Posted on 08/11/2014 2:01:36 AM PDT by markomalley
I’ve pondered with you before on this blog (HERE) of the disappearance of something we used to call “dating” wherein a young man would summon the courage to ask a young lady out to dinner, perhaps to the movies. He would do something called getting “dressed up,” and go to the young woman’s house, often meet her parents, take her out for the evening, and return her home at a respectable hour.
Dating was something that one did beginning in late high school or in college. Youth too young to date were often encouraged by adults to meet one another, and so the adults often sponsored dances and other social activities for young men and women to meet, learn to dance, and interact socially. All this was in service of something we used to call “Marriage” a term which over the past 50 years has lost any real meaning in the general culture. It used to mean (and still does in the Church) the lifelong stable union of one man and one woman for the purposes of having family and raising children. Today it really means little more in the general culture than two (and soon to be or more) adults consorting for as long as they please for whatever purposes they please until it makes them happier to no longer do so.
With the demise of marriage, also came the demise of dating, which existed to serve marriage and provide opportunities for younger men and women to meet and eventually marry.
As I pondered the disappearance of dating with you some months back I was surprised at the the sad, and sometimes bitter or cynical remarks that came in the comments box. Clearly there is a significant undercurrent of bitterness, cynicism, and a lack of trust between the sexes. So many younger men wrote in with great anger at times of how they were treated by younger women who seem to see them as predators and has somehow beneath them. Many younger women also confirmed by describing men as immature and not interested in anything but sex. The overall climate seems to be deeply imbued with a poisonous cynicism and even open hostility between the sexes.
In a certain sense we see today an age of lost innocence. Gone are the days of idealistic young men and women venturing out to find a spouse, excited at the prospect of marriage, family, and future. Now, because of divorce rates unimaginable 50 years ago, idealism is been replaced by cynicism. And with the explosion of easily accessible pornography, sexual innocence is lost very very early and almost no young person these days thinks ahead to a blissful wedding night and their first experiences of sexual intimacy there.
Yes, it is an age of lost innocence. The word “innocence” is from the Latin in- “not” + nocens, harmful or noxious. Thus in being “innocent,” or seeing someone as innocent, we presume they mean no harm. But in cynical and jaded times like these, fewer and fewer people presume innocence on the part of anyone. A young man can barely make recognition of a woman’s beauty let alone tell her she’s beautiful without being suspected of predatory sexual advances. He might even get sued or lose his job if he does in the workplace. Woman cannot be even subtly flirtatious without fearing significant pressure to go very far very fast with someone she might just like to get to know, and take it slow.
Almost no one presumes innocence anymore, and to do so is scoffed at as naïve. So cynical and jaded have we become that we even scoff at the notion that there ever was an innocent time when men and women generally observed chastity, and within those safer boundaries, were able to speak more freely of their interest in one another and relate at more subtle levels than all or nothing sex.
The loss of innocence and the rise of cynicism have rendered the relationships between men and women hostile, fearful, and fraught with negotiations and posturing.
To be fair, men snd women have struggled to get along well going all the way back to the book of Genesis. Many women are in fact very different; we think differently, often have different priorities, and we behave rather differently. But holy matrimony had traditionally been an important way that we bridged the wide gap between men and women, getting them to focus on a shared vision of family and children. The differences might well remain, but with the same goal, those differences could become a diversity that added strength to the shared work of family.
In terms of continuing the discussion on the disappearance of dating and the tension between the sexes, I’d like to share the insights of Anthony Esolen. Who has some very poignant observations. I’d like to excerpt a few of them here and encourage you to buy the book, Defending Marriage: Twelve Arguments for Sanity which is one of the finest analyses of the current situation of the demise of marriage that I have read.
Throughout the book, Esolen (who is a Professor of English at Providence College), gives many examples of poetry and art from the last thousand years which emphasized romance, beauty and love which sought union in marriage and having a family. He goes on to write:
But this tradition is in its death rattle…. Why should we have expected otherwise? When men and women [since the sexual revolution of the late 60s] are taught to use other people as objects of sexual excitement… As if they were toys or robots, do we really expect that they should all at once see the beauty and the nobility of the other sex? …Today popular musicians do not sing lyrically about a woman’s beauty or man’s courage. Instead they whine and grunt like animals….and have almost nothing kind to say to one another….
The sexual revolution is essentially a lonely one… The sexual revolution isolates. The man says to himself, “I will have this woman now, because it is convenient, but I’ll make sure she doesn’t press things further.” The woman says to herself, “I’ll let this man have his way, because he’s weak and I can manipulate him” Each one says, “We must make sure that no third person [i.e. a baby] intrudes upon this arrangement”… And if that third person does intrude, he may well be dispatched with cold steel…and his remains be deposited in a bag labeled “biohazard.”
[Young people] also see you world it is vile at every turn – one in which, even before puberty, most children will have poured over things which people of past generations not only had not seen, but could not have imagined, for their squalor and perversity. [It is] a horrible world in which children are precocious and adults childish and selfish. This is the world of the sexual revolution. [Young people] see it… And feel powerless to do anything about it. So the corruption spreads….
Boys now in high school and college do not ask girls out for dates. They can’t. There’s no “language” for them to use… If he says, “I’d like to take you to a movie,” what does that imply? In a more innocent time, it meant that he’d take the girl to a movie, and he might be brave enough to put an arm around her shoulder, or even steal a kiss. In a more innocent time, the kiss itself would be a delight. To walk home with the girl he likes best, holding her hand, would thrill him to the core of his being. A blushing kiss at the front door might’ve been the stuff of dreams; sweeter by far than anything that the bored addict can glean from a hundred pages of body parts.
The bad language has driven out the good. So the boy…dare not kiss her with any passion or hold her hand or give her a warm embrace. All those actions have now lost their old meanings, and have become mere preludes to sexual congress. Therefore we hardly ever see them. Boys do not give girls flowers, or write poems for them. They do not court them. Girls do not present themselves to be courted. If they tease boys, it isn’t [seen] as innocent flirtation. [Things] that were supposed to bring people together, have wrought mass alienation. The evidence is there for all to see, or rather not to see… I do not see boys and girls flirting in a childlike way, or kissing, or holding hands, or bowling at the alley, or dressing up for one another, or giving valentines to one another. At Yale, Valentine’s Day is “celebrated” by “Sex Week,’ complete with the sale of sex toys and “how-to” presentations by prostitutes. [A certain play which I won't mention by name on this blog] features spoiled and corrupted college women who cry out for their independence from predatory males by shouting the vulgar name for their private parts. Anger, resentment, self-promotion, immodesty, cruelty, callousness, perversion; try now asking that girl over there what her name is and whether she go with you to the ice cream social.The whole of the sexual revolution has been a colossal failure and has brought untold human misery. (Excerpts from Chapter 4)
A powerful analysis, and one I have found more an more in my discussions with younger adults today. Even those who do not want to adopt these attitudes, find them so pervasive that they do not know how to break out of a stifling and lonely system and find love again. I am in the perplexing position of knowing many remarkably beautiful women, whom in my dating years I’d have asked in a minute for a date, who are almost never asked on a date. Many young women today are also, frankly, not all that interested in marriage or family. They have careers etc and live in a culture that no longer looks askance at having children with marriage. So who needs men?…At least as husbands. Or so the thinking in the wider culture goes.
Our culture has gotten very sick very quickly and the sexual revolution, along with radical feminism, have been the poisons that we swallowed.
Esolen makes the following observation about culture:
No culture is perfect – far from it. But all healthy cultures reward virtue and punish vice, encourage what is noble and beautiful and discourage what is base and tawdry, promote liberty, and restrain license. [Every young man] must now dwell in a perverse anti-culture in which his attempt to practice the demanding virtue of purity meets less than approval. It meets snorts of disdain and ridicule. In a healthy culture he would not be alone, and it would not be hard for him to meet a young lady of similar mind. Married men and women, in a healthy culture, would take upon themselves the cheerful task of bringing such boys and girls together in those innocent and lively pastimes that are the seedbed of sexual attraction and love; in dances and concerts, and parties attended by everyone from toddlers to grandparents hobbling on their canes. (p. 54)
Again, all so true. And we in the Church have also gotten out of the work of uniting the next generation. We have to do better.
Msgr Pope ping
This entire article is full of truths. But there are good women out there. If you spend 2 years on someone and they reject you, it’s them. If they truly love you, then there is no exception they would make for you. It shouldn’t leave you a broken shell, it should leave you happy that you got rid of someone who would make you miserable, and there is time still left for you to find the right one. She’s out there, I am sure of that.
Bm
Even worse I find that young men detest the young women who are so loose and who have no natural grace or shame. Everything about young men says to women give me your body but keep away from me in any other aspect of life. The lack of respect that is earned from being easy lets men treat women like hoes and bitches rather than precious gifts from God and women see men as providers of their shopping desires and lifestyles. Men must have great bodies and big wallets or they are tossed to one side. There seems to be no requirement to be a decent person - one you can respect and admire!
I just finished up with English class for the summer. A young girl was in my class. I would say less than 21 years old. I didn’t really talk to her a whole lot for the semester, but we started talking more the last few classes. From our few conversations, I found out she is a young, single mom who lives with her mom. Her daughter is a baby. A boyfriend unceremoniously just left her to go back with his ex. Baby’s daddy is a “whole different story.” She told me she’s never going to get married...she wants to be a cat lady. I knew what she was saying was from a broken heart. Even everyday, average modern girls still desire and crave romance and to be treated right.
Anyway, she said she wanted to stay in touch with me. Her little sister is the same age as my daughter and she talked about getting together sometime. So I read this article, then went to Facebook. I looked her up and “friended” her just now. I found this on her Facebook page, posted at the end of July:
“Maybe a cute relationship where we post cute pictures, stay up all night talking on the phone, tell each other our biggest fears, our dreams and our future together.....maybe someday.....”
It really can be a sad, lonely place out there.
bump for later
It goes back even further to the Mary Tyler Moore Show. I always thought that my sister believed that a handsome new guy would show up every week with a bouquet of roses for her.
Then, decades later, I heard MTM herself say that the reason for her break-up with Grant Tinker was that she compared her "boring" home life with the exciting life of her character on the show.
Despite MTM’s character of Mary Richards having girl-next-door good looks and being single, I always found her character rather boring and asexual. Considering her status, she didn’t date that much and seemed kind of disinterested in the opposite sex at times. She wasn’t confident and was rather quirky. I enjoyed the character and show, but the character was an odd one to me. Now Rhoda on the other hand, was very fun and real. I would have been friends with Mary Richards, too, but Rhoda always seemed like she would have been a good, loyal bud and been someone to have good laugh with.
After two very frustrating and unsatisfying marriages, at 60 years old I finally met and was privileged to win the heart of an extraordinary perfect angel of a woman who turned out to be my absolute soul-mate and the love of my life. She died of breast cancer two and a half years later.
Ping!
I’m so happy you got to meet her Maceman, but so sad for you regarding the short time you had to spend with her.
Did you see this story from last summer about former front man of Journey, Steve Perry? As with your story, I was very touched by it:
Steve Perry reveals the love of his lifetime, his battle with cancer and explains his run-in with Martha Quinn
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/80s/steve-perry-reveals-the-love-of-his-lifetime-and-explains-his-run-in-with/2125435
I don’t understand the connotation(s) of “innocence” if something other than “innocence” can be perceived as guilt unless you’re talking about criminal sexual conduct, rape, etc. or child molestation, etc., especially the latter.
“...Anger, resentment, self-promotion, immodesty, cruelty, callousness, perversion...”
This is all one sees on US TV, movies, commercials, US entertainment of music videos and game shows...I just finished watching a South Korean show - Roommates - it’s amazing how complete strangers in the Pop Entertainment culture over there treat one another and their fans...completely opposite of the US side...
When 1 series promotes Christian values and family (Duck Dynasty) - Hollywood goes through the roof! Just 1, not many...
Kinda like the Israeli conflict — the Middle East is owned by Moslems - but that little piece of land is causing so much turmoil...as if the Jews are responsible for this...confusing isn’t it?
When and IF my daughter dates before 18 but definitely after 16 - the boy will meet me - and there will be guidance - and if he doesn’t like it - then to hell with him and his pathetic parents for not raising him honorably!
Before he left for his summer camp job, my 17-year-old son was undergoing an interview process with the parents of a girl he would like to take out for a coffee. He’d made it through a dinner with her parents. However, he hasn’t mentioned her since he got back, so maybe she met someone else who wasn’t away all summer.
If he gets a haircut, I’ll know it’s because this potential relationship is back on!
haircut....yes,,,
I had a young teen (14-15yrs old) babysitter - family member through my wife - come over and watch my kids -especially my 3 yr old son at the time...so her friends would come over at times with her and they spent the day with the kids...I would sit and talk to them every once in awhile at the kitchen table about school and possible dates, the reply back was astounding...boys could not and did not know how to approach them to ask for dates to the school dances, did not know how to just sit and talk to the girls in class, did nothing in the way one would expect in pre-courting...so the girls (as I was told) either hooked up with each other or were engaging older men (which is right down scary) looking for a relationship...they also explained that the few boys 0 like under ten - that did have manners, could talk, and treat a girl with respect - HAD a girlfriend...this society of our will fall apart if this continues...oh, they also said that if they went over to a boys house as a group (boys & girls) the boys sat around and played video games - never acknowledging the girls at all...I was like...WOW!~
The whole concept of dating gets absolutely no help from explicit sex ed classes.
I was talking to a woman who is raising her grandson. Her daughter another irresponsible 30 something did not marry the father. I am not even sure she ever knew who the father was. She was raised in a christian home and her parents are still married to each other.
Any how, they sued for custody and brought the boy to their home in another state. He was maybe 7 or 8 at the time. The woman said they had to teach the boy how to be a boy. He was unable to relate to his grandfather. He was always around women.
Boys were never good at talking to girls they like. That was part of the charm of it. The blushing and babbling was endearing. I feel sorry for the young people. Some of the crap that sends me into orbit about them, is really not their fault.
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