Rihanna, feminism and sex: The last go-round

I’ve had my dander up about this particular topic lately, so Ben Boychuk and I decided to tackle the issue in our column for Scripps Howard this week. You’ve already heard my take on this, so I’ll give you a taste of what Ben has to say.

Ben, to his credit, suggests that trying to link feminism to the Rihanna beating is “missing the point.” But then he goes on to blame feminism … for everything else:

There can be no doubt, however, that feminism’s futile effort to deny the differences between the sexes has had consequences.

Among those consequences is the widely accepted belief that girls can and should be a sexually aggressive (i.e. promiscuous) as boys. Another is the popular idea, born out by a national illegitimacy rate approaching 40 percent, that fathers aren’t necessary. Yet another is the trend among a subset of women to leave their husbands for other women.

I didn’t wrestle directly with these lines in my half of the column, because, well, we have both word limits and deadlines — and I had points of my own to make. But I do want to address these “consequences” just a little bit.

• THAT GIRLS CAN BE AS SEXUALLY AGGRESSIVE AS BOYS: Um, where to start? I’m no fan of hookup culture, but people have been trying to have sex with each other since, well, there were people. What’s changed is that 50 years ago, men (generally speaking) had sexual freedom and women had sexual responsibility — stuck with the responsibility to say “no” and the responsibility to live with the consequences if they didn’t. Even today, men who are “womanizers” don’t pay nearly the cultural penalty that “sluts” do.

Ideally, men and women should bear the same levels of freedom and responsibility for their sexual conduct. And while you’ll get no argument from me that the oversexualization of culture — brought to you in large part by capitalism’s marketeers — could use a bit of reining in, it’s not right to expect that women should bear the burden of that task.

• HIGH ILLEGITIMACY RATES THAT SUGGEST FATHERS AREN’T NECESSARY: Ben’s right that births to unwed mothers are about 40 percent. Unlike him, I’m not sure we know why that’s the case, and I suspect that “feminism” makes a convenient bugaboo here. But certainly it’s the case that it takes two to tango, and we have ample evidence that there are plenty of men who shirk their responsibilities in this regard — why else would we have an ever-growing set of rules and bureaucracy designed to get men to pay their child support, already? Is that feminism’s fault?

It’s true that feminism has encouraged women to get out of bad relationships rather than stay together for the sake of the children; but it’s also true that feminists have urged men to take on a greater portion of child-rearing duties than was the norm a couple of generations ago.

• A TREND AMONG A SUBSET OF WOMEN TO LEAVE THEIR HUSBANDS FOR OTHER WOMEN: Golly, I’d like to see some data on this trend. But I don’t think it exists; instead, I suspect Ben is referring — indirectly — to an article in Oprah Magazine which is frank in acknowledging that it can’t document any such trend, but goes on about it for a few thousand words nonetheless. (Ben, to be fair, hedges his bets by calling it a trend among a “subset” of women. Which subset would that be? Lesbians?)

Even if there is such a trend, though, so what? Is America really in danger of being swamped by a tide of lesbianism that threatens our ability to make another generation of Americans? If we’re not — if a sexual minority is simply getting slightly larger — what’s the big deal?

Unless you think homosexuality is ipso facto bad — and I won’t suggest that Ben believes such a thing — the only real consequence of this particular “consequence” is that things are different than they used to be. Conservatives tend to hate that kind of thing. But that doesn’t mean they’re right.

Chutzpah Watch: David Vitter is calling for Roland Burris’ resignation

The Hill:

Louisiana Sen. David Vitter (R), who survived a 2007 sex scandal, called on Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.)  to resign Tuesday for his ethical shortcomings.

Vitter was connected with a prostitution ring two years ago and  dismissed any suggestion of hypocrisy given his own refusal to resign in the wake of that scandal.

“I honestly don’t know anybody who would compare these situations,” he told The Hill on Tuesday. “They are dramatically different.”

I would!

Now, Vitter never specifically admitted visiting a prostitute, instead acknowledging a “very serious sin in my past.” But assuming that he did, in fact, visit prostitutes and paid them for sex, then Vitter broke the law.

Now it may be that Roland Burris also violated the law with his, ah, circumspection regarding his contacts with then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich in Illinois. If so, he should probably resign or be booted from the Senate. But David Vitter is pretty near the bottom of the list of people who should be leading that cause.

A wife’s duty is to sexually service her husband

Over at National Review’s The Corner, Kathryn Jean Lopez announces that Dennis Prager is writing about marital bliss. Being married, I follow the link.

And I gasp. Prager’s secret to marital bliss: The primary duty of wives, it appears, is to get their husbands off.

Sorry to be so blunt, but really, what can you say about advice like this:

Yet another outgrowth of ’60s thinking is the notion that it is “hypocritical” or wrong in some other way to act contrary to one’s feelings. One should always act, post-’60s theory teaches, consistent with one’s feelings. Therefore, many women believe that it would simply be wrong to have sex with their husband when they are not in the mood to. Of course, most women never regard it as hypocritical and rightly regard it as admirable when they meet their child’s or parent’s or friend’s needs when they are not in the mood to do so. They do what is right in those cases, rather than what their mood dictates. Why not apply this attitude to sex with one’s husband? Given how important it is to most husbands, isn’t the payoff — a happier, more communicative, and loving husband and a happier home — worth it?

What I find interesting here is that there’s no discussion on Prager’s part about the potential responsibility of men to act contrary to their feelings for the sake of their wives.

And there’s this:

What woman would love a man who was so governed by feelings and moods that he allowed them to determine whether he would do something as important as go to work? Why do we assume that it is terribly irresponsible for a man to refuse to go to work because he is not in the mood, but a woman can — indeed, ought to — refuse sex because she is not in the mood? Why?

Er … because going to work is necessary to pay for the immediate needs of survival? Whereas having sex today is merely something you want to do? Yeah, I know, sex is necessary for the survival of the species. But sex today isn’t.

Praeger frames this in the context of how wives should love their husbands. But don’t husbands have a loving duty to their wives not to be horny narcissists? And isn’t it convenient that in Prager’s universe, the demands of his id constitute an obligation on the part of his spouse, but no reciprocal obligations? What kind of man is he?

Anyway, this is all worth noting because Prager is a widely listened-to radio host, writing on a popular (and populist) conservative website and approvingly linked from National Review, the house organ of intellectual conservatism. You don’t have to be pro-choice to conclude from this that many conservatives don’t really have the best interests of women at heart.