Confessions of a closet conservative

[lavendersparkle]

I'm a liberal, right?

I'm pretty sure that I'm on solid ground saying that politically I'm very much a liberal. I manage to shock liberals by coming out with statements like "I really can't see the justification for keeping illegal consensual incest/bestiality/heroine. Where I feel less certain is in the non-governmental sphere. Increasingly I find myself thinking "well I could agree with that, but that's not a conservative position" about quite a few things. I'll go through a few.

Sex. I didn't have sex with my husband until we got married. That was due to his wishes more than mine, but I can definitely see the merits in having done this. It's nice to only have sex with someone you trust and are committed to. Someone you know will still be around if the sex results in a pregnancy. Someone whose sexual history you know. I know sex doesn't have to be a sacred transcendent expression of a spiritual bond and commitment, but why not have it as that? I can understand why other people want to engage in different life styles, but I'm not sure why a lot of people are so hostile about the idea of celibacy until marriage. I suppose it's because historically standards of virginity have been different for men and women, and they've been used to shame and hurt people, and been associated with homophobia. Still, I think maybe more people should take sex more seriously. I get the impression that more people are having regrettable sex than regretting not having sex.

So on to another topic, responsibility. I think that people should try, as much as possible, to look contribute more than they take, because some people need more than they can contribute. Put that way it sounds quite Bolshevik. It's probably a caricature of liberal individualism to characterise it as take take take.

I'm going to confess, walking through Cambridge on a Friday night makes me think that maybe the Iranians are onto something. This may be terrible hypocrisy as last Friday I got very drunk at a dinner and then had to host a pro-life event the next morning with a hang over. Having said that, I have never been so drunk as to vomit or urinate in the street. I have never been so drunk that I engaged in sexual behaviour with some random stranger. The whole idea of getting drunk without sober trusted friends to look after you nearby seems reckless. That's not victim blaming. People have fallen into the Cam and died because they were walking alone past it drunk.

Porn. I used to find burlesque and pole dancing cool. Now, not so much. I admire the aesthetics of burlesque and the abilities of some of it's performers, but it's just not my thing any more. I suppose I have increasing sympathy for a view expressed that sex like food is a good part of life. However, if people started paying to watch a a roast dinner being slowly revealed and eaten, you'd think something had gone wrong somewhere along the line. I guess a bit part of it is the way that sex has now taken on a meaning for me very much tied up to marriage which isn't conducive to watching it as a performance.

So, have I gone all the way through liberal and out the other side?

Comments

[maideleh.livejournal.com]

I'm ridiculously liberal and ridiculously conservative all at the same time, so I see where you are coming from. It's an odd line to walk, politically minded friends on both ends of the spectrum get mad at me.

[naath.livejournal.com]

Sex in your private life should be about whatever you and your partner(s) want it to be about... of course the political question is about sex *education* or about sexuality in the public sphere.

I wouldn't dream of telling anyone else what they should be doing in their private life, I really don't want anyone telling me what I should do in mine either; but I think everyone needs to be given the information-tools to be able to make a variety of life-style choices in the confidence that they can do so in a sensible, responsible manner (and of course some people won't need or want to use all of those tools).

I'm not a big fan of sex-as-performance either; but I'm more irritated by the sexualisation of every-day things than I am with such things as burlesque clubs or porn films - those are things aimed at a specific audience, clearly advertised as being for that audience and not something I generally stumble upon accidentally. Although there are issues with performers rights I feel that if those were dealt with then those wishing to perform and those wishing to watch could all do so somewhere where I am not and I would be happy with that.

I do think that people in general should be responsible. That whilst you should get what you need you should give what you can in return. The right-wing press likes to bring up stereotypes of people taking without giving, but I don't know how widespread it is (compared to people not giving because they *can't*. It would be nice to have actual numbers on that, but I fear getting them would be somewhat tricky (and would rely on someone's judgement of "need" and "able" which I may or may not agree with).

[lavendersparkle.livejournal.com]

I agree that the sexualisation of the everyday is a not more annoying than clearly designated, avoidable sexual performance. I'd much prefer to live near an X-rated cinema and be able to walk into a normal shop and not be presented with an array of tits and innuendo from magazines purporting not to be pornography.

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure why a lot of people are so hostile about the idea of celibacy until marriage.

I'd say that hostility to celibacy until marriage if chosen by the people concerned is itself illiberal (rather than imposed celibacy, which is an entirely different kettle of fish).

So on to another topic, responsibility. I think that people should try, as much as possible, to look contribute more than they take, because some people need more than they can contribute. Put that way it sounds quite Bolshevik. It's probably a caricature of liberal individualism to characterise it as take take take.

Here I'd agree with you that it's a caricature. And you've conflated two issues - responsibility and contribution. The key issue with responsibility is that when used in more conservative approaches it seems to mean the same thing as "unforgiving". And to me the purpose of civilisation is to ensure that the society in which we live is a lot less unforgiving than nature. So the whole point is to make sure that there are no bad consequences from being reckless rather than the recklessness itself.

Re: the contributions, which provides the greater contribution? A charity to care for the sick and destitute, or a welfare state? Get the systems right!

And I agree re: Porn (other than to point out that really good poledancers are really good as well).

[girlofthemirror.livejournal.com]

I think when people choose to have sex or not should really be up to them. I think suggesting people have sex responsibly and safely is very different from saying they shouldn't have it until they are married. The first statement is great and I'd like it to be better advocated but the second describes such a narrow group of experience that it really doesn't help much as a generalisation (for example - it doesn't apply to gay people or those who prefer not to marry, it makes it easy to forget rape within marriage etc).

I think that there are a lot of us in the process of getting less radical as we get older!

[lavendersparkle.livejournal.com]

for example - it doesn't apply to gay people

Actually, among my bizarre group of associates are some people who think that gay people shouldn't have sex until they (as in same sex) marry. I think that's pretty much my husband's view. He's not really in the business of telling people what to do, but if pushed he'd say that gay people should wait until they're married to have sex, or at least until they're in a long term committed relationship.

I didn't include in the post that I'm well aware that marriages can go horribly wrong. That's an important point, but I don't think that discredits marriage as an endeavour. The husband of one of my friends is currently on trial for multiple assaults against her.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm increasingly seeing the merits of the choice to only have sex within marriage and I also see that choice widely derided by a lot of people. I want to be able to argue that it is a lifestyle choice which works well for some people and shouldn't just be dismissed as a relic of a bygone age.

[cathedral-life.livejournal.com]

I agree, in a way, re. the gay wait until marriage thing. The only problem is that the only thing I count as "marriage" is sacramental marriage, and the church doesn't offer that (possibly because it thinks that gay sex isn't sex, or that gay sex is irredeemable, or even that gay sex is a "wrong" than cannot be overlooked for the good intention of a relationship).

That rather puts LGB people into a double bind. I want also to be able to argue that there is merit to only having sex within marriage, but I guess I want the religious definition of marriage widened (which will never happen), so sometimes I feel very jealous that it's always defined in a very straight way.

[lavendersparkle.livejournal.com]

Alec is a prot so he sort of thinks of people as married once they've made that sort of serious commitment to each other, even if they can't contract their marriage in a usual way. He's said that he sort of felt like we were married before we actually were because he already had that level of commitment to me.

[cathedral-life.livejournal.com]

Interesting, but not convinced that's prot, is it? Admittedly, it does sound like John Howard Yoder, who defines sex as marriage, but most people wouldn't go that far!

[lavendersparkle.livejournal.com]

I think it's to do with the way he views sacraments. I tends to view them as just a physical representation of something which is going on spiritually anyway, without much efficacy of their own other than their psychological effect. So if two people wished to be married, and felt that this was what G@d was calling them to, but couldn't do it the traditional way because they were stuck on a desert island or both of the same sex, they could become married by mutually agreeing to that commitment and doing whatever they felt was appropriate to mark it.

But I think that that was basically what usd to happen in the olden days anyway.

[alec-corio.livejournal.com]

I'm not entirely sure I'd quite put it like that, lest I get chucked out of the church.

The sacraments (which I take to be an outward sign of an interior grace) clearly do have value and efficacy in themselves, but not on anywhere near the same level or of the same character as the inward grace. They are the nutshell rather than the nut's kernel. That is quite a protty thing to say - it is, for example, how baptismal regeneration can be regarded by 19th century evangelicals as conditional on faith: the external sign is a call to and promise of faith, but that faith must later be realised for the baptism to regenerate. On marriage my view is that the committment and relationship is what makes a marriage sacramental (i.e. graceful) in character rather than the outward sign of the beginning of that relationship (a church service).

It's also quite protty - puritan or dissenting even - to feel that a marriage ceremony isn't something that the church necessarily needs to control, or at least doesn't need to present in a ritualised context. That's also quite consistant with the practice of the early and medieval church, which doesn't always seem to have treated marriage as a sacrament.

[cathedral-life.livejournal.com]

:-)

I'm sure using the comparison "level" of sacraments can't be quite right :) I see what you're getting at, but have to acknowledge now that it does sound quite protty.

I wonder how I'd put it re. marriage... "Grace is demonstrated through the covenant of marriage; the covenant between God and mankind and the covenant between the two human beings. Such a covenant can exist where there has not been a ceremony through the couple's promise of commitment (whether spoken or not) and the couple's sexual union." Hmm... wonder whether that is too protty as well. Will need to think a bit more about this...

I do wonder whether thinking that God's grace is only effective once the ritual/practice element of the church service has happened is truly catholic. In one sense, it takes seriously the wedding of the body of a human with the body of the church (which the desert island view doesn't), but on the other hand... No, I'm not sure.

I figure that this is probably going to turn out to be another debate on justification!

[alec-corio.livejournal.com]

"Grace is demonstrated through the covenant of marriage; the covenant between God and mankind and the covenant between the two human beings. Such a covenant can exist where there has not been a ceremony through the couple's promise of commitment (whether spoken or not) and the couple's sexual union." Hmm... wonder whether that is too protty as well.

Since I pretty much agree with this, it is probably pretty protty. Apologives for the plosive alliteration.

Limiting the ability of God's grace to be present in a relationship because that relationship has not been constituted/acknowledged in a liturgical setting is theologically problematic, and some might say uncatholic. However, it's also difficult not to feel that a statement of commitment is crucial to the creation of a relationship which is covenantal on the model of God/Israel and Christ/humanity. There was a hugely public acknowledgement of self-giving vulnerability in both those cases, and I think that marriage does demand a similar action.

[blazingrowan.livejournal.com]

'I think suggesting people have sex responsibly and safely is very different from saying they shouldn't have it until they are married.'

Absolutely! The abstinence-only movement seems to use 'marriage' synonymously with 'responsible and safe and secure' and doesn't really seem to educate people about sexuality and consent and open communication and lots of other important stuff...

I like this article on the American abstinence-only movement. http://newhumanist.org.uk/1849 Lots of scary stuff on sex being terrible outside of marriage and automatically (without learning or talking or practicing, from wedding night onwards) awesome within. (though also yay for sex-positivity and for Christian sex manuals and sex toy websites without porn on.) Hijacking medical ideas ('low self-esteem') and changing laws and doing *so much harm*... *sigh*

And in terms of hostility: yes, it's annoying. Lots of people from 'both' 'sides' are very hostile towards the other's choices, and it's a shame. I've had long, interesting conversations with an abstinence-only Christian friend, and we broadly agree in the fundamental - that sex is awesome and special and a great gift - and differ completely in its execution.

Alcohol and the Iranians: prohibition isn't the answer - changing peoples' attitudes is, and thankfully lots of people become more sensible in time...

Burlesque - as I said recently regarding cosmetic surgery and feminism, 'there's a difference between cosmetic surgery and the beauty industry: one also includes reconstruction and necessary functional changes (eg. for burns victims) and the other is *everything* that enforces stupid beauty standards and shoves them at us *everywhere* and cosmetic surgery is part of that.'

I think this is similar - the sex industry has *utterly vast* amounts wrong with it, and female objectification (in general) helps perpetuate the sex industry and the suffering of those affected. However, there are pockets of people who work as prostitutes, dancers and so on *with full consent and choice.* They are the *absolute* minority (and of course the ones we hear about the most: the happy hookers, the Belle de Jours) and the focus on them is harmful in perpetuating the myth that *most* people in the sex industry are there by consent.

Burlesque (ie. the modern movement) is complicated: certainly pole/lapdancing and many forms of 'burlesque' are simple and strippy and objectifying. But the focus seems (to me) to be on creativity: on the dance itself, not the reveal, and so people cheerfully do burlesque in diving suits, they strip down to t-shirts and shorts and stop, they simply dance. Stripping or not, I like burlesque when done in a positive, non-shouty and non-scary way: both as an observer and as a person who performs.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I think you're rather conservative in your behaviour and choices but mainly liberal in your attitude to other people's rights. Many people are not capable of having a difference between their behaviour and their attitude toward what they think other people should be allowed to do in this way.