Sex, Politics, and the Pursuit of Happiness

"Sexual harassment on the job is not a problem for virtuous women."
“By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don’t think you can call it rape,”
"Women have babies and men provide the support. If you don't like the way we're made you've got to take it up with God."
- Phyllis Schlafly

"Don't you think that the irresponsible behaviour of men is caused by women?"
-Pope John Paul II
(response to Dr. Nafis Sadik's suggestion that the church could play a role in reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in Third World countries by teaching men not to "impose themselves" on unwilling wives. Dr. Sadik is a woman.)

"There is nothing loving about sex."
"Having sex without horniness is a greater expression of love. Sex is self- satisfying, but not meant for pleasure."
"Inequality is the natural condition."
-Fr. Paul Marx, Human Life International Symposium on Human Sexuality

"Incest is a voluntary act on the woman's part. If it were not, it would be rape."
Charles Rice, professor emeritus of law, Notre Dame University, currently teaching "Law and Morality"

"Many women have been brainwashed by the mindset of our society. They have been educated beyond their intelligence and beyond their natural instincts ..."
'The Flourishing Mother', Above Rubies, March 13, 2002

"It is interesting that today many women are so educated beyond their intelligence that they no longer understand the way God created them - with a womb to nurture life and breasts to nourish that precious life." 'Fully Female'
- Nancy Campbell,

"The proposed law on rape within marriage threatens the whole concept of the special marriage relationship."
Light magazine, Nov. 6, 1976
- Rev. Fred Nile, Christian Democratic Party

"I smell the stink of your fetid breath in the welfare lines; in crime ridden public housing compounds, in the detox wards where the detritus of liberalism wretch the bile of leftist compassion onto the floor; and in the horror chambers where Dr. Frankenstein rips your doomed children from the wombs of your defiled women."
ApathyBoyblog comment section, T.J. Swift "Swiftee" , Conservative Minnesota blogger

Let me begin by explaining that I couldn't encompass describing the scope of the further-to-the-right conservative view of sex with fewer quotations. The above represent a cross section of Catholic and Protestant Christian views, along with the views of both male and female secular conservatives.

Let me also add, in great haste, that I do not presume that these individuals speak for ALL conservatives; I am well aware that there is a spectrum of views on women and on sexuality among conservatives, and also that these views do NOT by any stretch of the imagination speak for the wider point of view held by more moderate Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or Protestant Christians. So, please, please do not take these quotations as expressing any assumptions about the more widely held views of any religious denomination.

The last quotation however was, although not on Penigma, at least in part, a response directly to Pen, AB, and myself, and so became my inspiration here. I was particularly struck by the notion that apparently women are defiled by having sex, but that men are not. I was further struck by the notion, typical of the 17th century, that rape does not, cannot by definition, occur within marriage. Statistically approximately 25% of all reported rapes occur between spouses (and many more rapes go un-reported).

"Swiftee" specifically stated in further comments that because I associated with liberals, I could not "find the strength to realize my worth". I would argue that everytime I write something here on Penigma, or on any of the other locations where I blog, that I use my intelligence, my skills, my perceptions and my character to do precisely that - to use my strength to realize my worth.

When I was a small child, before I was old enough to attend kindergarten, I was furious that grown ups could force me to wait to go to school. I wanted to learn how to read, and I wanted to learn NOW; I made a pretty good start at teaching myself to read, but I was absolutely convinced that school would speed things up tremendously. I was never a patient child. I vividly remember an afternoon spent alone with my maternal grandmother talking about the importance of school. I asked her if she had been a good student. It turned out my grandmother had been first in her graduating class, by a very large margin......but in her day, it was the best male student who was designated valedictorian. The best a woman could hope to achieve, regardless of the extent to which she excelled, was to be salutatorian; for which my grandmother received recognition, including giving a brief salutatory address - a welcoming statement of a line or two compared to the longer, more prestigious valedictorian address.

While bad language was pretty strictly prohibited, my unexpected reaction ,"The hell I'm going to put up with THAT!" left grandma laughing so hard, and in such complete agreement, that there was no chance of reprimand. Grandmother tried to patiently explain that in her day, it was considered the appropriate thing to do, however unfair it might seem to me years after her experience. When I asked grandma WHY in the world she would go along with something so unfair, she indicated that at the time, that was how both men and women defined being feminine. When I asked my grandmother WHY that defined masculine and feminine (and yes, my observation 'that's just dumb' was a part of the conversation), she was quiet for a very long time, and finally told me she just didn't know really, that it was not logical, that it was what people believed, and that they believed it very strongly. She did observe that the male ego was definitely a part of the belief, and that there had been an implicit need to prop up male status at the expense of female status - because how women felt was regarded as frankly (according to grandma) less important than how men felt.

Grandma predicted that I would be more successful than she was, but that it would mean conflict in my life. That specific conversation was the foundation over the years until she died just shy of 100, where when we were alone together we were not older and younger, we were equals who were unusually candid with each other. Grandma shared with me that she knew absolutely nothing on her wedding night, ignorance being equated with innocence. She shared with me that she was not even aware of the symptoms of pregnancy or the realities of contraception, when she was pregnant with my mother. And she shared with me that she had not been well informed enough as a mother to pass on much useful, reliable and accurate information to my mother and my aunt.

When I was old enough to have a curiosity about sex, after one of our candid discussions between grandma and I, I decided that my parents either wouldn't know or wouldn't be comfortable answering my questions. I had a number of mentors, but while they might have wanted to answer my questions, when it came to sex, I was sure they would be put on the spot between what my parents would want and what they would want and what I would want. So, I did what I always did when I wanted to know what the adult world was unwilling or unable to provide. I turned to my local library -- where fortunately at an early age - somewhere between 7 and 8 - my parents had written the obligatory letter which gave me unlimited access to the adult section of the library without either parental or librarian approval being required. My parents assumed - wrongly - that while I clearly enjoyed science books, and reading classical literature like Shakespeare, my reading ability would provide the appropriate limits. I was reading at college level by 5th and 6th grade, and I read everything that interested me, voraciously. I read Shakespeare, beginning with The Tempest and Midsummer Night's Dream, complete with the explanations of his sexy language. I read Ayn Rand, and thought she wrote very provocative sexual relationships. I even read a couple of books by the Marquis de Sade (Justine, and Juliette), just to see what the fuss was about and to see why anyone would consider him a philosopher. An inside joke to anyone else who has read de Sade, he was not my cup of tea. It was however great fun when I was in my mid teens to correct my aunt and uncle's family minister over the dinner table after Christmas Eve service when he inaccurately used the word Sadism. (Those "she did WHAT" moments were always a source of mischief - and surprisingly, perhaps most of all second only to my enjoyment, was my grandmother's.)

I was the person my grandmother turned to, while I was still in elementary school, to speak candidly about going through menopause. I was the person who was able to be supportive to my mother when she first had a radical mastectomy, followed a few years later by a hysterectomy, in understanding what kind of physical changes were going to result from such drastic surgery. When I received incredibly thorough comprehensive sex ed in the summer school biology class I took early, to pick up extra credits towards graduation, it filled in a few blanks, but was not entirely new material.

What formed the positive views of sex in monogamous relationships were things like observing my parents kiss each other hello, a 'real' kiss, not just an indifferent peck on the cheek when my father came home from the office. Or watching my father grieve over having lost his soul mate when my mother died at an unfortunately early age. Equally important were the loving long term relationships I formed with the men in my life, as mentors, as lovers, and most of all as friends which led me to regard sex as spiritual and about connection and character not just libido.

Every aspect of the attitudes about sex, and gender, encompassed in the quotations above, are hateful towards women and demeaning towards a wholesome and loving equal sexual relationship. Swiftee used the word 'defiled'. To defile, by the dictionary definitions, is to make dirty, unclean, polluted, or debased. It means to violate chastity. It means to desecrate. It means to sully a reputation. I can think of no better definition to describe the conservative view of sex and gender expressed by the quotes above, than defilement; defilement of women, defilement of what sex can and should be. The views in those quotes is ugly, it is degrading, and it is hateful. I am grateful to all of the people in my life who shaped my view of sex and gender, but most especially to the men in my life, whether teacher, friend, or lover, for valuing women generally, and for always valuing me specifically; and especially for helping me to value myself and to realize my strength and my potential.