Sociology vs Morality

A common mistake of relativists is to confuse behavior with value. That is, they confuse what is with what ought to be. What people do is subject to change, but what they ought to do is not. This is the difference between sociology and morality. Sociology is descriptive; morality is prescriptive.

Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist, pg.182

What Pornography Teaches

Porn teaches its consumers that women exist for the pleasure of men and that their purpose is to be degraded and dehumanized for men’s excitement—and that they like it, even if they pretend not to. But this is part of the lie of pornography: many women in porn are there against their will and are being exploited. … The physical, emotional, and psychological damage to the women and children in porn is heartbreaking, but equally insidious is porn’s effect on men and the culture by normalizing the degradation and dehumanization of women. … The prevalence of porn means that people are becoming desensitized to it, and are seeking out ever harsher, more violent, and degrading images. …

Justin Holcomb, Hugh Hefner’s Legacy is Not Harmless

Avoid Porn and Keep the Erotic Bond Between Husband and Wife

In many more traditional cultures, it is not prudery that leads them to discourage men from looking at pornography. It is, rather, because these cultures understand male sexuality and what it takes to keep men and women turned on to one another over time—to help men, in particular, to, as the Old Testament puts it, “rejoice with the wife of thy youth; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times.” These cultures urge men not to look at porn because they know that a powerful erotic bond between parents is a key element of a strong family.

Naomi Wolf, “The Porn Myth,” paragraph 11; cited by Mark Regnerus, Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy, pg.200.

Be Wise

A good man does not hesitate to own he has been in the wrong. He takes comfort in knowing he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

The Pill and Porn — United to Destroy Marriage

Cheap sex has been mass-produced with the help of two distinctive means that have little to do with each other—the wide uptake of the Pill and mass-produced high-quality pornography—and then made more efficient by communication techniques. They drive the cost of sex down, make real commitment more “expensive” and challenging to navigate, have created a massive slow-down in the development of long-term relationships, especially marriage, put women’s fertility at risk—driving up demand for infertility treatments—and have taken a toll on men’s marriageability. The “pure relationship” regime, which has flourished alongside the dramatic rise in cheap sex, is not nearly so consonant with other long-standing priorities like childrearing and relational stability. But it is becoming the norm in the West—the template for evaluating relationship development. And it has changed how men and women perceive themselves, their sexuality, each other, and the point of relationships. Cheap sex does not make marriage unappealing; it just makes marriage less urgent and more difficult to accomplish.

Mark Regnerus, Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy, pg.193-194

The Sad Decline of Marriage

Young Americans are taking flight from marriage—by avoiding it, delaying it, or exiting it. It should not surprise us, either, since this is cultural lag in action: the uptake of contraceptive technology is slowly undermining long-standing reasons for marrying. And yet we still want to marry, but the difference between needing and wanting marriage is a big one. Cheap sex—that is, the wide availability of sexual access—is arguably diminishing men’s marriageability, since the quest for sex was long a key motivator for men to marry. No more. Cheap sex has transformed modern men (and women), undermined and stalled the marital impulse, and stimulated critics of monogamy, who fail to recognize the goods historically secured by it and polyamory’s reliance on a male-dominated mating market. Despite increasingly unfavorable terms for marriage, men are not going their own way. Once in it, they tend to like marriage. Women, on the other hand, exhibit higher ideals for marriage. They remain far more likely to want out once in. And given their comparative recent economic successes, women are in a better position to leave—and still thrive—than ever before. Marriage has changed, no doubt. Once a staid institution characterized by its functional gain in trade between men and women, it has become a symbol of success shared by two increasingly similar spouses. All of it has thrown organized Christianity—marriage’s biggest supporter—for a lop. Cheap sex, it seems, secularizes. The more traditional ways American Christians think about marriage and family remains distinctive from emerging norms of confluent love for now. Cracks in the foundation, however, are visible.

Mark Regnerus, Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy, pg.191-192

The Value of Education

Education is a companion which no misfortune can decrease, no crime destroy, no enemy alienate, no despotism enslave; at home a friend, abroad an introduction, in solitude a solar, in society an ornament. It chastens vice, guides virtue, and gives grace and government to genius. Without it, what is man? A splendid slave, a reasoning savage.

Irish lawyer Charles Phillips, O'Mullan v. M'Korkill (1817)

Historical Marriage vs Polyamory

Historically, getting (monogamously) married meant “getting serious.” It meant hight expectations of one’s proper behavior. The social ties of marriage create interdependent systems of obligation, mutual support, and restraint.  Marriage meant having someone to care for and having someone to take care of you—yes, being interdependent—and these responsibilities and obligations only grew stronger when children entered the family. Non-monogamy flouts such norms, exhibits little constraint, a great deal of “checking in,” and invites partner jealousy and pernicious bugs, all in the pursuit of genital pleasures and perceived “needs.” 

Mark Regnerus, Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy, pg.184

The Downfalls Of a Poly Society

A poly society will require a more vigilant public health system, a more active security stated to protect its citizens—especially women—and a more aggressive social welfare system, since invested fathers will continue to recede. Misogyny is embedded in polyamory, too, however “ethical” it claims to be. That’s because sexual objectification—the treatment of persons as objects—is unavoidable in a non-monogamous system, especially a modern one characterized less by plural marriage than by the serial circulation of multiple, over-lapping sex partners.

Mark Regnerus, Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy, pg.183

Monogamy Is Foundation to Family

Monogamy also means confidence in the biological link between mother, father, and child, a combination long known to reduce the threat of abuse, violence, and homicide in the household. And monogamy means greater equality—more men and women have the opportunity to meet, marry, save, and invest for the long term, instead of competing (and spending resources, etc.) for others’ available attention. This is why monogamous marriage systems preceded the emergence of democratic institutions in Europe, and the rise of notions like human rights and equality between the sexes. … Monogamy, after all, is disciplined—by definition. No other form of organizing relationships between the sexes does a better job of fostering a fair exchange between the distinctive interests of men and women. Societies that disregard monogamous norms undermine their own long-term interests.

Mark Regnerus, Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy, pg.181

Wisdom and Love

To learn and never be filled is wisdom;

To teach and never be weary is love.

Is Great Diversity Good?

Greater diversity means inevitably that we have less in common, and the more we encourage diversity the less we honor the common good. Any honest and clear-sighted observer should be able to see that diversity is a solvent that dissolves the unity and cohesiveness of a nation—and we should not be deceived into believing that its proponents do not understand the full impact of their advocacy!

Diversity, of course, marches under the banner of tolerance, but is a bastion of intolerance. It enforces its ideological liberalism with an iron fist that is driven by political correctness, the most ingenious (and insidious) device for suppressing freedom of speech and political dissent ever invented.

Edward J. Erler, “Does Diversity Really Unite Us? Citizenship and Immigration,” Imprimis, July/August 2018.

Monogamy is BEST for Society

…monogamous arrangements comprise a historical minority of the globe’s societies, but the vast majority of the more successful and flourishing ones.  Monogamous marriage…fosters savings and economic output, and reduces competition among men for women, which functions to reduce the pool of low-status, risk-oriented, unmarried men. (It reduces competition not through sex-ratio manipulation, but through normative expectations of one partner.) And that, in turn, lowers multiple types of crime, abuse, household conflict, and fosters greater paternal investment in both their work and in their children, who are more apt to enjoy their attention and exhibit notably lower stress levels than in households displaying all manner of outsiders. Speaking of outsiders, a review of data from 69 polygamous societies from around the world failed to reveal a single case where the relationships between a man’s partners or wives could be described as consistently harmonious.

Mark Regnerus, Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy, pg.181-182

Why Liberals Want Gay “Marriage”

When the institution of marriage is compromised; when single mothers proliferate and are even applauded; when children are separated or alienated from their parents; when the bonds of heterosexual intimacy are breached; when gender politics sabotages concord between the sexes; when same-sex couples receive the same rights, privileges, and rewards as child-bearing couples; and when matrimony becomes the prerogative of any group whatsoever with no relation to fecundity or cultural stability, the underpinnings of Western society will inevitably collapse.

This is why Marxism, for example, considers marriage an institution that needs to be destroyed, since procreant marriage with all its attendant responsibilities is the foundation of bourgeois society.  This is why its dissolution or misprision is a prerequisite for the revolutionary socialist state in which the pivotal loyalty of the individual belongs to the sovereign collective, not to the family.  And this is why calling two men or two women in a union "marriage" has been serially championed by the left.

David Solway, The Problem with Gay Marriage

No One Needs Multiple Partners

[P]eople “need” multiple partners like they need four houses or six automobiles. These are wants, not needs. And when seemingly reasonable people argue that in previous eras people didn’t live so long, such that the death of a spouse functioned as a way for humans to fulfill their “need for sexual variety” it pays to be skeptical. (Since when did golden anniversaries become something to pity rather than something to celebrate?).  No, the new turn away from monogamy was made possible not because we figured out that we are still animals but because we figured out how to effectively prevent pregnancies or end them prematurely, freeing us up to pursue the art of sexuality—the body as a tool of consumption rather than production.

Mark Regnerus, Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy, pg.179

They Want Marriage Without Planning

[N]early all of the women—and a solid majority of the men—with whom we spoke in person want to marry.  But many of them do not know how to make it happen. Marriage as it has been conventionally understood—faithful, closed (to others), enduring, kids, the whole package deal—is a desired state into which very many young Americans hope someday to naturally and passively find themselves. They do not think of it as a pathway requiring their present-time discipline, discernment, sacrifice, self-control, and prudent judgment, together with ample amounts of the same from their peers. Young Americans are not practicing to be married, but rather hoping to someday wake up in it.

Mark Regnerus, Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy, pg.174

Cheap Sex Makes Men Less Productive

[C]heap sex does not make men more productive. And it will not contribute to their marriageability in an era in which marriage rates are tumbling. Bumeister and Vohs [Sexual Economics] hold that “giving young men easy access to abundant sexual satisfaction deprives society of one of its ways to motivate them to contribute valuable achievements to the culture.”

Mark Regnerus, Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy, pg.152-153

What Feminism Hath Wrought

Nowadays young men can skip the wearying detour of getting education and career prospects to qualify for sex. Nor does he have to get married and accept all those costs, including promising to share his lifetime earnings and forego other women forever. Female sex partners are available without all that. . . . Sex has become free and easy. This is today’s version of the opiate of the (male) masses. . . .  Climbing the corporate ladder for its own sake may still hold some appeal, but undoubtedly it was more compelling when it was vital for obtaining sex.

Kathleen Vohs, Sexual Economics, pg. 523. Cited by Mark Regnerus, Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy, pg.149

The Lies and Destruction of Pornography

I cannot help but note the contrast between classic descriptions of marital sexuality and how sex is portrayed in modern pornography. The latter redirects sex away from any sense of it as involving relationships of permanence, exclusivity, or expectations of fertility. On the contrary, pornography typically treats gazers to a veritable fire-hose dousing of sex-act diversity, and presses its consumers away from thinking of sex as having anything to do with love, monogamy, or childbearing—all traits that most Americans long equated with marriage. So, add to the sharing of bodies temporarily and non exclusively a significant dose of alternative sexual activities—different positions, roles, genders, and varying numbers of participants—and that is basically where porn leads today: away from sex as having anything approaching a classic marital sense or structure.

Mark Regnerus, Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy, pg.125-126

Sex Is the New Opium of the Masses

In a world increasingly bereft of transcendence, sexual expression is emerging as an intrinsic value. Sex is the new opium of the masses…, a temporary heart in a heartless world. Unfortunately, something so immanent as sex will not—and cannot—function in the manner in which religion can, has, and does. … Sex does not explain the world. It is not a master narrative. It has little to offer by way of convincing theodicy. But in a world increasingly missing transcendence, longing for sexual expression makes sense. It should not surprise us, however, that hose who (unconsciously) demand sex function like religion will come up short. Maybe that is why very liberal women are also twice as likely to report being depressed or currently in psychotherapy than very conservative women.

Mark Regnerus, Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy, pg.79-80.

When Relationships Start With Sex

When relationships start with sex…the odds that women will flourish and enjoy a long-term relationship are dramatically lowered. It is not impossible, just rare.

Mark Regnerus, Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy, pg.66-67