Monday, September 8, 2014

Culture news: Legal answers can't solve our culture's sex problems

Mark Regnerus writes that proposed legislation that would require strict standards of verbal consent to sex can't solve a cultural problem.  A society that has removed many cultural controls on male sexual activity should not be surprised when men use sex in harmful ways.  He writes:
But it’s time to admit that today’s mating market is precarious, and aggravates—rather than relieves—the risk of sexual violence. While women gained access to careers, men came to expect more sex—and earlier—both inside and outside relationships. Technology did nothing to solve the age-old dilemma of how to channel the sexual appetites of men. Rather, it stoked them. Thus we ask men to “man up” and protect women but fail to realize that men are more apt to do the right thing when they sense constraint not simply from their own willpower—which is notoriously weak—but from social control mechanisms. Instead, we’re discussing speech rules, vainly hoping they will reform men’s motivations and actions.

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