Hey yall--what are your thoughts about this?

[raccoon]

Was there a sexual double standard BEFORE property ownership? Or was it something that came along later so a man could be sure somebody else's kids didn't inherit "his" property.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x7206218#7206301

[mrreowwr_kittty]

1. I think it's more to do with a view of women as property and insecurity

A woman with a lot of sexual experience might compare a man to others and he might fall short. Also, she'll be less easy to control.

Sex is a very powerful urge and very pleasurable. There is a tendency in (many) human cultures to ration anything that is pleasurable in accordance with social hierarchies. The double standard is the oldest way to apportion the lion's share of sexual pleasure to the dominant class, men. Of course, the wealthier men get a disproportionately large share of it. In polygynous societies men are lucky to have one wife because the rich men grab up most of the women. See, that's where I don't think it's an inheritance-of-property thing. A double standard doesn't solve that issue. More wives leads to more heirs battling over the property and everyone getting less. That's probably what led to monogamy becoming the law in the Western world.

Today, in addition to the still-thriving double standard, we also have the forced birthers aiming for a situation where the elite can enjoy sex with impunity, while the rest of us live in fear of unintended pregnancy or disease. Again, it's about keeping something that is very pleasurable out of the hands of the "undeserving". Sexually free women are always targetted, along with gays, for extinction by reactionary movements.

[raccoon]

2. I think you've got that right,

"There is a tendency in (many) human cultures to ration anything that is pleasurable in accordance with social hierarchies. "

Do you have a background in sociology, by any chance?

[mrreowwr_kittty]

3. Strictly the armchair variety ;)

For some reason, though I'm not always the sharpest knife in the drawer, I've been able to see through the mean-spirited, stingy Calvinism that drives our society since I was about 4 years old. Maybe it comes from being raised by a family who believed in keeping us kids busy with pointless chores, with a heavy dose of guilt for enjoying anything if you hadn't done your proper penance for it. Then going on to schools where the emphasis was on obediently completing boring, rote assignments. I'm clearly not the only person who was raised that way, as evidenced by all the people around me who wear how hard they work and how busy they are like a badge of pride.

That's why I totally see it with sex. Sex is about the most fun you can have for free so of course the authoritarian killjoys have to ruin it for everyone. The patriarchs keeping it all for the wealthy men. The puritans trying to make it only for procreation. Or the pimps and the porn/advertising/entertainment complex turning it into a commodity that you can only have if you can afford it or look and act the way they tell you to.