"Be right, live left."

That's really odd. I'm a liberal, left politics, and I've been celibate for more than a decade.

Oh, and no STD's either.

Love when an entire political philosophy is reduced to a bunch of disease ridden sex fiends.

This seems a little gratuitous, Rod.

Here's what I take away from the Sneider article: another reminder that even though I may consider myself some kind of conservative, not everyone who self-identifies as a "conservative" is on my side. I'm pretty comfortable in the crunchy con camp, thanks to Rod's efforts to work in elements of environmental concern, appreciation for aesthetics, and skepticism toward the market and the military-industrial complex. But I have almost nothing in common with (for example) the libertarians. Almost without exception, they simply don't get (or explicitly reject) what we traditionalists are saying on issues of sexual morality.

I am not sure why a Conservative cannot be a Libertarian. One can believe in retaining traditional culture, values, etc., and still believe that government intervention would make the situation worse. The idea of my heroes, Milton Friedman, Charles Murray, Barry Goldwater,Friedrich Hayek, say, being sexual libertines, strikes me as patently incorrect. A Conservative dictum used to be that if you give the state the power to do one thing you approve of, be prepared for it to do two things you don't approve of. Actually, that may not be a dictum, simply something I believe. I enjoy and agree with much of Crunchy Cons, but I also really enjoy and agree with Charles Murray's book In Our Hands. Go figure.

This is so repellent that my reaction borders on physical nausea. Dawn Eden is a heroine. If I thought that "proverb," which I'd never heard before, was actually definitive of conservatism, I would be trying desperately to put as much distance as possible between myself and conservatism.

Maybe it's time to do that anyway. I mean, we all know, or should, that the terms "liberal" and "conservative" are flexible and ever-shifting, and if the Weekly Standard gets to define "conservative," I'm out.

Sneider is certainly no worse than Taki and Paul Johnson when it comes to these matters.

>>>
This seems a little gratuitous, Rod.
Posted by: anonymous | April 3, 2008 2:42 PM
>>>

For me it seemed more of an 'inner circle' posting, sort of like reading Maxine Messinger's column in the Houston paper - I didn't know ahy of the names or places, but definitely got the sense there was some juicy backstory.

John E. - Dawn Eden was a music journalist I believe and lived quite the fast paced lifestyle. She then had a conversion and has dedicated herself to being chaste until marriage. She wrote a book "The Thrill of the Chaste" detailing her views and now lectures on chastity. There are a few chastity educators like this, and their shtick is ripe for satire. I have no problem with her dedicating herself to chastity and being closer to God, but Rod's using the phrase "a woman with her morals", was a bit much for my taste.

It was a joke, lighten up. Dawn Eden like several of the "chastity czars", haven't been chaste and now are. Then they make a career out of telling everyone else about it. (Crystalina Evert comes to mind.) They come up with ridiculous phrase like "born again virginity" and tour the country. So they open themselves up to a little satire.

Dawn Eden does nothing of the sort. She makes no silly claims about "secondary virginity" or any of that nonsense. She simply came to a place where she realized that having sex with whomever she dated wasn't giving her what she really wanted and needed which was intimacy. She decided to stop having sex until she was married but (understandbly) found it difficult, especially in this culture. All the books that talk about chastity or sexual purity seem to be written by virgins for virgins so she decided to write one from the perspective of someone who has had sex and is now learning that chastity is not only about some white-knuckled determination not to have intercourse. It's much more holistic and it's about learning to love people for who they are and not as objects or means to one's own personal pleasure.

I'm confused about how that opens one to "a little satire."

Actually, I think that the advice for anyone with any decency is "Be left, live right".

I am not sure why a Conservative cannot be a Libertarian. One can believe in retaining traditional culture, values, etc., and still believe that government intervention would make the situation worse.

There are principled libertarians in the Goldwater and Ron Paul tradition, and then there are the sophomores associated with Reason magazine. The latter crowd engages in discourse at the level of college bull sessions to justify a "philosophy" of acquisitiveness and sexual license.

And let's be honest: The conservative movement, like every other political movement, includes a lot of wonkish losers with sexual hang-ups and, er, deviations from the norm. Quite often such men (they're almost all men) resolve the resulting tension by rebranding themselves "libertarians." It's not so much a coherent philosophy as it is a way of retaining one's intellectual convictions about the free market and foreign policy while accommodating the urges from below the waste.

Sounds harsh, I know. But I've been around DC a long time, and that's pretty much the reality of the small but vocal "libertarian" network.

Ragamuffin, I did not attribute the term "secondary virgin" to her but it does come out of that movement. Plus if you can't see the potential for satire in a former hard living rock and roll girl lecturing on chastity then I guess we have a different sense of humor.

That's just the thing. She isn't "lecturing" in the sense that she's talking down to people who struggle or fail to live chastely. She's open about her past and hasn't been hypocritical about it. If she can't write a book and take opportunities to speak about chastity because of the profound positive difference it's made in her life, then I suppose we're going to have to reevaluate a lot of careers for people...former alcoholics or drug abusers giving talks on the pitfalls of substance abuse and how much better it is if you avoid that trap, former gang members teaching kids to avoid getting involved in gangs, former Wintendo users showing people the Way of the Mac. ;)

I really don't see the irony. She's like anyone who lived a certain way, sees the danger or lack of fulfillment in it, turns a new leaf and tells others of the benefits of the change.

To explain my earlier snarl a bit more: I'm sure Dawn can stand a little kidding. She gets reactions ranging from that to serious vilification. And I'll cut this guy a little slack for being young.

That's not the point. My point is that I want no part of any movement that holds Dawn's beliefs in contempt, or that is genuinely directed by the attitude revealed by the putative proverb. If any such faction becomes the dominant holder of the title "conservative," I want no further part of conservatism. I've already found it useful to distinguish "right-wing" from "conservative."

Actually, I've been thinking for a while that portions of the conservative movement have reverted to the condition that Lionel Trilling described back in the '50s (I think): expressing themselves in "a series of irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble thought."

(And thanks for the laugh, as always, Scott--btw your email was funny, and I replied, but the reply bounced.)

"Uh, actually the oldest wives' tale in the world. No man wants to be saddled with a woman with those morals."

Ummm... wrong?

I married one. 26 years, and counting.

There are, of course, guys who steer clear of women like that, they just aren't men, in the proper sense.

Rod can't we say the same thing about Dawn? She was left living for several years, is clapped out and now wants to marry anice Catholic guy?

Nobody's made a "weak standards at the Weekly Standard" punny put-down yet?

"Nobody's made a "weak standards at the Weekly Standard" punny put-down yet?" - Kevin Jones

No, but I did title an email on like subjects "Shattered Kristols and Burned Barnes at The Weakly Stammered", Mr. Jones:

tinyurl.com/2nlbzk

(pardon my tiny URL, but I've just been swimming)

I wouldn't feel too bad for Dawn Eden. Sneider, without a hint of self-consciousness, seems to be a living, breathing argument for her point of view.

I read the blog post, and it seems like the writer made an attempt at off color humor. It failed, but that seems to be all it was. Who is Dawn Eden anyway - some saint? I looked her up - shes had quite the life and has now toned it down. Good for her!! However some of us are busy toning things up. LOL

"Rod can't we say the same thing about Dawn? She was left living for several years, is clapped out and now wants to marry anice Catholic guy?"

Thats a good question, any answers? Ragamuffin, you seem to really know Dawn Eden's work, what do you think? Yes reformed sinners have something to add to the discussion however part of their burden is to work past peoples cynicism and being viewed as a hypocrite. Some of her quotes in that interview with six conservative female bloggers are kinda off the wall if you ask me, for example:

"I realized that even though there were things I liked sentimentally about liberal men, I wanted somebody who shared my values. Conservatives might not always be so easy to get along with at first, but I thought it was worth my time to get to know men who were compatible with me and would eventually warm up." I know plenty of liberal men with values, and conservative men who are very friendly and easy to get along with. LOL

Double checked. The title at top was Vagina monoblogs. Is that where conservative authors go to promote chastity now? Anyone else here going to send in their daughters pic for the lineup?

Rod is right on all counts. Any guy who thinks Dawn is homely either hasn't seen her or maybe isn't attracted to the opposite sex. Seriously, what a hilarious notion!
And the cheap shots and criticisms directed toward Ms. Eden in these comments are so typically contemporary American in that they are opinions unencumbered by facts.
That all said, I have no opinion on Sneider, since I don't know enought about him.

Not at all, Daniel. Some people investigate the facts or are already acquainted with them, other people feel free to spout off based solely on the information immediately in front of their nose. The critical comments directed toward Ms. Eden cannot be sustained upon prudent due diligence investigation; instead they are grounded in inaccurate impressions and are therefore mean-spirited and wrong.

So a self-employed writer is "self-promoting to a fault". Meanwhile, I suppose it is modest and self-effacing to be J.K. Rowling, because one's publishers, agents, and lawyers provide one's promotional machine.

Uh huh.

My dear Daniel, it's fairly obvious that you're not familiar with the normal level of self-promotion that is required of normal writers, in these days after the Death of the Midlist. Writers provide all the pre-publication editing for nearly every book on the shelves, and they also provide all promotion out of their own pockets. They fund and design their own websites, they run their own fanclubs (unless some personal friend or spouse does it instead), and they have learned to have no slightest blush of the cheek at begging their fans to pre-order at Amazon and to turn their books outward on store shelves for greatest visibility.

And that's just the fiction writers, my friend.

Dawn has not resorted to having an affair with a politician, going to prison, or hanging out with Paris Hilton. That would be self-promotion to a fault.

What she is doing is called "hard work" and "follow-up". Perhaps its rarity in modern life is what has misled you.

Dawn Eden

http://tinyurl.com/5jco4w

Wendy Shalit

http://tinyurl.com/5gbe8a

The most thoughtful case for chastity I've ever read appeared in 1950 in a tiny freethinking neo-Platonist weekly edited by WWII-conscientious-objector Theosophists out of Los Angeles:

manasjournal.org/pdf_library/VolumeIII_1950/III-27.pdf

[pp. 10-11] "What is needed is a re-definition of the word chastity, one which will expand its meaning to include attitudes of mind. Chastity of the mind—freedom from those obscenities and perversions of attitude which coarsen human relationships—is what is most important, and fully as important in marriage as before or outside it. One reason, incidentally, why young people who really think will find it difficult to accept over-simplified categories of good and evil is because they instinctively realize that many relationships within marriage are about as hopeless as anything can get. A relationship unsanctified by marriage might seem to them
better by comparison—and might actually be better.

"The modern adolescent, too, confronts a different kind of problem today, such as is presented by the psychological influence of the
Kinsey Report. The major influence of the Kinsey publication on the average person is, as has been argued by a Harper's commentator, "Justification by Percentages." The Kinsey Report tells us a lot
about a lot of sexual deviation; the problem of individual right or wrong in sexual affairs seems relatively inconsequential if one reasons that nothing he does will do more than change statistics by a fraction of a per cent. And this, we think, gets people far off the track. We do not find the truth by taking a vote; if we did we would
still believe that the sun and the planets revolve around the earth, for this is what most people thought at the time of Copernicus. We are even less likely to discover the best sort of behavior by
reviewing the sex experiences of men who don't mind telling about them. The Kinsey Report is of no help whatsoever to the inquiring youth, except in establishing the suspicion that if what Kinsey implies is true, the adults he knows are a pretty hypocritical bunch. And not only does it fail to tell him anything important about the procreative instinct, and how its accompanying emotions may best be expressed—it even forgets to mention procreation, except once, briefly, and in passing. The Kinsey Report focusses attention entirely upon the physically sexual, or sensual, proclivities of man, and leaves entirely out of account the most important thing of all, the relationship of romantic and procreative feelings to the responsibility for children.

"We should ourselves put the whole matter very simply, to an adult as well as to an adolescent: maturity is a state at which we arrive
by equalizing freedom and responsibility. Mature expression between the sexes cannot be achieved if entirely divorced from some sort of willingness to bring children into the world. If men and women, or boys and girls, completely divorce sex experience from the thought of potential parenthood, they are playing at something, rather than living it—and will not find anything really worth their while. They may find, instead, a growing dissatisfaction with their relationships,
for nature has a habit of refusing to be disparted. Whether we are talking about natural resources or the affairs of the sexes, it seems to be a fact that the person who takes, and shows no willingness to give, is robbed of much that he might otherwise achieve. The wastelands caused by human greed and immaturity are far from beautiful, and so are those relationships between the sexes existing entirely on independent desires to indulge biological whims.... We sometimes wonder if all "moral problems" in the sexual field might not vanish if enough men accepted the belief that no
interrelationship of the sexes is sufficiently rewarding and constructive unless accompanied by a willingness to bring children into the world with the partner. Would not this view lead an individual to eliminate involvements with those he cares so little about that the thought of sharing the responsibility of a child with them seems distressing?."

have never known Ms. Eden to be either shrill or sanctemonious, but I suppose such accusations, however groundless, are inevitable when you recommend virtue to people who prefer otherwise. And the only person I recall suggesting she is a parody is you, Daniel, who seem to have a problem with Ms. Eden's message.

As the father of teenage daughters, I love the core of Eden's message. Like many people, I find her public persona hard to take.

Joe,

Mr. Sneider referenced the following statement from Ms. Eden:

"It’s easy for a man to keep this illusion of being a great, sensitive romantic if he knows he’s just going to sleep with you and then say good-bye. Anybody can be Mr. Love God for one night or one week or one month."

How exactly does this statement imply "that all liberals want is a quick roll in the hay"? And how exactly does it then grant Sneider license to belch:

"I have no doubt that a date with the author of The Thrill of the Chaste would be exhilarating--wait, actually, I do doubt it."?

Please do explain you righteous arbiter of class and manners.

Please do explain you righteous arbiter of class and manners.

Yeah, I just didn't think Christianity smiled kindly on making snide remarks about others' medical conditions.

But as someone who loves to have sex outside of marriage - although, not nearly as much as Ms. Eden did until she found Jesus - and a godless atheist, what do I know?

Carry on Rod.