From: sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer)
Subject: Re: Sex and Power (was: Allen fights back, denies child abuse)
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 92 22:05:16 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)

In article <1992Aug21.184107.14442@cbnewsc.cb.att.com> chapin@cbnewsc.cb.att.com ( Tom Chapin ) writes:
>
>Is there a defined list of which relationships are prohibited--or
>are we expected avoid all relationships in which the two parties
>who love each other are not in a position of identity?  Perhaps we
>should limit ourselves to masturbation, since we ourselves are the
>only other person in the world of equal power.

An excellent point! One which follows directly from this goofy
premise.

>  And perhaps the
>feminists of the world, noting that men are supposedly "more
>powerful" than women, will proclaim any heterosexual sex to be 
>"a violation of trust and a conflict of interest by someone in a
>position of power."  Or perhaps they already have.

Oh, Catherine MacKinnon *already* has! But then somebody (like me) will point
out that even two Lesbians (the only type of sex that is truly
Politically Correct) are seldom "equal in power". One member of a
lesbian couple is typically the dominant (the "dyke"), the other
is typically more passive; in other words, a lesbian "husband and
wife," just like in a hetero couple. Tom is right, masturbation
is the ONLY answer!

We find a more SANE perspective on this question in Paglia's "Sexual Personae"
(a book which is on the Index of Prohibited Books wherever Correctness
holds sway): 
  
     "Modern feminism's most naive formulation is its assertion that
      rape is a crime of violence but not of sex, that it is merely
      power masquerading as sex. But sex is power, and all power is
      inherently aggressive."  p. 23

In other words, the man or woman seeking sex is expressing power,
and the man or woman who submits is acknowledging that power, and
submitting to it. In some circumstances, a powerful woman uses that
power to obtain sex from an attractive but less-powerful man; the
now-famous affair of Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden comes to mind.
Or a powerful, charismatic lesbian uses that power to get what she
wants from a beautiful young woman; or a wealthy and powerful gay
man uses that power to get what he wants from a younger, boyish male.
How did the fat, balding Henry Kissinger turn into a notorious
"ladies man"? Answer: he was the second-most-powerful man in America.

If you try to take the "power" out of sex, the result will be the
re-criminalization of sex. Of course, sex will not go away, it will
just go "back into the closet," resulting in yet another generation of
people with severe hangups.


-- 
  
        Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - sheaffer@netcom.com
  
 Past Chairman, The Bay Area Skeptics - for whom I speak only when authorized!

       "Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.
        Then all things are at risk. It is as when a conflagration has
        broken out in a great city, and no man knows what is safe, or
        where it will end."
                               - Emerson: Essay, "Circles"
Newsgroups: alt.dads-rights,alt.child-support,soc.men,soc.women,misc.legal