The "feminist" case against having sex for fun

[Jilly_in_VA]

In February, America’s most prominent conservative activist declared his opposition to having sex for fun.

In a post on X, the “anti-woke” crusader Christopher Rufo wrote, “‘Recreational sex’ is a large part of the reason we have so many single-mother households, which drives poverty, crime, and dysfunction. The point of sex is to create children—this is natural, normal, and good.”

Much gawking at Rufo’s grimly utilitarian take on sex ensued. Yet the firestorm largely ignored the woman whose anti-birth-control tirade had ignited it.

Rufo’s remarks were sparked by a video of a 2023 Heritage Foundation panel. In that clip, a bespectacled British woman details the supposed ravages of both oral contraception and the sexual culture that it birthed. She claims that the normalization of birth control has condemned women to higher rates of mental illness while offering them little in recompense beyond the freedom to endure “loveless and sometimes extremely degrading” sex. Therefore, she continues, the world needs “a feminist movement” that is “against the Pill” and for “returning the consequentiality to sex.”

That woman, the writer Mary Harrington, is an unlikely spokesperson for fundamentalist Christian morality. A onetime leftist, Harrington remains a fierce critic of free-market economics and an opponent of abortion bans. Yet her 2023 book, Feminism Against Progress, won her an avid following among American social conservatives, receiving adulatory notices in the Federalist and the National Review and earning her bylines at the conservative Catholic journal First Things.

https://www.vox.com/politics/24134852/feminist-case-against-birth-control-casual-sex

Whatever Rufo says is wrong, to start with. And the rest of them, well, consider the sources.

[Bettie]

1. Well, she can have her opinion

If she wants to be with the evangelicals, go for it. It doesn't move my position one little bit and it strikes me as more anti-woman than feminist.

[Demsrule86]

13. She has a right to her opinion but claiming to be feminist with her clearly fundy

rhetoric disgusts me.

[Bettie]

14. Yeah, it disgusts me too

either be a fundie and admit it or be a fundamentalist, you can't be both. They are utterly opposite positions.

[Demsrule86]

2. Why is is always women who should have stop having sex? Fuck this woman who

should be minding her own business...she sounds like a raging ass...mind your own business...why doesn't she and others (contempt from me) such as her never give such advice to men. She is no feminist either... the nerve to publish such garbage. I consider her a sell-out and a traitor.

[50 Shades Of Blue]

3. What if you're sterile?

[BoRaGard]

4. "returning the consequentiality to sex." - repubes

Yup, righties want to make sure women bear all the consequences, while they follow the lead of the Republican Moral Champion: Smelvis.

[PCIntern]

5. Reminiscent of Pat Buchanan

Who IIRC was and is childless.

[Prairie Gates]

6. (Hetero)-sex positive and (hetero)-sex negative is a split as old as the feminist movement itself

I'm not sure why these stories are always like "Look at these unlikely allies of (leftist sex negative feminist) and (conservative sex negative reactionary)." Literally every generation in the feminist movement has these kinds of alliances and/or connections, from the WCTU to Angela Dworkin.

[patphil]

7. The point of sex is to create children

Well, that's one reason.
But then, you might ask, why is it so amazingly enjoyable?
Perhaps it's to encourage sexual activity that will increase the possibility of pregnancy.
Perhaps it's to create a bond between two people that increases the probability of forming a stable family unit in which to raise the children.
Perhaps it's a method of releasing stress, and creating a sense of mutual trust.
Perhaps it is part of the process of creating a spiritual union between two people; a union based on a combination of both love and sex. The energy that flows when sexual partners achieve orgasm is a true spiritual experience.
Perhaps it's all of the above, and more.

One thing I do know is that there are a lot of people who resent the sense of completion and freedom that lovers experience when sex and love "come together".

[scarletlib]

10. Prehistoric people did not connect sex with pregnancy and procreation.

Sex was probably pretty frequent. Honestly, what else was there to do in the long dark after eating, singing, storytelling and maybe dancing was done. No TV, no books, no internet but lots of dark and scary animals. I think they just did what came naturally.

[CANADIANBEAVER69]

11. If it was to JUST create children

women would get pregnant every single time they had sex and have multiple births at once possibly. I think, it's for both pleasure and procreation IMO.

[SARose]

8. Why are we still fighting this?

I was 20 years old in 1970. I can’t remember who said then if God intended sex only for procreation, females would have sex once or twice a year. God, in Her infinite wisdom, chose to move a female’s reproductive organs from her bee-hind to between her legs. Pretty crude, right? Woke me up.

I don’t care what you do in YOUR bedroom because I don’t want YOUR opinions in mine. STFU

[Freddie]

9. So a baby is punishment for the consequences of sex?

[Hekate]

20. Nope, it's childbirth that is punishment for the sin of Eve. Pain & the threat of death.

How twisted is that?

[no_hypocrisy]

12. I go with Groucho on this topic.

Sex is the most fun you can have without laughing.

With this exception: I’ve had plenty of laughs.

[Johnny2X2X]

15. Genital mutilation

These are the very ideas that lead to genital mutilation which was common in this country in the past and is still common in other parts of the world. Just absolute sick and wrong.

[Caliman73]

16. While humans are still animals...we have largely moved beyond the limitations of simple biology.

We can live (with enough effort) in almost any environment on earth. We have travelled beyond the atmosphere of our planet. We are relatively beyond dying from many of the pathogens that killed us in the billions, in the past. We are able to prevent pregnancy, STD's, etc... that were common with sexual behavior.

Conservatives want "what is natural" well, go back to walking around naked in small packs hunting animals with fucking sharp sticks. Nothing since that time has been "Natural" every progress that humans have made with our technology, has been to live beyond the bounds of what other animals have to contend with. Our behavior may be a "natural" progression of our progress. Humans as physical animals, kind of suck, or teeth are not super sharp, our jaws can't crush bones, we can't easily lift 3 or more times our body weight, we can't run 60 miles per hour, our nails are fragile. etc... What we have going for us that has made us one of the more successful species on the planet is that WE ADAPT. We use our intelligence to make clothing, cars, houses, technology to enhance our ability to defend ourselves, to lift heavy objects, etc... We form complex societies for mutual aid and benefit.

Conservatives want CONTROL they want to dictate what people do and don't do. They are scared like children, except without being cute and innocent. They are ugly inside, always afraid and angry that the world is leaving them behind because they maintain antiquated notions on how we should live, because women want equal dignity and opportunity as men, because people of different skin color do not want to be seen as "less than", because people with different sexual attraction or whose gender experience and expression are different, don't want to be ostracized and killed. They are scared and angry that we moved beyond monarchy and aristocracy and are striving for systems that meet everyone's needs and give everyone a chance to develop their own passions beyond working from sunup to sundown so that owners can become wealthy.

Conservatives see a changing world and are SCARED and ANGRY where liberals and left leaning people may have some trepidation but we welcome the challenges of a new world because that is what HUMANS have always done.

[retread]

17. There is only one part of the human body that is exclusively for sexual pleasure. Only females have it.

[SYFROYH]

18. If sex didn't produce children who grow up to have sex, sex wouldn't happen much.

[Jilly_in_VA]

19. I think It just boils town to

the fact that RepubliKKKans and their ilk are all afraid that somebody, somewhere, is having sex, and, God forbid, enjoying it! That's what really grinds their gears, and why they want to pass all kinds of laws against it.