My usual TV programming before falling asleep is invariably something on the Food channel - something benign and entertaining, that does not require much concentration, just a background drone of recipes to lull me to sleep. That, until last night. While flipping through the channels, I came upon a gentleman who was evidently lecturing an unseen audience. I don't know why I lingered as he spoke about how casually young women nowadays engage in sexual relationships, claiming that they "don't mean anything," and that they don't "get emotionally involved," claiming that "It's just sex, it's no big deal." The gentleman argued that sex is a big deal, and should be a big deal, and that giving it casually away is a mark of fear on the part of women. Fear? Here is the reasoning. Sex, especially casual sex with no responsibilities, no "feelings," no promises is what young men most want. By yielding to that urge, a young woman is avoiding rejection, thinking that the young man is not likely to reject sex. But in so doing, what she is accomplishing is to build a very thick wall around herself; she is not revealing her inner soul, her tastes, her values, her various interests, her personality -- all she is accomplishing is giving away that which she thinks the young man wants and will not reject. She is, therefore, avoiding rejection. But the rejection she is avoiding is the shallow kind. Casual sex, the hookup that "doesn't mean anything," is nothing more inspired than what the lower animals do. With the difference that the lower animals only engage in it to reproduce; and humans engage in it for fun.
True, it is fun. It is pleasurable, and it should be. But it is so much more than simply an exchange of bodily fluids that "doesn't mean anything."
The man lecturing was an elder in the Catholic Church. Who knew?
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