Higgledy, Piggledy

  Lenina shook her head. "Somehow," she mused,
 "I hadn't been feeling very keen on promiscuity lately.
There are times when one doesn't.
Haven't you found that too, Fanny?" 
 --Brave New World, Aldous Huxley  

Frank McCloud: He wants more, don't you, Rocco?
 Johnny Rocco: Yeah. That's it. More. That's right! I want more!
--Key Largo (1948)
____________________

Pentagon: Reports of Sexual Assaults up by 46%. Are we really surprised?

Combine humans plus power (or lack thereof) plus frustration plus few creative outlets = sex. Since so few of us communicate well or are entirely compassionate or skilled in the art of making love (or are even so motivated), these efforts are often sloppy and flubbed, and depending upon the maturity of the actors and the site at which they occur, the acts get labeled workplace harassment or rape (Reports of Military Sexual Assault Rise Sharply.)

Humans work and recreate, and no one tells us this is a bad thing to do. Recreation for the few is pursuing an avocation; for the many, it is hooking up. So we consume wings and rings and beer and porn, and feel like grown ups. The World State likes it that way. The Army has been rolling that way for a long time (the Pat Tillman's of that world are the exception.)

Telling of our priorities is the initial failure of Jeff Bezos' Amazon as an online bookstore; when he changed his format to the "everything" store, it took off like hotcakes. We want Chinese tchotchkes on-demand, and to be able to consume them, 24/7. Some want to play World of Warcarft (WOW) and any other violent action game or view films, on demand, because that is the world we live in.

The other day I was looking up a song with the lines, "Too many people / and not enough love to share", and while I did not find my tune, Google returned the following as the #1 search result:

"Too Many Niggas, Not Enough Hoes", by the performer Ludacris.

Ludicrous? Most young women I've asked say they don't find these lyrics misogynistic, rather, "It's just how it is." Likewise, it was overwhelmingly my black female students who could not understand why President Clinton or any other man was being skewered for extramarital sex. "It's just how it is." Perhaps a realistic take on their experience, and one might argue, a healthy acceptance of an immutable situation.

Surely we will not re-engineer the human animal, with its complex hormonal interactions. What we can do is to recognize our place in the puzzle and act accordingly. While the Women's Lib movement may have had a noble cause -- equality of the sexes -- that is neither a physical nor an emotional reality. Maybe, it is not even desirable, given our innate ways of relating.

Recent press pieces have asked, "should women get drunk?", in the face of the many sexual assaults that happen to women when they are under the influence. Of course women should be allowed to drink, as well as men, but if you are at a fraternity bash and get trashed, you are easy pickings. You may end up in front of your sorority in a grocery cart with "SLUT" written on your leg. Them's the facts.

It may not be the most elegant treatment of a woman, but we are often inelegant to each other, and the Madonna-whore archetype is going nowhere fast. Most women today reject the Emily Post-style etiquette, but have found nothing to put in its stead.

If we do not get real about capabilities and desires, and wish to act like putting on the same blue or green suit eradicates our essential differences (2 Democrats Split on Tactics to Fight Military Sex Assaults), then we can choose to be shocked by the more negative outcomes, but that is disingenuous and you can count me out.

[Cynical? Wait til you read Ranger's codicil, actually written several months ago. It will go on next.]