Posted on 03/19/2002 7:13:02 AM PST by TLBSHOW
If you were to visit a women’s studies department at an elite university, you would encounter a wide variety of courses on the sexual liberation of women. The main thrust of these courses is that for too long, various social institutions have prevented women from exploring their sexual desires. Now, thanks to the heroism of such women as Gloria Steinem, Margaret Sanger, and Bella Abzug, women have been partially freed from the oppressive forces of male patriarchy. In other words, young women are encouraged to be whores.
The chant of Gen. Y college babes might as well be “We’re here, we’re whores, get used to it!” No, most girls are not actually uttering those words, but the slutty sentiments are implicit in the standard female college behavior – wearing tight shirts and pants, getting publicly drunk, hanging on every guy around, and engaging in random sex.
The concept of “behaving like a lady” is an anachronism. If a college girl acts like a lady, she is considered boring, prudish, and old-fashioned. Why is this happening? Five important explanations come to mind.
(1) Feminist thought has taught young women that equality is achieved by acting like promiscuous sluts.
In Who Stole Feminism? Christina Hoff Summers writes extensively about how the women’s rights movement was hijacked by gender feminists, who supplanted equity feminists. While equity feminists were concerned with such mainstream issues as equal pay for equal work, gender feminists were obsessed with proving that (a) there are no biological differences between men and women and (b) men are evil. When the gender feminists seized control of the movement, they encouraged women to behave just as immorally as many men. This was seen as a step toward gender equity.
But why is it liberating for a college-age woman to jump into bed with a man that is not her husband? Why is it freeing to become intoxicated and to hook-up with anonymous frat guys? Why is it an expression of equal rights to give into men’s animalistic instincts?
Presumably, women could exercise their true power to tame men by using celibacy (and other ladylike behavior) to induce men into monogamous stable relationships and eventually into marriage. Along the way to healthy relationships, women could also gain some self-respect.
(2) Young women have turned away from God.
As women have strayed from the church, they have replaced what is holy with what is temporally pleasing. For Catholics, the model woman is Mary, the virgin Mother of God. She is beloved by the faithful for her unflappable devotion to and trust in God, her nurturing of the Son of Man, and her deep love for all humanity.
Today’s college girl looks to Ally McBeal, the trollops of Sex in the City, and the floozies on Friends to set their moral compasses.
The sad truth is that college girls are so desperate to find love that they are willing to degrade themselves to get it. But true love can only be understood in the context of the Word of God. Any other notion of “love” is secular and, by definition, limited and finite.
(3) The costs of sex have rapidly declined.
The explosion in availability of the birth control pill fueled the so-called sexual revolution of the ‘60s, the consequences of which we still see today. With the ability to partially regulate the probability of pregnancy, women can choose to have sex more liberally. Expanded abortion-on-demand services have also permitted young women to engage in more sex because of the greater ease with which a major consequence of sex can be disposed. Abortion providers have recognized the prevalence of sex by college girls in their choice to locate close to our nation’s colleges and universities.
Perhaps just as important as the reduction in the economic costs of sex is the decline in the psychic costs of sex – specifically, the social stigma associated with nonmarital sex. In an earlier era, young women who chose to engage in sex were socially ostracized and their behavior denounced. Today, if a young woman engages in a one-night-stand (“random hook-up”) she is a liberated studette.
(4) Marriage has been devalued by young women and replaced not only by cohabitation but also by new, bizarre social arrangements such as “friends with benefits.”
Young women have traditionally looked to men for marriage and family formation. This is no longer true. College girls look at men not as marriage material, but as sex partners and roommates. Many college women live and sleep with their boyfriends. This is the norm.
Additionally, other sex-based relationships have become commonplace. In recent years, a new and disturbing arrangement known as “friends with benefits” has emerged. In this arrangement, men are not even forced to perform the normal duties of boyfriends, i.e. flowers, Valentine’s Day cards, rides to the abortion clinic, etc. Instead, girls consider these guys “just friends” whom they happen to screw every now and again. No strings, no attachments, no dinners. Just sex when they feel like it.
This type of arrangement is the next logical step in the direction that young women have drifted in the last few decades. These women have become unpaid whores. At least prostitutes made a buck off of their trade. These women just give it away.
The truth is that women actually lose power by becoming tramps. When they give away one of their main sources of bargaining power in a relationship – sex – men gain total power by achieving everything they want…free sex with no obligation.
(5) “You know exactly who’s to blame…the mother and the father.” – The Oompa Loompas in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
College girls are clearly responsible for their own behavior, but their parents have shaped their values. The verdict is in -- their parents have failed. Too many parents, particularly mothers, have eschewed their moral obligations to raise their daughters to be respectable ladies.
Instead, many moms want to be their daughters’ friends, talking late at night about boyfriends, parties, who’s hot, etc. Young women do not need more friends, they need mothers who will provide moral guidance. Unfortunately, these self-absorbed moms cannot deal with the fact that they are old and will never again see their early 20s. Thus, they attempt to live their sorority days all over again through their slutty daughters.
“Now Sabia,” you say, “you’ve been very hard on young women. But don’t young men deserve some blame? Aren’t you just a bitter, cranky, rapidly-aging misogynist?”
The answer to both questions is ‘yes.’
Young men are awful and they have gotten worse over the years. And let me be clear – young men are responsible for their own behavior.
But women have historically been the civilizing forces for men. That is biological. Moreover, several verses in the Scriptures refer to the important role that women have in the moral uplift of men.
It should surprise no one that sexual activity has historically been more frequent among gay men than among heterosexuals. This is because there is no civilizing female force in the gay community. Whenever men want to have sex, they just go ahead and do it. Neither of the partners has much of an incentive to refrain from sex since monogamous relationships and traditional familes are generally not the final goals of these partnerships. Recently, the behavior of young heterosexuals has begun to resemble that of gay men because young women are imitating men in their sexual promiscuity.
The result of young women’s abdication of responsibility has been significant moral decay on America’s college campuses. Can the moral high ground ever be reclaimed? Perhaps…one church pew at a time.
That's a canard and you know better. You think some drunk college girl running a train is going to be "happy" about it ala Mencken down the road in her adult life. Hardly.
I'm not advocating puritanism but I think pan-sexual orgies by coeds or any irresponsible sexual behavior being applauded by those on this thread is simply adolescent fantasy intruding on logic and reasoning. Two thought processes that I would think appeal to you as an Objectivist.
For most of their lives Hillary, Oprah etc. have told them -'You are just like boys and can do the same things they do.'
DUH.....And It's a fun way to irk some of the thin skinned ones around here....Shake things up a bit, though the posting police haven't pointed out yet that this should be in the General Interest column.
Or have I simply condemned the self-righteous?
There are some valid points (not expressed in the article) that can be made. He probably just broke up with a hot girl and is mad about something.
These educators have been spouting this feminist line for 30 years and now the chickens have come home to roost.
I don't agree with the "double standard" either. Think of the many poor wives over the years who have been "infected" due to their husband's affairs. I just don't like all the filthy promiscuity that it going on. While we can't legislate it out of existence, those of us who care can try and protect our children as best we can.
But where does the line get drawn? Some (I'm sure not you) would argue that adults should be able to have sex with children. If you disagree with that, why should your morality be imposed on those who would go further into the typically unacceptable behaviors?
This country was established on the premise that Judeo-Christian ethics are the basis of morality. Nothing in mankind has changed to justify the unacceptability of certain behaviors.
All civilized societies value chaste behavior in young women...always have and not without reason....the "pill" notwithstanding. I mean how do we look back on Caligula?...with respect?...LOL
But then again, In his own words a womans worth, TO HIM, derives from one thing mostly. Considering the lack of maturity and reflection in that statement, how can one take anything he says seriously.
Isn't that funny? Its soo true. This is even more true than this "your money is our money; my money is my money" thing. Both are true,however.
But you cannot ignore during the last 30 years in the media on campus and in government there has been an effort to make girls 'more like boys.' The solution is to be honest and realistic rather than pretend we live in a unisex country.
This is exactly where you Libertarians start to sound like Liberals.
Respectfully of course.
Actually, from a Christian perspective, the man is MORE responsible than the woman. He is the leader, the decision maker, the priest of the family (supposedly). He can only be that to his family if he has practiced it in his life. I've tried to teach my sons that THEY are responsible for protecting their "women" from harm, whether it be physical, emotional, or moral.
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