thoughts in and out of season
Pascal observed that it’s difficult to speak chastely of chastity, and it must be far more difficult to speak chastely of pornography. Still, you have to deal with what’s around us, and it’s worth noting that even New York Magazine, which is in the business of treating everything as a consumer good, is starting … More ...
Wendy McElroy gives some startling statistics on the decline of marriage in her piece on The Marriage Strike (by men who don’t much like what current family law has to offer them). During the first half of the ’90s the marriage rate dropped from 9.8 to 7.6—I had no idea there had been such a … More ...
In spite of hate speech laws the mainstream press is probably a bit freer and more diverse in Britain than America. Here, for example, is a reasonably straightforward article on reparative therapy for homosexual orientation—something you’re not likely to see in the national press here. For those who pursue it, more often than not … More ...
Here’s what marriage looks like to what seem to be an increasing number of young men. It appears that getting rid of traditional rules and understandings hasn’t done much for relations between men and women. Many men find that the classic accusations of the misogynist—women are fickle, deceitful, treacherous, perverse, manipulative, sexually unreliable, physically repulsive … More ...
Some things, it seems, are too obvious for even a left-wing sociologist to miss. Or so one gathers from Nannyhood and Apple Pie, a review of The Commercialization of Intimate Life by Arlie Russell Hochschild. Dr. Hochschild naturally refers to feminism as a worthy but “stalled” gender revolution, and blames all problems on … More ...
The understanding of morality and public order that’s authoritative today holds that sex can’t have any meaning that’s publicly recognized. Freedom and equality demands that each of us construct its meaning for himself. Anything else would be institutionalized oppression that touches on the most intimate aspects of what we are. Such views are integral to … More ...
More evidence that the modern bureaucratic state simply fails to understand family relations—how they work, what they mean, why they matter:
The Pentagon inspector general reported recently that nearly 20 percent of female Air Force Academy cadets said they had been sexually assaulted since arriving at the academy. Because of related scandals, the Air Force has transferred the academy’s leadership and is looking into what has been going on.
It’s hard to determine particulars from the … More ...
The imperialism of the new sexual righteousness: European Parliament Says Athos Monks Must End 1000-Year Male-Only Tradition, and Dutch abortion ship invades Poland. Mount Athos has been the center of Orthodox monasticism for more than a thousand years, and part of their discipline has always been the exclusion of women. The European Parliament … More ...
If the notion that there’s something amiss with homosexuality is just an ignorant prejudice based on nothing, why is it so durable and widespread? Could there be something wrong with the fundamental analysis? In India they seem to think so, but they’re not quite sure why: Centre says being gay will remain a crime, its … More ...