- Feb 5, 2002
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Very early in her new book, Mary Eberstadt notes that a new kind of intolerance is “strangling open discussion across the West.” And as she argues in her text, this new brand of intolerance is linked closely with the sexual revolution. Now, at first hearing, that just doesn’t sound plausible. The sexual revolution was about an end to repressive moralizing. It was about greater tolerance for individual sexual freedom. It was about a healthier, more relaxed, less shame-infected attitude toward sexuality in general. And I know what I’m talking about. I was there in the late 1960s, and I thoroughly enjoyed its early stages.
But here’s the catch, which the author explores so persuasively in chapter 3. The new intolerance around sex is not an accident or “passing nuisance, but a full blown, quasi-religious substitute faith for Christianity. Its dogma both derives from and is designed to protect the sexual revolution . . . [and it’s] rooted in a rejection of the Christian moral code.” Thus, a virtue like modesty is not merely laughed at, but resented as a weed in the garden of sexual ecstasy. Celibacy is either incomprehensible, or seen as emotionally crippling. Normative heterosexuality has the unpleasant smell of a stable human nature; a nature that establishes one form of sexual behavior as normal, and others as wrong, unhealthy, and destructive.
So where does this lead; or rather, where has it led? I want to go back to the author’s point about the new intolerance “strangling open discussion across the West.” That word “strangling” in particular caught my eye. And the reason is simple. The University of Virginia social scientist, Bradford Wilcox, noted recently that one in three collegiate women now report being choked during their most recent sexual encounter. Research from the United States, the U.K., and Germany shows that choking is now prevalent among young adults in consensual sex, and women are disproportionately the target. Maybe I’m a dinosaur, but strangling one’s sexual partner doesn’t strike me as helpful to much intimacy—or even an especially fun time.
Continued below.
www.firstthings.com
But here’s the catch, which the author explores so persuasively in chapter 3. The new intolerance around sex is not an accident or “passing nuisance, but a full blown, quasi-religious substitute faith for Christianity. Its dogma both derives from and is designed to protect the sexual revolution . . . [and it’s] rooted in a rejection of the Christian moral code.” Thus, a virtue like modesty is not merely laughed at, but resented as a weed in the garden of sexual ecstasy. Celibacy is either incomprehensible, or seen as emotionally crippling. Normative heterosexuality has the unpleasant smell of a stable human nature; a nature that establishes one form of sexual behavior as normal, and others as wrong, unhealthy, and destructive.
So where does this lead; or rather, where has it led? I want to go back to the author’s point about the new intolerance “strangling open discussion across the West.” That word “strangling” in particular caught my eye. And the reason is simple. The University of Virginia social scientist, Bradford Wilcox, noted recently that one in three collegiate women now report being choked during their most recent sexual encounter. Research from the United States, the U.K., and Germany shows that choking is now prevalent among young adults in consensual sex, and women are disproportionately the target. Maybe I’m a dinosaur, but strangling one’s sexual partner doesn’t strike me as helpful to much intimacy—or even an especially fun time.
Continued below.
The New Intolerance | Francis X. Maier
There is a new kind of intolerance “strangling open discussion across the West,” and this new brand of intolerance is linked closely with the sexual revolution.
www.firstthings.com
