Ten Things That Caught My Eye Today (September 7, 2018)

1. Rabbi Meir Soloveichik on parenthood and creation and Rosh Hashanah:

(Hat-tip: @SWhiteEPPC)

2. The Other Side of Foster Care

3. Arthur Brooks in the New York Times: Couples Therapy for the Catholic Church: A betrayal by the clergy is much like that of an adulterous spouse.

4. From an interview with a bishop in Pennsylvania: “You can’t act like a CEO or a business person. This is about people who are in pain, who are hurting, and they need to be heard.”

5. Crux: McCarrick whistleblower calls for laicization, investigation

6. I found this meditation striking this morning:

7. Memo to Chelsea Clinton: Freedom Does Not Require Women to Become Like Men

8.AEI and Brookings on paid family and medical leave

9. This a heartbreaking read (from the New York Times “Modern Love” column) about sex on the first and second date after meeting on Tinder. The conclusion of which is: Sex might be best if it’s something like caring for the person you’re having sex with, and that’s no guarantee without an actual commitment. (Could it be given a name, like marriage — even aspiring for life?)

Asking about my feelings during sex didn’t extend to caring about them after sex. Consent is not a contract of continuation.

But in the days and weeks after, I was left thinking that our culture’s current approach to consent is too narrow. A culture of consent should be a culture of care for the other person, of seeing and honoring another’s humanity and finding ways to engage in sex while keeping our humanity intact. It should be a culture of making each other feel good, not bad.

And if that’s the goal, then consent doesn’t work if we relegate it exclusively to the sexual realm. Our bodies are only one part of the complex constellation of who we are. To base our culture of consent on the body alone is to expect that caretaking involves only the physical.

I wish we could view consent as something that’s less about caution and more about care for the other person, the entire person, both during an encounter and after, when we’re often at our most vulnerable.

Because I don’t think many of us would say yes to the question “Is it O.K. if I act like I care about you and then disappear?”

10.

(If anyone ever finds such a video — or has other WFB things to share, do email klopez@nationalreview.com — I’ll share with the  Buckley Legacy Project at the National Review Institute, among others.)

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