[jerf]

"Even in the 1970s, people knew this was wrong."

That is true. However... are you sure you would side with the people who knew this was wrong, were you in 1970? Because in 1970, that would be the conservatives, the church-goers, the ones who were not going along with the sexual revolution and were sticking to older mores.

The direct linear ideological ancestors of the current dominant Silicon Valley liberalism were not decrying this sexual liberation... they were the ones creating it, normalizing it, and outright celebrating it, and rubbing the noses of the redneck rubes in flyover country over it, the same redneck rubes in flyover country that the HN gestalt so frequently sneers at today.

The Silicon Valley of 1970 would not pick up the morals 2018 is trying to impose on them. They would actively rebel, because frankly the #meToo morals are rapidly evolving into, if not already at, something even more strict than what the people in 1970 were already rebelling against as being square and out of date!

[rayiner]

I don’t see your point. Conservative church goers weren’t wrong about everything (and they’re certainly not wrong about everything now).

This is not a new observation. Many radical feminists, Dworkin for example, were deeply skeptical of the sexual revolution, and acknowledged that she shared some common ground with conservative women in that regard.

[jerf]

"I don’t see your point."

Well, part of my point is that Atari isn't "them". It is, for most of HN, "us, only fifty years ago". And not just "us, as in Silicon Valley is like really racist and stuff, but not me, oh no, so us but not the us that includes me", but literally us. These were the direct ancestors of Silicon Valley liberalism.

I'm saying that if the moral harridans of 2018 are going to be going back in history to the 1970s to condemn people (and beyond), I'd like to see some sort of reckoning with the history of what's going on here, if for no other reason than to perhaps convince people to slow down a bit and dampen the wildly swaying pendulum before rewriting the social contract willy-nilly again next week. It honestly blows my mind how the direct lineal descendants of the Sexual Revolution are now putting forth a morality that is actually stricter than what conservatives have stuck too, a morality in which even if everyone is adult and consents it can still be condemned if it isn't 2018-approved, with just-barely-not-nonexistent examinations of how that happened and whether it's really a good idea. Where will the pendulum swing next?

[rayiner]

I’d instead say it’s an instance of “tried it, didn’t care for it” and nothing more. Both conservatives and radical feminists in the 1970s pointed out that the sexual revolution was in some ways perpetuating patriarchy, except that instead of expecting women to be wives and mothers it demanded sexual availability in all settings and accommodation of mens’ sexual impulses. But that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t bad things about it or that there is any reason to “slow down.”

I also disagree with the idea that it’s a “pendulum.” It’s moving in the direction of increased autonomy and self determination for women. Sexual revolution: “we don’t want to be trapped into marriage and motherhood by sexual mores.” Women didn’t want “sex in the workplace”—they were just willing to accommodate it because it freed them from something worse. But now women aren’t forced into marriage and motherhood. But they have more demands. “We noticed that men still have most of the power in the workplace. We want to advance in our careers without having to deal with men trying to use that power to get sex.” These are not contradictory at all.

[jerf]

That is a pretty theory.

But I'm a pragmatist and have the annoying habit of looking at the facts on the ground before accepting the theory. When I read the Twitter stream that was linked by seany, I do not see women celebrating that they no longer have to "deal with men trying to use that power to get sex". I see real women being brushed aside, and I see modern day harridans simply assuming and telling them what to feel and de facto what morality they should subscribe to, and whether they should be offended, and if the real women doesn't want to play ball with that, I see real women being essentially disenfranchised from the conversation.

I don't care what pretty theory you wrap around that. It's wrong, and a pendulum that has swung too far. People getting offended on behalf of other people, for events that may very well have happened before the offended people were even born, and disenfranchising them if they disagree is not progress. It's not respectful of women. It is one very loud group using other people, in the worst sense of the term "using", and not caring about what facts get in the way. That is not sustainable, and it will not last, and the longer people try to maintain it by paying too much attention to the pretty theories while ignoring the ugly facts on the ground, the worse the backlash is going to be.