courage or foolishness?

I'm not sure whether I'm more insulted as a male, or as a human, but Caitlin Flanagan's book-review-cum-op-ed on abortion works on both counts in the April 2007 issue of Atlantic Monthly. But her piece actually spends more words insulting women. A particular quote sticks in my brain as an epic oxymoronic fallacy: "how they [women] got the courage to have sex." Calling it courageous to have unprotected/out-of-wedlock sex strikes me about as bizarre as would praise of street-drug users or graffitti "artists." And oddly, now that I ponder it, perhaps it resonates the same animalistic/naturalistic view of humanity in which we are described as merely a set of uncontrollable urges with "needs" that "must" be met.

Completely missing in the article is any sense of right or wrong. Her world is one without a moral compass, so no wonder her sense of "courage" is meaningless. Without morality to inform risky choices, I see only lucky or unlucky. A moral vacuum leaves no way to describe courage or heroism. Perhaps the class of people most insulted by Flanagan's article is those totally un-mentioned: the chaste. As a person who consciously decided to exercise self-control before marriage, I find it demeaning to be accused of being a mere "bicycle-ride away" from hapless humping.