Has the Sexual Revolution Taken One step Too Far

We have lived through the details of Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s alleged sexual assault on a hotel housekeeper. We are also experiencing the allegations that another French member of government supposedly demanded foot and other “massages” from his female associates.

Now, there is the shameful admission of a US Congressman, who sent lewd photos by Twitter to young women he had never even met.

And how many young female celebrities have had their sexual encounters taped by their partner and then hawked to the highest bidder.

What is common to all of these affairs is that they seem to reflect the recent phenomenon of personal exhibitionism without thought to its consequences. Many are performed using the internet, which offers the cruel promise of anonymity only to renege and leave the person psychologically naked in the spotlight. Others seem to reflect the assumption that somehow power and celebrity are the pass-keys to uninhibited self-indulgence.

The alleged acts are so mundane as to be pitied. The photos are sophomoric attempts to be sexy, when in fact they are ridiculous and embarrassing to the person and to the public.

Are we witnessing the last chapter of the sexual revolution, unleashed in the West by The Pill? Have we finally made it possible for people to so completely separate their sexual acts from their ethic and honor that only self-destruction is possible?

I don’t know the answers to these questions. But, I do know that unbridled self-exhibitionism destroys those performing it, sickens the rest of us who have to watch it unfold on TV, and saddens those of us who wonder what will become of our children.

Something needs to be done. Ethics brought back into schools? Religion taught as a means to self-control and respect for others? Serious tightening of the law relating to what the internet can be used for (a very improbable effort because it is so difficult to monitor)?

A century ago my grandmother was a young woman. One of the songs she sang to herself was “She’s More to be Pitied than Blamed.” It was about a young woman who “lost her virtue” by having sex before marriage. Can we learn something there about the sanctity of sex and the value of a real, lasting man-woman relationship?