Mona Charen has a column about the book Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student.
As I read her column, it seemed like I had Amanda from Pandagon reading over my shoulder. Oh, the shrill and dismissive commentary I'm sure she could give to stories like this:
(Author Dr. Miriam Goodman) believes that casual, promiscuous sex is tough on many women. They are hard-wired to bond with those they have sex with (the hormone oxytocin is implicated), and she sees countless female students reporting stress, eating disorders and even depression for reasons they cannot understand. After all, the world sells them on the notion that sex is pure recreation, that the "hook-up" culture is natural and even empowering to women, and that love and sex are two completely different things.
She describes a 19-year-old, "Heather," who is depressed. She has a "friend with benefits," but only with the help of psychotherapy is she able to acknowledge that the relationship is causing her pain. She'd like to do things with him, like see movies or go out for dinner, but he is interested only in sex. Dr. Grossman helps Heather to see that her needs are being neglected.
Another student, "Olivia," is devastated after her first serious boyfriend breaks up with her. Her grades suffer, she weeps constantly and suffers a relapse of an eating disorder, making herself vomit up to six times a day. "'Why, doctor,' she asked, why do they tell you how to protect your body -- from herpes and pregnancy -- but they don't tell you what it does to your heart?'"
I'm sure the Pandagonistas would explain that the problem was that these young women weren't using their secondary power of being able to manipulate male power for small favors.
In fact, in the post I reference there, Amanda explains:
Women think every guy they have a one night stand with wants to marry them. Gary knows, because he saw it on the teevee. And the teevee will never lie to you about how people really act in order to reinforce stereotypes, now would it?
Well, maybe not every woman feels this way, but there's evidently a sizable subset of female humanity who don't like how they feel after the one-night stands. As Charen puts it:
American campuses are, for the most part, laboratories of liberalism. You want an abortion? No problem. But if you grieve afterward, your pain is ignored or delegitimized. Dr. Grossman does not contest that most women may be emotionally fine after undergoing an abortion, but notes that a significant minority, perhaps 20 percent, do suffer depression and other symptoms afterward. Yet the politically correct position is to deny this medical reality.
I guess for some, that 20% isn't large enough to worry about.
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