I always have to think about these arguments bc, like Douthat, I’m a Christian, though the resemblance doesn’t go too far beyond that. (And though I defend the right of religious people to say “so-and-so isn’t Really a [Member of My Religion]” bc doing that is a fundamental part of being in any shared tradition of any sort, I won’t do it here. Douthat, like Christine Emba, really does mean it, and he’s sincere. If Christianity stopped appearing to him as a way to secure a conservative social order, he’d still be a Christian, whereas many famous conservative intellectuals would bail.)
This is probably pretty orthogonal to a lot of what you’re saying, but I’m often struck by how much contemporary discourse about sexuality and power, on all sides, just skirts the word “love.” It’s obviously germane to what Douthat’s talking about here, and yet it doesn’t come up. Being dominated by someone who you know gives a shit about you is categorically, fundamentally different than being lovelessly dominated even if you consented to both. (Source: I have consented to both lol.) Being in love with more than one person is fundamentally different than being invited to help two rich strangers who have no curiosity about your heart act out their fantasies, even if you consented both times, even if you don’t really regret either experience. This is why he can’t see a difference between arguments for sexual openness that have an ethic of care built in and those that don’t (Heffner’s). And refraining from exercising the new options that these discourses open up is ultimately also, at its best, about love. I am monogamous at this point not because I still believe that that makes my relationships ethically better than those of, say, a careful lesbian who loves several women; it’s bc I know that my wife would be hurt deeply and finally if I asked for something else, and that hurt isn’t worth it to me. If she were constituted differently and felt differently, I would commence my Slut Era with great vigor.
For the conservatives this ignoring of love happens because they want romance and sexuality to do certain jobs, to serve as girders in a structure, and love seems too weak to them, maybe, to do those jobs. But one of the points Jesus was trying to make is that it’s the only thing durable enough to do *any* job we want done long term. (We theorize that it sustains the universe!) This is why Christianity has always had a destabilizing, mercurial side. I think a lot of the anti-sex thinking in its history has to do with the fear that this side must be contained, lest the Romans (or whoever) step up persecution, or, later, lest the State lose its interest in propping up the church. And I also am a lot more forgiving of body hatred in pre-modern and early modern writing, across the board, than most people anyway, just because it’s really a lot easier to love “bodies” after the invention of, like, penicillin and epidurals and whatnot. When I get food poisoning, I am suddenly as Gnostic and Neoplatonic as any of the church fathers. And sexuality was so, so dangerous, not in the fun, cool sense of the word. It was like labor in general: it often maimed you under the best of circumstances, and it was associated with an incredibly violent and hierarchical economy. It was often extracted from children at the point of a sword. It could carry illnesses no one knew how to treat. Paul thought that the best practice was for both men and women to do an end run around it while marinating in the love of God and in spitless communion with each other, that’s not inexplicable to me. But I think, if Christianity and the world continue to exist for another several centuries, its teachings on sexuality will continue to change.
On the radical side of the debate, I see more of an emphasis on terms like “care“ or on the basic idea of consent or equality in power. To some extent, these things are just love operationalized, made impersonal, which is fine. But the discourse still seems incomplete to me without it. Maybe I’m reading the wrong people, or maybe there’s a fear of seeming to disparage casual or temporary relationships, or sex work. Can’t speak to the latter, although it seems ungenerous to assume that sex workers feel nothing or feel only contempt for their clients in all cases. But I can speak a bit to the former: not all liaisons are forever, or involve the same amount of passion or whatever, but if I am willing to be naked with somebody, I already have started to love her a bit, in some way. I’d have to do a lot of violence to myself for it to be otherwise. Sharing your body with someone is momentous, and I’m not sure “casual” sex is an accurate label.
I think for every part of the debate, we’re wary of the word because humans can be incredibly self deceiving about love. Rapists and child molesters sometimes tell themselves that they love their victims, at least in the movies. Abusers *definitely* do. But I think we can be self deceiving in this way about everything important: I can fool myself that I consented to something or that I cared about someone. So I don’t think these concepts are finally better names.
Phil! Thank you for this beautifully thoughtful comment! 1) Christine Emba is on my list of people to engage more seriously. I am kind of instantly defensive with some of her arguments, but after more conversations with my Zoomer students about hookup culture, I'm like....Emba is not wrong. She's on my list to read more of before I send a draft in of this book. 2) Yes, LOVE! I am going to be talking a lot about love in the chapter where I'm trying to grapple with transformative justice, IPV and sexual violence, etc. The narrative is dramatically different (usually) when love is involved. (I haven't read it yet but I think Claire Dederer's MONSTERS talks love, perhaps surprisingly given the subject, too?). But also, less controversially, love re: monogamy/nonmonogamy etc, yes of course it matters to bring that into the mix. I'm really interested in your observation about "care" as being more impersonal. I do think that's a symptom of the secularism on the Left/radical spaces (a plague, if you ask me). I want to think on that. I wrote recently that love is way harder for me to write about than sex, as though those are fundamentally separate. they can be, obviously, but generally if I am talking romantic love, I am also talking sex. Anyway, it's definitely easier to be analytical about sex than love, and maybe that's good? LOTS TO CONSIDER!
Also, I was thinking of you on Easter as I watched the video of "Everything's Alright" from Jesus Christ Superstar on repeat and re-read Katie Prout's Judas piece, which I'm 99% sure I found from you!
I always have to think about these arguments bc, like Douthat, I’m a Christian, though the resemblance doesn’t go too far beyond that. (And though I defend the right of religious people to say “so-and-so isn’t Really a [Member of My Religion]” bc doing that is a fundamental part of being in any shared tradition of any sort, I won’t do it here. Douthat, like Christine Emba, really does mean it, and he’s sincere. If Christianity stopped appearing to him as a way to secure a conservative social order, he’d still be a Christian, whereas many famous conservative intellectuals would bail.)
This is probably pretty orthogonal to a lot of what you’re saying, but I’m often struck by how much contemporary discourse about sexuality and power, on all sides, just skirts the word “love.” It’s obviously germane to what Douthat’s talking about here, and yet it doesn’t come up. Being dominated by someone who you know gives a shit about you is categorically, fundamentally different than being lovelessly dominated even if you consented to both. (Source: I have consented to both lol.) Being in love with more than one person is fundamentally different than being invited to help two rich strangers who have no curiosity about your heart act out their fantasies, even if you consented both times, even if you don’t really regret either experience. This is why he can’t see a difference between arguments for sexual openness that have an ethic of care built in and those that don’t (Heffner’s). And refraining from exercising the new options that these discourses open up is ultimately also, at its best, about love. I am monogamous at this point not because I still believe that that makes my relationships ethically better than those of, say, a careful lesbian who loves several women; it’s bc I know that my wife would be hurt deeply and finally if I asked for something else, and that hurt isn’t worth it to me. If she were constituted differently and felt differently, I would commence my Slut Era with great vigor.
For the conservatives this ignoring of love happens because they want romance and sexuality to do certain jobs, to serve as girders in a structure, and love seems too weak to them, maybe, to do those jobs. But one of the points Jesus was trying to make is that it’s the only thing durable enough to do *any* job we want done long term. (We theorize that it sustains the universe!) This is why Christianity has always had a destabilizing, mercurial side. I think a lot of the anti-sex thinking in its history has to do with the fear that this side must be contained, lest the Romans (or whoever) step up persecution, or, later, lest the State lose its interest in propping up the church. And I also am a lot more forgiving of body hatred in pre-modern and early modern writing, across the board, than most people anyway, just because it’s really a lot easier to love “bodies” after the invention of, like, penicillin and epidurals and whatnot. When I get food poisoning, I am suddenly as Gnostic and Neoplatonic as any of the church fathers. And sexuality was so, so dangerous, not in the fun, cool sense of the word. It was like labor in general: it often maimed you under the best of circumstances, and it was associated with an incredibly violent and hierarchical economy. It was often extracted from children at the point of a sword. It could carry illnesses no one knew how to treat. Paul thought that the best practice was for both men and women to do an end run around it while marinating in the love of God and in spitless communion with each other, that’s not inexplicable to me. But I think, if Christianity and the world continue to exist for another several centuries, its teachings on sexuality will continue to change.
On the radical side of the debate, I see more of an emphasis on terms like “care“ or on the basic idea of consent or equality in power. To some extent, these things are just love operationalized, made impersonal, which is fine. But the discourse still seems incomplete to me without it. Maybe I’m reading the wrong people, or maybe there’s a fear of seeming to disparage casual or temporary relationships, or sex work. Can’t speak to the latter, although it seems ungenerous to assume that sex workers feel nothing or feel only contempt for their clients in all cases. But I can speak a bit to the former: not all liaisons are forever, or involve the same amount of passion or whatever, but if I am willing to be naked with somebody, I already have started to love her a bit, in some way. I’d have to do a lot of violence to myself for it to be otherwise. Sharing your body with someone is momentous, and I’m not sure “casual” sex is an accurate label.
I think for every part of the debate, we’re wary of the word because humans can be incredibly self deceiving about love. Rapists and child molesters sometimes tell themselves that they love their victims, at least in the movies. Abusers *definitely* do. But I think we can be self deceiving in this way about everything important: I can fool myself that I consented to something or that I cared about someone. So I don’t think these concepts are finally better names.
lol when I typed this out it at least had paragraph breaks
Phil! Thank you for this beautifully thoughtful comment! 1) Christine Emba is on my list of people to engage more seriously. I am kind of instantly defensive with some of her arguments, but after more conversations with my Zoomer students about hookup culture, I'm like....Emba is not wrong. She's on my list to read more of before I send a draft in of this book. 2) Yes, LOVE! I am going to be talking a lot about love in the chapter where I'm trying to grapple with transformative justice, IPV and sexual violence, etc. The narrative is dramatically different (usually) when love is involved. (I haven't read it yet but I think Claire Dederer's MONSTERS talks love, perhaps surprisingly given the subject, too?). But also, less controversially, love re: monogamy/nonmonogamy etc, yes of course it matters to bring that into the mix. I'm really interested in your observation about "care" as being more impersonal. I do think that's a symptom of the secularism on the Left/radical spaces (a plague, if you ask me). I want to think on that. I wrote recently that love is way harder for me to write about than sex, as though those are fundamentally separate. they can be, obviously, but generally if I am talking romantic love, I am also talking sex. Anyway, it's definitely easier to be analytical about sex than love, and maybe that's good? LOTS TO CONSIDER!
Also, I was thinking of you on Easter as I watched the video of "Everything's Alright" from Jesus Christ Superstar on repeat and re-read Katie Prout's Judas piece, which I'm 99% sure I found from you!
I really love this. Nuance is a thing both sides tend to forget about.
Absolutely!