Monday, June 7, 2010

The Lie of Free Love and Safe Sex

"Seeking to 'free' sexual love from its old communal restraints, we have 'freed' it also from its meaning, its responsibility, and its exaltation. And we have made it more dangerous. 'Sexual liberation' is as much a fraud and as great a failure as the 'peaceful atom.' We are now living in a sexual atmosphere so polluted and embittered that women must look on virtually any man as a potential assailant, and a man must look on virtually any woman as a potential accuser. The idea that this situation can be corrected by the courts and the police only compounds the disorder and the danger. And in the midst of this acid rainfall of predation and recrimination, we presume to teach our young people that sex can be made 'safe' - by the use, inevitably, of purchased drugs and devices. What a lie! Sex was never safe, and it is less safe now than it has ever been."

Wendell Berry