A Proto-Objectivist Argument for Lifelong Monogamy?
by Luke Setzer
Context-Setting Preface:
In August 1988, while still involved with the Baptists and the Lutherans and before my exposure to Ayn Rand the following month, I found myself groping for -- gasp! -- objective evidence to corroborate the Judeo-Christian ethics hammered at me. This article, published in the college newspaper under the title "Sexual Revolution Leaves Teenagers without Morals, with Children," resulted from my research into that subject. Surprisingly, it generated no "Letters to the Editor" from either the hedonist or puritanical camp.
After the article hit print, one of my parents noted that I neglected to include the invention of the birth control pill as a major contributor to the Sexual Revolution.
In retrospect, I can see that I already had an intuitive grasp of the concept of individual human life as the root of value. However, this argument amounts to a consequentialist viewpoint rather than a genuinely rational egoist viewpoint. I post the article here for discussion.
In the years following World War II, American prosperity and productivity thrived, and parents of this era wished to give to their forthcoming "baby boom" generation all the material wants of life that they never had. The standard of living rose, and Americans enjoyed a comfortable living never before experienced.
The urbanization and mobilization of the American worker, which began with the Industrial Revolution of the previous century, grew at a relentless pace. The new material lifestyles coexisted with new social lifestyles. Women's rights and other demands for social equality again entered the spotlight of the political arena, and the authoritarian viewpoints on issues such as sexual morality were brought into serious question.
During the turbulent 1960s, great upheavals overthrew or seriously shook many of America's previously accepted norms. For many Americans, and particularly the young and impressionable, the spreading belief in moral relativism, the view of man as a mere animal and the increased anti-establishment attitudes served as a license to rebel against the "puritanical" American morals. More and more people justified all forms of sex as a way of "self-expression" and "individualism." Premarital sex, extramarital sex, group sex, homosexuality and even bestiality grew in acceptance. The traditional view on the absolute and even divine correctness of sex and childbirth only within marriage eroded.
Many viewed sex as a form of recreation to be carried on between "consenting adults." Others advocated "free love," stating that as long as two people loved each other, a sexual relationship was morally justified. Twenty years after the adolescence of the "Great Sexual Revolution," a sobering look at its tragic by-products demands attention.
"Among modern teenagers, sex with affection has widespread acceptance," writes Gavin Hart in his 1977 analysis Sexual Maladjustment and Disease. "Many individuals even use sex as a form of social expression in the absence of an affectionate relationship [and consider this] as their right. A week or two of abstinence ... is viewed as a considerable hardship. Idleness contributes to promiscuity and venereal disease."
Stephen J. Bender reiterates this in his 1971 Venereal Disease (VD) manual. "That promiscuity plays the largest role in the spread of VD is no secret. ...Many young people today are more than ever inclined to 'do their thing' in a carefree, uninhibited fashion. ...Believe it or not, venereal disease strikes a teenager every minute."
Again, Theodore Rosebury points out in 1971's Microbes and Morals that VD "is increased as sexual intercourse increases in the population, with promiscuity an essential factor in the process." He quotes Drs. Guthe and Idsoe of the World Health Organization's VD division, who state that some of the prime reasons for "the rising world trend in incidence of early syphilis and of gonorrhea [are] ... psychological and social changes, permissive male and female patterns in sexual life and new attitudes to prostitution and homosexuality."
In the area of teenage pregnancy, the National Research Council write this in its extensive 1987 research report, Risking the Future: Adolescent Sexuality, Pregnancy, and Childbirth: "[M]ore than one million teenage girls in the United States become pregnant each year, just over 400,000 teenagers obtain abortions, and nearly 470,000 give birth. The majority of these births are to unmarried mothers, nearly half of whom have not reached their eighteenth birthday." The Council cites that "young people who are hardly more than children themselves become parents ... primarily due to a lack of individual responsibility, maturity, knowledge and values." Worse yet, "for teenage parents and their children, prospects for a healthy and independent life are significantly reduced."
The greatest tragedy of the Sexual Revolution has emerged in the 1980s. A 1986 Newsweek article reports that "by 1991, an estimated five million Americans may be carrying the AIDS virus. ...AIDS is [no longer] a disease of homosexuals or intravenous drug users alone: it threatens millions of sexually active Americans regardless of age, gender, race or place of residence." The article quotes Dr. Harvey Fineberg, dean of the Harvard School of Public Health: "It is incumbent upon all of us to make a frontal assault on the sexual revolution. What was once a matter of morality is today quite simply a matter of life and death."
In modern American society, the Sexual Revolution has brought radical and permissive changes in the media of entertainment. Casual sex and suggestiveness now ooze from American televisions, movie theaters, plays and music. The importance of sex as part of a "fulfilling" lifestyle is grossly over-emphasized, as is the treatment of sex as a need rather than a want.
But the evidence already shows that these attitudes lead many down the path to sorrow and misery. Again and again, the monogamous and lifelong marital relationship between one man and one woman is proven to be the most effective lifestyle in the conquest of teenage pregnancy, venereal disease and now AIDS. The failure of the Sexual Revolution lies in its failure to acknowledge these statements as fact, and in its continual encouragement of people to think and make decisions with non-cerebral parts of their anatomies.
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