The Anscombe Society blog will be (and has been) on hiatus for Princeton’s Winter Break. We would like to wish everyone a wonderful holiday season, and we look forward to getting started again in January.
In addition, I am happy to announce that our very own David Pederson ’12 has been quoted in an article in the Canadian magazine The Interim. The full article can be found here.
The Anscombe Society is happy to announce the creation of a new section of our website dedicated to the campaign for a Center for Abstinence and Chastity at Princeton University.
By clicking on the “Campaign for the Center” tab above, you gain access to articles and documents making the argument for the Center, videos of events the Society has held at Princeton, the full written dialogue between students and administrators regarding the Center, and more. It is a one stop shop for information regrading this important and groundbreaking campaign.
If you have any advice as to how we can make this new section of the website more user-friendly, please leave a note in the comments.
Finally, a big thanks to Anscombe Webmaster Michael Casey ’11 for making this new section a reality.
The Anscombe Society would like to welcome the Love and Fidelity Network‘s 2nd annual conference, Sexuality, Integrity, and the University, to Princeton University for this weekend!
This unique event will bring together more than 200 participants from dozens of colleges and universities across the country, demonstrating the continued, accelerating growth of this movement that began only 4 years ago here at Princeton.
You can find out more about the conference, including the schedule of events, here. Lecture and panel times are also posted on the calendar tab of this website.
Only four days into the campaign for a University-sponsored Center for Abstinence and Chastity, The Daily Princetonian today published an article tracking the movement from its roots to this extraordinary week of events. Stay tuned for videos of these events!
You can find the full article here or after the jump.
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It’s time.
It’s time to correct institutionalized social and intellectual double standards.
It’s time to stand up for healthy relationships.
It’s time to consider the social importance of stable marriages and families.
It’s time to respect students of all religious backgrounds.
It’s time to create a safe space for discussions about and lifestyles of sexual integrity.
It’s time to support those many students – currently abstinent, committed to chastity, or unsure where to turn in this time of social and sexual turmoil – who are alienated by the hook-up culture.
In short, it’s time for students and administrators to take a stand FOR all students and AGAINST the hook-up culture.
Join the Anscombe Society for a week of diverse and important events dedicated to showing the Princeton University community that yes, indeed, it is time for a University-sponsored Center for Abstinence and Chastity.
Please find the full schedule after the jump.
Continue reading It’s time.
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Aren’t we just a bunch of religious zealots?
What’s wrong with gay sex?
Do we take vows and wear chastity rings?
Isn’t chastity old-fashioned or just religious?
Do we think women should stay at home?
Why don’t we support same-sex marriage?
What’s wrong with hookups?
Why wait until marriage?
This is YOUR opportunity to ask ANY QUESTIONS of leaders of the Anscombe Society, Princeton’s most controversial student organization.
The event will be this Wednesday, September 30, at 7:30pm in Robertson 100 (Dodds Auditorium).
Whether you are sympathetic or hostile to the ideas and ideals of Anscombe, this is a great opportunity to discover what the organization REALLY stands for and what the members are REALLY like. If you like some of what you’ve heard about the Society but have concerns about other aspects, come ask about those things that give you pause. If you find some of our positions reprehensible, then come and challenge us. Find out exactly who holds these ideas you find so repulsive and why we hold them. No matter what your reason for attending (perhaps just curiosity!), we hope to see you at this unique and exciting event!
You can find this event on Facebook by navigating through our fan page, which can be found by clicking the badge at right.
It’s that time again. Classes at Princeton start today and the University welcomes a new class of students to campus. The Anscombe Society — Princeton’s unique and vibrant organization dedicated to traditional sexual ethics — would like to extend a special welcome to incoming freshmen. New and returning students will be able to find representatives from the Anscombe Society on Friday, September 18, at the official Activities Fair in Dillon Gym from noon to 3pm.
We would also like to invite all interested students, and particularly freshmen, to the Society’s annual Ice Cream Social, where you can meet current members and learn more about what we do. This event will be held on the same Friday evening from 9 to 10:30pm (and maybe later!) in the 1915 Room of Butler College. You can find out more information here.
All new freshmen and Anscombe supporters, both on and off Princeton’s campus, can also participate in the Society’s online growth by becoming a fan by clicking on the Facebook badge at right. Our page can also be found here.
Finally, we are extremely pleased to announce that, even before Princeton’s academic calendar had commenced, the Anscombe Society had accumulated more than 100 fans on Facebook. This is a testament to the salience of the issues on which Anscombe focuses and the positions it takes. We look forward to even faster growth as the school year moves along and our members get to work on events and other initiatives. Now is a great time for YOU to become part of our team!
During the "Debate over Marriage" held at Princeton University last December, an event sponsored by the Anscombe Society, the most important point to which opponents of the traditional definition of marriage could not respond was the following: redefining marriage as a purely emotional union necessitates the acceptance of any number of varying types of relationships as "marriages," including, most notably, polyamorous ones.
The response offered was neither moral nor philosophical in nature, but rather purely practical: polyamory is not a significant enough force in the United States to merit political recognition as marriage. This argument, already intellectually insignificant, has now been proven factually inaccurate by a recent feature in Newsweek. Indeed the author practically taunts traditionally-minded Americans with the complex structure of the particular polyamorous quartet profiled in the piece:
It’s enough to make any monogamist’s head spin. But the traditionalists had better get used to it.
The article goes on:
Researchers are just beginning to study the phenomenon, but the few who do estimate that openly polyamorous families in the United States number more than half a million, with thriving contingents in nearly every major city. Over the past year, books like Open, by journalist Jenny Block; Opening Up, by sex columnist Tristan Taormino [who will be speaking at Princeton this upcoming semester]; and an updated version of The Ethical Slut–widely considered the modern "poly" Bible–have helped publicize the concept. Today there are poly blogs and podcasts, local get-togethers, and an online polyamory magazine called Loving More with 15,000 regular readers.
Polyamory, then, is not a blip on the American cultural radar, but a social and sexual phenomenon. It is the fullest expression of the ideology of sexual libertinism that has taken root in this country, marked by radical autonomy in moral deliberation and decision-making. Polyamory throws into sharp relief one important aspect of this ideology: consent as the only moral touchstone in issues of sex and relationships. More on this after the jump: