Posted on 01/09/2006 12:12:32 PM PST by DeweyCA
Mark Steyn’s analysis of “The Real Reason the West is in Danger of Extinction” is completely correct in his important recent article, “It’s the Demography, Stupid.” But behind the problem of the West’s below replacement fertility levels, lies the problem of sex. Babies come from sex. The modern view of sex has created the demographic collapse of the West, and the human void into which Islamic fertility is rapidly flooding. Sex is an organic reality, with two natural purposes written on the human body. The first is procreation. The second is not so obvious but equally important. Sex builds up and solidifies the relationship between the members of the couple. We know now that sexual activity physiologically creates a bond between the partners.
Women connect to their sex partners, and to their children, due to a hormone called oxytocin. Women secrete this hormone during orgasm, and while breast feeding. Oxytocin creates a response of “attach and connect.” It promotes attachment between a mother and her newborn infant, so that she will enjoy taking care of the helpless infant’s needs. Oxytocin promotes her connection with her sex partner, who after all, may become the father of her child. All this is nature’s way of keeping the woman bonded to her child and to her child’s father.
These natural purposes build the community of the family. Procreation brings new life into the family. Because sex supports the relationship between the parents, it helps them work together long enough to raise their children to adulthood. The fact that sex is fun is along for the ride. The fun is nature’s way of getting us to keep the species going.
But the modern world has completely lost sight of the social purposes of sex. We now regard sex as a private recreational activity, with no moral or social significance. Unlimited sexual activity without a live baby resulting is the quintessential modern entitlement.
I call this modern view, consumer sex. Sex is a consumer good and our sex partners are objects that please us more or less well. When I am speaking at college campuses, and feeling particularly mischievous, I call it Wal-Mart sex. (I myself have no problem with Wal-Mart, but I can always count on finding Wal-Mart haters on college campuses.) The modern sexual ethos provides us with large amounts of low-cost sex, without ever taking into account the spill-over costs associated with our behavior.
I submit that this view of sex is at the root of the West’s demographic death spiral. Sex is naturally a force for sociability. Consumer sex inverts the whole natural order of sexuality. Instead of drawing us out of ourselves and into relationship with others, we turn sex inward, on ourselves and our own individual pleasure. The natural purposes of sex, both procreation and spousal unity, have become strictly optional. We think we are entitled to have sex with someone we’re not married to, or not even in a relationship with. And we have created a conspiracy of silence around the sad fact that no one really wants to be on the receiving end of this “use and be used” culture.
Demographic collapse is hardly surprising. Many commentators have observed that children have become a commodity, an extra line on the accomplished woman’s resume. Few have noticed the short, direct line from sex as a commodity, to sex partner as commodity, to babies as commodities.
Without permanent bonds between parents, having babies is a risky business. Marriage is the healthiest, most reliable environment in which to bring children from helpless infancy to productive adulthood. But our society has become indifferent as to whether parents are married or not. We are even on the verge of becoming indifferent as to whether children have two parents of the opposite sex or of the same sex. Hardly a cultural environment conducive to having a higher than replacement level of fertility.
So, as I said, Mark Steyn’s article is correct in every particular. But I didn’t rush to the computer to compose another op-ed column, as well-argued articles often inspire me to do. This time, I reached for the Flash Cards. That’s right. A grown woman, with a doctorate in economics, I reached for the Flash Cards.
I was one of those career women who thought I was being sensible to postpone childbearing until I had tenure. I have had only one “live birth,” as the demographers would say. In that sense, I am part of the problem of the well-educated, high-income women who can’t bring themselves to replace themselves.
But I was blessed with adoption. And, Divine Providence, acting through San Diego County Child Protective Services, has placed two school-aged foster children in my care. I didn’t bring them into the world, but I have at least temporary responsibility for them. Mark Steyn inspired me to make sure that these two little rascals learn enough math to take care of themselves when they grow up. Goodness knows, no one else is likely to do that for them. Not their birth parents, the County’s agencies or the public schools.
What women do and want will be decisive in determining whether the West survives the demographic clash with Islam. If intelligent, educated women believe children are an unacceptable distraction from their careers, we won’t have many kids. If women regard flash cards as beneath their dignity, educating the next generation will be left to hired help. If women think raising a child alone is less trouble than dealing with a pesky man, we’ll have a lot of stressed out single mothers and poorly raised kids.
So, stay at home moms, don’t let anyone tell you that you are wasting your talents. Without your contribution of a healthy, functioning next generation, all the strength of the U.S. military won’t be enough to protect us from the primal force of Islam that believes in itself enough to replace itself. Your actions show that you believe in your civilization enough to invest in its future.
Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D., is the founder and chief visionary of Your Coach for the Culture Wars, a business devoted to supporting organizations that want to preserve their core values and achieve prosperity by taking a stand in the Culture Wars.
But hey, if it feels good, do it, right?! /sarcasm
Bump
Amazing. Sex has power.
The feminist movement also has some bearing. Women don't need men any more for life enrichment (sexually and culturally) as they did in the past (or so they say!)
Last, economics. When women went en masse to the work force, the market responded by creating needs for the new income. This begat the two income house hold to meet the needs of the market, doing away with the "stay at home mom". This reduced the birth rate in part.
I guess that's why my first wife left me...
what on earth does that mean?
Excellent post, and disturbingly accurate.
I see Jennifer has graduated to the same naming convention for females as :
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Clean up in cubicle 7S42 .. coffee spatter on screen and keyboard.
She makes some very good points, and you might want to check out some of her books, too.
"So, stay at home moms, don’t let anyone tell you that you are wasting your talents. Without your contribution of a healthy, functioning next generation, all the strength of the U.S. military won’t be enough to protect us from the primal force of Islam that believes in itself enough to replace itself. Your actions show that you believe in your civilization enough to invest in its future."
Thanks, Jennifer! I always knew I was doing the right thing in raising my own kid (and my nephews, too!) :)
So what? My father had no sons. We gave our boys my maiden name as their middle name. If I had a girl, I would probably done the same. In some cultures that is the norm.
Free sex has many prices.
bttt
But almost overnight in 1968, we changed our minds (or the MSM convinced us to change our minds). We were evil, we were poisoning the world with pollution. We were killers in Vietnam.
Who would want to bring babies into an evil world? Our children would be evil, no one wants that.
The cure for this is to re-convince ourselves that we are a good country. We brought civilization to Iraq, in just the latest example of doing good. We are a good people.
Most Red Staters already think that, and they have more children. Most Blue Staters don't think that, and they have less children.
There was a book many years ago called "I'm OK, you're OK". I think someone needs to write the book, "We're OK".
Back in the early 80s in El Salvador I know that subsidized birth control pills were available to peasants for three colones per month (about 55 cents U.S.).
But even in Central America it seemed that the educated women were not having many children.
I dated a bank employee who made a very humble salary but was able to afford her own little apartment and have a maid come in to iron her bank uniforms (a Latin American thing). The illiterate maid was just a bit older than my young childless senorita but the maid had five children. When the banker berated her for getting pregnant again and questioning how she could affod it, the maid just acted like there was nothing one could expect her to do about it.
While I've run across a few trashy women over the years, weren't none of 'em cheap.
"free" sex eventually leads to emotional impotency.
If you call your sex "Wal-Mart sex", you have a quality control issue.
My point of view is similar, but different enough to be worth airing.
I don't want to bring children into an unhappy world, a world where happiness is elusive, and grumpy, grim pessimism is the fad of the day.
We're richer than ever, we have more wonderful tools than ever, but we're unhappier than ever. And it seems like our culture celebrates angst and agony, not achievement.
Anyone know why?
(I have pinged some of my favorite FR people to see if they have ideas.)
D
Mr. K:
what on earth does that mean?
I think ncountylee is referring to what the Lebanese Muslims in Australia said while raping several white Australian girls.
And you're likely getting it from China.
Interesting
BUMP
Easier said than done.
Kids are permanent responsibility.
You have to sacrifice everything and devote every moment of most of rest of your life.
Not for me.
I plead guilty to aiding and abetting "demographic death spiral".
Although, I have utmost respect for those who can handle this responsibility.
YOU create your happiness, the world doesn't do it for you.
I don't understand this attitude. Do you actually think there was a time when the world WAS happy ? When happiness wasn't elusive ? When pessimism wasn't around ?
These are, and have always been, the conditions of life. While we try mightily to avoid sorrow and unhappiness, we are never sucessful, nor should we be. Dealing with both joy and sorrow are necessary for a successful life.
If anything, children born today have the greatest chance that has ever existed in world history, for a life free of debilitating disease and suffering.
I'm glad that Jennifer kept her maiden name...If not, I would not have realized that she and I graduated from the same high school years ago! She is an exceptional person, was rather liberal at one time if I recall, but her heart and soul are in the right place! Her keeping her maiden name is the ONLY thing she has in common with Hillary.
Did you give him a son by giving your sons a hyphenated name?
Sex: the most expensive recreation on earth.
If earlier generations had had "modern" ideas about sexuality prior to those inventions, we wouldn't be here today, because they would have long ago gone through a demographic death spiral. When you figure in all the infant and child mortalilty, women had to have close to their maximum possible fertility just to keep the population steady or increasing slightly.
While I won’t say you are entirely wrong (some no doubt think that way), I will say that I believe that is not the reason that most people choose not to have more children or any children.
I believe that is more economics than what type of country we live in. I believe most Americans think we have a great country and a great culture.
The cost of raising a child today has become exorbitant. Today the expectations of children and what society expects as the standard of living for a middle class child makes it virtually impossible to raise more than two children.
There is a family in my little town who has recently welcomed their 9 child. When people in the community hear of this the common reaction is disbelief and dismay. Everyone wonders how they can afford to have that many children.
The father has a civil service job and the mother stays at home. The older children help with the younger one. The parents have one car. Until just a few years ago they lived in a smallish three bedroom home.
This couple decided their children did not need everything that society thinks they do. They extras the children work for themselves (what a concept).
I believe that major problem is society’s expectations reinforcing people to desire and expect to have more for themselves and their children.
"Women secrete this hormone during orgasm, and while breast feeding. Oxytocin creates a response of “attach and connect.” ... Oxytocin promotes her connection with her sex partner, who after all, may become the father of her child. All this is nature’s way of keeping the woman bonded to her child and to her child’s father. "
So...if we're having more "recreational sex"...aren't women still having orgasms, releasing this hormone, and becoming attached to their male partners?
Surely, there's more sexual activity today than (say) 100 years ago. So why are we seeing bonding issues now?
Could it be the fault of slack, irresponsible MALES?
(Because all these articles usually try to blame the Pill and thus Women)
She equates having children in foster care with being a mother. She is a rent-a-mom.. That is not a substitute for parenting. She has zero commitment. The day she wants to stop being a foster care giver she can call Children's Services and they will pick up the kids.
Equating foster care with motherhood is like equating prostitution with being a wife. In both cases the woman is temporarily selling herself for money.
Many an adolescent wants sexual indulgence without consequences. Now it seems that many adults want it too. Of course, there is no such thing: Even if you do manage to avoid pregnancy, there is an emotional cost to "sex as a private recreational activity."
This is almost true. (The words "everything" and "every" moment make it an exaggeration.) But don't underestimate the joy and satisfaction of having kids. Mine make me laugh evey day of my life. They are useful, smart, funny and polite. (Homeschooling helps.)
The satisfactions are real, deep, and lasting. I think its safe to say that, for most people at most times in history, much of the the deepest "fulfillment" of their lives came from their kids.
We must avoid the fallacy of assuming the average applies to every person. While the average may be "unhappier than ever," I, and my family and my circle of friends, can be as happy and fulfilled as we choose to be. Who cares what the culture celebrates? I have never been one to participate in the dominant culture.....
"In that sense, I am part of the problem of the well-educated, high-income women who can’t bring themselves to replace themselves.
But I was blessed with adoption. And, Divine Providence, acting through San Diego County Child Protective Services, has placed two school-aged foster children in my care."
She seems to think that adopting two foster children has removed her from being part of the demographic slide--but unless someone was going to kill those foster kids, she still hasn't reproduced herself in any way.
Yep.
Pretty much.
But it's not like conservatives are fixated on people's sexual habits, or anything.
(Because all these articles usually try to blame the Pill and thus Women)
I really don’t think these articles (at least not this one) are blaming the pill or women.
The choice not to have children is usually a decision of a couple not just the woman.
This article I believe is trying to say that couples have lost sight of the deeper meaning of sex, family and life and that it is likely that this loss of perspective is likely to be the death of our society.
She also clearly states she has adopted children. Does that count?
SD
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