AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. So there’s a vast, several-posts-long thing about pacifism right below this post. But I also want to ask a non-pacifism-related question: The “sexual revolution” is often justified on the grounds that now we can have sex for fun. I make no claims about male sexuality or psyche, but as far as women are concerned, this doesn’t seem to be how things have worked out. I think it’s a useful exercise for everyone, male or female, to think about why you or people you know are having sex, and why your partner is having sex with you. I think you’ll find that women in sexual relationships outside of marriage are more often having sex to prove something to themselves (“I’m a big girl!”); to get back at their parents; to prove something to their peers (“I’m not a prude!”); because they feel like they have to; to keep their boyfriends from leaving; because they can’t figure out how to say “no” in a way their partners will respect (“safe sex” having removed the old excuses of fear of pregnancy and disease); because it seems inevitable; to get away from home; and many, many more reasons that have more to do with emotional upheavals and dependencies than with “fun” or “liberation.” Or “love.”

In the sexual revolution, it’s not clear to me that sex won.