That's not oppressive gender roles, that's the chaos engendered by the sexual revolution. Were we operating under 1950s gender roles, men would not expect casual sex from women, and if they were involved with someone they'd feel compelled to 'make an honest woman of her' and marry her. There's a reason virtually every single culture in the history of humanity has very strict proscriptions regarding sexuality, with the possible exception of some Pacific islanders. Sexual license is toxic to society and bears only rotten fruit. When we treat sex as merely a thing of amusement, and not something sacred and life-changing, we cheapen and degrade both ourselves and one another.
Hm... I'm not sure it has anything to do with gender roles one way or another. There was plenty of promiscuity in the Victorian era and even Muslim cultures (before the modern fundamentalist movement). It's just that it took place off the radar and, from what I understand, mostly initiated by men. It figures often in Dostoyevsky's books...
@ Stephen: The so-called Sexual Revolution (created by a [mostly] freely available Pill) certainly went off like a cultural nuke and we're still reckoning with the fallout of that. The effect was to decouple unprotected sex from risk and, therefore, made it far more prevalent. Of course the whole thing was manipulated by men simply to have more sex more often with more women - until that kind of thing largely came to a halt (at least for a while) when AIDS arrived on the scene. Sex is by and large controlled by men to ensure known paternity rather than to protect society per se. If men didn't care about paternity I'm guessing that there would be a whole lot less restrictions around female sexual habits. The West in particular has a LOT of problems with sexuality. As far as I can tell most of these originate through or via Christianity. Again as far as I can tell Pagan societies had far fewer hang-ups around sex and sexual expression. Personally I wouldn't call sex either sacred or life-changing. But I also wouldn't call it meaningless.
@ Marian: There's a reason why the words Victorian and hypocrite go together... The upper classes certainly *appeared* upright and downright prudish - especially by our standards, but they were nothing of the sort of course. Victorian society was flooded with cheap pornography and London had so many child prostitutes that it had an effect on women's fashions to make them look younger to attract their husbands back.... and I won't even start on how the Victorian male behaved away from home in the great outdoors or in the Empire with local women.
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That's not oppressive gender roles, that's the chaos engendered by the sexual revolution. Were we operating under 1950s gender roles, men would not expect casual sex from women, and if they were involved with someone they'd feel compelled to 'make an honest woman of her' and marry her. There's a reason virtually every single culture in the history of humanity has very strict proscriptions regarding sexuality, with the possible exception of some Pacific islanders. Sexual license is toxic to society and bears only rotten fruit. When we treat sex as merely a thing of amusement, and not something sacred and life-changing, we cheapen and degrade both ourselves and one another.
Hm... I'm not sure it has anything to do with gender roles one way or another. There was plenty of promiscuity in the Victorian era and even Muslim cultures (before the modern fundamentalist movement). It's just that it took place off the radar and, from what I understand, mostly initiated by men. It figures often in Dostoyevsky's books...
@ Stephen: The so-called Sexual Revolution (created by a [mostly] freely available Pill) certainly went off like a cultural nuke and we're still reckoning with the fallout of that. The effect was to decouple unprotected sex from risk and, therefore, made it far more prevalent. Of course the whole thing was manipulated by men simply to have more sex more often with more women - until that kind of thing largely came to a halt (at least for a while) when AIDS arrived on the scene. Sex is by and large controlled by men to ensure known paternity rather than to protect society per se. If men didn't care about paternity I'm guessing that there would be a whole lot less restrictions around female sexual habits. The West in particular has a LOT of problems with sexuality. As far as I can tell most of these originate through or via Christianity. Again as far as I can tell Pagan societies had far fewer hang-ups around sex and sexual expression. Personally I wouldn't call sex either sacred or life-changing. But I also wouldn't call it meaningless.
@ Marian: There's a reason why the words Victorian and hypocrite go together... The upper classes certainly *appeared* upright and downright prudish - especially by our standards, but they were nothing of the sort of course. Victorian society was flooded with cheap pornography and London had so many child prostitutes that it had an effect on women's fashions to make them look younger to attract their husbands back.... and I won't even start on how the Victorian male behaved away from home in the great outdoors or in the Empire with local women.
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