Matt Lewis at The Daily Caller:
This summer, I interviewed Dr. Helen Smith about her book Men on Strike...
I know, off to a bad start already. But wait, as the kids say, it gets better:
Her premise is simple: More and more American men are making the conscious decision to avoid the drama and heartache that comes with relationships. It’s just not worth it, they say.
The Japanese word for this is “Mendokusai.” How do I know? It turns out this same phenomenon is taking place amongst young people of both sexes in Japan. Not only are many forgoing marriage, they are also skipping... sex. It’s just not worth it, they say.
Number one, there's a huge gap between "I don't want a relationship" and "I don't want to have sex." Number two, the Japan study to which he refers is mostly bogus. But when you're dealing with American conservatives, facts are the least of it. Lewis laments:
Could there be a connection between what Dr. Helen is documenting here and what’s happening in Japan? Japanese culture and American culture are, of course, a world apart, but technology has made that world smaller. And, in fact, technology might just be the common denominator...
Interestingly, in her book, Dr. Helen also argues that online porn is replacing the need for American women.
Oh well then: A reference to technology, and an assertion by Dr. Mrs. Ole Perfesser. What more do you need? The angst extrudes -- Erstwhile sex scold Rod Dreher:
How can an entire country lose the will to reproduce itself, which is to say, the will to live?
Glenn Beck's The Blaze:
WILL THIS NATION’S ‘CELIBACY SYNDROME’ CAUSE IT TO ‘PERISH INTO EXTINCTION’?
At Legal Insurrection, neo-neocon:
When nearly all is permitted (sexually, that is), the prospect of sex loses its forbidden fruit aspect and becomes more ho-hum.
Speak for yourself, honey. But let's not miss the big picture here: Conservatives are beginning to reverse their usual pattern, and are complaining about other people not having sex instead of other people having it. It's kind of a breakthrough!
Alas, there are holdouts. From the Patriot Action Network:
The latest 'trend' that has been called for this is that young men and woman are not having meaningless sex, premarital sex or leading the value of sex being the key to their lives...
The news is saying this is a bad thing...but in the big picture, is that the truth?
What isn't being reported, is the transformation that is happening with the young... Many are becoming Christians.
Eventually someone from the central office is going to have to come around and hip this guy to the new realities. I predict conservatives will shift over time from nagging paupers to get married to nagging them to have sex. It'll give them something positive to offer voters. I mean, it's not like they can offer them clean air or water.
UPDATE. Comments are always the best part of alicublog but in this case our gloss squad have outdone themselves. Some are understandable bemused by professional slut-shamer Rod Dreher turning into a sex cheerleader. "When Crunchy Rod is asking us to fornicate, the End Times are upon us," observes DocAmazing. But philadelphialawyer rightly points out that Dreher and his colleagues at The American Conservative are addicted to gloomy "the death of" stories -- and that their prescriptions are, for people who profess a concern for our humanity, weirdly inhuman:
For example, folks should have children not because they want to, not because they enjoy children, or because they think they would be good parents, or because society is accommodating to child raising, but because society, particularly Western society, oh screw it, let's just tell it like it is, because the Great White Race needs them to...
In other words, people should make highly personal decisions which directly impact their life for the good of the collective... And yet they will turn around and accuse "the left" of suborning the individual to the mass, of being purely utilitarian, of running roughshod over individual conscience, and so on.
Or as Spaghetti Lee puts it, "Fuck like your country depends on it!" Meanwhile trex delineates Matt Lewis' logic model:
I like to call this fallacy "The Transitive Property of Cryptids" or "The Six Degrees of Loch Ness Monster:"
1. Dr. Helen says men are avoiding relationships.
2. Kids in Japan are avoiding sex.
3. Technology exists in both cultures
4. Women use technology look at porn
5. People look for other forbidden things with technology
6. Loch Ness Monster