By R. Brownell

Feminist Explanation of Sex Shows Failures of Relativist Ideology

“Saints preserve me from either of my boys or my daughter participating in this degraded rutting culture. What is missing here is — wait for it — love. And commitment. And the mutual respect that comes from a culture where sex is an expression of committed love” –Rod Dreher

While under the shadowy brick and mortar of an undisclosed building searching for breaking news to write about (or more likely starring at my iPhone while grabbing coffee at Starbucks, I’m not Matt Drudge), I ran into a piece by Rebecca Traister, a writer from “The Cut” (it’s cool if you’ve never heard of it, because I don’t think 99% of society has) who recently published an op-ed entitled “The Game is Rigged,” which covered an old feminist complaint heard on American college campuses. Take a look for yourself:

It may feel as though contemporary feminists are always talking about the power imbalances related to sex, thanks to the recently robust and radical campus campaigns against rape and sexual assault. But contemporary feminism’s shortcomings may lie in not its over­radicalization but rather its under­radicalization. Because, outside of sexual assault, there is little critique of sex. Young feminists have adopted an exuberant, raunchy, confident, righteously unapologetic, slut-walking ideology that sees sex — as long as it’s consensual — as an expression of feminist liberation. The result is a neatly halved sexual universe, in which there is either assault or there is sex positivity. Which means a vast expanse of bad sex — joyless, exploitative encounters that reflect a persistently sexist culture and can be hard to acknowledge without sounding prudish — has gone largely uninterrogated, leaving some young women wondering why they feel so fu**ed by fu**ing.

So, assuming I have a full understanding of this, bad sex is just as bad as sexual assault or rape because a woman being incapable of achieving an orgasm during sex while a man is is a form of male aggression. How on earth does this make sense? The article continues:

In this line of thinking, sex after yes, sex without violence or coercion, is good. Sex is feminist. And empowered women are supposed to enjoy the hell out of it. In fact, Alexandra Brodsky, a Yale law student and founder of anti-rape organization Know Your IX, tells me that she has heard from women who feel that “not having a super-exciting, super-positive sex life is in some ways a political failure.” Except that young women don’t always enjoy sex — and not because of any innately feminine psychological or physical condition. The hetero (and non-hetero, but, let’s face it, mostly hetero) sex on offer to young women is not of very high quality, for reasons having to do with youthful ineptitude and tenderness of hearts, sure, but also the fact that the game remains rigged.

Wow, it’s as if a light bulb just went on for this struggling feminist. But wait, there’s more:

It’s rigged in ways that go well beyond consent. Students I spoke to talked about “male sexual entitlement,” the expectation that male sexual needs take priority, with men presumed to take sex and women presumed to give it to them. They spoke of how men set the terms, host the parties, provide the alcohol, exert the influence. Male attention and approval remain the validating metric of female worth, and women are still (perhaps increasingly) expected to look and f**k like porn stars — plucked, smooth, their pleasure performed persuasively. Meanwhile, male climax remains the accepted finish of hetero encounters; a woman’s orgasm is still the elusive, optional bonus round. Then there are the double standards that continue to redound negatively to women: A woman in pursuit is loose or hard up; a man in pursuit is healthy and horny. A woman who says no is a prude or a cock tease; a man who says no is rejecting the woman in question. And now these sexual judgments cut in two directions: Young women feel that they are being judged either for having too much sex, or for not having enough, or enough good, sex. Finally, young people often have very drunk sex, which in theory means subpar sex for both parties, but which in practice is often worse (like, physically worse) for women.

What really pisses me off about this is that nothing is taken seriously or treated as sacred anymore; life doesn’t matter because opposing abortion equates to hating women. War is apparently our national pastime because opposing it is the same as hating the troops, and supporting a traditional definition of marriage while not wanting the state to define things that they should have no role in (because it’s an institution given by God) makes someone a gay-hating bigot. What if men stopped objectifying women and had faith they could be fulfilled as men through a monogamous relationships based on respect and love?

The same goes for women. Want to be treated like a lady? Act like one. Want better sex? Have it with someone worthy of your gift of intimacy instead of allowing yourself to be seen like a piece of meat. How about resisting the insertion of a relativist mindset into a process that, whether both consenting parties want to admit or not, ends up having an emotional cost?

Humans are more than animals; we are deeply spiritual, and when we become intimate, whether good or bad, we carry that baggage with us no matter what. Feminists talk about dignity and liberation, and libertarians often jump onto the feminist bandwagon because they attempt to tie it into self-ownership. I think libertarians owe it to themselves to admit that just because people can do something to themselves, it’s not necessarily right to do so. Just because someone can be a drug addict doesn’t mean it’s a great idea; just because one can choose to end his/her life doesn’t mean he/she should. If we value humanity, we must stop treating morality as relative and look out for the sanctity of our gift of life, sometimes telling people what they don’t want to hear because we value their worth has people.

Simply put, feminism is nihilism, but with a bitchier connotation.