Margaret Wente: Why Are Young Feminists so Clueless About Sex?
Posted: October 27, 2015 Filed under: Education, Health and Social Issues, Think Tank | Tags: Behavior, Biology, Casual sex, Drinking, Feminism, Feminist, Harvard, MARGARET WENTE, Reina Gattuso, Sex, Sexuality, The Globe and Mail Leave a comment
They’ve been sold a lie – that sexual and behavioural differences between men and women are matters of preference.
Margaret Wente writes: A few months ago, a Harvard senior named Reina Gattuso wrote a column in the school newspaper. It described her crummy night of drunken sex with a couple of men she didn’t know. “I have so much to drink my memory becomes dark water,” she wrote. She freely admitted that she consented. Enthusiastically. And that was the problem. She thought she would enjoy it, but instead she just felt rotten!
“They’ve been told they are supposed to be having a super-positive sex life – unconflicted, joyous, casual and abundant.”
Most people might conclude from this experience that random sex with drunken strangers is a poor idea, and Ms. Gattuso really should not try that again. Old-fashioned moralists might even call such behaviour tawdry, degrading and sluttish. Not Ms. Gattuso. And not Rebecca Traister, the New York Magazine writer who wrote about it. To them, the moral of the story is that the world is awash in bad consensual sex. This is due to the persistent power imbalances between women and men. 
Until we fix this, women cannot be sexually happy. As Ms. Traister argues, “The game is rigged.
“They’ve been told they should be able to have as many partners and initiate sex just as often as men do. And they’ve tried that. And it hasn’t worked out very well.”
Ironically, today’s feminists are serious about consent but casual about sex. And to their shock, they’ve discovered that there’s an awful lot of bad sex out there. They did not expect this. They’ve been told they are supposed to be having a super-positive sex life – unconflicted, joyous, casual and abundant. They’ve been told they should be able to have as many partners and initiate sex just as often as men do. And they’ve tried that. And it hasn’t worked out very well. Instead of feeling super-positive, they feel sexually dissatisfied, emotionally disconnected and more than a little used.
The surprise is that so many young women are surprised by this. Haven’t they watched Girls?
“Ironically, today’s feminists are serious about consent but casual about sex. And to their shock, they’ve discovered that there’s an awful lot of bad sex out there.”
The trouble isn’t men, of course. Nor is it the culture. The trouble is that these women have been sold a lie. Read the rest of this entry »
The New Campus Sex Puritans
Posted: October 2, 2014 Filed under: Education, Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Brock University, Campus, George Washington University, Jami Coughler, Jerry Brown, MARGARET WENTE, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ontario, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, University of Michigan 1 Comment
The neo-puritans want to bureaucratize your sex life, and criminalize incorrect behavior. Will the progressive left have any better luck regulating sexual behaviour than the puritanical right did?
Margaret Wente writes: Sixty years ago, sexual behaviour among the young caused deep alarm among the puritanical religious right. Today, it causes deep alarm among the puritanical progressive left. Like their forebears, they are doing their best to restrict and regulate it.
This weekend, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill that makes universities redefine consensual sex. From now on, students must effectively obtain the “affirmative consent” of their partners, which must be “ongoing” every step of the way.
“Sexual violence is anything that makes someone feel unsafe; it could be catcalls, peer pressure to act a certain way in a situation, verbal harassment and unwanted touching. Many of these things occur daily without anyone giving a second thought to them.”
— Jami Coughler, program co-ordinator of the sexual violence support centre at Ontario’s Brock University
Those accused of violating the consent rule will be judged on the 
preponderance of the evidence. Perpetrators face suspension or expulsion, and universities face heavy penalties for failure to enforce.
“…sexual violence includes such offences as ‘criticizing the partner sexually’ and ‘withholding sex and affection’ – things that in my day were known as ‘being in a bad relationship.'”
The new measure is designed to stem a tidal wave of rape on campus that, in fact, does not exist. (Violent crime, including sexual assault, has been in decline for 20 years.) Even so, universities across North America have set up vast new administrative apparatuses to deal with the crisis. Many of them have also expanded the meaning of “sexual violence” to include anything that makes you feel bad. Read the rest of this entry »
Obamacare, where the Liberal Dreams Go to Die
Posted: December 8, 2013 Filed under: Global, Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Barack Obama, Globe and Mail, MARGARET WENTE, Max Baucus, Obamacare, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act 3 Comments
The Globe and Mail‘s Margaret Wente writes: On Wednesday afternoon, a bunch of twentysomethings were summoned to the White House to hear an infomercial from Barack Obama himself. He was pitching health insurance.
“The product is good. It’s affordable,” the President told them. “… We’re going to keep working through any glitches, problems that may come up.” He urged them to spread the word. “So if you’re a student body president, set up a conference on campus … If you’re a bartender, have a happy hour … Post something on your Facebook or Instagram.”
Mr. Obama desperately needs healthy young people to sign on to Obamacare in order to subsidize the old and sick. But the salesman-in-chief can’t close the deal. His approval rating among millennials has sunk to a dismal 41 per cent, according to a new poll conducted by Harvard University’s Institute of Politics. More than half of those under 25 would like to throw him out of office. Fifty-seven per cent of millennials say they disapprove of Obamacare, and less than a third say they’re likely to sign up.
The Affordable Care Act was going to save the world. But now, the law’s supporters will be happy just to save the furniture. They used to talk about transformation. Today they’re simply hoping for survival.
pundit from another planet 