Via Tim Worstall, I see that Amanda Marcotte has gone from calling me a sociopath to merely misunderstanding me. I guess that's progress, although she certainly does a great job with the latter:

...the real world debate over women's sexual freedom doesn't even enter into Eric's radar. He mainly doesn't get why anyone on the right would want to control ability of men to purchase the opportunity to have a sexual experience involving a woman whose body is routed for his pleasure and not put to use for her own--his entire defense of a right wing view of sexual liberation is the male right to purchase and use pornography and the male right to use prostitutes. I'm serious --right after he gives the entire ownership of sex to the left, he follows it up with a semi-defining statement that made me jaw drop.

How the hell did sex get put on the f--ing left?

Really, since when are centerfolds images of cultural and political leftism?

Sex=centerfolds. I've read a lot of sexist oinking pigs define sex in ways that obscure that women have desire, but I've never heard one that obscured that women have 3 dimensional bodies. He does extend his defense to prostitution and gay sex, but not gay people--he doesn't rouse himself to defend gay marriage or fight against discrimination, leaving room for horrible laws affecting gay people while allowing straight-identified people to enjoy same sex couplings, a la Larry Craig or the imaginary bisexual free spirits who hate legal abortion. But not a whiff of one of the most common manifestations of sexphobia in this country outside of homophobia--the anti-choice movement. It's almost as if women aren't rights-bearing people worth mentioning, just warm, inviting holes that could be available for purchase if it weren't for those damn anti-prostitution laws.

But I especially like the exciting choices I'm given in the comments section. There's this:

I can't even imagine what kind of sexual fantasies he has.

F)cking cute left-wing hippie bitches perhaps. He is the right-wing daddyo. All they need is a little right-wing c0ck and shout Praise Jesus!!! as he gives them their most stupendous orgasm ever.

He'd rather get on his knees and beg for conservative c0ck, even if they beat him for it, than stand up for gay folks.

I'd like to say I'm thinking it over! But alas, Amanda also says I can't think my way out of a paper bag! So I should plead guilty as charged, I guess.

(Parenthetically, the real problem with my post in this context is an audience related one. My primary disagreement was with those conservatives (a shrill minority in the GOP) who wage war on sex. I see this as not only being destructive of sexual freedom, but as giving fuel to the left. That a leading leftist blog would see the post as as a defense of the conservative war on sex and as an attack on women makes me wonder whether they might not be comfortable with what I'm really saying, which is that they're not only delighted with the conservative war on sex, but they're waging their own war against sexual freedom.)

However, I'm running into a problem pleading guilty as charged, because of the sexual confusion that can be created. I've tried to make it clear that I really don't think readers are interested in my sex life, nor am I interested in theirs. I even pointed that out in the very post for which I'm now under attack:

....I tend to leave my discussions of sex at the theoretical level. I'm not interested in turning my readers on or off, and this is not a sex blog. I'm not especially interested in reading about other people's sex lives, and I'm really not interested in having people read about mine.

And what about my admitted sexual confusion? I'm at least as confused about sex as I am about everything else, and one of my big objections to the world has always been that people care about things that it is none of their business to care about -- in this case, the sex lives of others. Now, the usual stereotype (which I've complained about a lot) is that moral conservatives care too damned much about what other people do with their genitalia. Yet in this case, the antics of the commenters make it quite clear that concerns about other people's sexuality are not limited to the right wing.

Normally, I try not to avoid issues of concern to readers, but on the other hand I don't want to alienate anyone, and I don't want to break with my tradition of leaving my own sex life (or lack thereof) out of this blog. But still, there are these stubborn choices which confront me. What do I prefer? Am I

A "right-wing daddyo" who wants to "f--k cute left-wing hippie bitches" who need "a little right-wing c0ck" and "shout Praise Jesus!!! as I give them "their most stupendous orgasm ever"?

"...rather get on [my] knees and beg for conservative c0ck, even if they beat me for it, than stand up for gay folks"?

Smart girls don't f--k anti-choice boys.

So I thought I should let you, the readers, decide.

Think it over carefully, though, because what you decide might have terrible consequences.

Please note that I hate to put my kind readers in a difficult position of forcing themselves to decide my preference for me. So, after much soul-searching, I finally managed to come up with with a third option for readers who might be as frustrated as I was with the first two choices. (This was not meant to offer my own opinion, but only to broaden the diversity of choice.)

Sigh.

This is all very troubling, as it touches on an unsettled question I asked when in my discussion of Amanda's claim that I am a sociopath, I asked:

Should I care more? Or should I care less?