Honor and Love

Today, on my Facebook feed, I saw a post that really annoyed me.

http://www.beyondmoi.com/my-anger-problem/

The writer is complaining that strange men are sexually harassing his wife and daughters, and this makes him angry. He thinks it is because men objectify women, He thinks they should be educated not to objectify women, and then everything will be okay. Then, for some reason he starts talking about human trafficking and selling little girls into slavery. He thinks this, too, will stop as soon as men stop objectifying women. His plan of action is to do nothing except write about it, so that people will be educated into not objectifying women.

A young Chinese woman after being liberated by the Allies from serving as a "comfort woman" for the Japanese

Please, understand, I am against rape. I am against child molestation. I also think strangers should treat each other with courtesy and that unpermitted, offensive sexual touching is the crime of battery. It's battery when a man you don't know in a dark alley does it, and it's battery when a TSA agent  (of either sex) does it to a traveler (of either sex) at the airport. It's battery because it is an unpermitted touching. And the only thing that would make it not battery is consent.

But what on earth has that got to do with men regarding women as sex objects? How did this man come by his six daughters if he never regarded his wife as a sex object? Were they all conceived by artificial insemination? Does he hope that none of them ever meet a man who sees them as a sex object and proceeds to court them until they consent to be that sex object for him? What sort of sterile world does he want to live in?

If he wants his wife and daughters to be treated with courtesy and respect as they make their way through life he should:

1) Protect them when they are together. Stand up for them if he feels their honor is being challenged.

2) Stand up for other men's wives and daughters if he sees them being harassed, so that other men will also do the same for his wife and daughters when he is not there to stand up for them.

3) Teach his wife and daughters self defense techniques and arm them, so they can stand up for themselves and each other and for all other people, men or women, who are being attacked.

4) Vote against any laws that disarm citizens, and stand up for any stranger who needs his help when attacked not only by a civilian, but also by a police officer or Federal Agent or a TSA officer.


And here's what he -- and all of us -- can do about the trafficking of children as sex slaves:

1) Don't sell your children into slavery.
2) Don't buy slaves, unless you plan to set them free.
3) Respect other people's rights to consent to arrangements they find acceptable.
4) Recognize the difference between consensual relations and rape and act to defend the innocent whenever you see rape or battery.

 Nobody saved anyone from rape by writing a diatribe against rape. Never in the history of mankind has that worked. But many men, such as Jean Laffite, for instance, did prevent rape and molestation by flogging and hanging any man under them who committed those crimes.

There is nothing more shameful than a man who stands by and does nothing when a woman's honor is at stake. This is one way that women judge men. In both Theodosia and the Pirates books, there are examples of exactly how this works.

A woman can never respect a man who will not fight for her honor. She will fight for his, too, to the extent that she can. And as long as he is honorable and brave, most women will gladly be a sex object at the end of the day for the man they have chosen as their own.