Listened to Louise Perry talk with Andrew Sullivan about sexual politics. My takeaways (thread):

1) ppl are surprised by Sullivans’ genuine inability to conceive of normative, generative modes of sexuality. He’s been the gift that keeps on giving when it comes to revealing what “gay” is on ontological level
2) bc he’s basically a steelman. I believe that he wants what is good. To give him some credit, he doesn’t need to explore critiques of sexual liberalism at all. He’s motivated by desire to really believe that one be “free” with sexuality & functionally as good/upright as anyone
3) When he presented “gay marriage” as the same, just different genital configuration, I think he meant it. He wants that to be the case.
4) But he can’t help demonstrating , revealing to the nice centrists that also want to believe, that this is not the case.
5) such that when we examine what “gay” is (in the male context) we see that it’s really much more like what Christian society understood it to be than what mid-century anti-Christian “experts” told us
6) It is a compulsive paraphilia that is wrong because it deforms us on a spiritual & psychic (same thing really) level such that we can’t see Truth/Goodness . Listen to the language/concepts Sullivan immediately goes to . It’s *technically* demonic
7) The world he inhabits is “gay”, it is bound & defined by slavery to paraphilic perversities, to lust.
8) the immediate materialist effects of these particular behaviors, the biological health issues, the economic or merely social effects, these don’t represent what “gay” is on any meaningful level
9) & so Louise Perry, like everyone else, can’t mount a true critique of Sullivans worldview on materialist grounds. If we’re citing “evolutionary psychology”, we’ve already lost. If we’re not willing to present universal Telos of Creation (thus human life, thus sexuality)..
10) ..We have lost . Bc there is no ought to glean from these arbitrary patterns. You can say “heterosexual monogamy” produces a nicer experience for *some people* , but who cares? So what?
11) if we’re essentially animals, we’re bound to respond to given conditions as we will. So Andrew is right if this is the case~ you just mitigate one deficit (of feeling pleasure/satisfaction) with whatever you can. Drugs, porn, prostitution.
12) Louise doesn’t understand there’s no “natural” defense of what she has rendered just another set of preferences.
13) it was a difficult listen, but very revealing. The boomers & Xers who are trying to maintain the acceptable post-war discourse are something like Victorians about to get steamrolled by industrial revolution
14) In that they rose to levels of comfort/security on the backs of the beast that will devour them. Both “want their cake”. Louise wants to believe she can be accepted by Prog cultural powers & be a “social conservative”
15) Andrew wants to believe he can lead a life enslaved to compulsions & paraphilia while enjoying the status of a wise, upright , good man. This is why such effort is made to convince himself that everyone is actually secretly as enslaved as he
Give the episode a listen & let me know what you think

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