thoughts in and out of season
In a usenet discussion group I mentioned that Humanae Vitae is one of the reasons I became Catholic: “Why is it,” I asked myself back then, “that the only man in the world who has an idea how to make human sense of sex is an aged celibate?” One of the other participants asked for … More ...
It’s been known for years that sexual activity outside marriage cannot succeed in expressing love in a way that measures up to the meanings implicit in the act itself. “This is bigger than both of us” is an overwhelming but deceitful fantasy unless the activity helps constitute something objective and permanent that does not depend … More ...
A worthwhile summmary from Canada of the problems with “gay marriage”: Culture wars are killing marriage.
The single most important question in the current debate over homosexuality is whether it’s good for those sexually attracted to persons of the same sex to follow through on their inclinations. If it is, then it’s a violation of their rights to stand in their way or act as if there’s something wrong with what … More ...
Stanley Kurtz has a generally sensible discussion at NRO of the practical function of sexual taboos, that by defining what is fitting within sexual relations they make it possible to rely on such relations to be something definite and so make family life possible as a social institution. He then says:
… More ...I would rather accept
Money and mainstream cultural radicalism: Nude department store. Selfridges, an English department store chain, capped its month-long Body Craze promotional campaign by paying an American artist a five-figure sum to use its flagship store as the setting for an installation involving 600 nude volunteers. The artist called the work Be Consumed, and explained … More ...
Who says feminism is pro-woman? As the Anti-feminist Page observes, the point is the abolition of “gender”—sexual distinctions—as a principle of social order, and their replacement by bureaucratic and market relations. The abolition of gender means, of course, that women are to be abolished just like men. The latest evidence on the point comes from … More ...
We’ve commented before on the success of the abstinence-based anti-AIDS program in Uganda, noting that the readiness of health officials dealing with AIDS to ignore the success of the program confirms that they are willing to sacrifice thousands of lives for the sake of sexual liberation and similar causes. It appears that feminism… More ...
Good causes: support Senator Santorum, and sign a petition against the current attempt to write “gay rights” into international human rights law.
Feminism gives ground for very serious complaints. However, the social location of those whose voices get amplified by the media ensures that they mostly take the form of yuppie kvetching: there can’t be anything wrong with feminism that more and better feminism wouldn’t cure, so that things become what they should be for me. … More ...