Yet another nice takedown of Leon Kass, this time on part two of his essay, “The End of Courtship,” where he comes down very hard on use of birth-control pills. The post is by Amanda Marcotte of the generally non-sex blog Pandagon.
Before I get into excerpts from Amanda’s post I want to explain quickly why I keep harping on the guy. Yes, there are obvious reasons: he’s deeply contemptuous of men on the one hand, and coddling/patronizing of us on the other; he strongly wishes to impose his own unfoundedly-but-traditionally romantic ideals of women on walking, talking, autonomous human beings; having evidently monogamously sequestered himself since marriage his assessments are based on the unfocused (and admittedly sometimes chaotic) behavior of very young adult sex rather than, well, real adult sex! The real reason I keep returning to Kass is that his beliefs are very widely shared by an increasingly influential, though also increasingly ungrounded, group of radical idealists. In the 1960s I was alarmed by radical libertines who proposed that the solution to everything was to smoke pot and screw — which was going to far and really didn’t solve any of the problems they were sure it would and created others — and now I’m worried about the new tendency to fishtail into prudish self-repression — which is also not going to solve any problems and will create others of it’s own.
That said, here’s Amanda (with indented quotes from Kass)
The sexual revolution that liberated (especially) female sexual desire from the confines of marriage, and even from love and intimacy, would almost certainly not have occurred had there not been available cheap and effective female birth control  the pill  which for the first time severed female sexual activity from its generative consequences.
Yes, I know. I had the same thought as anyone who knows jack about history. “But Mr. Kass, people used diaphrams, condoms and vasectomies before the pill was invented. What about that?” That’s where you have to pay special attention to the fact that the pill is female birth control, and as I said before, a particularly sneaky kind of birth control, what with the making the pill pack look like Clariol put it out and all. (Devious ladies who are thwarting your man’s good-hearted intentions to keep you pregnant all the time—since god knows there is nothing more romantic than swollen feet, weight gain, and labor pains—I recommend slapping like a L’Oreal sticker on your pills. Bwah ha ha! He’ll never know!) In summary, the problem was that women shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this shit.
...
Her sexuality unlinked to procreation, its exercise no longer needs to be concerned with the character of her partner and whether he is suitable to be the father and co-rearer of her yet-to-be-born children.
The only reason women ever worried about the characters of men they dated in the past was to make sure they’d be good fathers, which was pretty stupid considering that women did the majority of the child-rearing and a man’s parenting skills weren’t a major issue. Women now size up their sex partners by looking for compatibility and love. This is bad because everyone knows that a couple’s relationship with each other has no bearing on their children. Or something like that.
...
True sex education is an education of the heart; it concerns itself with beautiful and worthy beloveds, with elevating transports of the soul. The energy of sexual desire, if properly sublimated, is transformable into genuine and lofty longings  not only for love and romance but for all the other higher human yearnings.Mind you, he just railed against the use of birth control. Meaning, that nothing is more romantic than the fear of knocking someone up because you have no options. Sounds to me like someone has a risk-taking fetish that would be better satisfied by fucking in the middle of Central Park or something. Anything but using the law to force others to have more children than they want.
One other thing: Throughout the essay Kass dumps over and over again on modern sex education’s emphasis on strict biology, technology, and on pregnancy and disease avoidance. He decries its lack of emotional, romantica, and/or erotic values. I could post endlessly on that little jewel. Instead I’ll say that any sex-education program that went anywhere near those elements of sex, even from a conservative/monogamous perspective, would get blasted into the stone age by none other than Leon Kass and his sympathizers.
$%!$@#~$#%!$#
Submitted by 426 (not verified) on Sun, 2005-10-30 18:28.
He may be idealizing...in the service of grim objectification. I think you tag the 60s generation right on the money (some of it, anyway) for the reflexive turn to prudishness after their wanton formative days (and nights). I've thought the same for years about my parents, who were quite radical in some ways - thanks goodness, or I wouldn't be here! - but they took on a deep and abiding adherence to an eastern philosophy in the late 1970s that is admirable in a lot of ways but also extremely anti-body, really anti-pleasure, and in that sense looks a lot like the baptist backgrounds they both grew up in. IMHO, it allows them to hold onto the sexual politic of their pre-60s youth, plus their counterculture, all without the baggage of their parents' (my grandparents) christianity. [gander]
[Yup, like watching cars fishtail in snow. Too far this way, overcompensate that way, then swerving back to far the first way. Though I grew up in the South I learned a lot about moderation from my Minnesota-born father. Rule #1 being don't oversteer if you don't want to go too far the otherway. --fl]
Submitted by 426 (not verified) on Mon, 2005-10-31 04:22.
I'm stating the bleedin' obvious?
Am I missing something here? (Okay, my brain :S) But...there seem so very many generalisations (from both Amanda and Leon) and classing groups of people all together. Isn't there ANY middle ground? Of course not - radical, the word is radical, eh? lol. Some people will always be "repressed" - whatever the definition of "represeed" is - and maybe that's what suits them, and that's what they want. Others will fuck around with abandon - whatever the definition of "fucking around with abandon" is - and that's their choice, right or wrong in mine/your eyes. Two extremes, but far more 'in-betweens' - millions of shades of grey. I just think society is in a constant state of wane and flux (hope I got that right). Middle seems just too damn boring?
And surely children having sex education have a right to be told that sex is/can be related to (wrong words there!?) biology, technology, contraception, disease avoidance AND emotions, love, "romantica, and/or erotic values" (and a few more things I've probably forgotten :S). Give them the whole picture, and let them make choices on that knowledge, that's my view. Gawd, what is the whole picture?
[I don't think you're missing anything, Dewdrop. The issue is that while Kass appears radical he's evidently fair dishwater to the authorities who appointed him. Witness the latest appointee (this time to the Supreme Court rather than a bioethics committee) who evidently *strongly* believes men should be able to dictate whether their wives use birth control. The difference between Amanda Marcotte and Kass isn't that both are radicals but that Marcotte is bitterly sarcastic. I suspect that like you she would prefer to give people in general the whole picture and let them make their choices on that knowledge. Kass wants none of that since it might people, especially women, the idea that well informed decisions to be applauded. --fl]