Just a Gwai Lo - fun within prescribed limits

The Buddy System: Sex in High School and College: What's Love Got to Do With It? by Laura Sessions Stepp [via MetaFilter]

Also, even as they seek the same sexual rush that guys historically have enjoyed, young women confess to dreaming about the romance of the old-fashioned pursuit: being wooed by leisurely strolls, candlelight dinners, small gifts and other gestures of courtship that were more common when their mothers were their age.

This is a theme that occurs in What Our Mothers Never Told Us by Danielle Crittenden (pp. 39-40):

What is striking about the modern film adaptations [of The Age of Innocence, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility] is their almost pornographic obsession with the vanished protocol of daily life [...] They are airbrushed, sentimental views of the past, to be sure, but it's the urge to airbrush that is the most arresting thing about them. [...] It's as if popular taste now wishes to recall the past only for its good points, and particularly that lost civility between men and women.

Update: I love MetaFilter. Especially this from Stan Chin: “I for one, welcome these sluts.” (It's so crude an outburst that I can't help but laugh.) Or the Tom Wolfe quote.

Update Jan. 20, 10:48 PM: good comments from orange swan, beth, and and Civil_Disobedient make (successive) comments that speak to me. I identify with what mdn says (except I'm not sure what he means at the end of his comments about physical strength).

rushmc is wrong when he says that “Stating that something "is wrong" is not saying what you think. Saying "I think X is wrong" is saying what you think.” Saying something is wrong is indeed saying what you think. It's just not a very good argument (neither is the second part) because you're not saying why you think it's wrong. IshmaelGraves deftly counters rushmc.

Update Jan. 21, 4:45 PM: beth says (and I can identify with this): “When the cultural expectation is for sex without attachment, anyone who wants an attachment with their sex is at a disadvantage.”

Update Jan. 23, 2:25 AM: I have to admit that echolalia67 states the opposition's position intelligently: “Aping a repugnant attitude that was traditionally held by some men is not feminism. Understanding what you really want and figuring out a way to get it in an ethical, honest way is, as far as I'm concerned, feminism.” She sees sex outside of a committed relationship as not necessarily unethical, but all-the-same not for her.