My reasoning below,,,

Part 1

If insight and blindness are inevitably linked, then one of the blind spots of feminism is that it tries to blame the sexual double standard on some imagined dominance of men is sexual matters while ignoring the full complicity of women in the traditional moral order of things. Anyone old enough to remember reading Ann Landers and Dear Abby (The Twin Queen Bees Of Virginity) can attest to this complicity. Both syndicated columnists talked about sex as if it were an exclusively female preserve; a kind of female commodity that men wanted and women either gave in to or withheld. They were also fond of comparing sex to the hunt and warning young girls that if the...

My reasoning below,,,

Part 1

If insight and blindness are inevitably linked, then one of the blind spots of feminism is that it tries to blame the sexual double standard on some imagined dominance of men is sexual matters while ignoring the full complicity of women in the traditional moral order of things. Anyone old enough to remember reading Ann Landers and Dear Abby (The Twin Queen Bees Of Virginity) can attest to this complicity. Both syndicated columnists talked about sex as if it were an exclusively female preserve; a kind of female commodity that men wanted and women either gave in to or withheld. They were also fond of comparing sex to the hunt and warning young girls that if they 'gave it away' their boyfriends would lose interest. The game would be over. As might be expected, both women talked about virginity strictly in terms of a feminine ideal.

Part 2

All of this was, of course, a ploy to keep young women chaste by making them wary of young men. . From a morally traditional point of view, this is quite understandable. After all, it is women who have made a practice of withholding sex from men before marriage not the other way around. The ideal of virginity is the sublimation of this practice, along with notions of feminine innocence, purity, virtue, self-respect, reputation, and, of course, the age old idea of a woman's honor. Far from being imposed upon women, these ideals with their attendant beliefs, values, and moral sentiments have been embraced and often fiercely defended by women. Not only have these sexual attitudes been i...

Part 2

All of this was, of course, a ploy to keep young women chaste by making them wary of young men. . From a morally traditional point of view, this is quite understandable. After all, it is women who have made a practice of withholding sex from men before marriage not the other way around. The ideal of virginity is the sublimation of this practice, along with notions of feminine innocence, purity, virtue, self-respect, reputation, and, of course, the age old idea of a woman's honor. Far from being imposed upon women, these ideals with their attendant beliefs, values, and moral sentiments have been embraced and often fiercely defended by women. Not only have these sexual attitudes been integral to women's vanity and sense of pride, they have nurtured notions of feminine moral superiority and conferred women their sense of control over men and their own bodies. (Feminists still carry the torch when they speak about 'taking ownership' of one's body -- albeit in a supposedly more progressive sense which is, frankly, lost on me.) Both Ann Landers and Dear Abby were bastions of traditional morality. Both were widely read and immensely popular with women.

Just because women tend to now embrace them doesn't put ownership of the tradition of virginity in the hands of women. There are women in the middle east who stoutly defend and enforce the tradition of circumcising and mutilating women because it somehow makes them a better bride for men. But it is not a tradition that began in the interest of women, but in men who did not want women having sexual interests that would have them sexually active outside of a marriage.

There is a difference between "taking ownership" and "maintaining an appeal" as the stigma of virginity does.

The only reason that virginity would ever be considered a vanity or a sense of pride is if cultural pressures influen...

Just because women tend to now embrace them doesn't put ownership of the tradition of virginity in the hands of women. There are women in the middle east who stoutly defend and enforce the tradition of circumcising and mutilating women because it somehow makes them a better bride for men. But it is not a tradition that began in the interest of women, but in men who did not want women having sexual interests that would have them sexually active outside of a marriage.

There is a difference between "taking ownership" and "maintaining an appeal" as the stigma of virginity does.

The only reason that virginity would ever be considered a vanity or a sense of pride is if cultural pressures influenced so.

Dear Abby and Ann Landers were simply products of the male driven culture that made them.

Rot yourself.

Name me one culture where the value of virginity isn't in favor of the male and is not used to increase the value of the woman for marriage, trade, or basic sex. What benefit does a woman's virginity have over a man's virginity? Please see beyond the point of pregnancy.

No one is blaming everything on one sex. Rather than getting your testosterone in an uproar, see that my points have focused on the root of why the "importance" of virginity has developed and who it continues to benefit. It's a facade developed for the benefit of the male sex. Woman gain no benefit from sexual abstinance. As I stated initially, virginity is ignorance wrapped up as innocence.

Women may embrace...

Rot yourself.

Name me one culture where the value of virginity isn't in favor of the male and is not used to increase the value of the woman for marriage, trade, or basic sex. What benefit does a woman's virginity have over a man's virginity? Please see beyond the point of pregnancy.

No one is blaming everything on one sex. Rather than getting your testosterone in an uproar, see that my points have focused on the root of why the "importance" of virginity has developed and who it continues to benefit. It's a facade developed for the benefit of the male sex. Woman gain no benefit from sexual abstinance. As I stated initially, virginity is ignorance wrapped up as innocence.

Women may embrace the idea of virginity now, but only because of decades, if not centuries, of men espousing them to maintain their "purity" to be moral, clean, and spiritual. A young woman who refuses sexual interaction doesn't do it because it benefits her (beyond the idea of just avoiding pregnancy) but because she's been taught to do so.

I mean the concept of this is so simple I'm a bit surprised someone wouldn't get it and a bit at a loss for words on how to explain it in any simpler terms.

Fair enough AtLiberal,

I take a nominalist view of "patriarchy" (and other generalizations.


Legalistically, we might define a patriarchy as a system in which men make the laws. Here again, while it is generally true that men have penned the law, we can't entirely absolve women of the law's effects. That would be like saying women had no responsibility for the hypocrisies of Victorian society or for the temperance movement when they were clearly marching in the streets in support of it.

The origins of laws, like customs, are mutifarious, their causes several and complex. Not something one could easily blame on anyone or anything, least of all patriarchy. In any case, in order to adequa...

Fair enough AtLiberal,

I take a nominalist view of "patriarchy" (and other generalizations.


Legalistically, we might define a patriarchy as a system in which men make the laws. Here again, while it is generally true that men have penned the law, we can't entirely absolve women of the law's effects. That would be like saying women had no responsibility for the hypocrisies of Victorian society or for the temperance movement when they were clearly marching in the streets in support of it.

The origins of laws, like customs, are mutifarious, their causes several and complex. Not something one could easily blame on anyone or anything, least of all patriarchy. In any case, in order to adequately understand the law, we must look at the values, beliefs, ideals, and moral sentiments back of the law. This approach to understanding jurisprudence is in opposition to the naive tendency to view power manifested only in terms of top-down, prohibitive forms of repression. To put this in the language of deconstruction: Power is decentered; shifted from an established or ecclesial focus; disconnected from assumptions of origin, priority, or essense.

Wheew.

Before I go to bed,,

Let's return to the Queen Bees of Virginity, Ann Landers and Dear Abby. I remember Ann Landers saying in so many words that if men had their druthers, there wouldn't be a virgin past 13 years of age. To Ann Lander's way of thinking, it has always been who women have held together societies little moral fibers. Women are the ones who keep men in check; who are on the front line in the battle against male libertinage, prostitution and pornography. Women are the ones who ensure traditional values and reign in men's naturally promiscuous natures. Without the stability that women represent, men would never settle down nor grow up.

If this does sound familiar, you've been...

Before I go to bed,,

Let's return to the Queen Bees of Virginity, Ann Landers and Dear Abby. I remember Ann Landers saying in so many words that if men had their druthers, there wouldn't be a virgin past 13 years of age. To Ann Lander's way of thinking, it has always been who women have held together societies little moral fibers. Women are the ones who keep men in check; who are on the front line in the battle against male libertinage, prostitution and pornography. Women are the ones who ensure traditional values and reign in men's naturally promiscuous natures. Without the stability that women represent, men would never settle down nor grow up.

If this does sound familiar, you've been living on another planet.

You see, the the so-called "liberation of female sexuality" has been, in hindsight, little more than a scam of the bait-and-switch variety. Women have more or less magically construed a language of male repression and then feigned to liberate themselves from its strictures. Ironic, isn't it? The same applies to those vague and vapid declarations that feminism would "liberate men too" (as if that genuinely meant something) by drafting wifey into the workforce!

In hindsight, Ann Landers instincts may have been right in part. All the male libertines from the Marquis de Sade to Hugh Hefner have not been able to loosen and pry the majority of women away from their traditional stance against premarital sex. Indeed, men themselves have never had the power to do so.. But feminism did. Because only women could change others women's minds.

Ergo, if men did not desire virgins, the ideal would not survive and if women did not embrace virginity as an ideal, there would not be virgins to desire. In fact, in the final analysis, women have ultimately maintenance or dispensed with the ideal..

I'm not putting this out as true, but rather food for thought.

Good Night.

The origins of laws, like customs, are mutifarious, their causes
several and complex. Not something one could easily blame on anyone or
anything, least of all patriarchy.

Agreed, in part. Male dominance did and does play a major role in the shaping of laws and customs. Obviously it is not the only factor but to discount it based on the philosophy of a couple of advise columnists, who only mirror the views of the society they are emeshed in, seems to me a bit naive.

Power is decentered; shifted from an established or ecclesial focus;
disconnected from assumptions of origin, priority, or essense.

Well said from someone who is in power (I'm making the assumption...

The origins of laws, like customs, are mutifarious, their causes
several and complex. Not something one could easily blame on anyone or
anything, least of all patriarchy.

Agreed, in part. Male dominance did and does play a major role in the shaping of laws and customs. Obviously it is not the only factor but to discount it based on the philosophy of a couple of advise columnists, who only mirror the views of the society they are emeshed in, seems to me a bit naive.

Power is decentered; shifted from an established or ecclesial focus;
disconnected from assumptions of origin, priority, or essense.

Well said from someone who is in power (I'm making the assumption that you are male). To claim that power is some nebulous notion, divorced from president, history, or authority is overlooking the reality of how the world works. I grew up in the 50s and 60s. I took part in the male dominated society that set the rules, passed the laws, controlled the courts and the enforcement of those laws.

You see, the the so-called "liberation of female sexuality" has been,
in hindsight, little more than a scam of the bait-and-switch variety.
Women have more or less magically construed a language of male
repression and then feigned to liberate themselves from its strictures.

LOL! Woman consistently make less in the work place than men. Until recently, laws regarding sexual battery have placed women in the role as temptress, luring poor unsuspecting men into committing acts that they wouldn't ordinarily do; absolving men of any and all responsibility.

Those that are in power make the laws, set the agendas, and guide the direction of societal rules of conduct. Women have influence over their immediate associates but ultimately the ones in the priviledged positions (males) still have the final word.

Ergo, if men did not desire virgins, the ideal would not survive and if
women did not embrace virginity as an ideal, there would not be

LOL! Woman consistently make less in the work place than men. Until recently, laws regarding sexual battery have placed women in the role as temptress, luring poor unsuspecting men into committing acts that they wouldn't ordinarily do; absolving men of any and all responsibility.

Much of this sounds like the sort of conspiratorial drivel I read years ago in some feminist manifesto on campus.

In my view, AtLiberal, you import too much unquestioned control to men over the very evolution of humanity and confer to women to little responsibility for their part in maintaining the status quo. (You are aware the women regularly outdo men in church attendance)

If women are an opp...

LOL! Woman consistently make less in the work place than men. Until recently, laws regarding sexual battery have placed women in the role as temptress, luring poor unsuspecting men into committing acts that they wouldn't ordinarily do; absolving men of any and all responsibility.

Much of this sounds like the sort of conspiratorial drivel I read years ago in some feminist manifesto on campus.

In my view, AtLiberal, you import too much unquestioned control to men over the very evolution of humanity and confer to women to little responsibility for their part in maintaining the status quo. (You are aware the women regularly outdo men in church attendance)

If women are an oppressed class, they are the only ones who can proudly say they bear and raise their own oppressors.

Tell me, when you're out on the dance floor with your significant other, do you lead or does she?
Are you simply doing what's expected of you or are you part of some sinister patriarchal plot?

Lastly,

As you and I have the same disposition towards religion, -- I did give you a satisfactory definition of the three ways to be an atheist I hope -- I'll entertain you with another "just so story."

As religion took charge of ritualizing, codifying, and sanctifiying marriage, it didn't take long for the church elders to recongnized the similarity between their sacred temples and a woman's body. One could not enter the sacred temple without desecrating it and so it was with women as well. Eventually, women's bodies took on a "sanctity" of their own. A kind of feminine 'mystique" to quote Betty Friedan. In religious symbolism, virgintiy became an icon of holy moral perfection as la...

Lastly,

As you and I have the same disposition towards religion, -- I did give you a satisfactory definition of the three ways to be an atheist I hope -- I'll entertain you with another "just so story."

As religion took charge of ritualizing, codifying, and sanctifiying marriage, it didn't take long for the church elders to recongnized the similarity between their sacred temples and a woman's body. One could not enter the sacred temple without desecrating it and so it was with women as well. Eventually, women's bodies took on a "sanctity" of their own. A kind of feminine 'mystique" to quote Betty Friedan. In religious symbolism, virgintiy became an icon of holy moral perfection as later embodied by the Virgin Mary. After all, a god can't be born of a desecrted temple. Many myths of virgins giving birth to gods predate Christianity. .. Taking charge of marriage, the church took charge of sex too inculcating a tremendous amount of pathological guilt, shame, and needless anxiety into its congregation.

Needless to say, the church couldn't eradicate sexual desire completely without eradicating its followers.

Of course, people tell me that had we lived in a Matriarchy and women had been the church elders none of the symbolism above would have evolved as the memetic structure of women's and men's brains are entirely different. But I figure that's conjecture.

(You are aware the women regularly outdo men in church attendance)

Probably so. That doesn't have anything to do with their having much of an impact on the male hierarchy that sets the rules of the church. Of course I'm referring to churches that are part of a larger ecclesiastical framework).

If women are an oppressed class, they are the only ones who can proudly say they bear and raise their own oppressors.

Hmmm. Not to be too argumentative but growing up in the deep south I can readily give examples of the oppressors being nurtured and raised by the oppressed.

And dancing is hardly an apt analogy for vast reaching institutions like government and organ...

(You are aware the women regularly outdo men in church attendance)

Probably so. That doesn't have anything to do with their having much of an impact on the male hierarchy that sets the rules of the church. Of course I'm referring to churches that are part of a larger ecclesiastical framework).

If women are an oppressed class, they are the only ones who can proudly say they bear and raise their own oppressors.

Hmmm. Not to be too argumentative but growing up in the deep south I can readily give examples of the oppressors being nurtured and raised by the oppressed.

And dancing is hardly an apt analogy for vast reaching institutions like government and organized religion.

Your mention of church topography might be a case of the chicken/egg question. I'm more of the opinion that the temple was modeled after the anatomy. Perhaps I misunderstood you and that's what you meant.

As far as the female body taking on a santity I believe most common thought on this indicates that this came about most naturally as women were the vessels that life originated in. Common theory is that marriage emerged only when a large enough portion of the population became agrarian and land started to become allocated. Porperty rights became important and so did lineage. But that's another topic for another day and another clip.

Hello Oortcloud,

"In feminist lore, the sexual double standard is talked about in terms of some conspiracy on the part of men to privilege themselves with more sexual freedom than women. Again, it's blamed on some imagined dominance of men in sexual matters. Seldom does anyone point out that women are conferred a more protected and untouchable status. While I've heard many moralists whine about the double standard, I've yet to hear one complain about this particular aspect of the double standard. That's because they subscribe to this aspect of the double standard as in 'don't fuck my daughter.' You see, far from being regarded as 'mere property,' it is far more likely young girls are view...

Hello Oortcloud,

"In feminist lore, the sexual double standard is talked about in terms of some conspiracy on the part of men to privilege themselves with more sexual freedom than women. Again, it's blamed on some imagined dominance of men in sexual matters. Seldom does anyone point out that women are conferred a more protected and untouchable status. While I've heard many moralists whine about the double standard, I've yet to hear one complain about this particular aspect of the double standard. That's because they subscribe to this aspect of the double standard as in 'don't fuck my daughter.' You see, far from being regarded as 'mere property,' it is far more likely young girls are viewed as mommy's and daddy's little princesses. In their parents eyes, young girls' bodies are literally likened to sacred temples into which one cannot enter lest they be desecrated. No such sanctity or lofty moral sentiment is ascribed to the young males body. In which case, I should think that we will never see the sexual double standard entirely expunged in spite of the recently celebrated 'liberation of female sexuality.' (I put said liberation in quotes because I believe that women have more or less magically construed a language of male repression and then feigned to liberate themselves from its strictures. Ironic, isn't it? )

"Society presumes the male the aggressor and discriminates against him as such. Females are viewed the passive receptors of male attention and are discriminated as such. In short, the boys get the blame and the girls get the shame. Feminists are naturally quick to resent the resulting discrimination against their own gender but rarely question society's sexual stereotypes of men. In fact, it's more often the case that feminists exacerbate negative stereotypes of men."

AtLiberal,

I agree in full with the original point of your clip. I simply mentioned "virginity pledges" would be less effective for boys than girls as virginity is a feminine ideal.. Oortcloud retorted that "virginity is a male ideal" imposed on women and I took issue with his simple origin story.

To quote good ole Friedrich Nietzsche:

.... the cause of the origin of a thing and its eventual utility, it actual employment and place in a system of of purposes, lie worlds apart; whatever exists, having somehow come into being, is again and again reinterpreted to new ends, taken over, transformed, and redirected by changes unforeseen.

Nietzsche is speaking to the difficulty of making cau...

AtLiberal,

I agree in full with the original point of your clip. I simply mentioned "virginity pledges" would be less effective for boys than girls as virginity is a feminine ideal.. Oortcloud retorted that "virginity is a male ideal" imposed on women and I took issue with his simple origin story.

To quote good ole Friedrich Nietzsche:

.... the cause of the origin of a thing and its eventual utility, it actual employment and place in a system of of purposes, lie worlds apart; whatever exists, having somehow come into being, is again and again reinterpreted to new ends, taken over, transformed, and redirected by changes unforeseen.

Nietzsche is speaking to the difficulty of making causal claims. The same protest I'm making.


To quote my favorite historian Hayden White:

..... history is an interpretive narrative. As such it represents itself in at least three ways, aesthetically (in the choice of a narrative strategy), epistemologically (in the choice of an explanatory paradigm), and ethically (in the choice of a strategy by which the ideological implications of a given representation can be drawn for the comprehension of current social problems).

You and Ortcloud have a linear historical perspective. You guys see the past in term of the prejudices of the present which postulates a one to one relationship between the concept of property and marriage This is has become a decidedly feminist "just so story" fashionable in popular culture.

I take a non-linear anthropological view of human institutions. I view their development within the dynamics of human social evolution. This accounts for the variety we see in human cultures... family structure, rules of lineage, kinship, and marriage customs.

What we take to be universal is actually quite local in the time humanity has been around... In particular, the nuclear family (where dad goes to the office to work and mom stay's home fuming with resentment as in Ibsen's Doll House.)

To my friends AtLiberal and OortCloud,

The above may have seemed condescending... So allow me to state what I believe is your position.. (To avoid confusion)

Regarding the sexual double standard..

From the legal scholarship in this area, one learns that the sexual double standard was created in a patriarchal society where the nuclear family was the primary social unit. In this traditional social structure, women either were denied legal personhood completely, causing them to be viewed as property of their fathers or husbands, or were granted limited rights as guardians of the family unit. A young girl's worth depended on her ability to secure a marriage that would promise her economic se...

To my friends AtLiberal and OortCloud,

The above may have seemed condescending... So allow me to state what I believe is your position.. (To avoid confusion)

Regarding the sexual double standard..

From the legal scholarship in this area, one learns that the sexual double standard was created in a patriarchal society where the nuclear family was the primary social unit. In this traditional social structure, women either were denied legal personhood completely, causing them to be viewed as property of their fathers or husbands, or were granted limited rights as guardians of the family unit. A young girl's worth depended on her ability to secure a marriage that would promise her economic security. Her ability to marry, in turn, depended on her sexual purity. Thus, a girl's virginity was her greatest possession, her bargaining tool in securing a socially acceptable future. An 'unwise' disposition of a girl's sexual 'treasure' was thought to harm both her own value and the entire social structure in which she existed. The restriction of female sexual activity operated to prevent this result.

Is this about right?

The position of blacks and the position women have not been
commensurate. Your south had no problem hanging blacks but it was a
long time cummin' before they hung a Southern lady.

You've either missed the analogy or I've failed to sufficiently explain it. The differences were of a qualitative, not a quantitative kind. Both categories shared the position of being denied opportunities and privileges granted to the oppressor.

I agree. But there are feminists who would call it a "microcosm" of repression.

There may very well be. So what? I hardly think "feminists" speak as a monolithic group.

What we take to be universal is actually quite local in the time...

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The position of blacks and the position women have not been
commensurate. Your south had no problem hanging blacks but it was a
long time cummin' before they hung a Southern lady.

You've either missed the analogy or I've failed to sufficiently explain it. The differences were of a qualitative, not a quantitative kind. Both categories shared the position of being denied opportunities and privileges granted to the oppressor.

I agree. But there are feminists who would call it a "microcosm" of repression.

There may very well be. So what? I hardly think "feminists" speak as a monolithic group.

What we take to be universal is actually quite local in the time humanity has been around...

Perhaps you've taken my comments to be universal but I meant to direct them specifically towards the culture that exists today and primarily the culture that exists in the US. Similarities exist around the world but cultural divergence always needs to be taken into consideration.

I can't help but comment on my impression that you view "feminism" in a rather narrow framework that seems to be centered in the 50s and 60s. But that assessment is probably over broad as it's based solely on the limited information gathered from this exchange. IMO, the term has lost much of its meaning by its being adopted as a catchall to justify many differing causes from animal rights to hiring practices to religion.

You've either missed the analogy or I've failed to sufficiently explain it. The differences were of a qualitative, not a quantitative kind. Both categories shared the position of being denied opportunities and privileges granted to the oppressor.

Prior to the presidency of Andrew Jackson, only propertied white males could vote. Would you say non-propertied white males were an "oppressed class" before President Jackson conferred universal suffrage on them?

There may very well be. So what? I hardly think "feminists" speak as a monolithic group.

I am aware that feminists are not on homogeneous and unified group.

I've read several feminists whose ideas I gene...

You've either missed the analogy or I've failed to sufficiently explain it. The differences were of a qualitative, not a quantitative kind. Both categories shared the position of being denied opportunities and privileges granted to the oppressor.

Prior to the presidency of Andrew Jackson, only propertied white males could vote. Would you say non-propertied white males were an "oppressed class" before President Jackson conferred universal suffrage on them?

There may very well be. So what? I hardly think "feminists" speak as a monolithic group.

I am aware that feminists are not on homogeneous and unified group.

I've read several feminists whose ideas I generally like: Germaine Greer, Helen Mary Warnock, Martha Nussbaum, Patricia Pearson, and Joanne H. Wright. All of them contemporary thinkers.

People like a single answer; a single cause.

Note: this explanation is a legal one. The operative word here is "denied" suggesting intentional . The concept "legal personhood" is treated as given, its meaning substantive suggesting loss and deprivation in its absence. But was that the case? Certainly, we would think so today but we risk the temptation of judging the past in terms of the present. Likewise the rhetorical notion of being "treated as mere property" suggests a world of woe for women. A very cold world devoid of love, intimacy, caring... But was that the case? We know now that the concept of legal personhood has been an evolving one, conferring and defining duties and rights t...

People like a single answer; a single cause.

Note: this explanation is a legal one. The operative word here is "denied" suggesting intentional . The concept "legal personhood" is treated as given, its meaning substantive suggesting loss and deprivation in its absence. But was that the case? Certainly, we would think so today but we risk the temptation of judging the past in terms of the present. Likewise the rhetorical notion of being "treated as mere property" suggests a world of woe for women. A very cold world devoid of love, intimacy, caring... But was that the case? We know now that the concept of legal personhood has been an evolving one, conferring and defining duties and rights to a wider circle of people in democratic societies. We know also that the roles men and women play are generally defined by the expectatons of both sexes and that these have changed as well. So what was it like in the past? Was there really a sense among most women that men were holding out on them? That things weren't moving along quickly enough?

Here you recognize my favorite thesis, that we are (mostly) all (and always have been) uncritical participants in the societal norms of our respective historical time-frames.

As should be expected, this legal origin story of the sexual double standard has its limits. After all, many so called 'patriarchal' societies have not been so repressive of female sexuality as we've been led to believe they must. Anthropology has provided numerous examples, a.k.a societies that are without marriage, polyandrous, matrilineal, and that have various extended family systems.

Also, whether or not women were, once upon a time, viewed as non-persons or 'mere property,' is pertinent in principle only to those who see the sexual double standard in terms of repressive patriarchy. That is to say, this view is only one rather ideologically motivated interpretation of women's previous status vis-a-vis their freedom of action and choice. For instance, it i

Continued....

For instance, it is altogether possible that women 'saved' themselves until marriage of their own accord, not just as function of their status as men's 'mere property,' presuming men ever had such a pejorative view of women.

The repressive hypothesis does not coincide with the actually moral sentiment of the periods in question.. After all, women are not simply preserved for marriage, rather, marriage is preserved for women. Indeed, one might say everything revolves around women --- courtship, weddings, marriage, children. Men are seen as peripheral to the game. This is why women have been escorted, cautioned, and defended. This is why women have cautioned, secure, and defe...

Continued....

For instance, it is altogether possible that women 'saved' themselves until marriage of their own accord, not just as function of their status as men's 'mere property,' presuming men ever had such a pejorative view of women.

The repressive hypothesis does not coincide with the actually moral sentiment of the periods in question.. After all, women are not simply preserved for marriage, rather, marriage is preserved for women. Indeed, one might say everything revolves around women --- courtship, weddings, marriage, children. Men are seen as peripheral to the game. This is why women have been escorted, cautioned, and defended. This is why women have cautioned, secure, and defended themselves.

Withholding sex from men could easily be interpreted as an exercise in self-restraint. And tradtionally, that is how most women saw it. To say that they were merely "brainwashed" is to refuse women any reponsibilbe agency; as if women had no minds of their own.. (The claim that women were "brainwashed" presents the obvious problem of being a slippery slope that can easily be extended to everyone.) That women would not otherwise restrain themselves more so than men -- possibly facilitating a double standard -- were it not for patriarchy is pure conjecture as is the modern belief that men alone determine all sexual praxis.


Finally, if it is instructive to consider the double standard in the light of masculine schemas, it is also instructive to consider the double standard in terms of feminine schemas or strategies. The idea that current and past sexual standards exist to advantage men is not something anyone should accept on blind faith. As I have said before, male and female roles are defined by the expectations of both sexes. The claim that 'men define women' and the trend to root the double standard in patriarchy are part and parcel to the same tendentious ideology. Namely feminism: a modern theory whose template we superimpose on the past as if to judge it