Confessions of a closet conservative
Nov. 9th, 2009 02:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lavendersparkleI'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?
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?
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-09 05:47 pm (UTC)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.