The news continues to be depressing. Currently, amidst the slog that is Trump, health and environmental warnings, and the Royals beginning their long generational slide into the abyss, we have a huge sexual harassment scandal in which a high-ranking Hollywood executive has lost his power and influence after decades of terrible behavior. The fallout is that scores of other spotlighted people are being dragged through this...Kevin Spacey propositioned a teenager many years ago, Andy Dick licks people, and George Bush the senior acts like a dirty old man. It's sad, really, even though hopefully the public shaming will hopefully people putting a stop to terrible behavior. As a dad, I pray that my daughter will never have to go through what many women through the ages have endured.
Yet I can't help think that this is yet another story in which the chickens have come home to roost. Men have always behaved badly, I suppose...in the Bible Xerxes gets his XXX rating by plowing through a whole generation of women looking for a replacement wife, and things haven't gotten much better in the years since Celebrities and powerbrokers have always gotten away with bad behavior...how many of the legendary Wilt Chamberlain's 20,000 supposed lays were not consensual? Heck, we have a sitting president who made some of his reputation as horny business mogul who would brag about grabbing a woman's 'p****' when she was not expecting it or walking in on teenagers getting dressed in beauty pageants. Sexuality has been glorified as the right of the powerful, and now with western equality being our god, everyone else as well. With glorification, abuse will soon follow on its heels.
As always, we want all the pleasures of sexuality without any of its drawbacks. Will we continue to celebrate all the glories of our modern sexual freedom and then continue to be so surprised when this freedom is so badly abused? Something's gotta give.
