Tea at Trianon: When Sex is Detached from Love, Life, and Responsibility

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, February 2, 2026

When Sex is Detached from Love, Life, and Responsibility

From Elizabeth Stone at The Feminist Turned Housewife:

Every single culture all throughout time has built itself around assumptions it no longer questions.
In Ancient Rome it was assumed that some humans were just naturally meant to be owned. During the Aztec empire it was just assumed that the gods required human sacrifice. In medieval Europe social hierarchy wasn’t questioned, etc…
And in our times, one of those givens we don’t question anymore is that sex is primarily suppose to be about pleasure. Everything else is optional.
And this assumption is so embedded that I’ve probably upset some of you for simply mentioning this in the tone that makes it seem like I disagree.
Which btw, I do.
But I am here to explain why this assumption is not only wrong, but has also opened the doors to some of the greatest moral evils of our times.
Zoom out for one minute, and honestly take a look at the cultural landscape all around. Pornography is everywhere, commitment is low, children are treated as accidents, and abortion is framed as healthcare. Something clearly is not right.
And I argue, that all of this has come about because we have separated sex from its core purposes.
Sex has never been historically understood as a one purpose act. Sex carries three inseparable meanings, it bonded two people, it was open to creating life, and it was pleasurable. None of these things should be seen as competing goods, but remove one from the three and the entire house collapses.
So how did we get here?
It all began, when we started elevating autonomy above all else. (Read more.)