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On Campus, Moral Confusion Abounds
When I was in college, an RA invited me to his room to hang out one evening. The visit progressively got creepier, but so gradually that I didn’t leap out of the boiling pot, just like the proverbial frog. Eventually, by which time I was nearly writhing in discomfort and looking for any excuse to leave, the conversation culminated in the RA wanting to demonstrate some masturbation techniques. “How comfortable do you feel with me?” he asked. “Not that comfortable, to be honest,” I replied and quickly left the room despite his protestations. He never laid a hand on me and did nothing to prevent my leaving.
I learned afterward that he was notorious for this type of behavior, going so far as to bust students for drug or alcohol infractions in the dorms, but letting them off the hook if they would report to his room for “counseling.” He really liked baseball players and would often give lengthy massages to the guys in his room. (Rumor has it they often had particularly happy endings.) Of course, almost all this was second-hand, word-of-mouth-type stuff, but my experience certainly made me believe it was at least possible. However, I never reported him. To this day, I have no idea why.
I did, however, tell all my friends, and the story grew into a favorite at parties. I’d recount the conversation detail by nauseating detail in a way that grew more outrageous with each telling, and the audience would roar with laughter each time I told the story. But why didn’t I take it to the Dean? I mean, I’m a bright guy with a thoroughly moral upbringing — raised by strict Christian parents, top of my class, full academic ride … all that jazz. I was a freshman, sure, but I knew how these things work, and I wasn’t intimidated by the school administration. But still … nothing. People were potentially (and I later found out definitely) being hurt by this creep, and for me, it was more useful to use the sordid little affair as a way to boost my social capital around campus.
Solomon reported that “without counsel plans fail; but with many advisers they succeed.” Good advice for adults, I think, but perhaps toxic for young people, especially those immersed in campus culture. I could have gone to one college counselor to talk about what happened and gotten good advice. But instead, I went to many of my college-aged peers and got terrible advice — and the poisonous idea that my story was good for some laughs. But the laughs aside, the general tenor of my peers’ wisdom was that he had been getting away with this for a long time — the administration knew and didn’t care. Stupid, stupid, stupid. But I bought it. And, boy, was it a good story at parties.
Eventually, the RA got caught and wrist-slapped. Nothing legal, just inconvenient. There may have been a speck of wisdom in my peers after all.
To this day, I cannot explain why I essentially did nothing. Why I said nothing. It wasn’t shame. It wasn’t a fear of being called a liar. I can only describe it as moral confusion. I wanted to belong on campus, and immediately accusing a popular RA of sexual harassment seemed like social suicide. And then, when the story got popular, it just reinforced that bad decision. I knew better, but there was a competing interest that pulled me in a different direction.
I’m a high school teacher now. I manage the Fine Arts Program for our county (sort of), teach drama classes, and maintain our Performing Arts Center. I love my job like you wouldn’t believe. If one of my students walked into my office with a story like mine, we would both march down to the main office together to have an emergency meeting with an administrator. It’s a no-brainer. But stories like mine rarely come to my attention. Those that do are serious, and it makes me fear for the things that I do not hear about. The moral confusion that swept me up in college is becoming deep and broad. In fact, I fear it is an abyss that is swallowing up many, many of our young people.
These are real events that I have dealt with in the last year:
Case Number 1
Consider Xander (not his real name). Xander is both black and of … ambiguous sexuality. Xander is creeping out most of my class with his behavior. He stares at people. He stands too close. He touches people (mostly boys) more intimately than is comfortable, even in a drama class. He makes remarks about peoples’ bodies, often to their face. He starts touching people near their groin and leaving his hand resting on their inner thigh as if it were a natural, friendly gesture. In the days before I finally had him removed from my class, I actually heard the following conversation:
- Morally confused student 1: “Xander is making me feel really uncomfortable, but I’m afraid to say anything.”
- Morally confused student 2: “Xander? Oh, that’s just his sexuality.”
- Morally UNconfused teacher (me, butting in): “Creepy and inappropriate is not a “sexuality.”
Case Number 2
Gay student feels entitled to enter girls’ dressing room at any time but without my knowledge or permission. For this particular show, girls are having to make rather complete changes. Student sees no problem with this at all. Student enjoys joshing with the gals while comparing make-up tips and posting Snapchats of himself smacking the girls on the bottom and making comments about their appearance. Some girls hide in the bathroom to change, and are mocked by other girls for being “intolerant” and “prudish.” One girl finally complains to an administrator. Other girls are interviewed. Student is expelled for multiple infractions. Rather than allow her son to be sent to alternative school, student’s mother moves him states away to a more progressive school where girls presumably swallow their discomfort in order to serve the higher calling of progress.
Case Number 3
Biologically male student claims to be “trans.” Says that means he isn’t “a boy or a girl.” Dresses like a boy. Makes no attempt to act female. Makes out regularly with a girl from band. Wants to use the girls’ restroom and changing room. Acts greatly put upon when denied. Is allowed to use a teacher’s unisex bathroom. Treats this like punishment. Was previously sent to alternative school for spying on girls in the bathroom. Is completely supported by a committed subgroup of peers who regularly rail against the intolerance and hate of the school administration for not supporting his trans identity.
Case Number 4
Young female student is in a relationship with another underclassman. The young man is deeply involved in BDSM and includes her in his sexual escapades. She is often hurt by him during their adventures. He talks openly with other students about dominant/submissive behavior. About how he would never hit a girl … in the face. About how it is a lifestyle. Most of the peer group is scared and uncomfortable about this. However, he assures them it is perfectly normal, and who are they to judge what consenting people do? After weeks and weeks of being confronted with this, one student finally goes to the counselor. The young lady is brought in for questioning. She admits nothing and there is no proof. The reporting student is ostracized from her former friend group.
Let’s break down each of the examples. In Case 1 and 3 there is a sexually predatory young person who also exhibits some flavor of homosexual tendency. As such, the behaviors are viewed by their peers through the lens of homosexuality. To portray any of their behaviors as deviant or inappropriate is to risk being a homophobe or hater. Better to suffer their sexual predation than to risk being intolerant. In Case 1, the fact that Xander is black makes students even less likely to report him, lest they are considered racist. In Case 3, there is such a poor understanding of what it means to be transsexual that almost anything is par for the course.
Moral confusion abounds.
In Case 2, although the embarrassed girls actually suffer, the gay student is almost as much a victim. He believes there is nothing wrong with what he is doing and genuinely cannot understand why anyone would have a problem with it. The poor girls who are banished to the bathroom are reluctant to say anything, fearing they will be held up to mockery and scorn for their un-woke ways. The fact that they feel uncomfortable is in itself damning. Everyone loses in this case.
Moral confusion abounds.
In Case 4, we have the mainstreaming of violent, deviant sexual behavior. It’s made acceptable, because, after all, 50 Shades of Grey. The tattling student is intolerant and ignorant. Violent sexual behavior, as long as it is covered by the veil of consent, is yet another thread in the rich tapestry of sexual identity. Could a “consenting” partner actually be an abused and battered young girl with a tragic, psychological inability to leave her abuser? Nonsense! Any such talk is hate speech.
Moral confusion abounds.
There are ways to deal with questions of sexual identity, of propriety, of acceptable behavior. But as of right now, our society and culture have absolutely no consensus on what that looks like. We are appalled at the image of Franken’s hands near the breasts of a sleeping woman, but barely blink at violent and graphic depictions of rape on prime-time television. The swings in sexual mores occurring in our culture right now, from the castigation of Weinstein to the defense of Moore, Thomas, Clinton, Kennedy (and Kennedy and Kennedy), are becoming deadly. They resemble the swings of that terrifying blade in Poe’s story “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and I fear that our children are strapped to the table beneath it.
Published in General
I’m thinking of the Jonathan Edwards one. Oddly enough, we read “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” in my 11th grade American History class. I wonder if kids read it today.
Public schools were always about indoctrination. Initially you had very poor people, often immigrants, often illiterate, who could benefit most from access to education. The early progressive view was to manufacture, like in a factory, model citizens.
Americans over the years grew accustomed to this. The state now has an effective monopoly on education not just from K-12, but higher education as well. The idea of getting an education outside of this system now seems exotic. This made it all too easy to seize control of the culture by controlling education and thus your children’s minds.
The norm should be private schools and home schooling. Post high school education should be dominated by trade and technical schools. Traditional liberal art universities should be uncommon, mostly seminaries, or research institutes.
Case 2 and Case 4 are the toughest because they are the most ambiguous, nothing causes heated disagreement like a marginal case.
Case 2 is easier in that it had a reasonable solution. Just don’t let the gay guy in the girl’s locker room. Don’t kick him out of school, just say sorry you like hanging out with the girls in the locker room, but you’re causing much more harm than any benefit you might gain from it. Just stay out.
Case 4 is the worst because BDSM could just be a cover for abuse. 50 shades or not, if there is true consent, they should be able to do what they want in private. The problem is how impossible it is for outside people to know what is happening, does she profess consent because she’s afraid to lose him or is being otherwise intimidated? As much as there’s a possibility for there to be abuse I think the right answer is to presume there is consent unless there is evidence otherwise. It is, of course, terrible that the girl that is worried was socially sanctioned by her peers…
No, the answer is for the guy involved to stop bragging about it. Some people have always done weird things in the bedroom, but why do they now feel the need to tell us about it and demand our approval?
I knew a couple in college who were involved in BDSM; it was totally consensual, and the woman involved was not a victim in any way. If anything, she was the one egging it on. I know this, because they had an open relationship and she dumped one of my friends when he refused to hit her. She would occasionally talk about BDSM with some of her friends, but she didn’t go around announcing it to the world, and as far as I know, the guy involved never talked about it at all. There were lots of rumors about them, but for a long time I didn’t know whether the rumors were true, and at any rate, they never asked for my opinion, so I never gave it. They never asked for my approval, so I didn’t feel a need to express my disapproval.
Some things should remain private. If you don’t want people in your business, then don’t tell them your business.
I have no desire to be involved in anyone’s personal business, but if I find out about it (BDSM), I reserve the right to speak the truth about it: it’s moral rot, all the way down. There’s probably some psychopathology involved, too, but I don’t feel competent to speak on that.
But, staying silent about such a perversion of (physical) love is how we’ve gotten here. People have supplanted self-sacrificing love with mutual exploitation.
Well, but. :) Even before the sexual revolution, premarital sex wasn’t all that uncommon; I read somewhere the one third of all brides in colonial America were pregnant on their wedding day. If I found out that a couple who were trying to keep things private were engaging in premarital sex, I would look the other way. If I learned about a gay couple who who trying to keep it private, I would keep my mouth shut. I don’t think I could say anything that they haven’t already heard, and if I expressed my disapproval, they would be totally within their rights to point out that they never asked for my approval.
However, when people start bragging about their sexual exploits and demanding my approval, I will not just meekly give it to them. There is a middle way here, but those who demand our approval are making it impossible to take that middle way.
I have found that public schools are usually politically reflective of the community in which they are placed. There is rarely some progressive conspiracy to brainwash our kids, or if there is, it is so dysfunctional as to be little threat. Tertiary school is far more perfidious in pushing agendas. However, in both cases, the main culprits are the teacher and the curriculum. You don’t have to look far to find a teacher with an ax to grind and a captive audience to mold. And you also don’t have to look far to find districts with History and English curriculum that are skewed toward Zinn and away from Homer and Shakespeare. The solution is being active in your school’s district. Hiring decisions and (generally) curriculum choices are made at the district level. College is a trickier nut to crack.
Dewey is scary reading, but I don’t find much evidence of his schemes in practice. The students are far, far more influenced by their peers and internet/media culture than what some dried up pinko is trying to teach them in American History.
Case 3 is the perfect example as to why the biologically male should always go to mens room and biologically female should always go to the womens room.
No matter our best intentions to accommodate the tiny subset of our human population that is the sexually ambiguous/confused/whatever, there will ALWAYS be an even larger subset of the heterosexual male population that will aggressively take advantage of whatever sexually provocative opportunities society makes available to them to be near/be with/see naked women.
Women should never be put in this uncomfortable(dangerous?) position, and I just can’t see how this situation does not open up a can of legal liability WhoopAhrse for whomever owns the property where the restroom(locker room, changing room) is located.
The issue with Case 2 largely hinged on the Social Media postings. If the reporting student had come to me, I would have smacked the gay student on the wrist (metaphorically, of course) and stopped the behavior. Life would have gone on and everybody would have forgotten. But the reporting student went straight to the principal, and there are mandatory sentences for certain infractions. The student would have been able to rejoin the school in January, but his mother probably wanted to move back home anyway, so being able to say that the final straw was how terrible and backwards we hicks are was probably the cherry on the top for her.
The BDSM issue is still troubling to me. Without the recent mainstreaming of that type of behavior, I doubt that many students (remember, we are talking about 15 y.o.s here) would be experimenting with that type of sexual “expression” much less talking about it. Consent is one thing, but these are children. The ability to give consent in a mature way to something so extreme is dubious at best. The potential for it to be a cover for abuse is very high.
We’re on the same page. I don’t want to know what people are doing in private. But, if they’re going to flaunt it and try to insist on my approval (usually accompanied by social shunning for not getting with the times), I’m willing to become a pariah for the sake of the truth.
That’s a good point. I wasn’t really commenting on the bragging aspect of it.
I mean, it is troubling. I wasn’t questioning that. I was just pointing out that it’s hard to do anything about it because of the nature of the situation. Yes, they are “children” to some extent, at least from a legal perspective. More appropriately would be to call them young adults. Perhaps very stupid young adults, but quasi-adults nonetheless.
Get. Your. Kids. Out. Of. Public. School. — that’s the message.
This is the only safe thing you can do until we take back the country from the left.
Don’t ask me no questions, and I won’t tell you no lies. If you want to talk fishin, I guess that’ll be OK.
Actually, I don’t think that is the message. This moral confusion is not coming from the schools. And in many cases, it’s not even being perpetuated by the schools (consider the school’s overreaction to Case 2). It comes from the internet/media. It’s cultural rot being piped directly into our kids’ heads via their smart phones and tv screens. Sure, their peers support and compound it. But it’s happening in private schools too. It’s a societal problem without a clear answer. If there is any solution, I think it rests in the family and church, but even that is not a guarantee. We have a real problem here.
Home schooled kids are what most schoolchildren used to look like. Not any more. The principals and the teachers are all left wing ideologues with no courage to fight at all. My kids in Seattle public schools were told and taught the most appalling lies about Republicans and America. These people are more and more the enemy of the American project and they should be the champions of it.
You are certainly correct that homeschooling is more like what most schoolchildren used to look like. And there were benefits.
There are also benefits to public and private education. Exponentially increased literacy, for one. There are also downsides.
However, I’d refer you to one of my earlier comments in this thread: schools often politically reflect the communities they reside in. It may be that Seattle is the problem, not the public school system.
“Whirl is king, having driven out Zeus.”
— Aristophanes, Clouds
Regarding Case #4 isn’t regular sex in high school awesome enough at that age? The idea of being fifteen and having to do anything weird at all seems extremely odd to me.
What I heard from my sexually-active peers in high school is that, for girls, the sex is what they give in exchange for love and cuddles – in other words, it’s not something many of them inherently enjoy (there are exceptions), but something they wouldn’t do if they could get the love and cuddles by other means. So…
If you’re already not-enjoying sex, why not try BDSM? After all, BDSM has a reputation for making sex “more enjoyable” – and if it doesn’t, maybe it’s not so very much worse than regular sex you don’t enjoy.
My closest friends and I were still virgins at high school graduation. That may have helped us have a particularly cynical view of the transactional nature of sex in high school – but then again, maybe not: after all, our female peers having sex were the ones who informed us of its transactional nature to begin with.
At 15 I would have felt much more comfortable making a life-or-death decision than one involving sex activity (as opposed to inactivity). It would be one thing to live in a society where I was married off in my early teens and the sex were just one more “family chore”. It’s another thing when sex is what I’m expected to be having for its own sake – see my remark in comment 50.
15 is still young enough for girls to not yet have developed a libido. In which case, what’s all this “libidinous” sex you’re supposedly having really about? People-pleasing – learning that your libido isn’t your own but a disposable commodity you pretend to possess in order to keep others happy. Now that’s sexually empowering!
It’s no fun being a teenage boy either, with more libido than you know what to do with and basically no constructive outlet for it.
Or worrying that having such a libido is a “bad thing”, and being quite frankly embarrassed by it.
That is horribly depressing.
The best way to make myself understood sexually in college (there wasn’t a point in even trying in high school) was to say: I want sex on my terms. Those terms are marriage. Got a problem with that?
In other words, this is my kink and you don’t get to mess with it. It worked.