Looking forward to reading your post.

Yes, I understand that the point of your post was simply to mock Ross Douthat, but instead of merely mocking the non sequiturs—which you did quite well in the opening salvo—you proceeded to the rather tired and unjustified accusation that Douthat was anti-sex (unjustified, at least, by the post you linked to). And the fact that the world was not created ex nihilo moments before Ross posted . . . well, while that’s a clever justification for the hackneyed rhetorical ploy (“Ross is anti-sex and a hypocrite and probably not getting any!”), it seems to dispense with the requirement to respond to, or mock, what Ross actually said by diverting our attention to the Big C Catholic philosophy which Ross supposedly espouses. Big C Catholic philosophy may be anti-sex, but as far as I know, you’ve never bothered to post a devastating, point-by-point critique of it. What, for instance, is the “big C Catholic” view of women’s sexual autonomy?

I know I’m making a fuss over a post that was meant only to make fun of a bad argument, or string of non sequiturs. But as someone who regularly reads both Ross’s blog and Crooked Timber, I get kind of weary of the “let’s mock the other side” reflex.

I am a woman who happens to think that the sexual and cultural revolution was a “mixed bag” for women (good for the lives of privileged white women, bad for the lives of poor women, poor minorities, and their children—and for a good number of the children of privileged white women). And maybe it’s partly because the fomenters of the revolution treated the world as if it were created ex nihilo after the Pill and “women’s lib,” as though sexism wouldn’t survive into the era of the new sexual utopia. And maybe it’s partly because the fomenters of revolution relied too heavily on the blank slate model of human nature. And maybe it’s partly because the fomenters of revolution were too willing to trash “traditional morality.”

I don’t know, but it would be nice, for a change, to see an intelligent person like you actually engage a socially conservative critique of the “sexual revolution” without taking the easy, mocking way out.

You’re certainly right, however, that Ross’s post was not the one to engage, and it’s your prerogative to blog about whatever you wish.

off the chain1!

*except mr. douthat, presumably.