Dear Daughter, no doubt you’ve considered and maybe argued the merits and demerits of teen chastity and abstinence. Did you consider the following?
What happens in adolescence governs much of what happens in husbanding. Men learn as teens how to later treat women.
· Female abstinence and virtue generate conditional respect for individual girls, while chastity among other girls earns unconditional respect for their gender. Both kinds of respect are essential for enduring love and permanent husbanding to arise as motivators among men.
· Actions speak loudest to boys. By successfully resisting the mutual urge to merge, girls confirm their own virtue and breathe it into boys’ minds.
· Virtue more than sex makes a female more personally and permanently appealing. (Morality serves females more than males. Moral standards build virtue and reinforce female strengths so useful in restraining male dominance.)
· Girls train boys to be men this way: Teen virtue and abstinence holds in check both the male and female urge to merge. For both boys and girls, deferred gratitude teaches desirable habits that condition minds over hormones, thoughts over feelings, and Us before Self.
Boyhood consists of little men that need their values shaped so they later help fulfill female hopes and dreams. Thus, Girlhood determines what Womanhood faces with Manhood.
PS. One last but critical thought: When Girlhood rules itself with virtue and abstinence, boys turned down don’t take it personal. “She’s all hung up”. When Girlhood provides sex easily, boys turned down take it personal. He must be lacking, since she yields to other boys. He’s indirectly told that he’s insignificant or worse. His self-esteem takes a temporary hit, but self-image takes a permanent hit: He can’t compete with other guys. Forced to face his shortcomings so dramatically causes bitterness and self-hatred that too easily leads to violence later if not sooner. See post 337. Unsafe at Any Speed for more detail on this point.
9 Comments
12/02/2008 at 6:13 am
I think the last paragraph of this post is extremely revealing of the psychology of men of who believe in retrograde attitudes like the ones endorsed on this site. The sexual double standard by which women are expected to be the primary regulators of sexual morality is ALL about protecting the precious male ego. (Of course, no one is particularly worried about the ego of the young girl labeled as a “slut” as if her worth as a human being depends on whether and with whom she descides to have sex.)
I have a much, much higher opinion of men than the writer of this site. The men and boys I know are capable of being grown-ups. Grown-ups (male and female) understand that sexual and romantic rejection are part of life. None of us have the right to expect sexual or romantic love from another person. Not everyone is going to find us sexually or romantically irresistible. Maybe the boy or girl we want to sleep with or date happens to find someone else more attractive. It hurts, but you brush yourself off and move on (and most importantly, you respect the other person’s right to decide whom SHE wants to sleep with or date).
We should certainly expect our sons (and daughters) to learn early how to deal with rejection in a mature manner. Coddling boys by shielding them from rejection (by creating an elaborate social structure by which it is understood that a woman who has sex will be woefully stigmatized) only helps to create whiney, entitled men who are more likely than not to cause the women in their lives a host of problems.
In my experience, the idea that withholding sex makes a woman “a good girl” does absolutely nothing to increase men’s respect for women. Somehow having my character judged by my sexual choices in a way that a man’s character is not judged (even if I am labeled “a nice girl”) doesn’t feel too much like respect. As the last paragraph of this post inadvertently reveals, the whole “nice girl”/slut dichotomy is all about shoring up the man’s psyche, and has very little to do with helping women.
12/02/2008 at 6:22 am
This piece ALSO shows how the double standard not only shields men from hurt feelings arising from sexual rejection but also protects men from having to feel responsibility for male misbehavior.
Under the theory of this blog, men apparently beat women, rape women, or treat women badly because slutty women drive them to it by not behaving like demure little flowers. God forbid that we expect boys and men to behave in a non-violent, law-abiding, respectful way even when girls and women do things that threaten their little egos.
Apparently, in your world, men are little more than very strong, overgrown 3-year olds. Worse, I think the philosophy espoused here gives men a license to act as such.
12/02/2008 at 6:35 pm
Laurie,
Camille Paglia–yes, *that* Camille Paglia–would disagree with many of your statements and she’s so feminist, most feminists don’t even like her (e.g., read her interview at Yale & speech at Harvard).
Women are pushing a double standard nowadays…however, that doesn’t mean men have to buy it. The reality is that the pendulum has swung too far to the other side–it’s time for everyone to come back center.
12/03/2008 at 1:19 am
Basically what I do is pretend to be a demure flower on the front and when the men are not around I watch my favorite move Jackass- and engage in debauchery-
SInce men are the way they are- may as well just work ti for what it worth- I think when men and women were seperate a lot – it served us beter to carry out the illusion- now men are so in our business its hard to keep the mystery-
but i always glow inside when this guy tell me that i am soo sweet and pure- knowing that the very nigth before i sucked a dick-
Its hilarious and I say get with the program ladies! Men are so easy to con trol for your own benefit once you get over being mad about the truth!
CHEERS!!!
I have a date with the nice church boy
haha
12/03/2008 at 1:20 am
Umm.. that was my favorite move- Jackass- those guys r so hot (except for the midget and the fatso)
12/03/2008 at 8:05 am
Miss Dawn,
This isn’t about “controlling men.” You’re missing the point. Controlling someone–or trying to control someone–isn’t about respect and that attitude will eventually become pretty obvious to the men you’re dating and all your coquetry is meaningless to a man who doesn’t consider you his type. Men are not stupid, Miss Dawn. Duskin’s comments make clear that, yes, they might be simple [or straightforward] as doves, but they’re also wary as snakes. Your disrespect for men will start to fester within you, which will start to poison your viewpoint and eventually, your relationships/dates.
12/03/2008 at 10:49 am
They are stupid- and femininity is ultimatly knowing how to expoit thier stupidity. I prove that I am not a one-dimensional cut out- either ALL GOOD AND PURE- OR ALL BAD AND EVIL-
But men are stupid and cannot accept this concept when it comes to women.
So I just hide from them what they would judge me for- because they are stupid and cannot help it- and what they see is what they so narrow mindedly approve of in their view of women they love and respect.
I think I should have not used the word “pretend” above for a lot of my femininity and modesty arises from something natural in me and no its not fake at all- what I meant by pretending is for example: Since I am a modern woman, somethings just don’t embarrass me: But if I am in the presence of a man – and I see a dead body or innaproprite nudity- I turn away. But once I am alone I watch Jackass and SouthPark.
Why is this? Well because I used to be the kind of girl that would watch Jackass WITH the guys- but I became one of the guys and thus no attraction- I can’t change what I like inside but I sure as hell can change whom I reveal it to- and this is the power that makes me feel like I have control- If not over the guy then defianly myself- although it FEELS like I’m controlling them.
Theres just still a part of me that is resentful about the way things are- regarding how men view women and thus the disrespectful tone-
but I’m sure that as my newfound sense of power gives me more benifits of feeling like a beauty- I’m certain that it will fade away.
thanks for the feedback stacy. by the way are you a guy or girl?
12/03/2008 at 11:20 am
Miss Dawn,
Men are not asking women to be “a one-dimensional cut out.” Your anger at the male species is really making you miss the point of what true femininity is all about. The American South probably has some of the most honor bound men around and those men most definitely appreciate their “steel magnolias.”
Equating watching Jackass or Southpark with somehow being “a multidimensional woman” makes no sense. No one is saying that you can watch those shows–I’m not sure where you’re getting these ideas. Don’t confuse “men” with the “males in your social circle.”
12/03/2008 at 1:13 pm
To make an effort to hang out with the guys, show off that you enjoy what the guys enjoy, and act like one of the guys–to ostensibly show that you can be “like one of the guys” or “ARE like one of the guys”–only to turn around and be angry at “the guys” for treating you like…drumroll…”one of the guys,” doesn’t make any sense.
A la Dave Chappelle, that’s like running around town in a police officer’s uniform and squad car and then being angry because people are treating you like a police officer. Lol!