) LOVE sex. Husbands are not “entitled” to anything and are certainly not entitled to sex. You cannot wrongfully withhold sex.
But you see now how this argument clearly parallels arguments for marital rape
1. Women don’t like sex.
2. Husbands are entitled to sex “with” their wives.
3. Women are wrongfully withholding sex.
Therefore, husbands may forcibly take what is rightfully theirs.
These expectation are not something Prager made up. They’ve been around for a while. They’re all bound up with the archaic (although clearly not archaic enough) idea that women and their bodies are owned by their husbands. It was on that basis that marital rape exceptions were upheld until the 1990s.
But most importantly, let’s look at the consequences. Let’s create a hypothetical woman: Arin. Arin is married to Dennis. Dennis wants more sex. Arin is content (for whatever reason or no reason at all) with their sex life. Dennis says to Arin “You are a bad wife if you don’t *submit* to my desire to have sex with you. I am unconcerned with your desire to have sex, I am basically using you as a masturbatory device.”
This is not mutuality. This is not a negotiation. This is bullying. It’s cruel and mainly evinces that Dennis is a total shit. He isn’t acting in a loving and caring way. He’s being a complete narcissistic bastard.
If instead, Dennis had said to Arin “Dear, I’m horny. Seriously. I would like us to have more sex. Is there anything I can possibly do to put you in the mood?” then that would be mutuality, negotiation and consideration.
Prager is advocating door number 1 rather than door number 2.
*Okay, so to COMPLETELY butt in here.
A caricature. Ever seen a marriage ceremony? Notice how the default in a traditional ceremony is for a father to “give away” his daughter? If you’ve ever planned a wedding you know that the traditional expectation is for the family of the bride to pay for it, a surviving vestige of the concept of dowry. Then theres the little matter of name changing, the act of literally erasing the identity of the woman. When my grandparents send Christmas cards they’re still signed “Mr. and Mrs. [my grandfather's name]“, even for a marriage in a progressive city like Chicago early in the 20th century the social existence of the couple was tied only to the man. If you’d like to talk about oppression we can talk about how new it is for courts to consider the idea that a husband could rape his wife.
There are always exceptions, but that is why they are called exceptions. What we’re talking about is not every relationship, but the norm. What is considered average? What is the default? Sadly, for most of human history the answer for marriage is that women were property passed from one owner (the father) to another (the husband or his family). Hell, it wasn’t too long ago that women couldn’t vote or own property. Tell me that isn’t thorough social oppression.
You’re talking about narcissism while at the same time showing a flawed understanding of the concept and being arrogant enough to assume that your epistemological assumptions are correct. You need to take a step back and take a careful look at the values and judgments you’re working from because you’re bringing a ton of questionable a priori assumptions to the table and insisting that others are wrong because they fail to argue from them.
GallingGalla,
No, quite to the contrary. I think forcing citizens to pay taxes is immoral, just like I think forcing a spouse to have sex is immoral. I do not like force. Force is wrong.
Of course, it is wrong to force an entire class of people to submit to another class. Where did I ever propose that?
I have never proposed such a thing in my life. I am an individualist – not a groupist.
Do not bother pulling out Dworkin. I’ve read her already. Some of it makes sense. Some of it not much. Well perhaps more in a North American context than here in Denmark. Kinda like Prager. We can learn something even from people we disagree with.
Well, anyway, thanks for taking the time to discuss. I have to get back to my work now. I am not in the mood – I really hate my job, but I have to go. Bye!
You have a job? Are you sure you don’t mean you have a headache?
“Thanks.”
Yeah, I really feel appreciated. This is the thanks I get for staying up with the mod queue? For picking up after your sloppy HTML? For buying you that sexy new layout?
Good riddance, you lazy, selfish, goldbricking, thread-shirking ice queen. I’m glad feministe won’t be squandering any more space or energy on your frigid ass. We’ll be seeking comment gratification elsewhere. We don’t need you to have a circle jerk. We can find plenty of trolls who would be slavishly grateful for the chance to service our splenetic needs.
Fucking blogtease.
Piny, I think I love you :)
…just like I think forcing a spouse to have sex is immoral.
Then why are you defending Prager? Because force (whether physical or emotional) is exactly what Prager is advocating.
And, re narcissism: Knowing what you find pleasurable and what you don’t, and seeking another who is consensually eager to provide that pleasure, is not narcissism; nor is asserting your right to enumerate those pleasures and seek out their fulfillment in a consensual manner. Thinking that you are the only one who matters and that the wants and needs of those around you don’t matter, and therefore you can just take what you want – that’s narcissism.
Prager is advocating that men be narcissistic and that women submit to that narcissism.
Well done, Piny.
“I think different people see sex in different ways, but Prager was addressing a subset of people who apparently saw sex as a nuisance, somewhat in the way most people see their job.”
No, he’s not. He’s addressing it to everybody. Those who see sex as an unmitigated nuisance, those who see sex as something which is mostly fun but occasionally burdensome, and those who see sex as awesomesauce across the board but occasionally require stupid female things like sleep and food. He comes out and says that how women feel about sex is irrelevant. That’s not directed at just “people who see sex as a nuisance.”
It was essentially “Dear women: Nobody cares what you think, shut up and get on a dick. kthnxbai.”
Thats giving him a bit more progressive credit then he probably deserves. Prager doesn’t strike me as the kinda guy who would approve of the whole women on top thing. Doesn’t seem submissive enough, y’know?
Of course, it is wrong to force an entire class of people to submit to another class. Where did I ever propose that?
You’re defending someone who DOES propose that. If you don’t agree that that’s what Prager proposes, you should tackle the arguments here to the contrary — which I notice you’ve ignored. Several commenters, including myself, have pointed out that we’re attacking the notion that women, AS A CLASS, should submit, rather than the notion that an individual woman in an egalitarian relationship might choose to have sex when she’s not in the mood. And yet you’re still arguing as if we’re talking about an individual choice in this context rather than emotional coercion in a misogynist social context.
To all,
What is this emotional force you keep talking about?
Perhaps, if you could explain that to me, I would better be able to make sense of what you say.
We do not have that concept here in Denmark. Here force is a mechanical concept.
Danish,
I did explain it to you. Now explain to me how social behavior is only governed by force of law.
Well Kids…part 2 is up over at ClownHall. Once again…it is about duty, Ladies. Go have a look.
Danish: in a nutshell, there is a world of difference between a moral sacrifice and getting dry fucked. It’s a shame that you keep dodging that reality.
Oh, and emotional force? It’s hoot that you claim not to know. It’s called “coercion”, or perhaps “carisma” if the guy is slick enough.
Personally, I don’t think you give a rat’s ass about female autonomy. I think you just want to argue with feminists.
Kristen,
Behavior is influenced by a whole host of factors. Some factors are proximate, other factors are more ultimate.
But when push comes to shove one is either a libertarian, which means one believes that agency is real and a person can rise above genetic and environmental factors and make a choice, or one is some kind of determinist, which means that a person is not really an agent in their own life.
Now everyone has interests. Groups and individuals. They have interests. Sometimes these conflict. Then persuasion enters.
It seems to me that for some feminists persuasion is a only allowable as a tool to solve conflicts of interest when the outcome of a negotiation fits with the norms and values of feminism.
When the outcome is different some feminist will nullify the contract on the grounds that one part did not really enter into the contract by their own free will, because they were “coerced” to do so by societal norms.
Well, that is a rather patronizing view.
I, for one, believe in the absolute equality of men and women as moral agents. So if a woman makes a choice I will not question its validity or try to explain it away with reference to culture just because I disagree with the choice.
The tactic I criticize here is in no way exclusive to some feminist. Indeed Marx himself came up with the idea of false consciousness, a way to explain away choice he did not agree with.
A further problem is, how does one judge when the choice is truly free?
The answer is that different groups will then just assume that a choice was freely made and therefore valid only when they themselves agree with the choice. The path to political moralism is then laid open.
weejit,
Why the Ad Hominem?
Danish…think of “emotional force” as a woman withholding sex until she gets her own way? Clearer now?
Sheesh.
Because you are being disingenuous and I really dislike blokes who want to argue about what they want to argue about, regardless of the actual feminist content they’ve waded into.
Don’t tell us not to bother with the Dworkin and then proceed to act like *you* have something to clarify for us. You don’t. Instead you have completely shifted the goal posts to a discussion about women’s moral imperatives/obligations. How novel. That’s rather a rare sentiment to run across. [/sarcasm]
How about you focus on this instead: men who want women to submit to them 24/7. You could wrap *that* consversation in a blanket of moral imperatives!
Give me a break, you’re still being disingenuous. You’ve been provided with plenty of examples that allow for mutual responsibility and accommodation, as well as positive ways of “persuading” someone that don’t trend into emotional coercion, moral arm-twisting, or psychological blackmail. To claim that there’s no difference between these things, that it’s all either “physical force or free choice” is a shady and dishonest debate maneuver — and that’s putting it politely. And please don’t put it down to being Danish. I lived and worked in Denmark for almost a year, all told, and I know plenty of Danes who wouldn’t sink to your level.
Also, determinism and agency aren’t incompatible, at least not if you’re a compatibilist. (c.f. Daniel Dennett)
Do you really think anyone here “disagrees” with a truly unconstrained choice to have sex with your partner in an equal and loving relationship?
Danish,
So…you’re denying that people are psychological creatures. Interesting.
Alas, while you may find the certainty of libertarianism comforting, it doesn’t happen to be a reflection of reality.
Indeed it’s a reflection of your own privilege. You want to believe that you are free to make decisions based on reason and logic. You want to believe that you can judge others based on a non-nuanced view of their actions as free of coercion. To do so provides you with certainty that there is a Right and a Wrong. And a certainty that you are in control of your own life.
In all seriousness, I suggest that you spend some time with people for whom life has not been so kind. Try a veterans clinic or a homeless shelter or even a battered spouses shelter. I’m relatively certain, after you watch another human being suffering from PTSD trying to “rationalize” their experience, you’ll realize that people are flawed, emotional and psychological creatures.
Re: the Free Will philosophical argument. There is a difference between assuming that people have free will because it is the least harmful organizing principle, and actually believing that people have unfettered free will.
Prager is not advocating that women simply spell out the terms of their sexuality (as free agents) and let the dudes deal with it (as free agents). He’s saying each man needs to be coddled above the consequences of his own choice to enter into a long-term arrangement with a thinking, feeling, independent human being. He’s saying that each woman needs to ignore her preferences in favor of their man’s comfort. This even though he’s also arguing sexism based on a popular sexist stereotype: women in general don’t want to fuck their husbands as much as their husbands want to fuck them. Who’s entering into a relationship under false pretences, here?
And he’s not arguing that this is a problem some people deal with–in other words, that many if not most married people will disagree from time to time about various things, and that marriage means compromise. He’s saying that women are naturally less interested in sexin’, but that they need to see their preference as the problem and men’s putative greater need as the standard. Women are getting the raw deal here: they get to be less satisfied and less cherished, they get to feel that any disjunct is all their flaw to fix, and they get a sexuality defined by lack and burden.
And it isn’t only emotional pressure, although that’s what a marriage is. Prager is anchoring that emotional pressure in a strict inequality: men’s sexual needs are the correct model for the marriage. Prager is telling women that their free choices–y’know, to get busy when they want to–are irresponsible and destructive, whereas their husband’s are better for both partners. Women are wrong to apply emotional pressure. Men who get resentful–hurt and angry, in Prager’s words–are right.
ahunt,
In my view, what you describe is anyone’s prerogative.
A woman, or a man for that matter, can withhold sex forever. If this somehow leads the partner to give in to some demand put up by the withholder, than that is the problem of the person giving in to the demand. This is exactly the kind of weakness that subverts rational decision making.
weejit,
Forcing someone to submit is obviously wrong. We agree.
…So what is your problem, honestly, with finding Dennis Prager stupid because he thinks emotional pressure is responsible and healthy? Because he thinks women should be less rational and insightful and more ignorant and shallow? Because he thinks women should simply give in to emotional pressure–see themselves as worse wives for failing to do so earlier? Why have you decided to turn this into a remarkably useless discourse on free agency vs. determinism? If context bores you so much, what are you doing here?
Holly,
Who gets to define what is the truly unconstrained choice?
All I am saying is I prefer not to subjugate individual choice to political moralism.
Apart from that we agree. It is not nice to manipulate people or use them as means instead of as goals.
piny,
We are not reading exactly the same things into Prager’s text.
Anyway, the reason I am still here has very little to do with Prager and more to do with the fact that I am having tons of comments thrown at me.
Out of politeness I answer them.
I had no idea my initial objection to what I saw as exaggeration could lead to this kind of avalanche.
That is not to say that I complain. In fact I am grateful for the responses.
Forcing someone to submit is obviously wrong. We agree.
Then why are you sitting here and arguing with us, in such bad faith? Why are you defending Prager?
Oh, I forgot, The Official Word From Danish is that “force” is strictly physical. I’m glad to know that if some dude punches me, I don’t have to submit to him. But if he merely *threatens* to punch me, I still oughta spread ‘em for him, because emotional coercion through generating fear isn’t physical “force”.
So then it follows that if he verbally coerces me, wheedles at me, needles me, manipulates me, runs guilt trips on me, that’s not “force”, that’s just Dude exercising his oh so libertarian “agency”.
Lots of women experience this – being coerced and badgered and guilt-tripped into submitting. I lived with this for years – I got lots of experience in dissociation and memory-repression to get through it. In my book, this is rape. This is how a LOT of women get raped. And this, Danish, is what you are defending. G-ddess help any women who’s around you.
If this were my blog, I’d have kicked your ass to the curb by now.
This is how a LOT of women get raped.
Better wording: This is how a LOT of men rape women.
“It is not nice to manipulate people or use them as means instead of as goals.”
Except when you do it, right? LOL.
Weejit,
It looks as if Danish read the Kantian cliff notes rather than the actual text. Kant says its perfectly acceptable to treat people as a means…indeed it’s impossible not to do so…you can’t just treat them as a means.
But that’s only if you go in for Kant’s extraordinarily self-centric view of the universe.
I love it when people try to brow beat people with their supposedly superior understanding of academic obscurities…particularly when they are wrong…it’s a hoot.
First and foremost, don’t call your view libertarian, Danish. What you’re arguing for is, essentially, the right for people to enter into contracts which undermine their liberty. If you’d read Locke, Mill, or Nozick you’d get that liberty isn’t simply the right to enter into any contract one wishes but a social structure which restricts the ability of individuals to tyrannize one another. Once coercion and force come into play, as is inevitable in a society where equality is actively undermined through submission and hierarchy, you aren’t talking about libertarian issues but about the enforcement of contracts. Thats the kind of low grade conservative-masquerading-as-revolutionary thinking that gives libertarianism a bad name.
No, wrong. You’re redefining concepts in order to support your argument. Libertarian ethics have to do with agency only as a negative, they restrict the power of others to interfere with individual liberty. Saying that someone is an agent who can rise above genetic or environmental factors is irrelevant when what we’re talking about are social factors whose main stated purpose is to restrict the range of socially acceptable individual choice. Just because someone is capable of being an agent in their own life doesn’t mean that they are empowered to do so.
What Prager is doing is promoting a system which tells women that it is better to have sex when they don’t want to than to withhold sex. This message is given in the context of nostalgia for a society in which marital rape was seen as the husband’s right because the wife had a duty to provide sexually. The default position was a marriage with those rules, and if at any point a man decided to play by those rules he had the legal right to do so. Put another way: you cannot divorce Prager’s stated words from the context in which they are spoken. A little bit of hermeneutics goes a long way.
You’re talking about persuasion, Prager is talking about coercion. Persuasion is convincing someone that you’re right, coercion is creating consequences if they don’t do what you say. In Prager’s world women need husbands, they stay at home, they have a godly duty to submit and be “good wives.” Under that kind of power differential persuasion simply cannot take place.
Keep dancing. No one here is talking about a woman making a choice, Prager included, except for you. Prager is a man attempting to dictate choice to women. The choice he is dictating is that women give up their ability to choose. Both Locke and Mill rejected the idea of people being able to give absolute power over themselves to others. Prager is suggesting that women do just that, that they give up their ability to choose whether or not to have sex on a case by case basis and exchange it for a standing permission. He is further saying that this ought to be the
, that when a woman chooses marriage she is really choosing this.
When it is made under informed consent in the absence of coercive force (or the threat thereof). Come on, this is basic political and ethical theory here.
“Rational” is socially defined based on the prevailing moral standards. As long as you continue to search for a right answer, for an objective Truth, for the arbitrarily preferred side of an artificial binary, you’re going to know very little. Your slavish devotion to an extreme form of “rationality” is restricting. It prevents you from considering other possibilities, from approaching problems from different angles. Rationality fails because the world is not rational, people are not rational, and the vast majority of what human beings experience is neither contained within nor explained by any objective standards. The interactions between human beings (who will never be on equal footing) cannot be explained by a few simple, observable, universal principles. People are not simply very complex equations.
What happens when a preponderance of individual choices leads to political moralism? What happens when enough people choose to restrict choice that they are able to dominate those around them? Subjugation and tyranny cannot be consented to because it is, by definition, universal.
It may not be nice, but it is the way things are. The vast majority of interactions between humans are based in the use of others as means rather than as goals. Do you really care about, or think about, the person who bags your groceries at the local market? Are you interested in their day and invested in their fate, or do you just want to get your groceries and go about your life? Even for the people you do care about, how much of that affection is rooted in genuine love and how much is rooted in narcissistic satisfaction or the desire to avoid affective pain?
People use eachother. It might not be pretty but its there and it isn’t going anywhere. The role of society, to my mind, is not to reduce the damage done by that use and manipulation, to carve out certain things which are simply unacceptable. Just as you cannot choose to hurt someone because you feel like it, you cannot choose to sacrifice your right to choose.
weejit,
Even an admission is turned into something to disagree about?
Kristen,
I am not doing that.
William,
What the state should do is prevent coercion. Not persuasion in a private home.
Prager makes an appeal to women. That they not always let mood be the determining factor on whether to engage in sex. He asks them this favor. This is not coercion.
Yes, yes. I have understood your social determinist point that he, in your view, really is demanding and coercing.
I just disagree.
Part II has come out.
Danish,
I am not doing that.
Bullshit. “Solipsistic” You unnecessarily referenced Descartes (not to mention Kant and Mill). Egoistic or selfish would have resulted in clearer communication.
Prager makes an appeal to women. That they not always let mood be the determining factor on whether to engage in sex. He asks them this favor. This is not coercion.
ARGGGHHH….you just don’t get it. He isn’t in any of these relationships. He’s not asking an individual woman with whom he is familiar for a favor.
He is telling all women what is and is not appropriate behavior.
It’s the difference between the word “should” and the word “would.”
You “should” put down the toilet seat…makes my husband bristle…it’s an order…a requirement. It implies I will be displeased and cranky if he fails to act as I deem necessary. I’m exerting authority over him.
Would you put down the toilet seat….makes my husband happy…it’s a request to do something. It implies that I will be grateful and pleased if he acts in accordance with my wishes. I’m acknowledging that I do not have authority over his actions, but do have a desire for him to act differently.
This cannot be that HARD.
Prager makes an appeal to women. That they not always let mood be the determining factor on whether to engage in sex.
Why only women? Why are you and Prager not asking the same thing of men?
And why women as a class, rather than one individual asking another individual for a favor?
Indeed, you keep bringing up “mood” like it’s something that only women have; you clearly think that mood, being supposedly a girl thing, is inferior and need not be considered by men.
You’ve moved from mere rape apologism to a rapist in the making, Danish. And so my only remaining response to you is: fuck you.
—
William@142: Thank you for clarifying the basic concepts behind libertarianism. As soon as our Danish friend started blabbering, I thought that what he was claiming as “libertarianism” was busted beyond fixing, but could not articulate how.
From Part II,
So, if a husband is in the mood for sex and the wife is not, her feelings are deemed of greater significance — because women’s feelings are of more importance than men’s.
Here is Prager’s problem, most clearly shown. If a man wants to do something and a woman does not…equality demands that they do what the man wants.
Brilliant!
I’m not even going to get started on part II. It just makes me sick.
Incidentally, I was talking dirty on IM with my boyfriend (who is visiting his parents) before I read it. It completely killed the mood. No wonder Prager thinks women don’t like sex!
I can’t believe you folks are still engaging with Danish. All your points have been explained clearly many, many times and he’s still trying to derail the thread because he likes circular arguments.
GallingGalla,
You’ve moved from mere rape apologism to a rapist in the making, Danish. And so my only remaining response to you is: fuck you.
How can you discuss with a person who will call you a rapist jut for disagreeing with them.
You cannot of course.
By just disagreeing you already consider me evil.
I am not.
If you knew me you’d know I treat people properly.
Anyway,
Happy New Year to all.
“Should” does not imply authority. An order is “Put down the toilet seat!” “You should put down the toilet seat” is a statement about what one ought to do. For instance, “you should get to work early on your first day.” That is, it’s a good idea for you to be early.
One would think.
GallingGalla: no problem. Libertarianism gets a generally bad rap a lot because conservatives like Danish tend to cherry pick ideas that justify their worldviews and desires without bothering with little details like internal consistency. Unfortunately those same people tend to go around calling themselves libertarians in public. Kinds like how Stalinists have ruined comminism’s public image. Fundamentally, libertarianism is about it’s root word: liberty; if the likely end of an action is a reduction of individual liberty then it probably ain’t libertarian. The philosophy has it’s fair share of problems but it always galls me when I see people using the idea of individual freedom to justify reducing…individual freedom.
Jared,
Should – the past tense of shall – used (in this context) as “an auxiliary function to express obligation, propriety or expediency.” Note particularly, the use of the word obligation there.
What is the implication of should (in this context)?
My husband is doing something wrong.
Doing something wrong typically has consequences. As such it’s an implied threat. It also suggests that I am a better authority on appropriate behavior than he is (which is condescending). It also implies that I have a right to police his behavior…that I have some authority over him.
As I said…not that hard. And it’s directly analogous to a husband saying “you should have sex with me.”
Just to add to what Kristen said: Also, using “would” implies that you’re open to negotiation. It implies that you actually care about your partner’s feelings on the matter.
Okay, men who think women should never say no to sex with their partners unless they have a broken arm or something (although really, why let them off for that?):
Sex without arousal typically hurts. It hurts a lot. Imagine having your internal organs pulled out through your asshole, repeatedly, with the feeling that something’s going to tear any moment. It’s not really a great analogy, but I’m not sure how to explain a vagina.
And no, women don’t always magically get aroused once their partners start going at it, and no lube isn’t always a solution. The vagina actually changes shape during arousal, which is what makes sex comfortable and fun rather than awkward and/or painful. Yes, women can and should enjoy sex, and not just because it makes men happy!
Sex should be shared and consensual, not obligatory, and not something one partner always does to please the other. And every couple needs to negotiate their own preferences, not have it handed down on high from misogynist internet trolls.
And as for saying “Oh, men should have sex when they’re not in the mood, too!” — well, 1) if a man is really, really not in the mood, he’s not going to get an erection without some potentially unpleasant efforts; which means he has to come up with an alternate way to please the woman or he’s off the hook, and 2) I can’t think of any situation in which PIV intercourse is painful for the man unless something’s medically wrong. Men should not be obligated to have sex either, but they’re not physically comparable situations, and I think that’s part of why it’s so hard for many men to understand why women refuse sex–they view it as a refusal of something fun and (charitably) intimate, not as a refusal of something that can be painful and/or unpleasant under the wrong circumstances.
P.S. Where are all the advice columnists telling men to snuggle even when they want personal space because a happy wife makes a happy home?
Anon,
That’s a really great point. I’ve been fortunate not to ever be in that position, so I didn’t realize, but I if a speculum hurts…