I'm About to Destroy Someone's Tokyo
In the Letters to the Editor section of the Times Union this morning John O'Brien reminisces about a better time when people were shamed for pre-marital sex. Back in his day if a woman was with child before marriage she would be shamed and disgraced for being a bad girl. That was a good deterrent for other girls who might have been considering exploring their naughty, naughty sexuality.
Before the onset of our sex-crazed society, most teens abstained from premarital sex, not simply because they were taught and believed it was immoral, but also because of the stigma of shame and disgrace the unwed pregnant girl suffered. Yes, abstinence seemed to work pretty well in those bygone days before abortion provided the effective but deplorable solution to unwanted pregnancies.
Read the whole thing here.
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Unfortunately, if your reaction is truly one of hatred or anger, then I must conjecture that there is an element of fear, for such emotions are expressed to cover or mask such fear. Tell me truthfully: is there something there that threatens you?
To a degree, he is right. But this does not mean that it was an ideal solution. I'll explain.
Guilt and shame are NOT bad things. Research enough psychology and you'll find that they are used by society to ensure a degree of conformity. Parents use it to keep their children in line, as do the public, to bring persons displaying errant behavior in broad daylight in line. Regardless of your personal moral standards, I would submit that this sustains the health of a society and/or culture.
So what's bad? When guilt and shame are used to an extreme, rather than to spur someone to good behavior and eventual confidence, it pushes them to do worse.
His "sex-saturated society" comment is not without merit. We live in a society where everything is incredibly sexualized. The debate over breast feeding, for example, rages on because some cannot set aside a sexualization of the breasts to realize that the mammaries are a source of nourishment for the young. I could go into what I've learned about the history of wet nursing among the upper classes, but I'll save it for now.
There is incredible sexualization, and yet people are afraid to touch each other. There is great confusion over what context indicates that a touch is friendly, appropriate, and not sexual. Those of us who live in North America have probably seen that there are many culture clashes in regards to touch.
But in regards to abstinence, "pre-marital sex", and the morality of marriage, well, I think there is a withering disregard and disrespect of such concepts from intellectuals and similar elements of society.
I am not sure where all of it comes from, but I suspect some of it is a reaction of fear: experiences with divorce and a sense of a lack of control in situations that lead to divorce may be part of the reason that some have lost confidence in the institution of marriage.
I could go on for days about how intellectuals and religionists duke this out, but here are my observations:
1. In states where there is no common law spouse precedent or legislation, cohabitating couples lose a number of legal options. Court room television doesn't always provide the best example, but I do recall watching Judge Judy where Judith Sheindlin was explaining to a cohabitating couple that were breaking up that she had no legal precedent to determine who got what.
That's my usual response to the marriage argument (gay or otherwise): are they ready for the full baggage divorce entails?
2. I've generally seen a stronger sense of commitment from married couples than I have co-habitating ones. From time to time, I have seen more co-habitating couples act more as if it was a friendly roommate situation. I have also recall one that I know of where one wishes to get married and the other doesn't.
I'm perplexed, really, why I'm fed the "we're waiting to save up enough money for a nice wedding" when couples explain their co-habitation. Apparently, they're covering their asses, but to be honest, I accepted their situations more or less long ago, and am confused why they just don't simply tell me that it is for what it is.
I wouldn't mind debating this topic further, but I must insist that it be within a philosophical context. I've come to realize, or at least so it would seem in my mind, that pitting any of the controversial subjects (but especially politics and religion) I've listed before head to head usually results in a "fighting fire with fire"-- dogma vs. political platform, etc.
I posted a test sometime back that is a fair indicator of my philosophical leanings in terms of metaphysics, epistemology, and morality/ethics, if that helps.
I disagree with your comments on guilt and shame. Being brought up in a Catholic household where guilt and shame were the primary tools used by my parents I have some experience here. I personally feel that marriage and sex have absolutely nothing to do with each other and making teenagers and even children feel guilty about their sex drives is morally wrong. It's a natural part of life for any animal. Even if the intentions are good, as in keeping kids from getting stds or preggers, guilt and shame are the absolute wrong way to go about dealing with the issues. Children are smart and can handle a lot more than most adults give them credit for and they will eventually come to resent the adults who used guilt and shame to get them to conform to ridiculous standards in society.
The institution of marriage is a crock. If it weren't for the health benefits Husband and I may have never gotten married. Our love would be just as strong and passionate without a piece of paper signed a judge saying that the government recognizes that we'll be fucking each other on a regular basis. In today's society maybe it would make sense to make pre-shack-up agreements. Haha! :-)
It seems like the only reason people lie about co-habitating before marriage is to avoid the judgment and shame thrust upon them by others.
Do you know what I mean?
I definately am not saying that anyone should guilt anyone into behaving certain ways. And I'm not disagreeing with anyone, and I'm not looking for a sparring match with anyone else's opinions. It's just that, the world today is SOOOOO fucked up and it just keeps getting worse. And sometimes I can see where people come up with their theories about WHY it used to be better. They might have some kind of point SOMEWHERE even if it's not actually the one they put their finger on & said out loud. Do you know what I mean???
I entered my comment above --- when to break --- came back and realized that somehow part of one of my sentences had been cut out ---
it says
"But NOT want to disappoint my parents, that I did NOT want to do something that would get me into trouble."
which really isn't a complete thought...
and what I MEANT it to say was
"sometimes the only thing that kept my stupid teenage self from acting out was NOT wanting to disappoint my parents, and that I did NOT want to do something that would get me into trouble.
sorry!
I didn't realize how trapped I was by shame I felt as a child and teenager. For crying out loud I couldn't even masturbate without severe feelings of regret and shame for a long time. I didn't know how normal it was - even for girls - because most of the time we were told that we aren't supposed to be sexual creatures.
No need to fear flame wars. Share your opinion and discuss freely, everyone is entitled to say what's on their mind here! :-)
It would really be nice if there WAS some simple solution to "correct" the world though, wouldn't it?
*sigh*.
Two people screw around.
One of them becomes pregnant, to accompanying shame, guilt and so on.
The other pronounces his old girl friend a slut (society agreed).
Her life was wrecked while he went on, unharmed, congratulated for escaping the "trap."
Unless they "had" to get married, because she got pregnant.
Or, if she was very lucky, she had connections to get a pregnancy, or her family could arrange to send her away to have it and give it up.
None of these outcomes are fair, or good, or necessary.
I'm old enough to have had contemporaries who left high school pregnant, to have babies they weren't allowed keep.
Or spent a lot of money for illegal abortions given under circumstances that made a simple procedure possibly crippling or even life-threatening.
The guilt and shame involved in being caught never stopped people back then.
Some people were going to be screwing around, and some weren't.
That doesn't seem to have changed.
Oh, and abstinence "worked pretty well."
No it didn't. Not then, not now.
The abstinence-based birth control our government favors teaching school children has exactly the same result as teaching them nothing at all.
There has always been lots of unmarried sex going on, and I suspect there always will be.
But then unwed mothers hastily married when they got pregnant, or got secret abortions, or went away to have babies they lost forever.
(Why do you think adopting families have to go find foreign orphans now? The domestic supply dried up when the shameless hussies started keeping and aising their own children.)
The result of guilt and shame was never abstinence; it was hiding the real consequences behind whispers and lies, and ruining peoples' lives.
Like you said, there have always been and will always be people who have unmarried sex. I don't think anything has changed, we've just become more open about it. Thank goodness too, think of all of the young women who missed out on life because they were forced to raise children they never wanted in the first place. At least they've got safe options today like the morning after pill (which, contrary to popular belief stops pregancy before fertilization and is not a form of abortion), condoms, birth control and abortion.
As I mentioned before, I perceive comments like this writer made as a threat because it's people like him who want to take away my ability to protect my body from pregnancy.
Have you even READ the psychological context? You seem very well acquainted with an imbalance to the extreme of use of guilt and shame, I will not deny that. What I speak of is guilt and shame expressed when others act very inappropriately in public.
When people talk loudly in the movie theater-- whether it be on their cell phones, or it's fidgeting whiny hungry haven't used the potty kids, etc. and you say "Shhh", that's an acceptable and reasonable use of public shame.
It is also this same shame that would check people from yelling "Fire!" in the same place.
Most people don't call it shame, however... it's usually lumped in with the concept of "conscience".
The institution of marriage is NOT a crock to *me*. For that is your opinion. Although I'm sure you imply it, not all people believe it is so.
I asked you to respond from a *philosophical* angle, not the common political one that most people do. I asked for rhetoric. I asked for epistemological considerations. I asked for moral/ethical considerations free of political taint.
I will make no bones that generally, I am a metaphysical non-reductionist, epistemological absolutist, and moral/ethical objectivist. It is explained somewhat in a post I made earlier.
Please, consider studying up on the philosophical contexts, and then talk to me again. I hope I've made it abundantly clear that I find common political debate as usually presented tiresome.
I don't deny that my statement of marriage being a crock is my opinion. I know lots of people take it seriously. People take American Idol seriously but I call that a crock too. My parents divorced when I was 7, my mom lived with a guy for over five years before he became my step dad. My exposure to marriage as a child was limited to seeing unhappy people pretending that everything was ok. Because of that, what I hold sacred is my relationship with my husband, not the contract that we signed to make it "official". I'm sure some people see it as more than that, something "in the eyes of god" or some such thing, but being an atheist, I don't see it that way.
As long as that's mutually acknowledged (for me as well), it's all good.
As I've grown older I've found that the philosophies of my youth do not hold up very well in the real world.
Ah yes, the age-old "growing disillusioned" or "cynicism with age". I'm not sure everyone chalks it up to naïvete-- just wistful memories of idealism.
what I hold sacred is my relationship
Here we are, we're back to common ground again. You see, I view the contract as an outward reflection of the commitment to that relationship, not an inwardly directed obligation imposed by society. While that may be true to a certain regard, it is more important that the commitment is understood as an independent choice, NOT an outside imposition.
I'm sure some people see it as more than that
I'm not sure "contract" or even "covenant" fully conveys my experience. It is merely a devotion of the will to a binding agreement that was made a long, long time ago. I cannot express what is in my mind's eye... "soulmate" is a pale definition to what I remember down to my very essence.
Cimmy and I knew each other before. It's not something cheesy or put on-- we've filled each other in like it was a mutual dream that had faded in the waking hours.
The vows we made then, so long ago, and those we made 8 years ago are sacred and solemn statements to us. I can understand if this is not like your experience at all... I understand and respect that as I can see, from talking to many others, that you are hardly alone.
All I ask is that you respect mine.
Any chance this is the part where we start mentioning pudding?
&:o?
Ever since discovering your blog (and Cimmy's) I could tell you guys have that spark. You really seem to understand each other on a very deep level, not many people ever get to experience that. Nothing in my past ever prepared me for the type of relationship I have with Husband. We share an intimacy that I didn't even know was possible. Even when I talk to close friends about their marriage or relationships none of them ever seem to express experiencing the closeness I feel with my life partner. Much of the time it seems like their spouses don't even have a basic understanding of who they are. All around me I see marriages with no communication, no passion, no spark and I wonder why.
I consider myself to be one of the lucky ones. That's not to say that our relationship is perfect, but we're both willing to fight for it and work through whatever comes our way.
By the way, she already knows it, but you should share with Cimmy what you wrote, it's beautiful:
Yeah, over on CO, when a "commentroversy" starts up and it starts to look like it's getting "tense", some people start talking about flinging puddin' at each other to lighten things up --- which of course, starts people thinking about what kind of puddin' is their favorite ( to eat, not to fling, necessarily. )
So I wasn't quite sure where the comments here were going and wondered if puddin' was about to start flying or not...
&:o)
Doesn't seem like it NOW, but if it WERE to happen, I'd like mine to be cooked chocolate pudding, with the "skin" on top!
But pudding is good too! :-D
When I ask someone in the theater to be quiet, I ask them as quietly as possible.
I am not demonstrating to all about that this person is noisy and therefore trying to publicly shame them.
I am only personally requesting that they be quieter.
I don't think shame and guilt are applicable here.
The people who annoy me are mostly unaware of bothering anyone, and are certainly unashamed of their own behavior.
Shame only follows if people are aware of having broken rules they believe most people accept.
And, personally, I am not restrained from shouting fire in a theater by guilt or shame.
Most people do accept this as a bad thing to do, but it is unnecessary to employ guilt or shame to prevent it.
Most people have no desire to do this.
Further, the kind of psychopaths who enjoy such behavior are deterred, not by shame or guilt -- which by definition they lack, but by the prospect of real , legal punishment.
Shame and guilt are called in to deter behaviors that are strongly desired, but not subject to legal sanctions.
Overindulgence of all sorts: sex, food, drink.
Shame and guilt are tools for the culture to use to enforce compliance with unofficial rules, the kind that are more powerful for being unstated.
Catch a woman "cheating" on her diet and you will see shame and guilt, though on a relatively trivial level.
Unless you are looking at bulemia or anorexia, where it is suddenly not trivial at all.
An important distinction here is between shame-and-guilt results, and natural consequences.
Shame and guilt have to do with public reputation (shame) and self-image (internalized guilt).
And certainly, in many cases both of these have significantly lessened as deterrents.
But they were never the most powerful reasons to avoid unmarried pregnancies.
Natural consequences remain, and are immutable.
Being a single mom, even in the most supportive of circumstances, is no easy thing, and precludes many other life choices.
That's not to say that it won't remain a possibility, even a choice, for some people.
But there's really no need to muddy up the issues of sexual behavior and childbearing with notions of guilt: people should have the tools available to make informed decisions easily.
Beyond that, personally, I don't care at all what people do with their own bodies, and I don't think it's anybody else's business either.
Yes ma'am, I most certainly did-- shortly after I posted it :)