Maybe God Was Right About Sex?
On the heels of the sexual misconduct allegations against Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama, a second woman has now come forward to claim that current Senate Democrat Al Franken, who was caught sexually groping another woman in a photograph, of sexual impropriety.
Roger Ailes, Anthony Weiner, and the three Bills – Cosby, Clinton and O'Reilly – are old news as the list of powerful men in America who stand accused or guilty of sexually abusing women continues to grow absurdly large, absurdly fast.
Now we have major media figures like New York Times reporter and outspoken Trump critic Glenn Thrush being suspended after multiple younger women allege that knowing they were aspiring journalists, Thrush used his clout to pressure them into, "groping and kissing and 'hazy sexual encounters that played out under the influence of alcohol.'"
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He's joined by shamed ABC, Bloomberg and MSNBC journalist Mark Halperin, accused by five women of both propositioning them and touching them inappropriately, as well as veteran CBS reporter Charlie Rose, accused by eight women of the same.
In Hollywood the scene is even more depressing. Producer and kingmaker Harvey Weinstein has seen his once indestructible career destroyed over multiple credible counts of sexual coercion and even rape. Director James Toback is facing 238 women accusing him of misconduct. And actor/director Ben Affleck is facing a set of his own sexual misconduct allegations.
And this only scratches the surface, as it turns out that Hollywood isn't exactly the Mecca of moral integrity – shocking news no doubt to anyone who observed this industry raucously applaud Roman Polanski's name after he was forced to flee the country for raping a minor.
But as much as we'd like to pretend this problem is confined strictly to the arrogant elites, the evidence points to the contrary. According to RAINN (Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network), there's an American sexually assaulted every 98 seconds. Every eight minutes that American is a child.
There's also anecdotal evidence like that compiled unintentionally by actress Alyssa Milano. But starting the now viral hashtag #MeToo, Milano encouraged women from around the country and world to shed the stigma and expose the prevalence of this epidemic by acknowledging they too had been the victims of unwanted sexual aggression by pig men.
Some of their stories were just sickening and beyond gross. But reading them was important for me because they prompted some observations that need to be shared as widely as possible if we want to save our increasingly perverse culture from total collapse.
First, it's time we acknowledge that the sexual revolution of the 50s and 60s wasn't such a great idea after all. How logical is it to rightly expect men to respect women while simultaneously championing corrosive pornography as free speech, fornication as free expression, and promiscuity as "free love?"
Second, we must acknowledge that in a culture where the only rule for sex is that it is consensual, the boundaries are going to be aggressively crossed by the powerful.
Third, maybe people who mock men like Vice President Pence for maintaining a strict personal code of conduct when dealing with professional women in order to respect them, his wife, and protect his marriage, are actually part of our problem?
Fourth, perhaps something's wrong when monogamous marriage and modesty are viewed as more scandalous in our society than hook-ups, promiscuity and suggestive innuendo.
Fifth, we should stop romanticizing monsters and recognize that rather than being deserving of a whole research institute named for him at Indiana University, Alfred Kinsey was a perverted child molester who spawned generations of Weinsteins, Cosbys, Pulanskis and Sanduskys.
Sixth, let's admit that rather than freeing us to a liberating sexual expression, this disastrous cultural movement actually shackled us under the weighty consequences of sexual sin.
And finally, maybe it's past time we affirm the timeless truth that sex is actually a powerful intimacy that should be protected by a covenant relationship with public accountability rather than a casually meaningless activity that is traded on the open market between any consenting bodies slaves to their own urges.
The truth is that in order to save our sick society, we are going to have to swallow our pride and admit God's moral guidepost that taught us sex should be confined to monogamous man/woman marriage would have actually made us all safer, healthier and happier if we'd have listened.
