Non Sequitur. The Post editorially denounces the criticism, by a highly placed Catholic Church official, of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, and irrelevantly attacks the Church for covering up supposed sexual abuse of "young boys and men" by Catholic priests. I guess all those girls and women supposedly abused don't count, to the Post. No, the mindlessly antihomosexual editorial writers of the New York Post level what is to their mind a double condemnation, that the Catholic hierarchy is both sexually abusive and homosexual!
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Let's put aside, for a moment, talk about boys, girls, and women, to talk about sexually abusing men. How do you do that? Men are capable of fending off unwanted advances. I've fended off thousands from men I didn't want. (I've also accepted thousands from men I did want.) It's pretty hard to rape or abuse a man who doesn't want sex with you. Difficult or impossible.
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Men are, for most of our lives, seething masses of sexual desire. All the world's major religions and ethical systems spend a lot of time trying to control that desire and help men channel sexual passions into socially acceptable behavior - with massive failure.
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Despite the best efforts of societies all across the planet to keep men from engaging in homosexual acts, homosexuality occurs everywhere, because it is built into the nature of men. It is impossible for a man to regard men, as such, as disgusting, because that would require him to regard himself as disgusting, and no sane person can function sexually at all if he feels himself disgusting. After all, who would want him? How could he even look for a willing partner? How could he face himself in the mirror? How could he touch himself, much less derive pleasure from that touch?
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So tolerance of the idea of touching men sexually is built into the nature of the male creature. Whether a given man acts upon that potentiality depends in part on upbringing, in part on opportunity, in part on attraction. Heterosexual actors on talk shows often joke that they may like girls, but if Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise or somebody else they find particularly handsome were to offer, they'd be hard-pressed to turn him down. And of course homosexual activity of some sort or other is commonplace in all-male settings like prisons.
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It is precisely because of this reality that the U.S. military is uncomfortable with gay men being in the military, because that would present an opportunity that many mainly heterosexual men would find irresistible, and sexual activities sometimes carry emotional involvements, including jealousies, in train, which can be disruptive to team cohesion. Were that not the case, there would be no grounds whatsoever for excluding gay men from the military, would there?
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So, getting back to the Church and supposed "abuse" of boys and young men by Catholic priests, let's stop being so naive and ridiculous. Boys from about age 13 on are curious about sex, bursting with sexual energy and internal hydraulic pressure, and willing - eager - to experiment. There are many reported cases of "abuse" that went on for YEARS. Years! That's not abuse; that's a relationship.
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Alas, this country is uncomfortable with sexuality, and allows people who give in to lust to disown their own, lust-driven, consensual acts as "rape" or "abuse". Girls who get drunk and yield to temptation later accuse their partner of "date rape" or "taking advantage" of them. No, they got screwed because they wanted to get screwed, and it doesn't matter if they were drunk or emotionally open/vulnerable at the time. They put themselves into that position and took advantage of the situation to get laid, which they very much wanted to do at the time. They must accept their sexual nature; take personal responsibility for their own consensual acts; and not blame anyone else.
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In like fashion, there are thousands of former boys, now grown men, who yielded to homosexual temptation and later decided that, even tho they had fun for YEARS, or did it over and over again rather than stay away from their "abuser", they are magically not responsible for their own consensual behavior driven by sexual lust, so accuse the partner they gladly and happily had sex with of being an "abuser".
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You'd think that sex was the most horrible thing on Earth, like eating slime mold, and we all run away from it, when the truth is that sex is for many the most wonderful thing on Earth, and we spend an awful lot of time, energy, and even money pursuing it.
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There would be no human race if sex were unbearable. In reality, there are 6.4 billion people on Earth, and the population grows by 90 million a year. That's a lot of sex, and doesn't even indicate how much homosexual sex is going on.
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It's time for the Post, and the American people, to accept that sex is pleasurable. Thru most of life, every healthy person wants sex and, when presented with the opportunity by an attractive person, everybody has it. So intrinsic to human nature is sexual desire, indeed, that the absence of sexual desire is, quite properly, regarded as a symptom of physical or mental illness.
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What is not a sign of physical or mental illness, however, is condemning: unprovoked aggression, invading countries that never attacked you, and torturing illegally seized captives to try to extort information they may not even have. The Church is right to condemn the Iraq invasion and abuse of prisoners. The Post is grievously wrong to make excuses for such evils and try to turn aside condemnation with utter irrelevancies.
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Moral condemnation stands on its own. It has nothing to do with the purity or impurity of the person issuing that condemnation. (Responsive to editorial "A Cardinal's Sin", New York Post, May 23, 2004)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 3:32 PM