Linguistic confusion has both caused and resulted from that. That in turn undermines the very basis of civil society. It is both possible and necessary to restore good sense. In this article I shall contribute to that task mainly by focusing on the preliminary work of exposing the linguistic confusion.
One cannot sort out the conceptual and philosophical confusion without doing that. To be sure, we must take due note of the social and ideological context. The roots of the problem lie in the dogma of sexual autonomy that is bedrock for secular progressivism, the now-dominant ideology of educated folk in the West. Connecticut , which struck down state laws banning the sale of contraceptives and created precedent for the reasoning of Roe v Wade about abortion.
Though only a half-truth, at least it makes a certain sort of sense. But soon the supposed right to privacy morphed into the idea that consent is the sole moral criterion for assessing sexual behavior.
Indeed, consent itself can often be problematic. Beyond that kind of confusion, acting on the premise that consent suffices is libertinism, which has only exacerbated the ills just named. And that despite the various apparent fixes readily available: contraception, abortion, antibiotics and retroviral drugs, and of course anti-depressants. The actual increase of the problems that such anodynes supposedly solve is not hard to explain.
That brings costs: sometimes covered in part by the anodynes, sometimes not. Sooner or later, one ends up having to face at least some of the natural consequences. Those are bad in themselves and often not handled well. But the confusion runs much deeper because, over the past generation or so, the ideology of sexual autonomy has gone much further. What we are as sexual beings, not merely what we do sexually, is now taken as a matter of personal self-understanding unfettered by traditional norms or even by simple biology.
