Is Ethical Heterosexual Sex Possible Under (Late) Patriarchy?

NOTE:  This article is written primarily for a male audience.

One of the common "straw feminist" arguments often weaponized by anti-feminist and "manosphere" types to try to discredit feminism in general is one that only the most truly extreme fringe ultra-radical feminists (a vanishingly tiny few, nearly all from the second wave in the 1970s and early 1980s) have ever actually put forth with a straight face:  some flavor of "under patriarchy, all (heterosexual) sex is rape".  That statement is, of course, quite easy to refute, as it completely denies Women any agency at all over their own bodies and minds, and is thus infantilizing and demeaning to Women.  And I don't go anywhere near arguments like that, so you will never hear anything like that from me.

Such patronizing and paternalistic nonsense really serves only to discredit feminism and Women in general, trivialize rape, throw out the baby with the bathwater, and put men in a reverse double bind (i.e. a duty to refuse sex, but no right to refuse)* as well, thus it has no place in the 21st century. 

But what if there were a kernel of truth to such an extreme and absolutist argument?  That is, not that it is necessarily rape, which a truly egregious violation of a Woman's bodily integrity and a desecration of the Sacred Feminine, but more like there is "no ethical heterosexual sex under patriarchy", much like the argument that there is "no ethical consumption under capitalism" (which is true, but obviously doesn't stop either gender from going shopping).  Could a more nuanced case be made in that regard?

Well, I hate to be a buzzkill, fellas, but just like consumption under capitalism, heterosexual sex can never be perfectly ethical as long as patriarchy still exists.  Sorry.  The problem is systemic, and goes very, very deep.  And unfortunately, just like we are living under "late capitalism", we are still living under some flavor of "late patriarchy", even in the most progressive, social democratic, and (relatively) gender-equal countries.  (And certainly still in the USA!)  But again, that doesn't stop either gender from going shopping, so is it possible for men to have sexual relations with Women while maintaining a (relatively) clear conscience?

The good news is it's a qualified yes, albeit imperfectly, provided that certain rules are followed.  ("Wait, what?  There's rules?  I thought we dispensed with such stuffiness like so much bric-a-brac decades ago!  Boooooo!")  Relax, fellas.  These rules are hardly oppressive, and actually tend to make sex better for both Women and men.  Such rules may reduce the quantity and frequency of sex, but will more than make up for that in terms of the quality of sex.  Plus, you actually get to LIVE with yourself, sleep well at night, and not have to constantly worry that you are literally playing Russian Roulette with your soul (!) in that regard.  Here they are:

1. First and foremost, be sure to obtain enthusiastic consent before proceeding, each and every time, and at each stage of escalation or changing to a different act.  When in doubt, check in and make sure.  In other words, if it's not a "HELL YEAH!", it's a "HELL NO!"  Period.
2. Always take NO for an answer.  Period.  Do NOT force, coerce, pressure, or manipulate anyone into sex.
3. Do NOT objectify or degrade Women (or men).  Always think in terms of "I and Thou", never "I and It".  Or as Immanuel Kant would say, "Always treat humanity as an end in itself, never solely as a means to an end".  (Contrary to the antisexual Kant, though, attraction per se does NOT automatically imply objectification.)
4. Avoid anything one-sided or "selfish in bed," as it should always be mutual.  After all, Women are human beings, NOT sex dolls or masturbation machines.
5. Whoever has the yoni makes the rules.  She is taking way more of a risk than you are, thus she is extending to you a much larger grace than you are to her.  Look up to her, not down on her.  Be sure to prioritize her pleasure!
6. No cruelty, violence, or abuse of any kind.  That should go without saying, before, during, and after.
7. Do not be a deceiver.  Honesty is always the best policy.
8. Practice radical empathy.  Try to actually see things from her perspective for a change. 
9. As Gabrielle Blair would say, "Ejaculate Responsibly".  If you feel you must have penetrative intercourse, USE A CONDOM as "standard operating procedure", with any exception requiring serious justification. 
10. And above all, DO NOT abuse, violate, or desecrate children in any way, shape, or form!  There is a special place in the Lake of Fire for those who do.  Same goes for those who abuse animals in any way as well.

Otherwise, have fun, fellas!  

(Mic drop)

(*Bonus points for anyone who recognized that statement with an asterisk as simply the mirror image of the double bind that Women have been forced into for millennia.)

P.S.  Contrary to what Maoists (and reactionaries, in an example of Horseshoe Theory) tend to claim, marriage is NOT necessarily "the least oppressive form of sexuality under [patriarchal] imperialism" for Women.  It is still, at base, a patriarchal institution, regardless of any attempts (with varying degrees of success) to re-purpose it for a post-patriarchal world to come, and is still all too often rigged in men's favor.  Thus, at a minimum, the same ethical sex rules listed above should still apply whether married or not.

And it should also go without saying, on the other side of the coin, that the same rules apply even if, or rather especially if, the sexual activity in question falls under the category of "casual".  Remember, "casual" in that regard simply means uncommitted or intended to be short-term.  It does NOT mean meaningless, disrespectful, or treat your partner like garbage.  The human dignity floor of mutual respect must still remain in place regardless of how the sex is labeled. 

Why Sex Has To Be Expensive And Hard To Get (For Men, From Women) Under Patriarchy

(And how this ultimately serves and maintains the patriarchy)

One thing that not everybody fully appreciates is just how many levels and layers the patriarchy really has.  Like peeling an onion, when you dig in you just keep finding more and more layers.  And nothing about patriarchy has more levels and layers related to it than the topic of sexuality, which under patriarchy is quite a complex topic to say the least.

Patriarchy has had a very long history of repressing Women's sexuality.  And such sexual repression has been proven to do more harm than good, and essentially all of patriarchy's archaic and repressive rules about sex were designed to control Women. That was originally done so men could be at least somewhat certain of paternity, as descent was reckoned (and inheritances were passed) through the male bloodline, though with the advent of modern birth control and paternity testing such a reason has basically become obsolete.  Note the double standard of patriarchy in which Women are far more likely to be punished for sexual transgressions, and how men who sleep around are considered "studs" and "legends" while women who do so are considered "sluts" and "whores".  In contrast, Matriarchal societies have historically been far more sexually free in general, since knowledge of paternity was basically a non-issue as descent was reckoned through the female bloodline.

Additionally, patriarchy's rules against masturbation, homosexuality, and birth control are really a result of the fact that patriarchy is one big Ponzi scheme (and protection racket) that requires very high birth rates to keep it afloat.  Thus, anything that frustrates that goal is deemed sinful.  Patriarchy considers Women to be the brood mares, while men are the work horses.  And in today's overpopulated world, such rules are also obsolete as well.   In Matriarchal societies, on the other hand, overpopulation would never even have occurred in the first place as Women would have complete sexual and reproductive freedom, and thus not have pregnancies forced upon them by men.

But wait, that is only the very first layer of this massive onion.  Read on for more.

Of course, less often appreciated is how such outmoded rules also have the purpose and effect of indirectly controlling (non-alpha and non-elite) males as well, by keeping the "cost" of sex artificially and arbitrarily high as well.  But on balance, the effects are far worse for Women, making patriarchy a negative-sum game overall even if a few come out ahead.  This is basically the "commodity model" of sexuality, in which sex is something that men "take" from Women, as opposed to being a mutually beneficial and pleasurable act in itself.  And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how this model inevitably leads to rape culture.

So how does the commodity model ultimately benefit the patriarchy?   It keeps non-alpha, non-elite males subject to the oligarchs at the top by working harder and harder to get sex, basically.  And under patriarchy, that work is generally of the sort that serves to make the rich even richer, in the hopes of "earning" the "prize" of sex at the end of the rainbow.  And it also makes men that much more aggressive, which patriarchy loves.  But again, it is a massive Ponzi and pyramid scheme.  Meanwhile, Women end up enforcing their own oppression by slut-shaming each other to artificially prop up the "cost" of sex in the "sexual marketplace", which undermines any attempt at a sisterhood which would be the greatest bulwark against the patriarchy.  Divide and conquer, basically--both men against Women, and Women against Women.  And the oligarchs just sit back and laugh.

(See a pattern here?  This is the same sort of "artificial scarcity" that the patriarchy and oligarchy create with money, goods, and services in general.  To them, sex is just another commodity or currency with which to control the masses.)

Too many layers yet?  Well, we're still just barely scratching the surface here.  Additionally, Women in general can gain power and psychological influence over men via their sexuality, and patriarchy would logically do everything they can to keep this from happening.  Thus, Women's sexuality needs to be repressed even further.  This is particularly true when older Women date or hook up with younger men, which is of course extremely taboo under patriarchy for primarily that very reason.  A young man with an older Woman as a sort of "mentor with benefits" would seriously undermine the patriarchal agenda in so many ways.

The next layer is sexuality between Women themselves, i.e. lesbianism and bisexuality.  A majority of Women, if not nearly all of them, have some sort of capacity in this regard to one degree or another.  And as we see with the bonobos, what better way to encourage a strong sisterhood than through bonding sexually with one another?  Of course, patriarchy would HATE that!

Still another layer, and probably the most complex and puzzling at first glance, is patriarchy's perennial love-hate relationship with sex work (i.e. prostitution, pornography, stripping, and stuff like that).  On the one hand, patriarchs absolutely love to objectify and exploit Women sexually, both directly and in terms of profiting from it all, while on the other hand, they also fear the potential for Women gaining any sort of power through this avenue.  So they tolerate it, but only insofar as men can totally control the trade, not Women.  And they use the law as a cudgel in one way or another to do so.  For porn specifically, those who control the propaganda essentially control the agenda.  Additionally, this is also related to the patriarchy's love-hate relationship (you can see a pattern of ambivalence here) with nudity as well.  They make it naughty and illicit, and hypersexualize it, because otherwise people would be desensitized to it, and would probably be a lot saner too.  Can't have that, of course!

And still another layer to all of this is the fact that male-defined sexuality is the only kind of sexuality that patriarchy promotes, prioritizing male pleasure and conquest and rendering Female pleasure and well-being irrelevant.  It is essentially men using Women as masturbation machines, and plays right into the hands of the patriarchy.  Female-defined sexuality, the sort that prioritizes Female pleasure and perspective, of course, is what really throws a monkey wrench in the works of the patriarchy.  And patriarchy will be damned if they ever let men learn about that.

Thus, we see how keeping the "cost" of sex artificially high ultimately serves and maintains the patriarchy, regardless of whether some individual Women may benefit from it.  It's a Faustian bargain, and one that can never lead to a real Matriarchy in practice.  (If it could, it would have already.)

And when Women finally reclaim their rightful position as the new leaders of the free world, I believe that our society will become truly sexually free once again, albeit with some concessions to modern times of course.  In the meantime, we all need to stop slut-shaming Women yesterday.  A "sexual cartel" is no substitute for a genuine sisterhood.

Let the planetary healing begin!

2022 UPDATE:  Two new articles on PsyPost really seem to dovetail nicely with this thesis.

What "Liberated" Gets Right--And Wrong At The Same Time

The new documentary, Liberated: The New Sexual Revolution, is a textbook example of how one can be both very right and still very wrong at the same time, to the point where the latter utterly vitiates the former.  The film, produced by the Christian anti-trafficking group Exodus Cry teaming up with Netflix, is a profoundly disturbing look at the intersection between "hookup culture", rape culture, and pop culture among young Millennials, particularly college students.

First, let's discuss the things they get right.  There should be no doubt amymore that rape culture exists, and not only among college students or young people either.  So much of it is exposed on display in this film, in ways that are both shocking and banal at the same time.  And it is very pervasive indeed, infecting the general culture as well, while fueling and being fueled by pop culture in the process.  That much is certainly true, no argument from me there.

That said, the film (and its commentaries) really starts to coast--scratch that, takes a nosedive--when the filmmakers' apparently conservative Christian and neo-Victorian biases rear their ugly heads in the following ways:

• This cherry-picked sample of a few groups of Spring Breakers in a rather notorious location is hardly a representative sample of an entire generation or culture.
• It is questionable whether "hookup culture" even exists, since Millennials are actually having LESS sex with fewer partners than the most recent previous generations (Baby Boomers and Gen X).  That is true for both students and non-students as well.
• The idea that casual sex of any kind somehow must be inherently objectifying, exploitative, and otherwise linked to rape culture is fallacious, says a lot about the people saying it, and only goes to show that when one looks upon sexuality with evil eyes, that can artificially turn it into something evil.  (This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy by then blatantly misunderstanding and misusing sexual energy as a result of such beliefs.)
• The concept of consent is unfortunately effectively relegated to secondary at best in this film, which is both agency-denying and victim-blaming at the same time in its zeal to conflate rape culture with "hookup culture".  Thus, it ends up being demeaning and infantilizing to Women as a result.
• If you torture the data enough, they will confess to anything.  Especially when all you have is anecdotal evidence.  The plural of "anecdote" is NOT "data".
• And finally, the idea that "hookup culture" somehow acts as a "gateway" to human trafficking is really, really reaching here, and reeks of a desperate attempt by Exodus Cry to link two unrelated agendas.  Nevermind that during the actual Victorian era proper, human trafficking was rife despite (or perhaps because of) the priggish sexual mores then.

Of course, the biggest flaw of all is the most glaring omission:  PATRIARCHY.  That evil system is the real root of rape culture, human trafficking, and so many other social ills for thousands of years, yet the makers of this film seem to ignore its overarching role.  Perhaps that is because they are steeped in, I dunno, a patriarchal religion?

What really exists within patriarchy--which still exists by the way--is not really a "hookup culture", but rather a persistent culture of negativity around sex and relationships generally, as Amanda Hess notes.  And neither abstinence nor the protection racket of patriarchy is the solution.  The only real solution here is respect.  And the only solution to rape culture is the eradication of patriarchy, period.

For a better documentary about rape culture itself, I would recommend The Hunting Ground instead.  Don't waste your time with this film though.

Why (Sexual) Capitalism Must Die, and How to Humanely Euthanize it

I have discussed before how that favorite evil brainchild of patriarchy, capitalism, is literally killing our Mother Earth as we speak, and is thus both ecocidal and ultimately suicidal since humanity is in fact part of Nature (despite frequent and stubborn protestations to the contrary).  And that the only way to humanely euthanize that vile system is to give it the one thing it cannot survive--ABUNDANCE--while harsh austerity measures of any kind (ecological or otherwise) will ultimately backfire in the end, leaving us permanently stuck in a very bad place while still ending up destroying ourselves along with our planet.  But did you know that capitalism also has a sexual dimension as well?

Wait, what?  That's right--and it is one that would make Freud himself blush beet red.  So much so that capitalism should really be called "greed patriarchy", while patriarchy should really be called "lust capitalism" or "sexual capitalism".  Please allow me to explain:

• While financial rentier capitalism uses artificial scarcity of money, goods and services, etc. to control the masses, sexual capitalism uses artificial scarcity of sex (and sex substitutes) to do the same.
• Sexual capitalism, which is part and parcel of patriarchy, uses the "commodity model" of sexuality to make sex just artificially scarce enough for the conditions of the times to effect maximum control of the masses.
• In the commodity model of sexuality, sex (however defined) is seen a something of value that men "take" from Women, but not the other way around, and is seen as a zero-sum game.  A Woman's worth is thus considered inversely proportional to her level of sexual experience, while the reverse is usually (though not always) true for men (i.e. the classic double standard, slut-shaming, etc.).
• Therefore, men have a vested interest to keep the "cost" of sex as low as possible, while Women have a vested interest in keeping the "cost" of sex as high as possible.  One can see how this does not exactly make for harmonious gender relations or mutuality, since the interests of Women and men are inherently opposed in this model.
• At the same time, the (mostly) male elites have a vested interest to keep the "cost" of sex as high as possible, or at least just high enough to control the masses.  This is typically done by punishing Women in one way or another for having too much and/or the wrong kind of sex (i.e. "giving it away" for free or cheap), imposing a very high cost on Women who then pass some of that cost onto men.  Or demanding for specious and spurious reasons that sex be only for procreation and claiming that sexual pleasure especially for its own sake is somehow "sinful".  Thus, they control Women in order to indirectly control men, while (in the days before modern birth control and DNA testing) also ensuring paternity certainty as well.
• That explains the patriarchy's arcane and archaic rules against not only "fornication" and adultery (note how usually only Women have historically been punished for these in practice), but also masturbation, homosexuality, non-monogamy, non-coital sexual activities, abortion, "artificial" birth control, divorce (albeit with some nuance), pornography (albeit with some nuance), and most ironically of all, prostitution (despite the fact that patriarchal marriage is often little more than long-term prostitution in practice).  It also explains why so many self-proclaimed "pro-lifers" have the GALL to oppose birth control despite the fact that it actually has the net effect of reducing the number of abortions due to fewer unwanted pregnancies.
• A high cost of sex (and its substitutes), ceteris paribus, leads to higher birthrates (Women are the brood mares in this system) and more work done by men (men are the work horses) in order to gain access to sex, which ultimately makes the rich richer going.  A low cost of sex (or its substitutes), especially sex for pleasure, leads to lower birthrates and theoretically less incentive for the serfs to work harder to make the rich richer.
• Thus, a relatively high cost of sex is seen as necessary for the oligarchs to keep the whole Ponzi scheme of growth for the sake of growth (i.e. the ideology of the cancer cell, which eventually kills its host) going to make them even richer.
• And the experience of physical pleasure, affection, and intimacy in general (not just sex, but overall) are restricted to one degree or another, so much so that people end up craving it even more through a narrow little keyhole called sex, particularly coitus.
• Not that such sexual strictures really make The System any more virtuous in any sense, of course.  A certain amount of male-defined prostitution, sex trafficking/slavery, rape, and even pedophilia and incest is virtually always tolerated or even tacitly encouraged (clandestinely or otherwise) to one degree or another in patriarchy provided it does not threaten The System or inadvertently give Women too much power.  And these ills tend to explode when sex in general is highly restricted and costly (see what happened in the Victorian era, for example).  It's all just "collateral damage" in the eyes of the patriarchy and the oligarchy, basically.
• And of course, Women primarily get blamed for "getting themselves raped", rather than the men who rape them, since under the commodity model, the onus falls on Women to be "gatekeepers" of the  "commodity" in question and keep it it from becoming "too cheap" in the "marketplace".  And the resulting fear of rape (and blame/shame for it) is used as a cudgel to keep Women "in their place".
• And much like in Maragaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, patriarchy relies on Women to police each other (enter slut-shaming, body-shaming, the "mommy wars", etc.), further enhancing the divide-and-conquer aspect of The System.
• And just like financial capitalism, sexual capitalism functionally sets itself up as a contest to see who cares the least, in more ways than one.  A contest that MEN, not coincidentally, nearly always win.

And really it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how this model perpetuates the 7000 year battle of the sexes, promotes rape culture (much like how financial capitalism promotes crimes motivated by money and possessions), and even contributes to the destruction of Mother Earth in the process via overpopulation and ecological overshoot.  Fortunately, the whole "commodity model" of sexuality is indeed currently dying as we speak, and that is a GOOD thing. Such an outmoded, outdated, toxic, and sexist paradigm is downright dehumanizing to both primary genders, and we would all better off without it. Sex is a mutual act, and it is time we started treating it as such. And marriage for economic reasons rather than love is becoming increasingly obsolete, as it should in an increasingly egalitarian society. And while marriage can be re-purposed for a post-patriarchal society, the idea that everybody must get married as the sine qua non of "real adulthood" is outmoded and no longer holds any real water in the 21st century.  Ditto for the whole "everybody must procreate" mentality as well, which is now downright maladaptive in a world of overpopulation and ecological overshoot. 

(Note that I while I condemn the commodity model, I do not intend to disparage any actual sex workers of any kind.  They are, after all, some of the most honest people on Earth when it comes to their intentions, and in any case are not the real problem here.  It is the "little man behind the curtain"--the system of patriarchy and capitalism--that is the real problem.)

This inherently capitalistic and patriarchal model should be regarded as obsolete and outmoded, and replaced yesterday with the "performance model" or "mutual pleasure model" of sexuality.  And thus sexual capitalism will also be humanely euthanized by giving it the one thing it cannot survive--ABUNDANCE.  So what are we waiting for?

Let the planetary healing begin!