Anti-Climacus

WELL: It's not that I'm not flattered to be interposed between arguments by Sara Butler, it's just that, um, I didn't really mean to be endorsing the view it sounds like I'm endorsing. I was sort of occupying the devil's advocate decision, saying what I thought a supporter of the "message" of Sex and the City would say. I rather thought the key portion of my post was "Obviously, the second one is far too facile to be useful--whether or not you're promiscuous is going to have a lot to do with what sort of person you are," which seems to me to say that even if you accept the force of the argument, you can (and I do) still believe it's at least somewhat misguided.

I should probably preface all my comments below by noting that I only speak for myself.

"But why, why do conservatives so often insist upon erasing the distinction between failing to sanction an action, and encouraging that action, as Sara does in her response to Nick's argument?"

You might believe it to be the case that for reasons of politics, or for more complicated ethical and metaphysical reasons, that the following two facts are true: 1. people will engage in some actions regardless of whether or not anyone in particular praises or sanctions them and 2. that people engage in certain actions does not make them right. You could then accept that it's a fact that people will be promiscuous, and design your sanction scheme in such a way as to encourage or discourage potential behavior with this fact in mind. But it could still be the case that you think the behavior discussed is wrong: I see no compelling logic as to why you can't hold both positions (this is a very Kierkegaardian 'embrace the paradox' way out, I know).

"She says, "The fact that, in the Sex and the City universe, your sex life has nothing to do with what you're like liberates you to be a slut, and if you can, wouldn't you?" If Sara really thinks that the only benefit of sexual virtue is that it prevents people from thinking worse of you, why indeed shouldn't we all be happy, shameless sluts?"

Again, I don't mean to speak for Sara, but that's not at all what I took away from this particular quote. If you take it as a true psychological fact that people will tend to satisfy their desires (whether good or bad), and assume that sex drive is one of those desires, it seems clear that people will satisfy that desire insomuch as they can. But suppose you also believe it's true that one of the claims of the Sex and the City universe is wrong, namely, that your sex life actually does have something to do with the sort of person you are, then you might believe that people thinking good about you is, at best, an incidental benefit to sexual virtue (which does not, it should be repeated, necessarily equate to sexual purity, though it may).

All that being said, though, I can get on board with this:

"Nevertheless, I do want to clarify that my ire is directed at the extent to which society still insists upon seeing women through the prism of the virgin/whore dichotomy..."