Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Resurrection

Do You Trust Women, from Bitch PhD. Why am I linking this?

Well, I don't always agree with BitchPhD about a lot of stuff. Her politics are not mine, nor are her opinions, entirely, but she's generally got a good argument behind what she says, which is something I approve of. But that page I more or less agree with, especially the section on abortion.

I'm pro-choice. Firmly so. I don't think I could ever have an abortion, but I also don't think I get the right to make that decision for anyone else.

According to this guy, Judaism's banning homosexuality, and the Christian continuance of same, is the foundation of Western civilisation.

I'm pretty sure people talk about ancient Greece and the influence of democracy, Aristotle, mathematics, and whatnot more than they talk about Leviticus when they discuss the foundations of Western civilisation. Certainly from the Middle Ages it was getting into the classics that was the basis of enlightenment; hell, in the capital-E Enlightenment it was philosophy, not religious dogmatism, that brought forward much that modern life depends upon, ideologically speaking.

Parenthetically, the Greeks were pretty cheerful about man on man action.

His best bit, though, is this one:

When male sexuality is not controlled, the consequences are considerably more destructive than when female sexuality is not controlled. Men rape. Women do not. Men, not women, engage in fetishes. Men are more frequently consumed by their sex drive, and wander from sex partner to sex partner. Men, not women, are sexually sadistic.

He is, clearly, victim to one of the more subtle effects of our rampant cultural misogyny. This is a touch of Virgin/Whore syndrome, perhaps. Women are clearly noble and pure and sexually passive.

Bullshit.

Women rape. Less than men do, it's true, but our culture isn't exactly riddled with pernicious assumptions about men as sexual victims. As for the fetish thing, though... seriously. Lots of women are into fetishistic sex, are sexual sadists, etc. (I am not one of these women, but I know they're out there and have known some of them.)

This is the kind of thinking that not only disadvantages The Gays, but keeps in place some of the underpinnings of our society that are so very, very sexist. Which hurts both women AND MEN. It sucks.

Labels: , , ,