This below raises issues concerning the trend in relationships between the sexes and future formations of families. The Watchdog is no sociologist. But, at 74, he has observed changes in sexual mores over many decades.
Let’s start with the federal study on youths and sex that was widely publicized this past week:
“Study shows more young people are abstaining from sex” REPORTER NEWS: … “A recent study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the percentage of people ages 15 to 24 who have never had sex is increasing….
“But the most recent findings reveal that 27 percent of males and 29 percent of females between the ages of 15 and 24 reported never having any sexual contact with another person. In 2002, about 22 percent of people within the age group reported never having sexual contact…”
Now let’s jump to a comic monologue by Bill Maher from earlier in the season. He joked about how ready access to Internet pornography is causing many of the current generation to become addicted to masturbation. He seemed to depart from flippancy when he pointed out that the more one watches, the less stimulating it is, and thus the need to move on to harder porn, and ultimate extreme kinkiness. No one would expect Maher to be the protector of public values, so the observations were especially startling.
Let’s combine the above with anecdotal reports from three successive generations of college students.
In the Watchdog’s youth, it was presumed that seeking a mate was one of the most important challenges. The females needed a loving husband to provide for them and their children. The males were seeking a life companion, someone to provide a pleasant household, and a good mother for the children. A young man washed the car, dressed up, perhaps brought flowers, and picked up his date to go to dinner and / or a movie. Or, if in college, studied together and often co-habited. There may have been a succession of boyfriends or girlfriends, but the relationships were relatively monogamist.
Then came a generation that went out on dates as a group. This was the heyday of the women liberation movement. Men and women views concerning their roles were changing and women had access to better educational and job opportunities.
Today, serious students are less likely to date. Rather binge drinking takes place at weekend parties, at times resulting in casual promiscuity.
The birth rate among Caucasians in the USA and in Europe has plummeted, far below the level needed to sustain the white population. (In Italy, it is down to almost one half the necessary to maintain the level of population!) Children in general in the USA are as likely as not to be born to unmarried parents, if the father is identified at all. Marriages and couples break up and individuals often remain single for the rest of their lives…many without dating, which is especially true of women who often must help support and provide most of the care for the children. For many, vibrators have replaced partners.
Is this good? Is this bad? All the Watchdog knows is that this is change and it seems particularly ironic that it takes a combination of the Center for Disease Control and the relatively decadent Bill Maher to bring it to our attention.
Good perspective!
Thanks for the prospective. As a father of girls, the trend that troubles me involves how much the women give. When I was dating the guy indeed picked the girl up paid for the date.
Today? I see that the girls are driving their mooching boyfriends. They will stop at Turkey Hill and the girls are pumping and paying for gas, running in a buying muncies while the guys? They sit on their butts in the passenger seat texting their buddies about how they are going to get laid tonight!
So much for women’s lib. My uncle had it correct – “Why buy the cow when you can have the milk for free!”