Front Porch Republic attempts to link the growing prominence of pornography since the dawn of the internet with misogynistic attitudes in young men. The article’s voice is a little more conservative than I’d like (maybe slightly presumptuous) but I think it’s a conversation worth having.
I especially like this part:
“We must, at the same time, acknowledge that sexual rogues were not invented in our day. Mr. Wickham lurks in the pages of the novel, yet social conventions weigh heavily upon him and while he seems quite willing to accept the sexual favors of the foolish Lydia, forces are quickly arrayed to compel them to marry. Mr. Collins, himself, is convinced that when a woman says no, she really means yes and therefore continues to ply is modest charms on Elizabeth who refuses him in the most strenuous terms. Yet Mr. Collins, to his credit, is appealing for Elizabeth’s hand and not attempting to intimidate her with the threat of sexual brutality as was clearly the case recently at Yale University where a group of frat boys gathered near the dorm where most of the freshmen women live and chanted “no means yes” and added an obscenity that would make the vilest of Austen’s characters look like choirboys by comparison.
Yale University (and the U.S. government) is attempting to deal with this climate of misogyny by clarifying the legal constraints laid out in Title IX; however, the problem is clearly not one that the law is suited to address. When community standards become so fragmented that pornography is protected as free speech and the consequent frat boy intimidation of young ladies is seen by the boys as acceptable, no amount of legal clarification is going to make much of a difference. That these boys were not immediately expelled from Yale is indicative of the moral dimness that prevails. That a contingent of gentlemen did not beat them beyond sense is a palpable loss.”
