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Victoria Woodhull, Conservatives, and Sex
The Daily Shot here on Ricochet informed anyone who didn’t already know that Hillary Clinton isn’t making history. Victoria Woodhull was the first woman to be nominated for the presidency, albeit not by a major party. What caught my attention was the reminder of her platform back in 1872, which included the radical suggestion that women should have freedom from governmental interference in their choices on marriage, divorce, and bearing children. It is more than a little depressing to think that these matters are not necessarily settled to this day, given the partisan fascination with forcing governmental involvement in at least two out of three of those matters.
In my generally non-partisan neck of the woods, my general goal is to extricate the personal lives of individuals from the mire of governmental regulation. In other words, I am generally opposed to any laws which happen to invade anyone’s bedroom, and in that sense, Woodhull and I probably would have quite a bit in common. She is remembered today in the form of the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, which is dedicated to promoting sexual freedom. That organization may or may not be appreciated by many readers here, since its work includes encouraging comprehensive sex education in public schools, promoting rights of LGBT persons, and protecting the rights of sex workers. It also makes me odd person out around here, since I support the Woodhull Foundation’s work, and have been known to speak out in support of legalizing prostitution as well as radically increasing sex education in public schools.
That latter issue is one that has been bothering me more than a little lately, particularly in context with conservatives. Currently, I am working on a couple larger projects that involve sex education, and have been running a survey on the topic of what should be included in curricula for children from K-12. I’ve had no major problems getting people from the left side of the aisle to take a few moments to answer my handful of multiple answer checkbox questions. The right side of the aisle has been less than willing.
This is not surprising, and I’d been warned about it by many people who have been involved in research on sexual behavior. I was also warned about the apparently inevitable backlash I should get when I actually start compiling data, and writing on it. Yes, I should be prepared for complaints about the bias of my results, that will undoubtedly reflect only the thoughts and feelings of individuals from the left side of the aisle. Apparently it won’t matter if I humbly point out that I can’t include results from people who refuse to take the survey in the first place.
I know that the immediate response for many conservatives when they are asked to take a survey on what should be included in sex education in public schools is that schools should not be providing this education. Thanks to the ongoing research that I’ve been doing, I also know that as a general rule, people who did not have meaningful sex education in school (or anywhere) seem to be for children today getting what they didn’t. The handful of people so far who reported that they received no sex education at all make it difficult for me to maintain a purely unemotional distance from what I am trying to do. They make me sad, because even though I do not know who they are, I know that they undoubtedly feel that they have missed some important things in their personal lives simply from lack of education.
As for how I know which side of the aisle these people may be from, that is simply a matter of keeping track of where the survey has recently been shared. Most of the people who follow me on social media are generally conservative, so the initial results I received were from them. Then the survey was shared by some friends with more left-leaning followers. The latter group was much larger, of course. Researchers who warned me about the troubles they’ve had with getting data from the right side of the aisle predicted that, saying that even though I interact with many conservatives, it’s not likely that will help in balancing results. They further predicted that I would likely lose followers over the survey and my current work in general. Of course, that has proven to be true as well.
However, I am not willing to give up entirely, so I will request it here. My current sex education survey is here, and I would appreciate it if at least some of you would consider balancing the data at least a little bit. I can’t promise that the questions would not shock you, but I will say it is important to remember one thing. This is about education for K-12, which means that age appropriate content is what is being suggested. The vast majority of content that has anything to do with various sex acts would not be taught to elementary school children. It would be reserved for when students approach and reach the age of consent for sex in their given states.
I can empathize with Woodhull, and her fight for freedom for women. Obviously, she was opposed by most men, but also by women who were content with the status quo. Right now, I end up in the middle between conservatives who are opposed to various issues I believe in, and leftists who want far too radical changes. In any given day, I may be called perverse, a harlot, and a prude, depending on the source. But, what I do is still worth it, since it is working toward a point where we will hopefully see radical reductions in the number of rapes, less child sexual abuse, less domestic violence, and fewer people victimized by sex trafficking. I can take a little name-calling for that.
Published in General
The DNC comes to Ricochet. Wonderful.
In future surveys I would recommend adding an other option to most questions.
I got ticked off at the first question asking me to select my gender instead of my sex. But I took the whole survey anyway.
a) Show me a sex education program that doesn’t encourage irresponsible behavior, and I’ll consider it. And by “encourage” I mean things like telling kids that everything will be okay if you just use the magic balloon. Or for that matter treating pregnancy as the only negative outcome of sexual activity.
b) @lizharrison You start the discussion by saying you want the government out of sex, then go on to advocate sex education programs that potentially put the government at odds with the values parents wish to impart on their children. So, what you’re really saying is you want the government to officially endorse libertinism. And you wonder why conservatives push back against your position.
Public schools teaching that White Men, particularly American White Men, are the scourge of all Mankind in history.
Teaching whole math.
Eliminating red pens because there are no longer wrong answers.
Sure, let’s put sex “education” on the agenda too.
Hi @lizharrison,
I didn’t have meaningful sex education in school – although I did get the public health STD briefing while at the Blue Zoo.
Don’t think I missed much – after all, the human race has been making babies for a pretty extended period of time, while sex ed has only been around a short while.
Why aren’t you doing a randomized survey?
Trying to be fair, I started the “survey.” Quit at questions 6 with the inexplicable choices between who “should” and “can” have sex.
15 years ago I was listed as a fibromyalgia expert on someone’s website. This led to all manner of folks hunting me down. One such lady drove to see me and she was one of the crazy flavor of chronic pain folks. She’d been in alt med crystal waving homeopathy stuff for 2 decades but was willing to give me a try. I realized rapidly she was mentally ill. I did my job but was hoping there was a way to not have her barnacle on me. Then she told me she was a sex Ed counselor at multiple schools in our county. She said she’d likely taught my son. I lied and said he didn’t do sex Ed. Then I told the truth and said Christ was my Lord and Savior. She never came back and I’m a better man for it.
I never forbid my kids sex, including the gay one, but showed them pictures of every conceivable STD and stories of the tears young people had when the herpes and warts were there for life. All 3 older ones graduated without being active although they are now. They never lacked for knowledge and were never forbidden.
Every teenager I take care of , with parents approval, gets pictures from hell too and all girls are told that horny boys lie so never trust one.
I bet my success rate beats any government program.
A couple of things Liz:
Its what we do. Of course our brains are marinating in a near lethal unholy witches brew of hormones.
Your post exemplifies why I am distrustful of the idea of sex ed. The people likely to teach it are either the refuse from the bottom of the cognitive barrel, freaks, or bat guano crazy. And I am probably on the sexual permissive end of the spectrum.
No offense Liz.
I agree that if your definition of success is something to the effect of “you don’t want to get this so you better save it for marriage / some one actually meaningful” then I imagine you are probably right.
My problem is that I don’t think the government’s definition of success is equal to yours.
I would rather my kids learn your lesson, if they have to learn one at all.
Not til marriage but til maturity Instigator. Like all kids the goal is to get them to have critical thinking skills. Those sorely lack in boy crazy teen girls and guys with one way blood flow.
My goal is that less kids have pregnancies and STDs at early ages.
As KDW and Charles C. Cooke noted on a recent podcast of Mad Dogs and Englishmen from Las Vegas, the availability of legal prostitution in surrounding counties of NV has hardly slowed the availability of illegal prostitution in Las Vegas itself.
Seriously? You think rape, child abuse, domestic violence, and sex trafficking are the result of too little sex education in government schools?
Let me guess. You’re not practicing in one of the West’s religious traditions. But, you’re on a mission to “radically” reduce the wickedness of men (and women) through “comprehensive” sex education “reform.”
Wow, please stay the hell away from my kids and their (potential) future spouses.
True. And the laws are very restrictive, especially governing the starting of new brothels. It’s often hard for girls who don’t “know somebody” (if you’ll indulge a poor Biblical metaphor) to get into a ranch (as they are called), and thus many remain illegal prostitutes. But for those who do get in I believe it to be a better system. Not an ideal system of course. But this is a far from ideal world.
One day we are going to run out of money for people on various types of welfare.
It’s 30 minutes to a legal brothel from my house and 15 minutes to a casino where there are plenty soiled doves for hire. When the Rico gang came to Tahoe last fall we went on a tour of Virginia City and I drove them out the south toward Carson and past the brothels. In front of the Bunny Ranch ( which I had last laid eyes on in 1999 and never as a customer) was a scene which amused us to no end. Ah I miss Troy.
It is better for the women from a health and safety standpoint.
I have to agree with WC, Liz. You are not going to reach your goal. The only way to do that is to teach kids the truth–sex is a moral act and a meaningful one. You want it to be meaningless and yet taken seriously. It’s not about “freedom for women” or anyone else. Freedom does not consist of lack of restraint. It consists of being given the wherewithal to make moral choices that allow you to live without the shackles that come with sin and poor choices. What you seem to envision is not going to be a path to real freedom for anyone, least of all women.
Funny, ain’t it. The emphasis on “safe sex.” It never seems to occur to the libertines that there’d be a whole lot less disease if kids were taught, and forced to develop, the old fashion habit of saying NO.
Here’s a link to a conversation between Steven Molyneux and a woman who was all into the sexual revolution. WARNING: SOME NON CODE CONTENT AND IN SOME PLACES VERY SAD>.It’s worth a listen. Liz, you might want to listen. The woman’s desolation is deep.
I used to watch T.V. shows and movies with our daughters. There was plenty of sexual freedom on display, despite our best efforts to filter.
I would always tell them they’re being sold two big lies:
People on the management end of underage sex trafficking should get life and those who partake knowingly should have be castrated or life in prison. They are all the worst flavor of humans imaginable, irreversibly flawed and evil, less worthy of living than a roach. There is no rehab that can fix pedophiles or traffickers in pedophilia. They get the lightest sentences too.
There’s too much sadness and despair in the world to make a difference outside of the people we meet in real life. Government policies on welfare have caused much of our current issues and I doubt they will change so single parenthood isn’t going to change which means all the government mandated education in the world is bailing a sinking boat. But Hillary will make it better with free government abortions so keep paying those taxes folks, there’s so much good our betters can do for the children.
Yup–I know so many situations where these two lies have been disastrous. So many, and they are heartbreaking.
As a Millennial, let me say that no matter how much “sex ed” is taught in schools, we’re still just going to learn it all from the internet. This can be generalized to most fields of knowledge.
Textbook recommendation.
My problem is the suggestion that activities that are inherently immoral and self-destructive should be done “better”. If prostitutes are suffering, they should be. The answer is for them to stop, and get help for the drug addiction that is usually what put them there.
When I had sex ed, it was before the “enlightened” age we live in now. It was more along the lines of the Doc Jay System. We were shown horrifying pictures of various venereal diseases, and we were told we were far too young to be engaging in sexual activity. The problem I have with today’s version is the tone of permissiveness. The numbskulls who write these lesson plans seem to want so much to be seen as hip and cool, and they convey to the kids with a wink and a nod that any kind of depravity (and they give them ideas!) is okay as long as they do it “safely.” Well I hate to tell ya, but there is no such thing as safe sex. There is only “safer” sex. (I remember when “safe sex” meant waiting till the car stopped rolling.) And when we object to showing fourth-graders how to put a condom on a banana, or that horrible book “It’s Perfectly Normal,” you call us fuddy-duddy prudish conservatives. Well we are not. We are the sane ones.
I won’t post the illustrations from “It’s Perfectly Normal” here because they are obscene, and the book is taught to 10-year-olds. Google it and go to “Images.” If you dare. Pictures (illustrations) of a boy, er, satisfying himself, naked people, people having sex and worse. If you live in Oregon, among others, your kids have seen it.
Yep.
They can start “enhancing” sex education just as soon as our student’s math scores are no longer pathetic, they can write a coherent declarative sentence, and they can correctly name which century the American Revolution occurred in.
There’s no point in teaching the kids about the odds of getting an STD until they can do a little math.
Learning how to put a condom on a banana isn’t much of a job skill.
Other people have said it already, but I may as well pile on too: if you’re for “radical expansion of sex education” in schools, then it’s not sexual freedom you’re promoting, it’s a radical indoctrination program. “Freedom” here means what it does so often when the Left gets ahold of the word… making what was normal immoral, and making what is immoral normal.