Sexual Behavior In A Conservative Age–What Ever Happened To Free Love And Sexual Adventure?

Young people today are concerned about identity.  No longer are they only concerned about fundamental values and worth – moral integrity, courage, honor, respect, and compassion – but with more temporal catalogs of being. Race, gender, and ethnicity are increasingly important indicators and ones which threaten the more fundamental and profound aspects of character.  At the same time these temporal choices are bewildering since everything from sexuality to political philosophy is on a spectrum. 

Worse, it considered evasive and politically incorrect either to admit confusion or to claim a traditional fixed position on it.  Admitting to be solely male or female male is retrograde if not ignorant, for according to today’s progressive canon sexual orientation is not a matter of genetics and birth but aware, ‘woke’ identity – a matter of choice and preference not biology. There is not such thing, say modern progressives, as biological determinism.  Society, culture, and one’s economic environment determine all.

For anyone of a certain age, today’s crisis of sexual confidence is perplexing at best.  Boys looked down the sleeveless blouses of young girls, imagined nestling between soft, inviting breasts, and dreamed of sexual intercourse even though they had no idea of what that was or meant.  Sexuality was a matter of instinct and liability.  Boys simply could not help or avoid sexual excitement and girls, without the slightest idea why were attracted to them.



To be sure there were boys and girls of nontraditional sexual interests, but they were too few to notice; and they went about their sexual business quietly or closeted behind closed doors, of little concern to most, and had a marginal impact on a settled social life.  For the most part boys and girls pursued each other, tested each other’s will, determination, and respect; flirted and kissed; parked and sometimes had sex.  It was what went with the territory, within common and acceptable bounds, with flexible margins but ‘Do Not Enter’ signposts.

‘No’ meant ‘Maybe’.  Girls were the arbiters of sexual advances; and then more than now more in control of their sexual destiny.  Girls were taught rectitude, chastity, and propriety; and boys taught temperance and consequences.  Boys were taught to  beware of premature sex not for the girls’ sake but for theirs – an  unwanted pregnancy would ruin a girls life and a boy’s future.



This code of conduct was simple, direct, and unambiguous.  There were no nuances except those presented in the back of the car.  Girls and boys knew what was expected of them but still had to figure out the unexpected sexual twists and turns.  Boys backed off at girls’ insistence or sensed a ‘yes’ behind the ‘no’.  Girls knew when it was time and when it was not; when social norms logically prevailed and when they were irrelevant.  A lot was learned in the back seat, the least of which was sexual behavior. 

Most adolescents emerged from that awkward and trying period with a fuller understanding of will, negotiation, and compromise than they had before.  In short, they grew up.
In today’s world, adolescents are far more controlled, watched, and overseen than ever before.  The Sixties seem never to have happened.  The era of free love – a time of mutual sexual responsibility – never seems to have existed.

In that permissive age, sexual mutuality and parity was achieved.  The prescriptions of church, family, and community mattered little.  Young adults were free to explore, test, and pursue their sexual desires and interests without counsel or punishment.  While young men and women of that generation were concerned with civil and human rights, they were quite content to let sexuality be determined in the bedroom – a matter between man and woman a la D.H. Lawrence, Ibsen, or Strindberg.  All three authors dealt with sexual will, sexual dynamics, and sexual fulfillment but did so only with marginal interest in socially mitigating factors.  Lady Chatterley and Mellors, the gamekeeper, were indeed members of different social classes and such class difference was not absent from their relationship, but their sexual completion was a matter solely of will, character, and very individual personality.



Hedda Gabler, although conditioned by the patriarchal society of late Victorian Europe, was motivated more by Nietzschean will and purpose than social rebellion.  Laura, the heroine of Strindberg’s Miss Julie tamed the valet not because of his inferior social status but because of her strong sexual will. 

Both Victorian sexual hierarchy – dominance and submission within well-defined social constraints – and 20th century sexual abandonment have been dismissed and curtailed.  Today’s young adults run a gamut of social and legal hurdles for even the most casual and introductory sex.  In California where the laws governing sexual behavior are the most strict, a boy must ask a girl’s permission at each step of the sexual way.  What was once a hands-off or go-ahead negotiation ruled by discipline and order is now a matter for the courts.  Sexuality has been legalized, squeezed of its passionate juices, deprived of risk and maturity.

Today’s young men and women are caught between the Scylla of progressive genderism and the Charybdis of secular legalism.  Natural sexual response has been neutered, subjected to higher authority, regulated, and neutered.



ut why? Feminists have insisted that thanks to women’s new sexual awareness, having thrown off the yoke of patriarchy and male privilege. women are more able, more independent, and more sexually strong.  Yet these same feminists continue to argue for increased legal, social, and institutional protection of women.  They are empowered but vulnerable.  They want it both ways.

This sexual imbalance is finally being adjusted.  Men now ask why women’s word should be valued over that of men? What happened to due process? What became of the millennia-old rules of sexual negotiation?  Either women are as independent, determined, and strong as men or they are not.  All of the women in Shakespeare’s Comedies were examples of natural will.  While they had to accept the patriarchal constrictions of society, they found ways to best men at every turn.  The women of his Tragedies were no different, were never intimidated by men, reticent, or wary of their own abilities.  This strength, intelligence, and purposeful will common five hundred years ago seems to have disappeared.

Most savvy men understand that women have not changed; that they still are attracted to virile, confident, pursuant, adventurous, sexual males; and that the age-old rules of sexual engagement still apply.  Nothing has changed from Twelfth Night until now.  And most women despite education promoting the New Age, sensitive man, want just this.

While the progressive community applauds such supportive, attentive, loving men and their respect for the newly emergent female, few women want such men.  Their heads will still be turned by the dominant, uninhibited, unapologetic male pursuer and not the complaisant, deferential, quiet partner.
Men are retrograde, illiberal, and irremediable, feminists say. Men are obsessed with guns, violence, and competition; and are evolutionary throwbacks.  Only women have evolved to a higher state of being; and are the only bulwark against male social anarchy.  Their caring, compassionate, collaborative, and participatory ethos has saved us all.

As paraphrased by Dana Antiochus, Bill Maher, comedian, television celebrity, and social critic believes that:

“The inversion of nature that we have experienced as a culture, and the subversive aspect of flipping traditional roles, with its subsequent destruction of society, serves as a signal that we live in a dying system.  It has led to a pussified, sissy, pathetic, lovey-dovey/touchy-feely country of wimps, who put emotion over logic, feeling over reason, in our nurture-heavy/nature-deprived, culture” (Renegade Tribune)

Christina Hoff Sommers writes about the feminist hijacking of primary education and thus comes closer to Maher in his allegation that feminism’s reach is extensive and pernicious. Sommers argues that the zero tolerance policy – i.e. stifling any suggestion of male aggression in schools – is a wrongheaded attempt to subjugate boys and deny their natural male exuberance.

Across the country, schools are policing and punishing the distinctive, assertive sociability of boys. Many much-loved games have vanished from school playgrounds. At some schools, tug of war has been replaced with “tug of peace.” Since the 1990s, elimination games like dodge ball, red rover and have been under a cloud — too damaging to self-esteem and too violent, say certain experts. Young boys, with few exceptions, love action narratives. These usually involve heroes, bad guys, rescues and shoot-ups. As boys’ play proceeds, plots become more elaborate and the boys more transfixed. When researchers ask boys why they do it, the standard reply is, “Because it’s fun.” (Time Magazine, 9.19.13)

It is no easy task to be a young man in the early 21st century, challenged and defied at every turn for misogyny, sexual abuse, horniness, and indifference.  The very nature of what it means to be male has been questioned, and the feminization of men shows no sings of retreat.

Yet the tide will turn as all tides do; and a more instinctive, laissez-faire attitude towards sex and sexual behavior will return.  This is inevitable because human sexual nature has not changed.  Men and women determined by the same chromosomes, genes, and heredity since the Paleolithic and before will continue to follow the instincts of their prehistoric ancestors until the human genome is reworked and reconfigured.  This current age of social and moral patriarchy facilitated by government and social engineering will not last; and while we may not return to the sexual jungle, we will be more willing to accept the Lawrentian vision of sexuality.

Interbreeding–Lessons From A Hybrid Neanderthal Girl

A remarkable discovery in a Siberian cave is confirming scientists’ belief that more than 50,000 years ago, interbreeding among the ancient human species might have been common.

Leonard Bernstein wrote these unforgettable lyrics in his Broadway show West Side Story:

A boy like that
Who'd kill your brother
Forget that boy
And find another
One of your own kind
Stick to your own kind
A boy like that
Will give you sorrow
You'll meet another boy tomorrow
One of your own kind
Stick to your own kind

“Stick to your own kind” is her refrain. If you don’t, you’re asking for trouble.  Of course Maria does not listen, bad turns to worse, and the final scene is a melodramatic replay of the end of the star-crossed lovers.

We live in an age of diversity and inclusivity where Interracial, inter-ethnic, and inter-cultural relationships are promoted as a sign of woken modernity.  Old, stale notions of privilege are things of the past as are the institutional traditions which embodied and expressed their authority.  This cultural progressivism has influenced education, politics, religion, and the arts.  There is something suspect about received wisdom, Biblical inerrancy, or artistic canons.  Deconstructionism and postmodernism have provided the intellectual basis for social reform.  All texts are equivalent from Joyce and Faulkner to automotive manuals. The idea of individual genius, personal insight, and unique perspective has been discredited.  Only collective, populist wisdom has any salience or relevance.  The Smithsonian Institution is sponsoring a conference on the democratization of portraiture – how the new photographic imagery of social media is the new artistic standard.  Gone should be the formality of Gilbert Stuart, Whistler, or Sargent; to be replaced by instantaneous capture, more reflective of zeitgeist, social dynamics, and era than anything in the past.  The old standards of form, line, color and most importantly individual insight should be set aside.  There is no such thing as ‘art’, say postmodernists, no value in individual artistic enterprise, no worth in classicism.

Yet this hyper-democratic populism has no precedent; and except for those who reject history itself, the lesson is clear.  The aggregation of artistic genius sponsored by aristocratic nobility has been the rule not the exception.  The cultural Renaissance was made possible by the emergence of artistic genius supported by a ruling class confident of its authority, its values, and its responsibility. There would be no Michelangelo, Bernini, or Tiepolo without their wealthy, committed, and inspired patrons.

It made no sense for anyone within this socio-cultural orbit to push the perimeter, to expand perception and consciousness into the people, the peasants, the ruled.  The aristocracy was the locus of practicality and creativity. This ‘inbred’ community of social, political, and economic power enabled the greatest expansion of knowledge,art, and science the world had ever known.  There was no need for inclusivity in the Renaissance.  There was enough well-bred and -nurtured intelligence to go around.  While no empire has ever survived, each successive imperial regime has repeated the successes of the past; and each understood the importance of retaining and preserving intellectual elites.

Of course no empire has ever lasted; and despite the 2000-year reign of the Catholic Church, the 1000-reigns of Rome and the important but less long-lived regimes of Greece, Persepolis, and the Mauryas, they all ended; either corrupted from within or defeated from without, they had had their day.

Nevertheless the culture of exclusivity remained; and while modern societies may have admitted the contributions of the best of those ruled, they remained exclusive. Rule, cultural influence, and longevity depended on the integrity of the ruling class.  ‘Interbreeding’ was tolerated as long as those admitted within the cultural family were worthy.  The Egyptian dynasties did indeed include some talented Nubians, but there were no policies – as there are today - to, ipso facto, accept their general cultural worthiness.  Cultural interbreeding was highly selective; and those to be socially engaged had to prove their own particular and extraordinary extra-cultural worth.

For all the modern hyperbole about final integration, the truly democratic post-modern society, the rule of inclusivity and populism, the fundamental architecture of society will never change.  While American society, now in the throes of progressive, post-modern revolution, will necessarily include a priori those from the ruled rather than the ruling, it will eventually revert to the norm.  While those who rule may be of different race, gender, and ethnicity of the ruling classes that preceded them, they will be no different from them.  Canons, theologies, and governing principles will all be determined by those in power.  Progressive democracy might have expanded the gene pool, but those in charge will always select those who best reflect their interest, purpose, principles, and vision.

Intelligence, ambition, desire, self-interest, and venal purpose have always been the hallmarks of the ruling class; but things have changed. In America rule, power, and authority – the hallmarks of governance and secular authority – have no cultural depth.  We have no Michelangelo. Chartres, or Mohenjo-Daro; no Medieval, Renaissance, or Baroque; no Moliere, Goethe, or Catullus.   We are power unto ourselves.

That is, although American society is changing ; and while the patriarchal, inbred, privileged classism that has characterized it for generations may be a thing of the past, little substantial is in line to replace it.  We are and always have been a culture of process; but laws, litigation, and legal procedure cannot replace fundamental cultural values.  We have no Roncesvalles.  We are not, like the French, the ordained eldest daughter of the Catholic Church, charged with a divine and social responsibility.  We were borne of liberty, but without an enduring  ethos, a true , substantive, cultural center, we are nothing but an uninvited third cousin to cultural history.

Inbreeding – or to use a more appropriate and acceptable term, cultural integration – is a double-edged sword.  It is important for the refreshment of genetics and society. Hermetic, inbred families and cultures alike have failed; but assumptive reliance on cross-cultural reference per se is equally wrong-headed.  There is no absolute value in such such heterogeneity; and regardless of eventual social composition, elites, the privileged, and the authoritarian will always emerge.  Better to let the cultural market determine who is in and who is out rather than to accept an  engineered ‘equality’ and ‘democratic representation’.

The Neanderthals had no choice.  Interbreeding was common because of circumstance.  Better to mate with a half-breed or another breed if such congress made economic sense.  Subsequent generations with more mobility, opportunity, and choice decided differently; but certain givens have remained.  ‘Stick to your own kind’, consolidate strengths, reject ‘the other’ unless he brings value to the cultural table, and rule accordingly.

We in America are culturally afloat – genetically predisposed to cultural preservation and to the principles of cultural elitism; but politically persuaded that multiculturalism offers the best and most promising advance to a better, less polarized world.  What to do?

The rejection of historical cultural values represents an ignorance of history but more importantly a rejection of human nature.  Religious,philosophical,and cultural elitism have been history’s ways of assuring moral solidarity, human cultural supremacy and legitimate social longevity.

Inter-breeding, i.e. radical cultural inclusivity,has no future; and if the truth be known, has never had a past.

Sexual Abuse In The Catholic Church– Is This The Beginning Of The End Of The Church Itself?

The Catholic Church is under increasing attack because of its decades-long tolerance of abusive priests and the cover up of sexual crimes.  Even the most devout Catholics have begun to question their allegiance to an institution which claims to be the holy representative of Christ on earth but which has turned a blind eye to the worst kind of predatory sexual behavior and in so doing lost any semblance of moral authority.



Yet is it so easy to reject a 2000 year old institution founded on sound religious, moral, and philosophical principles; one based on a sophisticated theology, and one which asserts its unbroken line of authority to Peter and Jesus himself?  Why should the institution suffer from the corruption and venality of its bishops and prelates who, after all, are only human? 

Yet ordination is not simply a rite of initiation into a religious corporation; but a rite of apostolic succession and a sacrament.  A priest is not simply an employee but through a sacramental ordination a man of God.   Such an anointment should guarantee goodness; and should have as much spiritual authority as the other sacraments.  If Confession can forgive sins and make a sinner again holy in God’s eyes, then Ordination should have a similar protective or redemptive quality.  If Consecration, another sacrament, can invoke Christ on the altar, then Ordination should confer at least a measure of the same spiritual essence of Christ himself.



Of course none of this is true.  Human nature, even in ordained priests, cannot be denied.  The mantel of spiritual authority conferred by the Vatican and associated with Christ himself is but a ceremonial cloak.  Priests, bishops, and popes have, ever since the founding of the Church, followed very human and venal ends.  The very growth of the church, although supposedly guided by the hand of God, was due to the canny organizational, management, and marketing talents of the Early Church fathers. 

Although the first churches were no more than gatherings in the homes of wealthy individuals facilitated by the first prelates, it quickly grew into a powerful and invincible institutions.  Of course priests could not go about preaching without the supervision and control of higher authorities.  Bishops, then archbishops, and then cardinals were considered necessary as the Church grew in size, geography, and political influence.  The vying for office, privilege, and authority common to secular organizations was found equally in the Church; and along with such competition necessarily came lobbying, corruption, and personal influence.



The Vatican Empire, then, was in all but first principles, no different from any other secular, very human institution.  No priest or pope was ever immune to temptation, the allure of power, or the abuse of it.   If it weren’t for the historical assumption that the Church was indeed holy, the Pope the Vicar of Christ, and the institution a collection of divinely ordained priests, it would have lasted no longer than any other geopolitical empire. 

The Church showed its true secular colors during the reign of Henry VIII.  The Church insisted that prosecution of the clergy no matter what the offense – religious or secular – must be handled by the Church and the Church alone.  This was a definitive statement of primacy and supremacy.  The Church was more important than the King.

Henry refused, the break between the Palace and the Vatican was complete, and the Western religious world was changed forever.  Yet, the Church never changed and continued to defend its superior moral and political authority and does to this day.  If the Church has a problem with its priests, then the Church alone should investigate, adjudicate, prosecute and punish regardless of the secular laws the priests may have broken.



Child abuse, however, is a crime and a sin that cannot be overlooked, ignored, or hidden.  Something is rotten in the Vatican even the most devout Catholics understand, and the rot must be removed. 
The current sex scandals have more far-reaching implications than just internal reform.  They are perhaps the final break between Catholics and the Church.  If ordained priests, bishops, archbishops, and cardinals can act in such antisocial, criminal, and abhorrent ways, then what does this say about ordination?  If the Pope remains hesitant and timorous about acknowledging the problem, facing its obvious causes, and dealing with it, then what does this say about the very nature of the Vicar of Christ? Or the Church itself?

Empires never last and the seeds of their own destruction are usually found within as well as without.  All institutions suffer from an arrogance of power, a sense of invincibility, an automatic closing of ranks, and a hostility towards their accusers.  The longer an institution exists and the longer it exists without major reform, the more resistant to change it becomes.  Corruption is overlooked because of an inerrant belief in the rightness of the institution itself.  In the case of the Catholic Church, it is almost impossible for the Vatican to assume that it as an institution can possibly be in the wrong. 

How can an institution that is divine or at least divinely inspired and divinely protected be in error?
At the same time external forces detrimental to the Church are at play.  Society itself, regardless of its piety, is becoming more secular, more logical, and more critical.  In America the prevailing social relativism insists on the equal value of any group claiming legitimacy.  No institution is beyond reproach – not the Supreme Court, not the Constitution, not capitalism, and certainly not the Church.  These institutions have always had relative value, and if circumstances and environments change, then so must they; and if not, they must disappear.

Since the social revolution of the Sixties, all institutions have been subject to criticism.  Individualism, always a fundamental principle of American democracy, was re-recognized as the most important feature of society; new social collectivities were to replace old, outdated ones, and neo-populism began.  In this new, recalibrated, and reorganized society, secular institutions reflecting new thinking on race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, family, and religion were the new authorities.

Last but not least, Protestant fundamentalism has finally come fully into its own.  While no longer the influential political voice it was a few decades ago, it has fitted nicely with the new individualism.  The relationship between Jesus Christ and the faithful can be personal, intimate, and immediate; and far more than Martin Luther ever expected, essential.



So, can the Catholic Church survive this latest wave of sex scandals?  Can it still stress its divine authority; and while acknowledging the failings of its clergy, insist that as an institution it still is the only way to the everlasting? Or are the secular and the religious now so conflated that separating them can never be possible; and the venal corruption of the clergy never forgiven or forgotten?
It is hard – almost unimaginable given its history - to even think that the Church will openly question its own institutional authority –  to admit that its problems are systemic; to admit that as an institution it may have lost meaning, relevance, legitimacy, and purpose; but only by facing deeper, more fundamental issues. Yet it must. 

Ivan in The Brothers Karamazov says this to his faithful, believing brother Alyosha:

And if the suffering of children goes to make up the sum of suffering needed to buy truth, then I assert beforehand that the whole of truth is not worth such a price. … I’d rather remain with my unrequited suffering and my unquenched indignation, even if I am wrong. … And therefore I hasten to return my ticket. And it is my duty, if only as an honest man, to return it as far ahead of time as possible. Which is what I am doing. It’s not that I don’t accept God, Alyosha, I just most respectfully return him the ticket.

Ivan cannot continue to believe in God or Jesus Christ because of Christ’s acceptance of children’s suffering.   Ivan admitted to Alyosha that he might even accept the idea of adult suffering as way of ritual, spiritual purification – a necessary, difficult way to approach God – but how could the Almighty possibly have created a world of suffering for innocent, sin-free children?



The Catholic Church by condoning, ignoring, covering up the unconscionable act of child sexual abuse by its clergy has collectively committed the worst possible sin.  Christ asked that the children come to him and be blessed; yet his ordained have ignored that blessing of innocence, betrayed it, and committed evil.

This is not a venial sin, one that can be easily forgiven and atoned for.  Even after atonement the Church must determine how – if at all – it can regain the trust and faith of its followers.

It does not seem credible or possible; and this crisis might well signal the beginning of the end of the Catholic Church.