Photo by Everton Vila on Unsplash
Imagine you’ve just landed from Mars and you picked up a newspaper or created a Twitter account to learn about your new locale. You’d see passing mention of hurricanes, floods, violence, environmental degradation, trade wars and global strife.
Huge as they are, these stories would be eclipsed by roiling accounts of sex gone mad. After a few days here, you’d conclude that our priorities are terribly misplaced, and that something has gone haywire with the human biological and reproductive function, as pleasurable as it may be.
How did something so good become so bad?
Headlines from this week alone decry predatory Catholic priests and their complicit bishops, mega star Bill Cosby in handcuffs, teenage drunk and Supreme Court nominee Kavanaugh and his accusers, and our pussy-grabbing President and his silenced paramours. What disgrace. Every day another #MeToo is given voice, and a new shameful secret emerges from the past, like pollutants from an industry smokestack. And there are others, we know there are others, that have yet to be revealed.
Behind every grotesque act is the first loss of innocence. My college daughter with a DC internship returned one evening to describe an event where a high-ranking former legislator gave her unwanted attentions and placed his hand on her back while a group picture was being taken. A tiny thing? She wept in my arms, and I burned inside. Something precious was stolen and can never be returned.
Sex madness has left jagged scars across generations, gender and race. It has produced all manner of hurt: physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual. It has stabbed lasting wounds from unfaithfulness, lies, betrayal and loss. It has caused nasty legal wranglings, recriminations, lawsuits and divorce. It has produced unwanted babies — or aborted them and led to fights over whether we can terminate any pregnancy we don’t want. It has created guilt-ridden children who suffer the break-up of a home. Sex madness has spawned shame, alienation, loss of potential, self-harm, addiction, suicide. It has ruined, completely ruined, lives, reputations and careers.
Quite a high price for the mighty O. And some distorted view of freedom.
Some are quick to blame men first and only – and they likely have unspeakable ideas in mind for dealing with them. But hopefully those of us with fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons whom we adore will help slow the angry rush to judgment. The entire culture is dangerously sexualized.
Many look to politics and the courts to finger and punish perpetrators and drain the scum ponds from which they arise – think party schools, Hollywood, sports associations, Capitol Hill – anywhere power and money are enthroned, and sex is the price of admission. Let the investigation processes unfold, as ugly as they are. Only truth can set people free, whether they are plaintiffs or defendants.
But if politics is simply the downstream effluent of culture, perhaps a more systemic response (if we can bear it) lies upstream. Returning, as it were, to the lessons from our extended family, schools and places of worship. What would grandmother say?
I imagine mine would sing the old song, “Be careful little eyes what you see…” She’d warn me to watch what I feed my brain, eyes, emotions and imaginations: what shows and movies I watch, what books and posts I read, what words I use, where I surf on the Internet (if she understood that much), what parties I throw, how much wine I drink (my great grandmother was actually Carrie Nation — just kidding), and the mixed messages I am sending her grandchildren. She’d nag me to nurture and preserve my closest relationships, to swallow my hurts, to keep commitments to colleagues, friends, spouse and children. She’d probably tell me to go back to church. What a pest those grandmothers are! Yet the goodness or badness of culture is a reflection of how we live out that golden rule stuff everyday: treating others how we would like to be treated. And that takes training, practice and reinforcement.
Make love not war, the mantra I heard growing up, sounded wonderful. And maybe that’s where we went off the rails. The freedom my generation sought from Ozzie and Harriet wasn’t really about love, but about personal sexual exploration and fulfillment, even at the expense of others. The pursuit of this conception of happiness is the exact opposite of love, which entails respect and kindness. Putting the other’s needs first. Self-denial and sacrifice. Love is ultimately other-oriented or it is not love.
The seeds of the sexual revolution were well watered over the decades by the media, a culture of envy, and our own emptiness and longing for significance. Today we’re seeing quite a thistle harvest. Was this the destination we envisioned? The “me generation” has come full circle. Now it’s #MeToo with a vengeance.
As things spin out of control, we are tempted to take aspirin when we need chemotherapy. Surely we can continue to gratify our desires without hurting others, right? Oh, really? Can we continue to turn a blind eye to a party culture (I am speaking to you UVA) when we know it breeds sexual assault? Can we continue to pretend that signaling “come hither” doesn’t sometimes lead to terrible outcomes? Can we continue to view pornography knowing the destructive brain rewiring that results? Can we keep playing with matches hoping precious things won’t catch fire? We probably can’t have it both ways because sex is no mere human “hook up.” Research tells us it is deeply psychological, with profound implications for human esteem, identity and personhood. And society.
Free sex, I believe we’re learning, is anything but free.
No one wants a reactionary puritanical response, so what to do? Perhaps we start by calling it a night and ending this tragic experiment. Let’s wind the party down, pick up the empties and care for the wounded. Then start the hard work of corralling our wild horses and repairing important fences like friendship, courtship and the bonds of marriage. Yes, bonds. We can turn away our eyes and ears from things that degrade and look for better paths…and maybe find our better selves. There actually are transcendent pleasures to satisfy our souls, not just our bodies. And they can be found when we look for them.
It will be quite a day when the me generation realizes that the thing we truly want, the thing that truly satisfies me – is actually the very thing that is best for you as well. The massive power of such a reckoning – when love is at last properly understood and practiced — would not only transform our lives, but the world.