Sunday, February 11, 2018

The sexual revolution devours the young

Between 2012 and 2015, 600 rapes were recorded in UK schools. “Why didn’t you stop when she was crying?” a teacher asked a 14-year-old perpetrator. “It’s normal for girls to cry during sex,” he replied.

Blanche Girouard, basing herself partly on a report published last September in a pithy piece in Standpoint magazine on the sexualised nightmare many schools have become. Don't click on the links if you are of a sensitive disposition.

Girouard argues that we need to see the difference between normal flirtation and violent sexual assault, and that children need to be educated in this difference also. It doesn't sound much to ask, but the 'me too' phenomenon, and the heavy-handed policing of sexism in schools, seems determined to blur the distinction. It is true that flirtation coming from a person with great power over the other party, as has been the case with Weinstein and others, is a serious matter, but it is still different from a violent sexual assault. And the 'me too' hashtag has not been limited to such cases.



If super-sensitivity to imagined sexist slights is not the answer to sexual violence, what is? It is to be hoped that the argument that adults have a right to pornography (or that it imbues them with nice, liberal attitudes) will be worn down by its hideous social cost, but pornography is only part of the picture. Why are children looking at pornography? Yes, it is available, but their access to it speaks of something wrong in the home. Why are they using it as the basis of their relationships? Yes, it has a dark allure, but it is most attractive to children who don't have much else. Boys and girls are both, in their different ways, particularly vulnerable if they don't have fathers in the home. The wider picture is of family breakdown and a collapse of values.

Hashtags cost little, and acheive less. Who wants to campaign to make divorce harder and dis-incentivise single parenthood? It won't make you popular. But unless we start talking about it, this problem is not going away.

See also my posts:
'Sexual abuse of schoolgirls by schoolboys'
'What exactly is wrong with Sex Ed for four-year-olds?'
'Sex education and sexual exploitation'


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4 comments:

  1. I think you are absolutely right that family breakdown and collapsing values have played a role. However, I do think that there is also an issue due to freedom of interaction. When you have male and female students together, it shouldn't come as a surprise that you have complications in general. Rape might be the recent phenomenon. If we weren't speaking about rape, we would very likely be talking about premarital sex.

    So the issue, at least I feel, isn't a matter of consensual sex or lack of dating etiquette on the part of our young. Rather, it is a matter of what our kids are doing trying to date and find potential spouses when they are barely even completing school (and lets face it, we have only watered down our syllabus in the past years). Of course, this sort of interests shouldn't come as a surprise. What else can we expect when we put girls and boys who are raging with hormones together?

    I do think that such mixing has also contributed to what we observe today in the form of breakdown in the family. The average married couple today has already had sexual encounters before marriage. There is also a growing number that has had sexual encounters with those who didn't end up becoming their spouse. Such things do lead to weaker marriages and an increased likelihood of divorce. So the cycle continues in the form of a ever worsening feedback loop.

    So until we address this issue where we are simply putting kids of both sexes together and expect nothing to happen, I don't think we will make much progress.

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  2. I think you are absolutely right that family breakdown and collapsing values have played a role. However, I do think that there is also an issue due to freedom of interaction. When you have male and female students together, it shouldn't come as a surprise that you have complications in general. Rape might be the recent phenomenon. If we weren't speaking about rape, we would very likely be talking about premarital sex.

    So the issue, at least I feel, isn't a matter of consensual sex or lack of dating etiquette on the part of our young. Rather, it is a matter of what our kids are doing trying to date and find potential spouses when they are barely even completing school (and lets face it, we have only watered down our syllabus in the past years). Of course, this sort of interests shouldn't come as a surprise. What else can we expect when we put girls and boys who are raging with hormones together?

    I do think that such mixing has also contributed to what we observe today in the form of breakdown in the family. The average married couple today has already had sexual encounters before marriage. There is also a growing number that has had sexual encounters with those who didn't end up becoming their spouse. Such things do lead to weaker marriages and an increased likelihood of divorce. So the cycle continues in the form of a ever worsening feedback loop.

    So until we address this issue where we are simply putting kids of both sexes together and expect nothing to happen, I don't think we will make much progress.

    Also, I do think that the increased level of interaction between the sexes might also be a factor in the rise of extramarital affairs we see as well.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Absolutely right. I've updated my post to include a link to a post I did about co-ed:

      http://www.lmschairman.org/2013/01/sexual-abuse-of-schoolgirls-by.html

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    2. Thank you so much for the link to that excellent article!! It was from before I started reading this site. I did not know that Pope Pius XI spoke about the issue of co-education till reading it just now. Can't see something like that even considered by our recent Popes. How much the times have changed....

      Delete