Mises.ca Editor-in-Chief James Miller is about to learn that he can’t outrun the Internet.

Earlier this week, Miller wrote a piece called “Why Slut-Shame” in which he completely failed to provide a comprehensive argument for why we should shame sluts aside from “Well, we’ve always done that; we gotta keep those sluts out of our society.” Miller caught an appropriate amount of backlash from commenters around social media and the blogotubes, and then someone took the post down from Mises.ca.

But you can’t get away from the Internet. Miller, for whatever reason, has kept the post up on his personal blog, and you can still find a cached version of the page on Google. So, let’s see what he has to say.

Catch That Religious Bigotry?

Though other pens have covered the implicit racism, explicit sexism, and other problems with his post, I wonder if anyone has noticed this part:

Enshrining marriage as the prime abettor for physical relations – like it or not – has been a freeing force from paganism.

Sigh. First of all, the term “paganism” encompasses a great score of faith systems and cultures, from ancient times and today, not just the Greco-Romans that he references. Second, the idea that paganism was or is something that people need to be freed from, is, problematic at best. Miller has predictably linked paganism with sexual proclivity, when such a connection is tenuous at best. “Pagans,” practically invented the kind of monogamous marriage from which modern-day Christians draw their traditions. I doubt Miller thinks we should be freed from that.

The idea that pagans are orgy-throwing sexual deviants is about as old and tired as the idea that they commonly practiced human sacrifice. Come on, now.

Let He Who is Without Sin…

Miller also says that slut shaming has been around since the beginnings of Christianity. I neither have the time nor the patience to deal with all the Christian commentary on sex from Paul to present day (though I can point you to someone who can), but I do know who the original anti-slut shamer was.

They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”



John 8:3-7

I’ll say it: Jesus wouldn’t want you to hate on “sluts.” If you care more about your religion than your god, you have bigger problems than what other people do with their bodies.

Here’s the Real Problem

I heard all the hubbub about this article on Facebook. I talked with Cathy, who was linked in the piece, about it. We effortlessly agreed that the piece is a crock of nonsense under the guise of reason that attempts to control the behavior and sexuality of women.

The problem is that we weren’t at all surprised. Cathy and I (and other women in the movement) see this kind of crap every day. Our movement is filled with people like Miller, and that’s the real problem here. While I am happy that our community is properly scandalized by this piece, it’s time that those same people learned that this kind of behavior and thought is more common than they would like to admit and start making efforts to stop it.