Figleaf's Real Adult Sex

Thomas, writing at Yes Means Yes Blog explains why an abstinence-only counselor assaulting a young woman is a textbook example of the no-sex class paradigm in action.

What he’s done is in a sense hypocrisy, but there is a core consistency. He’s urging young women to say no. He’ll keep telling them to say no, while he sexually molests them. He may even see nothing wrong with his behavior … and he is probably very upset by any woman’s display of actual sexual agency.

Say no; get raped. As long as women have no voice in how their bodies are sexual, he’s happy.

Read the quote in context here.

Yup. When you think about it sexual assault is almost the purest expression of women’s sexuality inside the dominant paradigm: you’re not supposed to want it, it “ruins” you to have it, you’re coached to decline it, therefore it’s “best” or “most natural” to be forced into it.

My only quibble with Thomas would be that while there might be no internalhypocrisy in a 31-year-old abstinence counselor assaulting a 16-year-old girl there is hypocrisy… not to mention total breakdown of predicate logic… in the idea that women must be taught to be naturally chaste.

If it were natural it wouldn’t need to be taught. If it’s not natural then there must be an agent making the decision when to and when not to. And with whom. And if there’s an agent his or her decision must be respected. Since Rule #1 of the Two Rules of Desire says it’s both inconceivable and intolerable for a women to feel sexual desire, it’s inconceivable and intolerable for her to have agency at all. Thus the no-sex class emphasis on women having “natures” rather than intention or agency. With the result that a counselor thinks nothing of assaulting someone he’s teaching to not have sex.