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ATraveller
Guest
This was an unfortunate error made by theologians of the past. It’s not supported by Scripture nor is it with scientific evidence.
Has the #MeToo movement become a witch-hunt to a significant degree?
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Xantippe
Guest
It is a reasonable practical question though–how hard should one fight against scourges that one has no chance of defeating and where the cure may possibly be worse than the disease?
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Theo520
Guest
It was definitely a cultural thing. Bordellos operated openly throughout most of world history.
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starshiptrooper
Guest
People were far more civil too. You had to put your life where your mouth was.
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starshiptrooper
Guest
Male sexuality has always been policed violently by other men.
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Xantippe
Guest
With regard to social equals or superiors.
Not so much with regard to girls or women who were social inferiors and/or outside the ethnic group.
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TheAmazingGrace
Guest
On what are you basing this assertion?
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starshiptrooper
Guest
The fact that saying the wrong thing to the wrong person meant a duel.
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TheAmazingGrace
Guest
They were willing to kill each other over petty BS, and that somehow made them more civil? What?
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TheAmazingGrace
Guest
Holy mother of coincidences. The “Barry Lyndon” soundtrack just popped up in my YouTube feed. Man, I love Handel.
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DarkLight
Guest
No, but the point is the idea of uncontrolled male sexuality isn’t some product of the modern sexual revolution. There have always been men going out in search of extracurricular activities. A lot of times the social control merely meant keeping them to “approved” women.
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starshiptrooper
Guest
As Sick Puppies aptly put it, “This is hardly worth fighting for, but it’s the little petty #### that I just can’t ignore.”
You had to think before saying something as the consequences were immediate and bloody.
You had to think before saying something as the consequences were immediate and bloody.
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Xantippe
Guest
That probably was a fair description of when dueling was in vogue in Europe.
But, come to think of it:
–They still dueled a lot, so they couldn’t have been that careful with what they said.
–It didn’t apply to major disparities of class–you had to have appropriate class standing to fight a duel
Duel - Wikipedia
“Duels were fought not so much to kill the opponent as to gain “satisfaction”, that is, to restore one’s honor by demonstrating a willingness to risk one’s life for it, and as such the tradition of dueling was originally reserved for the male members of nobility; however, in the modern era it extended to those of the upper classes generally.”
Of course dueling was forbidden by both Church and state.
I also suspect that in certain times and places, the dueling became an end in itself.
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J_the_Centrist
Guest
Wow! Tough room! I think I’ll skip this one. 
oint_right:t2:
oint_right:t2:
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DarkLight
Guest
Yup - we have to remember, a lot of these glimpses only applied to men and women of a certain status.
You’ll see a lot of talk, for example, of female servants being put in difficult situations - because they weren’t upper class women, there were a lot less consequences for men who targeted them, and they could be dismissed from their jobs if they made too much of a fuss (which was especially bad because a servant dismissed without a reference was essentially unemployable). And pretty much any situation where slavery was a thing involved sexual access to slaves, de facto if not de jure. Even after slavery, for a long time black women were targeted in many areas because there really weren’t consequences for the man.
You’ll see a lot of talk, for example, of female servants being put in difficult situations - because they weren’t upper class women, there were a lot less consequences for men who targeted them, and they could be dismissed from their jobs if they made too much of a fuss (which was especially bad because a servant dismissed without a reference was essentially unemployable). And pretty much any situation where slavery was a thing involved sexual access to slaves, de facto if not de jure. Even after slavery, for a long time black women were targeted in many areas because there really weren’t consequences for the man.
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ATraveller
Guest
I’m not sure what you mean. Are you referring to class or something else?
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DarkLight
Guest
Class isn’t quite the right term, but something similar - that they weren’t really trying to keep men from having sex with women not their wives, but keeping them to women who were considered sexually available. That might have meant prostitutes, it might mean women who were considered impure or suspect (this didn’t always mean the woman was actually unchaste), it might mean slaves or servants, it might just mean women below a certain social class.
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ATraveller
Guest
That does indicate to me the focus wasn’t on God and His ways during most of Europe’s ‘Christian age’ but rather it was on more worldly matters. It shatters the notion Europe was devoutly Christian when it was far from it.
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HarryStotle
Guest
The difference is that most people then, even the ones who did wrong, knew it (sex outside of marriage, for example) to be wrong. Now, many have no such standard nor are even that very concerned with right or wrong. And far more individuals than in former times have dedicated themselves not merely to transgressing moral norms but to removing altogether all notions of right and wrong from the social sphere.TheAmazingGrace:
Sure, it has, but it was wrong then and wrong now.
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HarryStotle
Guest
Let’s not confuse moral laxity with civility, shall we?starshiptrooper:
They were willing to kill each other over petty BS, and that somehow made them more civil? What?
Virtue and morality over a wider range of areas mattered back then. Today, just being “nice” and tolerating everything is considered the epitome of virtue – unless, of course, you happen to belong to a protected class, and then tolerance of the views of non-protected classes isn’t even on your radar.
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