| ReadBibleAlive.com
Front
Page |
| Series Theme: "Culture Wars" |
Chapter 15: Specific Battlefronts: 1. Sexuality – Part B Part B: Introduction to Modern Sexuality
CONTENTS
Part 15:1 The Changing Face of Confused Sexuality A Fundamental Change This has been building Change from the Top
Part 15:2 The Raw Face of Modern Sexual Experience 15.2.1 Her Perspective 15.2.2 Her Subjects 15.2.3 Loveless Sex 15.2.4 Marriage & Conclusions
Part 15:3 Concluding Comment from a Christian
Preliminary: So there are two areas of modern sexuality to be considered: • Sexual Identity – about how (young) people identify themselves
• Sexual Behaviour – how boundaries have been removed, and permissiveness & hurt reigns
We would remind the reader that all you read on this page is a description by secular writers who describe modern sexuality from a ‘world' perspective, which is very different from a biblical perspective.
Part 15:1 The Changing Face of Confused Sexual Identity
A Fundamental Change: “Until recent years there was no call for a phrase like 'gender assigned at birth' instead of 'sex'. But just note the work being done in that now commonly used phrase — suggesting as it does that a child might have happily been born as whatever gender they wanted to be had it not been for some bigoted, heteronormative delivery-room doctor.” (Murray)
This has been building: In a March 2017 edition of Time Magazine, an article entitled, ‘Beyond He or She', started out, “A growing number of young people are moving beyond the idea that we live in a world where sexuality and gender come in only two forms.”
To catch more of the flavour of this, the article continued:
To give you an even greater flavour, the article had photos of a number of young people: Tyler identifies as agender, Tobia identifies as genderqueer, McGwier identifies as queer and gender nonconforming, Grace identifies as bisexual, Sophie identifies as bisexual, Rowan identifies as gender fluid, Miguel identifies as gender fluid.
Right! That was America in 2017 and the world has not stood still. Perhaps our understanding has a lot of catching up to do, although that doesn't mean we agree with it.
Change from the Top: In a major article on January 23rd 2021, The Times reported:
It later went on to show ways it was impacting wider society:
Such language changing had other negative changes:
Part 15:2 The Raw Face of Modern Sexual Experience
Louise Perry who we cited earlier, wrote with remarkable candor, honesty and integrity and we can do little better that quote her numerous times to catch something of modern Western heterosexual sexual activity. Although this may be unpleasant reading for some (and we're not recommending the book for the more squeamish), we believe it comes as a radical wakeup call to realise the depth to which western society has sunk and how far from God's revealed design seen in the previous chapter.
15.2.1 Her Perspective
To quote from the back cover of her book, ”while dispensing sage advice to the generations paying the price for these accesses, she makes a passionate case for a new sexual culture built around dignity, virtue and restraint.” That's what follows.
She writes in her opening chapter with a somewhat natural cynicism that is undergirded by honesty…
there have been plenty of periods in human history in which the norms around sex have been loosened: the late Roman Empire, Georgian Britain, and the roaring 20s in America are best remembered. But these phases of licentiousness were self-limited by the lack of good contraception, and thus straight men in pursuit of extra-marital sex were mostly obliged to seek out sex either with women in prostitution or with the small number of eccentric women who were willing to risk being cast out permanently from respectable society. The Bloomsbury set, for instance, who famously ‘lived in squares and loved in triangles', had plenty of illicit sexual encounters. They also produced a lot of illegitimate children and were protected from destitution only as a result of the privileges of their class.
… and a little later she adds, speaking of the feminist's world…
I am writing in a more deliberate and focused way against a liberal narrative of sexual liberation which I think is not only wrong but also harmful.
…and then… liberal feminism promises women freedom - and when that promise comes up against hard limits imposed by biology than the ideology direct women to chip away at those limits through the use of money, technology, and the bodies of poorer people. …concluding….. I accept the fact that men and women are different, and that those differences aren't going away. When we recognise these limits and these differences, then sexual politics takes on a different character. Instead of asking how can we all be free, we must ask instead how can we best promote the well-being of both men and women, given that these two groups have different sets of interests, which are sometimes in tension?
… yet speaking of the cost of modern sex…
That cost falls disproportionately on women, for biological reasons…. and liberal feminists do seem to recognise this disproportionate impact, as demonstrated by the popularity of the ‘me too' movement which began in earnest in 2017. This outpouring of rage and sorrow was evidence of a sexual culture that wasn't working for women.
On the shortcoming of liberal feminism she writes the central principle of liberal feminism taken to its logical conclusion:
a woman should be able to do anything she likes, whether that be selling sex or inviting consensual sexual violence since all of her desires and choices must necessarily be good, no matter where they come from or where they lead. And if anything bad comes from following this principle, then we return to the only solution that liberal feminism have to offer: teach men not to rape …. and she concludes the chapter by writing… liberal ideology flatters us by telling us that our desires are good and that we can find meaning in satisfying them whatever the cost. But the lie of this flattery should be obvious to anyone who has ever realised after the fact that they were wrong to desire something, and hurt themselves, or hurt other people, in pursuing it. So I'm going to propose an alternative form of sexual culture - one that recognises other human beings as real people, invested with real value and dignity. It's time for a sexual counter revolution
15.2.2 Her Subjects
The title of her second chapter, ‘Men and Women are Different' should be self-explanatory so I will limit the number of quotes. She writes of rape and of physical-strength differences and thus female vulnerability. A telling comment is it is still true that only 1/2 of the human race is capable of getting pregnant and - failing the intervention invention of the artificial wombs - this will remain true indefinitely.
She goes on to argue that putting aside physical differences, there are still and always will be psychological differences. A large part of the remaining chapter is devoted to who is to blame for rape.
In Chapter 3 – ‘Some Desires are Bad' – is mostly about history of acceptance, in the course of which, i n respect of male and female sexual behaviour, she observes:
The research is clear: we know that men, on average, prefer to have more sex and with a larger number of partners, that sex buyers are almost exclusively male, that men watch a lot more pornography than women do, and that the vast majority of women, if given the option, prefer a committed relationship to casual sex.
15.2.3 Loveless Sex
Chapter 4 is the most explosive chapter – ‘Loveless sex is not empowering' – and goes to town expounding male and female goal differences in respect of sex. Her explosive honesty comes out with….
The heterosexual dating market has a problem, and it's not one that can be easily resolved. Male sexuality and female sexuality, at the population level, do not match. On average, men want casual sex more often than women do, and women want committed monogamy more than men do. Hook-up culture demands that women suppress their natural instincts in order to match male sexuality and thus meet the male demand for no strings sex. Some women are quite happy to do this, but most women find it unpleasant, or even distressing. Plus hook-up culture is a solution to the sexuality mismatch that benefits some men at the expense of most women. I propose a different solution proper based on a fundamental feminist claim: unwanted sex is worse than sexual frustration.
She continues… In the West, hook-up culture is normative among adolescents and young adults - both popular culture and survey data indicate that sexual behaviour outside of traditional committed romantic relationships has become increasingly typical as socially acceptable. And although it is possible for young women to opt out, research suggests that only a minority do so. Absent some kind of religious commitment, this is now the normal route presented to girls as they become sexually active.”
A little later she writes… “other students consistently find the same thing following hook-ups, women are more likely than men to experience regret, low self-esteem and mental distress. And, most of the time, they don't even orgasm. Female pleasure is rare during casual sex. Men in casual relationships are just not as good at bringing women to orgasm in comparison with men in committed relationships – in first time hook-ups only 10% of women orgasm compared to 68% of women in long term relationships. This is partly a consequence of the fact that men who are familiar with their partners bodies and sexual preferences are better placed to know what they want, but another factor is the so-called sexual-script casual encounters, which is more likely to prioritise male desire.
Further… Today's young women are typically unaware that men are, in general, much better suited to emotion-less sex and find it much easier to regard their sexual partners as disposable. Ignorant of this fact, women can all too easily fail to recognise that being desired is not at all the same thing as being held in high esteem.
..and a conclusion…
Put most simply, casual sex harms women most of all. I realised that avoiding it will often be difficult, given the pressures of the 21st century dating market.
..with this wakeup call to young women… The fact that a man wants to have sex with a woman is not an indication that he wants a relationship with her. Holding off on having sex for at least the first few months is therefore a good vetting strategy for several reasons for. Firstly, it filters out the men who are just looking for a hook-up. Secondly, it gives a woman time to get to know a man before putting herself in a position of vulnerability. Thirdly, avoiding the emotional attachment that comes with a sexual relationship makes it easier to spot red flags. Free from the befuddling effects of hormones, it is possible to assess a new boyfriend's behaviour with clear eyes.
Wow, almost sounds like the advice Christian youth leaders used to give!
From her article in the Times, can we insert:
15.2.4 Marriage & Conclusions
Let's jump the chapters ‘Consent is not enough', ‘Violence is not love' and ‘People are not Products', and go to the penultimate chapter, ‘Marriage is Good'. (The final chapter is a summary) She observes of marriage most people report being quite happy in their marriages, with a minority who report being very happy and another minority who report being very unhappy. Several pages follow about divorce and understanding different attitudes towards money and contraception within marriage. As we have noted in previous chapters with quotes from Jonathan Sacks, she agrees that
“Fatherlessness is associated with higher incarceration rates for boys, higher rates of teen pregnancy for girls, and a greater likelihood of emotional and behavioural problems for both sexes.”
On the ‘malign influence of step-parents' she notes that there are
“higher incidences of child abuse by step parents than by their biological parents. A stepparent is 40 to 100 times more likely than a biological parent to kill a child, and step-fathers are also more likely than genetic fathers to sexually abuse children. Stepchildren, on average, find home life more stressful than other children do. They leave home younger and are more likely to report that family conflict was their key reason for moving out. They have chronically higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol. They suffer higher mortality in general, not just from stepparent assaults but also due to an increased rate of accidents… stepparents devote fewer resources to their care, including nutritional resources, resulting in there having a shorter average height than their peers of the same age. All of this holds true across cultures. Children do not benefit from divorce of non-abusive parents. The research is unequivocal on this point.
It is a powerful chapter looking at a variety of facets of marriage breakdown. Rather than seeking to track the ups and downs of this particular chapter we may simply conclude near the end of it with the following quote:
I have just one piece of advice to offer in this chapter, and you probably already guessed what it will be. So here it is: get married. And do your best to stay married. Particularly if you have children, and particularly if those children are still young. Add if you do find yourself in the position of being a single mother, wait until your children are older before you bring a stepfather into their home. The critics of marriage are right to say that it has historically been used as a vehicle for the control of women by men, and they're right to point out that most marriages do not live up to a romantic ideal. They're right, too, that monogamous lifelong marriage is in a sense unnatural in that it is not the human norm. The marriage system that prevailed in the West up until recently was not perfect, nor was it easy for most people to conform to, since it demanded high levels of tolerance and self-control. Where the critics go wrong is in arguing that there is any better system. There isn't.
Part 15:3 Concluding Comment from a Christian
Some may feel more comfortable if we conclude with some summary comments from a Christian perspective. This is John Mark Comer in his ‘Live no Lies' :
Summarizing modern sexual liberation ideology he writes, somewhat with tongue in cheek, “The problem with the current carpet bombing of the thousands of years of human wisdom around sexual desire is well, reality. The secular world dominant idea (read, working theory of the reality) is that human beings are animals, simply aided by time and chance to evolve into the dominant species of our planet; monogamy is not natural as we rarely see it in other animals. In fact, men evolved to spread their seed over as many women as possible for the survival of our species - evolutionary biology is way of saying “boys will be boys”. In such an idea matrix, the prevailing consensus is “sex is just to play for grown-ups. What is the big deal? It's just an animal pleasure, no different from hunger or thirst. If you do pursue marriage, that's fine; be true to yourself. But you should at least live with your partner for a while to make sure you're good fit. And if it doesn't work out, the important thing is to be happy (after all there is no meaning to life, it's just a glorious accident) and of course marriage sexual norms, and even gender itself are all social constructs often created by elites to maintain power.”
Enough said.
|