WoodScientist
People really don’t understand the history. Social practices evolved over the centuries and were as subject to evolution as anything genetic. Most traditional social practices evolved for a reason. Often practices stick around long after those reasons no longer apply, but they evolved for a very good reasons in the first place.
As you note, pregnancy is inherently dangerous to a woman’s health, permanently alters her body, and has a permanent and profound impact on her life. And this has always been the case.
Think about how promiscuous women have traditionally been treated. Whore. Slut. Harlot. Women were expected to be chaste until marriage. Meanwhile, promiscuity was often accepted or even celebrated for men. The reasons for this disparity are likely multifaceted, but one likely reason is that sex had such a high risk for women and girls. Think of the mother who calls her own daughter a ‘whore’ for the way she dresses. Who does that to their kid? Someone who thinks they’re doing that kid a favor. Traditionally, mothers expected their daughters to be chaste and conservative, and often that was to protect them from the inevitable risks that came with sex. Women have always had far more to risk when it comes to sex than men.
Effective contraception and abortion access changed this. It was only once the very real risks of premarital sex were ameliorated could modern straight casual sex culture emerge. Yes, some flings did happen in 1850, premarital sex did happen. But it was much rarer, and it was mostly among people who were already on the path to marriage anyway. There were not mixed-sex bars in 1850 that you could go and try and find a partner for a casual fling. Men could go hire a prostitute in most towns and cities, but the idea that a respectable woman would meet a man, alone, then go to his house and have premarital sex that night? That’s the kind of thing that could literally end up in the town newspaper the next day.
Contraceptives - the pill, IUDs, condoms, and abortion; these are foundational technologies to modern sexual practices. They are as important as to modern dating culture as the automobile is to a suburban land use culture. When sex means pregnancy, it means you should never have sex with someone unless you are prepared to spend the next 20 years together raising kids. And yes, that means the casual dating scene is going to take a big hit.
People fundamentally view voting through different lenses. Most people view voting as simply a lesser of two evils choice. Some however view voting as more of a personal endorsement. And they will choose to simply not vote for either candidate, or any candidate at all, rather than voting for any candidate they consider to be irredeemable.
You’re not going to shame or convince people out of this. Any shaming based on the relative positions of the two candidates is pointless. Realize what you are going up against. You are going up against some of the most fundamental ethical frameworks human beings have for looking at the world. You are going up against thousands of years of human ethical reasoning.
When you start talking about how Kamala would have been objectively better for the Palestinians, you are arguing based on utilitarian ethics, the maximum good for the maximum number. You are saying, “yes, I know Kamala will abet a slow genocide, but I think Trump would abet a fast genocide. Therefore, Trump is better.” When someone chooses to vote for neither Kamala nor Trump, they are voting based on a respect for persons ethical framework.
From a certain perspective, simply getting involved and endorsing anyone with the views on Palestine that either Trump or Harris have impugns you morally. This is literally the entire reason the Trolley Problem was created. One of the core perspectives from the beginning of that was that flipping the lever at all is morally wrong. It is wrong to kill someone even to save someone else.
Again, you can shout from the rooftops about how good Kamala or Trump would be for Palestine til you are blue in the face, but ultimately not everyone thinks on utilitarian grounds. And it wouldn’t be such a classic discussion in philosophy if utilitarianism was the universally agreed on best moral framework. Utilitarianism’s Achilles heel has always been that it can be used to excuse some pretty horrible things. Hell, even genocide itself is usually justified on utilitarian grounds.
I do not find it all surprising that many would vote for Democrats downballot and then simply not vote for anyone for president. It makes perfect sense from ethical perspectives that people have been debating since before ancient Athens. Shaming people based on utilitarian arguments is counterproductive for people who view their vote as an endorsement, not as simply a choice of which candidate is better than the other.
And I can’t say they’re wrong. I voted for Kamala. If she had won, she likely wouldn’t have changed anything in terms of Biden’s Middle East policy. And you know what? I would have had to go to sleep each night knowing that I helped put her in the seat that she was currently using to abet a genocide. Yes, I would know in some part of my mind that Trump would have been worse. But that would be cold comfort. I can absolutely see why millions of people would decide, “I refuse to accept responsibility for either of you. A pox on both your houses. YOU, not me, are morally responsible for any of your sins, but I refuse to get involved. Do what you want, but I’m not voting for either of you. I hope you all burn in Hell.”
“Logically” in the sense that this is the actual logical response, if you take the Biden/Harris rhetoric at face value.
I mean, maybe if you yourself are a Nazi, then you see nothing wrong with letting Nazis in power. But for sane people, if you actually believe someone to be Hitler, then you should do whatever is necessary, damn the law and Constitution, to keep them out of power.
The point is not that this is objectively what Biden should do now. The point is that it is IF you assume Harris’s rhetoric is correct, then flagrantly violating the Constitution to keep him out of power is something that should be done. However, realistically, Trump is someone more like Orban or Putin. He does seek to degrade democracy, deport a lot of people, and purposefully immiserate targeted minority groups, but he’s not likely to get the Zyklon B off the shelf any time soon. He’s a monster, but realistically probably not quite at the level of someone like Hitler.
And this is the problem Harris had in the campaign. If you run on a campaign of “my opponent is Hitler,” the voters will rightfully ask, “well, why hasn’t your administration already turned him into a fine mist?” You don’t put Hitler on trial. You kill Hitler. Running on “my opponent is Hitler,” when you haven’t treated him like you logically should treat Hitler, shows you really don’t believe your own rhetoric.
I disagree. The modern sexual revolution was only possible due to modern contraception and access to abortion. Did pre-maritial flings happen in the past? Of course. But casual sex was nothing like it is now. It was treated as the rare shameful exception. It was not the norm for people to openly date and publicly announce their sexual relationships for years prior to marriage. (Viewing from a Western perspective of course.)
So if you start taking away abortion and contraception? Why wouldn’t you expect sexual norms to return to their earlier state? Pregnancy is incredibly disruptive, dangerous, and expensive.
In Trump’s America, sex means pregnancy, and pregnancy means childbirth. In Trump’s America, a straight women does not have sex unless she is prepared to be a mother, and her partner is prepared to be a father.
Will flings still happen? Sure. I expect we’ll also see a commiserate rise in shotgun marriages.
I agree that 4B, as an organized movement, likely won’t have much direct impact. But the general attack on contraceptives and reproductive healthcare absolutely will see a rollback of the sexual attitudes that have developed in the post-1960s world. Sex just has a lot more consequences to it now than it used to. We’re going back to a world where you really can’t afford to have sex with someone unless you’re prepared to marry them and raise children together. Casual hookups on Tinder are not a practical thing in Trump’s America.
Sorry guys, you voted for this.
It’s not punishment; it’s risk control. You don’t get to have post-sexual liberation values with pre-sexual liberation healthcare.
We live in a culture where premarital sex, at least outside of conservative religious communities, is tolerated and even encouraged. Yet this is a recent thing. Up until the mid-twentieth century, it was extremely shameful for a woman to have sex before marriage. It would be as shameful and socially fraught as, IDK, a kid coming out as trans to their parents today.
You, I am assuming, were born sometime well after the 1960s. You were born in the post women’s liberation world. So it is easy to forget that the world you are used to living in is actually a historical anomaly. The idea of it being normal and acceptable for women to have sex before marriage? That is a historical oddity in Western culture.
This social structure is only possible BECAUSE of contraceptives and abortion. And radical conservatives just came in to power that are doing everything they can to restrict these things. These radical conservatives believe sex before marriage is wrong, and they seek to restrict any access to abortion or contraception.
If these things are restricted, what choice do women have but to return to pre-women’s liberation sexual norms? Are you going to start a relationship with a woman and just happily agree to be abstinent, or have zero PIV sex, while conservatives retain power? Or, are you going to pressure her into trying something riskier, like the pull-out method? Are both of you capable of holding to your agreement not to be intimate, even when both really want it, even when you’re both drunk?
The simple truth is that in this environment, the government is trying to take away every option available to women to prevent or terminate pregnancy. The government is thus making sex itself incredibly risky for women. If you ask the government, they will tell you, “pregnancy or abstinence, the choice is yours.”
What choice do women have but to choose abstinence?
Sorry guys. You wanted Victorian access to abortion and contraception? You wanted Victorian views on masculinity and femininity? Well, with that comes Victorian female frigidity and sexual propriety. In the future you want, casual sex before marriage isn’t a thing. Better hope you roll the dice on the sexual compatibility with your spouse, as you certainly aren’t getting any before marriage. And even then, only when you’re actively trying to have kids.
Sex is for reproduction, not pleasure. If you have a problem with that, you’re a sexual deviant. This is the world men voted for; this is the world they’ll get. You want it? Better put a ring on it.
The idea isn’t for women who are already in relationships with partners who support women’s rights. The idea is more, for single women, to refuse to start any relationship at all right now. Which honestly, in an era where basic women’s healthcare is under attack, maybe starting a relationship right now isn’t the best idea. Will your women’s rights-supporting boyfriend agree to become abstinent when the birth control you’re using is taken off the market due to conservatives? Or will they want to move to the pull-out method or just accept the risk of being pregnant?
If you’re a single woman, honestly, right now, maybe staying single through these next four years isn’t a bad idea. It has nothing to do with the actions or beliefs of a potential partner, and everything with the fact that being a woman in any straight sexual relationship when conservatives are ascendant simply has a lot of unavoidable risks with it. The religious crazies in power believe that the only veto a woman deserves over being pregnant is the choice to have sex or not. And they seek to take away any way for women to prevent getting pregnant besides not having sex. These Christian nationalists, who were just elected, believe that the only choice women have should be pregnancy risk or abstinence.
You need to have a reality check here. The United States federal government, and the majority of state governments, will be telling every woman of reproductive age, “be abstinent or risk pregnancy. Any other tool to prevent pregnancy is morally wrong.”
The government is literally trying to coerce women not to have sex before marriage. The government is literally trying to coerce women not to have sex before they’re ready to become a mothers. The people soon to be in charge of the government literally believe that the only just use of sex is pregnancy. And they rule accordingly.
In what universe would you expect this to not result in a complete collapse of pre-marital sexual opportunities for straight men? It’s not about punishing men. It’s not that you do or do not have the right views or beliefs, or that you are a good or bad person. It’s simply that for women, in this world that is being created, having sex before marriage simply isn’t safe.
Sexual liberation was possible only due to the availability of effective contraception, birth control, and abortion. If you turn the contraceptive landscape back a century, sexual norms will have to return there as well. You are NOT going to have a world where there’s no access to contraceptives where women are still perfectly happy being in sexual relationships before marriage.
Men, I hope you’re ready to put a ring on it. Otherwise, you ain’t gettin’ any. Sorry, you wanted this world; you voted for it.
I mean. Rationally speaking, shouldn’t Biden do something extreme at this moment?
This is one core problem Kamala had. Her message was “Donald Trump is a Nazi,” yet the entire Biden administration never treated him like some existential threat to Democracy.
You know all those hypotheticals about killing Adolf Hitler? Notice how no one ever discusses the legality of killing Hitler? It’s all discussions of temporal mechanics or the ethics of punishing someone for a crime before they commit it. No one ever says, “no, you obviously shouldn’t kill Hitler before he comes to power, as that would have been against German law.”
Realistically, if Kamala’s rhetoric is factual, Biden should have had Trump arrested on day one of his term, charged in a military tribunal for treason, and convicted and sentenced before the first 100 days were complete. The debate should have been whether to give Trump the death penalty, not whether he had presidential immunity. And what about the Supreme Court? What ABOUT the Supreme Court? Did the Allies give much credence to whatever bullshit rulings the Nazi courts issued? Trump should have been pounded into the dirt, and any SCOTUS justices who dared to intervene should have been charged as accomplices. And anyone remotely involved in the plot should have been similarly purged from civil society. We should have seen hundreds, maybe even thousands, of life sentences.
THAT is how you respond to a threat to democracy. You find absolutely everyone involved and throw the book at them. You move quickly and run roughshod over normal judicial procedure. Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus and imprisoned people for running pro-Confederate newspapers. That is what you have to do in times where democracy is truly threatened.
Does Biden actually believe Trump is literally another Adolf Hitler? Then logically, if that is literally true, then Biden should order the military to take him out. Hell, he should do whatever is necessary, upend the entirety of American democracy, become a full dictator if need be. Better a centrist dictator than a Fascist one. In other words, if Trump is literally Hitler, than Biden should be acting right now like our hypothetical time traveler.
