Jennifer Roback Morse's TownHall column for this week, a response to Mark Steyn's piece last week on the reason the West is in danger of extinction:
Behind the problem of the West’s below-replacement fertility levels lies the problem of sex. Babies come from sex. The modern view of sex has created the demographic collapse of the West, and the human void into which Islamic fertility is rapidly flooding.
The modern world has completely lost sight of the social purposes of sex. We now regard sex as a private recreational activity, with no moral or social significance. Unlimited sexual activity without a live baby resulting is the quintessential modern entitlement.
I call this modern view "consumer sex". Sex is a consumer good and our sex partners are objects that please us more or less well. When I am speaking at college campuses, and feeling particularly mischievous, I call it Wal-Mart sex. (I myself have no problem with Wal-Mart, but I can always count on finding Wal-Mart haters on college campuses.) The modern sexual ethos provides us with large amounts of low-cost sex, without ever taking into account the spill-over costs associated with our behavior.
