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A couple of months ago @Goodguy left the following comment here:
I tried to initiate a discussion about this without success, with my argument being that single men „policing/controlling” the sexual decisions of single women (I'm including „slut-shaming” in this category) has actually only been a social reality in the minds of feminist culture warriors. It was never implemented as a tool of women's „oppression” anywhere. To the extent that such „policing” existed (if we want to call it that), it was mainly done by other women, mainly due to the simple and understood fact that it's such policing that serves the long-term sexual interests of women as a whole. And the men that did engage in this were mostly fathers with daughters, not single men in the current sense of the word. (One can argue that in traditional patriarchal communities it was normal for single men to band together and remove outsider single men through threats or force; I guess this may count as indirect policing, which isn't saying much.)
I'm open to reading any counterarguments but anyway, this is not the subject I want to address here. I think Goodguy touched on something rather important which didn't occur to me at first, namely that society used to have a different attitude regarding this issue before it became modern. There actually used to be a group of men who were basically deputized by society to morally shame women in certain contexts despite being technically single (as I alluded to this above): priests and monks. (And this doesn't just apply to Christendom.) They were also voluntarily celibate, which is another category that disappeared with the rise of modernity. (The cultural memory of this lingers on though, otherwise the people who came up with the „incel” label would simply have called themselves celibate.)
As I was pondering this issue, it also occurred to me that secularization meant that Western societies did lose something significant not just in this respect but others as well. It appears to me that secular society and the churches/denominations used to exist in a symbiosis with the terms never being openly stated. It's well-known that Christianity used to be in a culturally hegemonic/privileged position. But it's also true that the churches basically volunteered to take care of those social groups that nobody else wanted to look after because they're socially a pain in the neck:
singles who can't or won't get married (see: priests, monks, nuns)
generally adults lacking social skills to such an extent that they become shut-ins without outside assistance
sick/diseased people unable to pay for treatment
children sired by men who can't or won't become husbands and providers
poor people that are so helpless and lacking in agency that they die from poverty without the charity of others
children of married couples too poor to pay for any schooling
I think atheists and people hostile to religion in general emotionally get hung up on the former and lose sight of the latter. Some of them who did not lose sight of it came up with the doctrine of eugenics as a solution, but we know what reputation that has today. Instead we expect the state to pick up the slack and look after all these unfortunate groups, which only results in a multitude of horror stories about police departments, child protective services etc. being a useless bunch of uncaring buffoons.
I wonder what the rationalist point of view on all of this is.
I’ll just say on a related topic it’s funny that there’s a group of men who do indeed try to control women’s sexuality and it’s their mission to increase it and enhance promiscuity as a way to gain more partners. This group is certainly larger than any “policing” faction, and they’ve also been wildly more successful at exerting such control over women, creating norms and expectations around when women need to put out and how fast. They’ve curated our culture that female sexuality is good and empowering and casual sex is fun and commonplace, that STDs don’t exist, etc. Yet this group largely escapes any criticism. Curious!
I don’t see why the default for promiscuity should be to forbid it rather than allow it. It is a strange kind of ‘control’ that leaves the decision to the ‘controlled’.
Because it destabilizes any society in which it takes root.
Male violence is centered on three things; money (or money producing commodities; drugs), social esteem (or "respect"), and intimate partner exclusivity. This is as close to an iron law of humanity as possible. Men kill other men for the first two reasons and men kill other men and women because of the last reason.
We've advanced enough that killing for "respect" is penalized with swift and uncompromising punishment. You shot some guy because he called you out? That's a life sentence, pal. We don't, however, criminalize the proximate cause - you can talk shit about anyone pretty much to an unlimited extent (libel and slander notwithstanding) and there are zero legal repercussions (although perhaps there are social ones. More on this later).
The money/drugs questions is an interesting goldilocks situation. We criminalize murdering someone over money/drugs/assets/commodities. We criminalize the unlawful attainment of those things (theft) and in many cases (though less and less) we criminalize the mere possession of drugs. This is because drugs are still recognized as inherently high risk (if not outright dangerous) - especially when put in the context of male on male violence. Nobody should kill you over money and drugs, but if you did some crook shit to get them, you're still doing crook shit and can face consequences.
Now, promiscuity or intimate partner exclusivity. You can't kill your wife or girlfriend because she cheated on you. And, mostly, we don't think adultery should be criminalized. Up until the mid 20th century, however, adultery was harshly socially punished (I'm thinking of something beginning with a big Red Letter - "A"). As an interesting side note, adultery was and is still an offense in the United States Military. They don't give you 10 lashes or throw you in the brig, but it fucks up your career. That's interesting to me.
Only in this last case, promiscuity, have we seen a full scale social revolt on the social penalties brought on by the action. Are you selling drugs? Probably shouldn't do that. Did you steal a car and sell it to a chop shop? Bad. Did you start talking shit about Big Jim down at the pool hall? Better watch your mouth, son.
Oh, you slept with the nanny, or you slept with the pool boy? No one should deny or criticize your sexual self-expression and autonomy! Of course one can rationalize that argument into an isolated issue; a person's private sexual conduct with a consenting partner is no one else's business. But in a social context, it gets murky fast. Adultery ought not be criminalized (and, on the other side of the coin, both divorce and marriage ought not have any financial incentive tied to them), but rampant promiscuity and adultery still ought to face social consequences because that simply means the society in which they occur is aware of the high stakes of promiscuity / adultery's likely outcomes.
The 30,000 foot question this rolls back up into is; do members of a society have duties and responsibilities outside of themselves to that society that are not codified in law? Or, do we race to the bottom and leave it at "as long as you don't break any laws, you're fine."
The problem with assertion such as these is that modern society is really its own extraordinary thing. From his food to his health to his habits to his reproduction, man is unlike other animals, and modern man is unlike other men.
Is this an established theory, or did you come up with that yourself? Either way, my objections are:
assumes some rational reason for violence, when there are better ways to get money, respect, intimate partners. In modern society, the only people using interpersonal violence have low self control.
It’s missing raw hatred of the other guy as motivation
those are valid reasons for female killers as well
This position of ‘no criminal, only social repercussions’, looks like an incoherent compromise to me. You don’t have the heart to beat your daughter and flog her suitors, so you unload the burden of your repressive sexual project onto society. The passive voice will do your dirty work, shunning perhaps. It’s like the woke saying ‘freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences’ – who will administer the consequences, exactly? If it’s you, and it surely won’t be me, then it’s not society.
I would, and have, called out both men and women to their face on issues of promiscuity. I don't mean passive aggressive quips. "What you are doing, I find disgusting and degrading." - "Random sex with a silly girl you met at a bar last night makes you look desperate and weak." This has resulted in the termination of friendships and, in one case, a received threat of violence.
I appreciate your quick resort to hypothetical child abuse and felonious assault, but I don't think any of what I wrote can be construed as me flinging a burden of mine onto society.
Thank you for calling it a repressive sexual project. That is exactly what it is. Sexual gluttony should be viewed the same way gastronomic gluttony is viewed; with a recoiling disgust. I will add, as this was not clear in the original post, that I am equally against male promiscuity. The Andrew Tate's of the world that try to perform the mental gymnastics to square the double standard of "men can sleep around, woman cannot" not only fail in that task, but end up revealing their own lack of self-control, lack of adherence to higher principles and virtues, and high likelihood of defecting from a male group for their own selfish reasons. By their fruits. I am glad they are so open about it.
The Tate thesis, insofar as there is such a thing, is that its perfectly fine for you to know who he is, because he doesnt need your cooperation. Weve created a society where he can be rich just fine without being trustworthy. Hence also the islam thing - whether he personally would or could change his tune in a more traditional society remains in question of course, but he may well die before it comes to that.
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