Shaming anyone for engaging in any kind of non-exploitative, consensual sex—even if it makes you queasy—is a slippery slope. Lynn Beisner explains why tolerance is best.
Originally appeared at Role/Reboot
I think that we can safely dispense with the fiction that John Edwards was prosecuted for campaign finance crimes and admit the obvious: He was really on trial for adultery. So for those who prosecuted him, I doubt it mattered much that he was acquitted. The trial itself was the punishment; it was a public shaming—the stocks reinvented for the Information Age. Edwards was held in our virtual town square, unable to cover his face while most of America hurled rotten produce at him.
I am not surprised that the Right was involved in this. It was just another salvo in the war to prop up a sexual ethic based in shame that privileges preservation of the patriarchal family over even the ethic of consent. What concerns me is that some feminists got in on public shaming, deriding him as an “eternally gross” douche-bag. When did it become our role to defend the institution of heterosexual marriage by publicly shaming adulterers?
Edward’s adultery hurt a lot of people and according to his own admission, it was “wrong.” But it was also legal, consensual, and non-exploitative. So when we join in shaming him, we agree with the Right that some forms of consensual, non-exploitative sex are worthy of public shaming. The only remaining questions are who gets shamed and for what behavior.
Arguing with the Right over what makes a person a legitimate target for a public sex-shaming is a dangerous game. We should know by now that women cannot win, at least not in a society where patriarchy is alive and fighting mightily. But even if the deck wasn’t stacked against us, we would have a hard time making the case that women who engage in pre-marital sex like Sandra Fluke do not deserve to be publicly shamed as sluts, but men who engage in extra-marital sex like Edwards deserve to be labeled disgusting man-whores. We would be, in essence, saying that sex which offends us is shame-worthy, but sex which offends the Right is not. The argument we should be making is that no one deserves to be publicly shamed for any sexual act that is consensual and non-exploitative.
It is important to see Edward’s public shaming in the context of our current culture wars. The Right was using Edwards as proof of their central thesis: People cannot be trusted to manage their own sexuality. It isn’t just women’s sluttiness that is the problem; thanks to the myth of male sexual weakness, they view men’s sexuality as equally if not more dangerous. The Right seems convinced that without religious and legislative intervention, men will devolve into porn-addicted pedophiles who regularly defile the family dog.
The problem, as I see it, is that we are trying to challenge one of the ways that the Right enforces its morality, slut-shaming, but not the moral code itself. Denouncing slut-shaming while supporting the shaming of adulterers is like decrying witch-burning but gathering the kindling to barbeque a heretic. The way we ended witch-burnings was not by having witch-acceptance rallies; it was by granting religious freedom to everyone. And the way we end slut-shaming is by creating a culture that holds in high regard the right of all adults, even married ones, to engage in whatever consensual, non-exploitative sexual activities they choose without fear of legal punishment or public shame.
We end slut-shaming when we make it culturally unacceptable to shame any form of consensual, non-exploitative sex. Such an ethic would require us to let go of our normative notions about marriage, that we stop assuming all marriages are closed and between only two people of the opposite gender. It would mean that if we find out that someone is having sex with a person outside of his or her marriage we would not gasp or gossip. We would assume that in a marriage of equals, both parties are capable of negotiating for the relationship boundaries of their choice and for responding to whatever boundary violations may occur.
If we created a culture in which all consensual non-exploitative sex was respected, it would make it unacceptable to shame women who dress provocatively, but it would also make it unacceptable to shame the serial “womanizers.” We couldn’t shame hookers or ministers who snort coke off prostitute’s bodies. We would not publicly out people who are into fetishes or senators who put themselves on Craigslist looking for hook-ups. We would not tolerate the shaming of people who have alternate lifestyles such as BDSM, polyamorous relationships, or the partners in “Sister Wives” based on their sexuality. It would require us to stop using subtly shaming terms like promiscuity and paraphilia. We would have to honor the choices of people who enjoy getting a “dirty sanchez,” and those who enjoy giving them, those have anonymous sex with hundreds of different people, and those whose stay home and masturbate using fruit.
That’s right: We would all have to accept some things that make us slightly queasy and other things that make us deeply uncomfortable. We would have to believe that people can keep the agreements they make about sexual fidelity without the help of public shame. And we would have to do it all while the Right clutched its pearls, and declared us wanton whores bound for hell.
Here is where it would get really hard, at least for me: We would have to stop pointing out the hypocrisy every time someone on the Right has his or her sex-life exposed. I am completely convinced that the day after we adopted this ethic, pictures would emerge of Rick Santorum in a daisy chain at a gay sex party wearing a dog collar and a tutu. I would have to lock myself in my room without an Internet connection for at least a week to keep from making shaming comments and it might take me a bit longer to say the right thing which is: “I am happy that Mr. Santorum seems to be exploring his sexuality and enjoying himself, but I am sad that his privacy has been violated. I wish him and his family the best.”
I should end by saying that I could be wrong. It could be better to shame men like John Edwards and gamble that it will not boomerang on women. But as a woman who has been both cheated on and sex-shamed, I can tell you this: I found a new and faithful husband, but I can never completely erase the stain of shame. So, I’ll err on the side of tolerance.
Lynn Beisner is the pseudonym for a mother, a writer, a feminist, and an academic living somewhere East of the Mississippi.
AP Photo/ Chuck Burton
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The article’s punchline hinges on the identity of exploitation and lack of consent. This, despite the long history of critiques which have shown beyond a doubt that this merely negative sense of obligation is not sufficient to rule out some of the most exploitative forms of human interaction.
One might as well argue against the redistribution of wealth on the grounds that (to paraphrase) ‘those on the left prop up an ethic of eudaimonia based in fairness that privileges human fulfillment over even the ethic of consent.’
You claim “Denouncing slut-shaming while supporting the shaming of adulterers is like decrying witch-burning but gathering the kindling to barbeque a heretic.” It would be excellent if you provided even a single argument to the effect that the distinction between sleeping with many women without deception and sleeping with a person other than the one whom you’ve led to believe you are in a committed relationship with didn’t hold water.
Of course, you provide no such argument. And, of course, there is no such argument (since, as you’ve seen, I’ve managed to introduce that distinction in a mere paragraph.
You also claim (again without argument–you really must remember to bring those to the essays you write!) that, somehow, the acceptableness of an activity precludes our criticizing someone for being a hypocrite about said activity. What on earth are you talking about? Hypocrisy is ipso facto, regardless of the subject matter (whether it be sex or tax policy) something that can be legitimately criticized.
I do not think there’s anything wrong with eating chocolate ice cream, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think there’s something wrong with trying to ban chocolate ice-cream despite going home to eat buckets of it every night.
If you’re going to make a big claim, do remember to bring big (or any) arguments.
Good Lord, what a piece of utter bullshit. Nathan pretty much nailed it on the head. Edwards’ wife certainly didn’t give her consent. She’s the one who was exploited and deceived here. The problem with cheating isn’t the sex – it’s the cheating. When you make a commitment to someone and then don’t honor it, people tend not to look favorably on you. If you’re a public figure and take the even bigger risk of being blackmailed, and exposing your family to the inevitable media blitz if you’re found out, that makes it even worse.
Had the Edwardses been in a mutually consensual open marriage, then you’d have some kind of a leg to stand on. But you have none.
John Edwards marriage and sex life is none of your, my, or anyone else’s business. If you can criticize him based on YOUR standard of morality, you (or anyone else) can be criticized based on someone else’s standard of morality. How about if we all mind out OWN business? Why is that such a problem?
LOL… the whole point of this post was that “feminists shouldn’t shame anyone for consensual, non exploitative sexual behavior,” and it was brought up in the context of the John Edwards case. Whether it’s John Edwards or anybody else, adultery by definition is not consensual (because the consent of the wife was not obtained) nor non exploitative (because the wife might contract an STD from her cheating husband, be subject to blackmail, she and/or their children might be subject to stalking and other such behavior from a jealous mistress… or the husband himself might be harmed, see Steve McNair… etc.) I don’t give a crap about John Edwards but I do give a crap about people who try to re-define what consensual and non-exploitative mean.
People can define exploitive however they wish. I agree that, unless the person has consented, (and few ever do) knowingly giving someone an STD is clearly non-consensual and is also exploitive toward the individual because of the negative physical impact, possibly life-long. Whether they are married is irrelevant. Furthermore, it not for sex, such could not happen. So, this issue is about the sex.
However, the STD it only affects that person (not thousands or millions of others) unless it affects their ability to work and support their children. For all those thousands or millions of others know, the supposed innocent person had done the same thing(s) but just had not gotten caught. Or, they were in some way abusive. No one knows the reality of a situation they are not personally in. That’s just one reason having a definitive opinion about something one doesn’t know all the details about may be interesting, but otherwise fruitless.
People are subject to blackmail, harrassement, stalking, and other similar things all the time, having nothing to do with someone’s sex life.
‘Furthermore, it not for sex, such could not happen. So, this issue is about the sex.’
This is a bizarre claim. Let me try and illustrate just how bizarre it is: “If not for the car, there could have been no theft. So, this issue is about the car (as opposed to being about theft and only incidentally about a car).
The issue can be one that is brought on by sex, but I don’t see how that means the question is one of sexuality.
“No one knows the reality of a situation they are not personally in. ”
This is nothing but an appeal to the kind of bland skepticism that can only be maintained for very short times by certain philosophers. The fact is, every single practical decision must face the possibility of error–we’re beings who make mistakes and attempting to see ourselves out of that by refusing to take action whenever there is uncertainty is futile. Beyond its futility, it is also the type of claim which undercuts itself: “how can you know the reality of my understanding of a situation if you’re not personally in it?”
Again, your position is a knot of contradiction.
Inferences always have an air of the hypothetical–of course we could always be wrong about the assumptions, but that’s not a reason not to reason as best we can from what we do have good reason to believe.
“Edwards’ wife certainly didn’t give her consent.”
She doesn’t have to. He wasn’t having sex with her. I’m not sure if it’s the adultery or the keeping it secret from his wife that is wrong. He should have been open with his wife about what he wanted to do and then they could decide whether the marriage can still work or whether they need to go in different directions. I don’t think a wife or husband should necessarily be able to control their spouse’s actions even with a veto, but they should be honest with each other when they are unwilling to keep their past agreements.
Well, exactly. The wife in this situation doesn’t get to decide whether she wants to risk getting an STD from her husband, or the possibility that an affair could result in a pregnancy for which her husband then becomes responsible. She’ll have no recourse when his behavior toward her inevitably changes and she doesn’t know why. He will already have broken her trust, but she won’t know it. That’s a corrosive influence on a marriage. All this is aside from the obvious problem of changing the rules in the middle of the game and whether she wants to live with the emotional and sexual consequences of that.
That’s exactly the problem. The dishonesty, not the sex.
But he wasn’t open about it; he cheated on her. And she had cancer, which makes it seem even shittier.
Also, he wasn’t open with her because he knew she’d tell him to immediately walk out the back, Jack, and don’t come back, and the divorce would have hurt his political career.
‘If you can criticize him based on YOUR standard of morality, you (or anyone else) can be criticized based on someone else’s standard of morality.’
You’re doing it wrong. The style of argument that you’re attempting is what is commonly referred to as a reductio ad absurdam. In this style of argument, the goal is to show that, when taken to its logical conclusion, your opponent’s position arrives at a contradiction. It has the form IF P THEN Q, BUT NOT Q, THEREFORE NOT P.
It is an effective tactic. One of my favorites, in fact.
The way in which you fall short of the mark is this: you follow the chain of inference, but you fail to demonstrate contradiction. Does it strike you as odd or unbelievable that anyone can criticize anyone else on the basis of what they think is right? Most of us find this to be a rather mundane fact, on par with such facts as that other people believe things that I don’t–in other words, just part of growing up and figuring out how judgment functions.
Apparently it doesn’t occur to you that you’re attempting to say what is right and wrong in the way of interpersonal relationships in even attempting to argue this point–precisely the thing that you can’t do if you’re right. Hey! Look at that! Your post DID have a contradiction in it: perhaps on the next attempt, you’ll manage to locate it correctly.
Thank you. As you suggest, I’m really not too concerned about being criticized based on someone else’s standard of morality. If someone’s standard of morality says that deception is just fine or that I shouldn’t call someone out for making a false argument, I’d take their criticism as a compliment.
You analysis of argument styles is unimpressive and irrelevant.
Your morality has nothing to do with the next person’ marriage or anything else in their personal life. It’s none of your business. Not sure when the message of staying out of other people’s personal lives will ever sink in.
His personal life choices have no impact on you. Hence, your opinion of them is irrelevant, no matter how strongly you feel about it. It’s none of your business. But, free speech is allowed here. However, it’s very doubtful that you afford others the right to, based on their morals, to criticize you or others whose morality you agree with. That’s called hypocrisy. I recommend not practicing that. It’s bad form.
The reason that it won’t sink in is because you’ve failed to provide any strong reason for thinking your position makes any sense.
A classic reductio: if your position on moral relativism were correct, we would be unable to judge the goodness or badness of even the most heinous actions that don’t involve us. You’re sawing off the branch on which you sit when, say, you claim that Hitler was a bad person and that the holocaust ought not to have happened.
about my position, but I don’t care, because your unjustifiable feelings are–not surprisingly–unjustified.
Moral judgments can be made and other people ought to criticize me if they think I’m wrong. What will my response be? Well, as with your pathetic attempt to claim that my actions are wrong (claiming that the message needs to sink in about personal morality or whatever it is you believe), I’ll just dismantle your arguments and leave you with no better response than a negative emotion. You’re
There’s no hypocrisy in thinking moral positions that can’t even be supported by simple arguments are not worth my time: that’s the whole point of debate and philosophy.
MOD EDIT:Please avoid attacking other commentators. Emotive descriptions of other’s arguements such as “pathetic” don’t belong in a reasoned debate.
Out of curiosity, Mr. Moderator, on which planet is calling someone’s analysis of argument styles ‘unimpressive and irrelevant’ any more (or less) offensive than calling an argument pathetic?
A survey of Webster’s dictionary yields the following definition: “pitifully inferior or inadequate.” Now, how is it that my analysis can be unimpressive and irrelevant without it being pitifully inferior or inadequate? I suppose the subtleties at this level of sophistication escape me.
“The reason that it won’t sink in is because you’ve failed to provide any strong reason for thinking your position makes any sense. . .”
. . . any sense to YOU. That’s fine with me. But the facts are the facts.
“You’re sawing off the branch on which you sit when, say, you claim that Hitler was a bad person and that the holocaust ought not to have happened.”
Hmmm. I don’t recall mentioning Hitler. If you find that quote, I’ll be sure to respond. Nor do I recall John Edwards being known to have killed 6 million people and is therefore a threat to the rest of us.
“Moral judgments can be made and other people ought to criticize me if they think I’m wrong.”
What is the basis for your moral judgments, and why should your basis be mine or anyone else’s? If we have a common basis for moral judgments that we have agreed to use a guide, there is a platform to tell someone that they are wrong beyond their personal opinion. (For instance, arguing over the constitutionality of a matter) Otherwise it’s nothing more than your personal opinion, to which, of course, you are entitled. Not trying to take that away, if that’s how I came off. It further does establish a basis for others to criticize you based on their personal moral views.
“I’ll just dismantle your arguments and leave you with no better response than a negative emotion. You’re about my position,”
Sorry but I don’t really care about your position. Quite the opposite. You responded to my comment, not the reverse. Hence, any of your efforts to “dismantle” or whatever want to call it are meaningless to me. Debating with a stranger over something that is relatively meaningless couldn’t possibly make me sad.
The point isn’t that you ever mentioned Hitler. Of course you didn’t. The point is that the relativism which you’ve so thoughtlessly accepted doesn’t make room for such claims as “Hitler was a bad person.” If, however, you’re willing to turn my argument from a reduction to absurdity into one more inference in your chain of reasoning, you’ll find yourself in waters not so much terrifying (though, there’s something terrifying about the notion that this view could ever become popular) as irrelevant: most people think that there is a fact of the matter about rightness and wrongness whether or not we’re capable of convincing one another or proving beyond doubt.
The crux of the problem is this: your claim that we should ‘mind our own business’ is absurd in one of two ways: either
1) it’s a gigantic contradiction (as I have just outlined) and should be disregarded as no more meaningful than any random assortment of scribbles or sounds
OR
2) it begs the question, because the very position I was arguing for is that it is legitimately wrong to act as he did and that judging of the good that it is good and the bad that it is bad is precisely our business.
To use the extreme example (not because weaker examples won’t work, but because the extreme example makes the argument more difficult to deny [good for me] and easier to introduce a distinction such that contradiction can be avoided [which is good for you]) Hitler will never, ever kill another person. In that sense, he’s no threat at all to anyone. Nevertheless, judging of him that he was bad is our business, because our business is the business of putting the world in its proper order. What, exactly, is the proper order? Well, that’s exactly why the long history of thought exists. Whatever the final score, adultery is on the ‘bad’ side of the books.
The point is this: my business is to affirm the good and denounce the bad because that is everyone’s business–even yours (in an obviously misguided manner, as I’ve shown through the contradiction you’ve been unable to dispel) in trying to correct my behaviors.
You’re still being completely hypocritical. Here you are telling us that it is none of our business but we have free speech. Of course it isn’t any of our business (though it is now our business because the media has made it our business. So don’t take it up with us, take it up with the media), but we are allowed to have opinions on matters and you’re implying that we are not because it is none of our business but then there is free speech. What? Are we, or are we not allowed to have opinions concerning things that aren’t technically our business? It’s none of my business whether or not you decide to kill someone else because that’s your life and it’s not me you’re killing, but I can still have an opinion on it and tell you I don’t like it. I can also bring up a bunch of other analogies to show you how ridiculous your argument is, but it’d fall on deaf ears because you’re taking a mightier-than-thou stance by believing you’re above actually having opinions.
Sure, I don’t give a crap what John Edwards does with his life, but adultery is adultery is adultery when the other partner does not consent.
“Here you are telling us that it is none of our business but we have free speech. Of course it isn’t any of our business (though it is now our business because the media has made it our business.”
No doubt we are free to talk about a lot of things in other people’s personal lives, whether we know all the facts or not. That doesn’t convert it from their business to ours.
“Are we, or are we not allowed to have opinions concerning things that aren’t technically our business?”
Allowed by whom? It’s certainly not illegal but be sure to not ever tell someone to mind their own business if you feel they are nosing too much into someone else’s personal life.
I think it’s possible to criticise his actions without criticising the sex. What he did was wrong, not because he had sex, but because he lied to and hurt someone he loved. If his wife had been ok with it then there wouldn’t have been an issue.
Exactly. I don’t see what’s so difficult to comprehend about this.
Yes, but who shall judge if the sex was “consensual, non-exploitative sex”? As I see it, we’ve evolved our understanding of “consensual, non-exploitative sex” overtime from “ignored explicit ‘no’”, to “did not receive an explicit ‘yes’”, to “received an explicit ‘yes’, but the consenting parties were of unequal power undermining the agency of the consenters ability to say ‘no’”. It’s the latter reasoning that feminists entitle themselves to condemn Edwards, a person of power and influence, as a womanizer unable to ever receive actual, independent consent from his partner owing to his disproportionate power relative to his partner.
And there’s the rub, “in a society where patriarchy is alive and fighting mightily” feminists presume power between men and women to be perpetually imbalanced in favor of men. Consequently, under “patriarchy” “consensual, non-exploitative sex” becomes a logical impossibility. Rape and “rape culture” is everywhere; we’re left with feminists reserving upon themselves the right to judge the ethics of the sexual relationship.
You’re not connecting to anything said above you–it’s fairly clear that he was just fooling around outside of his marriage.
Thanks Nathan, but I’m actually interested in the broader context in which this criticism arises and the authors attempt to assert that both “patriarchy theory” and “consensual, non-exploitative sex” can exist in the space in society, whether the example in question is Edwards, Clinton, Woods, Spitzer or any man engaged in casual sex with a women. My point was the author appears to advance an inconsistent position, no doubt leaving feminists the moral authority to solely judge when “consensual, non-exploitative sex” happens in “a society where patriarchy is alive” and well.
I don’t agree- he jerked around behind his wife’s back, and he got taught a lesson.
Marriage and the family are hanging on by a thread- men will learn they will be shamed when they betray their families.
“men will learn they will be shamed when they betray their families.”
I’m sure you meant *men and women* but your keyboard got stuck.
Nathan et al. With Marcuse, I think that sexual shaming represents the “surplus” as in surplus repression. I admit that lying is wrong (in many circumstances,) but there can be reasons to lie. The way I personally see this is that part of my sexuality is mine, and I don’t owe that part to anyone. I’m free to use that as I choose. Part is owed to a partner or partners, and I owe it to them to protrect them from emotional hurt, STDs, and maybe from a full disclosure of certain things, depending.
Yes, we’re all opposed to killing, thieving, and child molestation. But that’s what Marcuse would call “necessary repression.” “Surplus repression” (in an indirect way) fills us with shame and makes us more maniulable by those with power.
So, while I like Marcuse a lot, I’m having a hard time making sense of what you’re trying to say. I assume that you’re trying to highlight a distinction that should motivate a change in attitude towards some types of activities–those you labelled surplus. It seems to me that the distinction is not so much made as asserted (I’m not familiar with Marcuse’s attempts to justify it) and I’m highly skeptical of the notion that repression of desires makes us more manipulable by those in power than unalienated and freely accepted desires do. In fact, if anything of note has happened since the attempts in the 60′s (partly inspired by Marcuse), it’s been the appropriation of ‘counterculture’ attitudes and symbols by the very machinery that such free-spirits were supposed to help us see our way out of.
Hi Nathan. Statements like “not so much made as asserted” don’t seem to have much content either. The shame around surplus repession makes us manipulable. I don’t see so much meaningful appropriation by the machine of counterculture attitudes as a blatent turn in conservative directions.
My bad. There most certainly is content, whether or not I made it clear. Let me rectify the situation now: making a distinction involves carving out a space for it and grounding it somehow. Mere assertion of a distinction involves only the claim that two categories are, in principle, not the same with respect to some sort of classification.
An example: Someone says that we should mind our own business in all cases where there is no risk of harm to ourselves. I point out that this leaves out a great deal that is considered worthwhile by most people and which is more certain than the principle in question (say, the killing of innocents if we are certain that no one will find out and that we won’t really care too much about having done it). In response, the other person can either MAKE a distinction to resolve the apparent contradiction (where there is contradiction, introduce distinction is a saying that goes back to the scholastics) OR one can assert that killing someone is totally different than whatever case we are supposing the ‘mind your own business’ position to have been applied without further justification.
The difference is that making a distinction involves doing the heavy lifting of actually grounding both the first category and the putative other category from which the (as a distinction proves) bad attempt at contradiction whereas merely asserting one proves nothing and (at the very best) can only hope to point in the direction of an actual solution to the reductio.
So, anyway, I don’t see how shame makes us manipulable. Shame is something we feel in some cases when we are manipulated (to think that something we’ve done is wrong, say) or something we sometimes feel in response to actions of our own that–though in line with first order desires–don’t mesh with our second order desires. Animals certainly feel no shame for their actions, yet it would seem that they’re far more easily manipulated than we. If anything, I’d argue that it is only through the attempts to create a culture (which is nothing if not a system of rules) that we can escape mere manipulation.
As to your claim that there hasn’t been an appropriation of counterculture, I don’t even know what to say. I don’t even think this is that controversial of a claim anymore–the BBC did a documentary on 20th century psychology and its effects which mentioned this result and the first result of a google search I did of ‘counterculture appropriation’ came up with a book on the subject…
I still remember the case of crabs my then husband brought home to me. His infidelity now means nothing as does my ex – but those crabs – eeeeuuuuw.
If I have any point to make it is simply; if you’re going to screw around be responsible, the repercussions can be forever.
I’m sorry maybe we shouldn’t witch burn adultery but many people think it is wrong for a reason. I think it’s sex positive to look beyond the institution of monogamy. This article is just too silly and over the top to be taken seriously. All I know about the author is that she is pseudonymous entity living somewhere on the east coast- well actually we don’t don’t know anything at all we just know that the poser is pseudonymous entity of some kind.
Without specifically calling out this poster I would like more people to be aware of astroturfing. Sometime people post fake blogs/posts and other in order to sabotage a legitimate political agenda by making it look like certain ideas come from a “feminist” when they don’t.
Now, THIS is an egalitarian post!
And not some double-standard, “my-gender-is-so-right-and-virtuous, yours-is-scum” BS ramble.
Thank you Lynn.
Alas, most humans seem not able to such equanimity.
After all, the “straw and beam in the eye” usually still applies.