‘NOW . . . ANYTHING GOES’

A Website headline says a lot about the current culture in the United States: “Whatever Happened to Private Sex?” Perhaps that could be also be stated as, whatever happened to secretive or secluded behavior?

Homosexuals wish for their passion to become recognized as normal behavior. But they also seek more. They wish to be labeled openly as a legitimate group, something akin to a nationality or race rather than an organization or class. Well, on second thought, none of those classifications seem to fit. Nonetheless, they wish recognition by society.

Heterosexuals need no such recognition because they are part and parcel of societal order.

Something is out of order for individuals to group together mainly because of a propensity to certain behavior practiced only in privacy because it is so personal. Heterosexuals generally are loath to speak of their distinguishing behavior because it is by nature a private act. Thus members of the latter category do not organize solely because of that shared characteristic. Why then should homosexuals coalesce because of private behavior?

Homosexuals go even further. They seek, by government action if necessary, to force heterosexuals to endorse their private behavior as a type or variation of normal behavior. Down through the ages, until recently, such behavior was considered abnormal and even illegal in many jurisdictions.

So, what has changed?

Much of human behavior and misbehavior has come out of the closet since people have stopped blushing about such things involved in what came to be known as the sexual revolution. Public attitudes seemed to begin evolving about a half century ago with Masters and Johnson reporting on their research, the Pill¸ and Playboy. Whispers became open talk. Also appearing about the same time were the Hippies, “Make love, not war,” Haight-Ashbury and bathhouses and AIDS and HIV, open use of marijuana and psychedelic drugs. Now, Cialis sponsors the golf Tour. Viagra is hardly a punch line. Cohabitation among the rich and famous is an accepted norm, in contrast with the time Ingrid Bergman had to leave the United States because of her romantic scandal. Same-sex marriage has become law in a number of states, although it is the subject of a U.S. Supreme Court case.

Wide acceptance of open sexuality seems to have reached the tipping point. Perhaps polling would show more Americans ­– nay, humanity – than not do accept it. Does that make it right? (More and more, polls are citied to back up arguments over right and wrong.) It is to be hoped that morality is not a question of tallied opinion. Better, such an argument should be over what is logical and truthful rather than what squares with public opinion.

Current arguments about same-sex marriage could very well turn out to be the key to the whole sexual revolution outcome. The nature of marriage – its very definition, its purpose – is at the very center of the matter.

Marriage is the recognized union of one man and one woman, often with written contract, to produce offspring that will maintain the species in a civilized manner.

If marriage is only meant to make people feel good, which seems to be the boiled-down reason given through the mass media by some gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans­gendered advocates, then the traditional definition is worth nothing. The twain can never meet. If same-sex marriage were true, then a mutual understanding of marriage in various cultures maintained over the centuries comes to naught. “Anything goes,” as Cole Porter wrote. [In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking. Now, heaven knows, anything goes.]

If anything does go, lascivious life styles will lead, many of us old-timers believe, to further decay of civilization.