SEX ON THE
WASHED-OUT BRAIN
What we are
observing in our feminized and 'socially correct' culture
today is a prurient obsession with sex—in particular,
an inverse preoccupation with matters sexual, as if exemplifying
the puritanical perversity of condemning that which one
secretly desires. It’s as if we are now living in
some febrile Na’vi world, our progressivist reformers
having embarked on a vendetta against sexual desire and
romantic love as felt and practiced by normal men and
women. Jakob Burckhardt’s “terrible simplifcateurs”
and concupiscent apologists proliferate among us in their
myriads.
In Canada,
for example, implied consent has not been a defense for
sexual assault since the 1999 Supreme Court of Canada
case of R v Ewanchuk, when the court unanimously ruled
that consent has to be explicit, instead of merely 'implied.'
That’s a decision that serves to take the fun out
of sex, turning it into a kind of mechanical transaction
in order to prevent what official society regards as a
rape epidemic devastating the country, the culture, the
campus, the marital household. The statistics cited are
always inflated—on the order of one in four or five
women will be raped in 
their
lifetimes—which is intended to buttress an ideological
imperative and which every sane person knows is utter
nonsense.
Not to be
outdone, according to M&F magazine Dr. Ava
Cadell warns that the words ‘no’ and ‘stop’
“have been used frivolously, playfully, and teasingly
in the past and are not always taken seriously.”
Therefore, women in sexual encounters should inform their
partners that they will use code expressions like ‘Code
Red’ or other safe words to stop the sexual process
in its tracks. Cadell and other “professionals”
offer “sexual consent forms” and “consent
kits” which can be signed before sex, like a blizzard
of pre-nups, or carried in one’s purse like pepper
spray.
Stressing
that consent must always be ongoing and continuous, Alison
Berke Morano of The Affirmative Consent Project argues
that consent kits equipped with a sexual guide that she
generously provides will open a dialogue between potential
sexual partners. “One of the reasons we added the
guide to the consent kit is to promote a healthy conversation
about consent and about sex… Even the conversation
about the contract (positive or negative) is promoting
the open communication we are going for. We believe that
any healthy conversation between consenting adults will
help cut down on violence and assault.” Morano’s
convictions, recommendations, and products are moot. One
thing they will surely accomplish is to help cut down
on spontaneity, enthusiasm, passion, enjoyment, and personal
closeness.
Similarly,
according to the University of British Columbia Student
Services, “Consent to one activity (like kissing)
does not mean consent to other activities. Make sure you
ask again when you initiate something new.” Moreover,
“Consent needs to be continual and ongoing. You
can check in with language like ‘Does this feel
good?’ or ‘Is this okay?’” The
manual does not stop there, stating that “You have
to ask for consent before touching another person.”
It seems social distancing was already in effect even
before COVID restrictions put an end to normal human commerce.
The manual concludes on an upbeat note: “It always
feels better to know someone truly likes what’s
going on, and trusts you enough to share that with you.
It makes getting a yes that much hotter.” I would
suggest, on the contrary, it makes any sexual encounter
that much colder, more self-conscious, rote-oriented,
scripted, and estranging, as any person not emotionally
and imaginatively stunted by social justice orthodoxy
would immediately recognize.
Thus it comes
as no surprise that Judge Marvin Zuker, presiding over
a notorious Canadian rape trial, sided with the plaintiff
Mandi Gray against Mustafa Ururyar despite the inherent
ambiguity of the issue. The plaintiff had had sex with
the defendant on previous occasions, had willingly accompanied
him to his home, and had texted him about having “hot
sex.” “It doesn’t matter,” wrote
the judge; “No one asks to be raped,” for
there was no doubt in Zuker’s mind that Ururyar
was guilty. The Toronto Star quoted Zuker that
“Consent must not only be given for the sex act
to begin, but it can be revoked at any time.” The
Star is about as far Left as a paper can go without plummeting
off the edge of the journalistic world, so its wholesale
approval of Zuker’s bloviating, fantasy-laden judgment
was to be expected. The trial document must be read to
be believed.
Fortunately,
sanity prevailed. Crown lawyer Danielle Carbonneau argued
that “Zuker’s lengthy commentary about rape
myths, victim-blaming, the meaning of informed consent,
trauma and the ‘need to…change cultural consciousness
as well as law’” was a product of cultural
attitudes and stereotypes rather than of law. Zuker’s
verdict was overturned by Superior Court Justice Michael
Dambrot, criticizing Zuker’s decision-making process.
“He seems very preoccupied with three-way sex and
hot sex,” Dambrot said. Dispelling rape myths, Dambrot
wrote, proceeds “by deciding cases correctly and
appropriately, not by using your podium of reasons for
judgment as a place for your own manifesto.”
Still, ongoing
assent remains the mantra du jour. Having to
stop at a red light every few minutes is irksome enough
in city traffic; in bed it is an absolute joy-killer.
But joy is not a feature of the grim and sanctimonious
Puritan temperament. As if this were not bad enough, Canada’s
Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam advised that sexual
partners should “skip kissing, avoid face-to-face
closeness [and] wear a mask that covers your mouth and
nose . . . to minimize the risk of getting infected and
spreading the virus.” Indeed, the sexual activity
with the lowest risk “involves yourself alone.”
“Could anything be more suited to kill passion?”
asks philosopher Pascal Bruckner in City Journal.
“Will someone develop an eroticism of distance,
a ‘corona sutra,’ with positions recommended
by medical experts?” The provincial Center for Disease
Control recommended a few additional protective measures,
such as “phone chats, sexting, online chat rooms
and group cam rooms” or using “barriers, like
walls (e.g., glory holes).”
Here we have
the new Puritanism manifesting its fear of normal sexuality
and seizing upon a viscous montage of social justice orthodoxy
and COVID panic to further its anti-life agenda: rape
is everywhere and must be ferreted out and punished, for
every man is a potential rapist, as Judge Zuker and the
feminist sorority feverishly assure us. Sex is acceptable
only when it is perpetually hyphenated, a stop-and-go-and-stop
activity that would never get anyone past the epidermal
intersection. Women should walk about with 'consent forms'
which they can flourish in moments of intimacy and which
are guaranteed to reduce intimacy to a travesty of self-conscious
awkwardness. Lovers should wear masks or, even better,
rest content with self-pleasuring. A psychologist might
say that such 'experts' are heteroclite and algolagnic.
I would say, simply, that they are bilious and pharisaic.
What cellist
Daniel Lelchuk says of music, in an article titled “Then
They Came for Beethoven,” is also true of sex: “Once
we agree to subordinate our love of art to the dictates
of joyless ideologues, all of the limits fall away.”
The vital expression of unfettered living is now contra-indicated,
COVID panic having come to the aid of feminist rancor
and social justice hysteria.
O brave new
world that has such imbeciles in it.
