Why the Use of Rhetorical Questions Is an Iffier Tactic Than You Think

[dr_pretentious]

It's not that I wish I were still teaching freshman comp. I just wish I could send this stunning example of Rhetoric Gone Wrong back in time to myself, so that I could use it with my undergrads. The kids I teach now are young enough, I can't use an example like this in any way, for any purpose, without stepping on their parents' toes. It's amazing how early the astute kids start using rhetorical questions in their writing.

From this article, I excerpt the following:

Rep. D.J. Bettencourt, a Salem Republican, tried unsuccessfully to bar women under 18 from obtaining the drug without a prescription.

"Would you want your 12-, 13-, 14-, 15-year-old daughters getting emergency contraception as easily as they can get Advil?" he said.

To which the very obvious answer is, yes. Duh. If I had a 12-year-old daughter, and she had occasion to use emergency contraception, I would fervently hope she would be able to get what she needed without delay or hassle. What kind of sadistic, fanatical, idiotic parent would prefer that his 12-year-old daughter carry to term a pregnancy she didn't want?

Open Memorandum to the Hon. Rep. Bettencourt:
When using rhetorical questions, it's advisable to load them with inflammatory modifiers, lest the reader think for herself.

Comments

sorta

[twoeleven.livejournal.com]

lack of contraception does seem to discourage some kids from having sex. according to Teenagers in the United States: Sexual Activity, Contraceptive Use, and Childbearing, 2002

Among teens who had not yet had sex, the main reasons for not yet having had sex was that it was "against religion or morals", followed by "don't want to get (a female) pregnant"

Most teens reported that they would be upset if they got pregnant (or got a partner pregnant).

since contraception is the best way of preventing that (other than abstinence), it would seem that the lack has some effect. probably the bigger reports that this one cites would say so directly.

while not directly related, the same report says, "About 2/3 of teens reported receiving instruction on methods of birth control.".

Re: sorta

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Other problems with Bettencourt's complete comment (for which see article) include:
1) the assumption that premarital sexual activity constitutes, in itself, promiscuity,
2) the assumption that there's anything inherently wrong with premarital sexuality in the first place, such that a reasonable person would wish to make a project of discouraging it,
3) the assumption that children are more sexualized than they have been in other periods of history (a suspect claim, since in other periods of Western history and in many parts of the world now, it was/is common for girls to be married off, like it or not, shortly after menarche), and
4) the assumption that "erasing" the possibility of conception would be equivalent in the mind of the girl to "erasing" the sex act and all of its consequences, as if the entirety of human sexual experience were reducible to reproduction.

It's great news that substantial numbers of adolescents considering their sexual options are thinking about the risk of unintended pregnancy, and that some of them are shaping their behavior in ways that take that risk into account. However, it seems to me that the obvious next step is to supply young people with an abundance of free condoms whether they ask for them or not (to reduce any stigma about asking for them), and other contraceptive options on demand, because consensual sex is A Good Thing. The notion that consensual sex is A Bad Thing is actually a religious assertion, and one that anyone starting from first principles can easily ascertain is incorrect.

sweep, sweep

[twoeleven.livejournal.com]

yeah, but *which* first principles? and how to apply them?

reasoning from, say, notions like "the greatest good for the greatest number" (which i'm fond of), gets you there eventually. but it's not clear that this applies to children, as they're not very good ethical agents.

but istr the stoics -- and i'd guess we'd call them early secular humanists¹ -- viewed sexual desire as an appetite which leads men away from the true virtues. while i don't think stoicism is as powerful as utilitarianism, i do think the world would be a better place if folks practiced the tweleve(?) aurelian virtues (honesty, courage, etc).

1: they believed in a divine force (logos) but there was no need to worship it or expect that it would do anything for you.

so, it's hard to talk about "religion" and "first principles" in such sweeping terms. iirc, marriage rites are believed to be (almost) as old as death, burial, and mourning rituals, which are neolithic. so, since the dawn of time™, people have made some distinction between sexual relations w/in and w/out marriage. and sex does tend to get tied to ideas of the sacred because of sympathetic-magical ideas of purity thru asceticism and self-denial on the one hand, and religious ecstasy on the other.

but... then it becomes a question of which religion. davidic judaism, for example, solved the extra-marital sex question by the expedient of saying that people sleeping together are considered married. and there's some fragmentary evidence that the song of songs is the last surviving piece of a larger body of erotic poetry from the period, suggesting that folks had no objections to chasing their passions. but by the rabbinic period, that all had blown away.

one book i read on the early american colonial period mentioned an interesting custom among the puritans: young men were often paid for a day's work by allowing them to spend the night. not because the puritan elders were blissfully unaware of what they were likely doing with their daughters, but because they figured it gave them a better chance of knowing who was siring their grandchildren. (and giving them some voice in the decision, cause the parents got to hire the fieldhands.) yes, *those* puritans: black clothes, conical hats, and free love. :)

Re: sweep, sweep

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't call that free love. I wouldn't even assume it involved consent. In the scenario you describe, the girl's parents are pimping her out to pay for yardwork to whichever males they like. Okay, my interpretation is a redaction of a redaction, but by law daughters were their fathers' chattel, to be dealt with as their fathers pleased until they were married off and became their husbands' chattel. The literature of the time is full of husbands pimping their wives against the wives' will, with full approval of the law--in colonial cities, it wasn't an infrequent occurrence. This sounds like a minor variation on the same deal.

Re: sorta

[reynaud.livejournal.com]

Actually, I suspect his theory is that "in olden times," there was a lot less premarital sex (since once a woman was married, no matter how soon after menarche, sex was ok). Which, if true, would imply that there is something special about first pregnancies, because once you get to a period when such records are kept, you start to notice that quite a few first children "must" have short pregancies, being born only 6 to 7 months after the wedding.

Re: sorta

[twoeleven.livejournal.com]

yeah, sounds reasonable. i also have the vague memory menarche tended to be later because of poor nutrition.