by Tyler Watts, Ph.D.
Several years ago I was teaching at a small Christian college in a conservative corner of a red southern state. All faculty were required to attend a Title IX training session regarding sex-based discrimination and related policies. I left this odd and frustrating session with a deeper appreciation for the great irony of the sexual revolution: Total sexual freedom, it turns out, has ushered in a tremendously detailed and growing set of official sexual regulations.
Sitting through our briefing about policies covering everything from sexual harassment to sexual assault to homosexual “marriage” to transgenderism to sexual consent, I realized that the “free love” promised by the sexual revolution is just as regulated as were “oppressive” traditional sexual values, with one twist: sex is now governed according to man’s total self-rule, rather than the rules established by God in the beginning.
To understand the new rules, we have to recognize what the sexual revolution is and what it has done. The sexual revolution, briefly stated, represents a sea change in mainstream sexual values that began approximately 50 years ago with its major impulses including: 1) free availability of contraceptives; 2) nationwide codification of no-fault divorce; 3) normalization of extra-marital sex; 4) the “right” to end the life of any unwanted, unborn children; and 5) legalization or normalization of so-called “homosexual marriage.”
The sexual revolution takes sex out of its natural, God-ordained context of a lifetime man-woman commitment, with procreation and family-building as its primary telos (purpose or end), and makes sex all about the self-idolatry of personal fulfillment and sensual pleasure. While this shift must abolish the old rules, it does not eliminate all rules. Because the sexual revolution is based on maximizing individual freedom — particularly free sexual expression — modern western civilization really has only one rule on sex: “Anything goes, as long as there’s consent.”
Consent, then, has become the only sex-ethics imperative of our sexually liberated age. But consent, by itself, is a terrible rule, as evidenced by the horrid “Cornell Seven” case and any number of similar bad sexcapades. I will leave it to others to adjudicate the “he said/she said” (and then she said two years later…) rape allegations. But just so there’s no confusion: I find the Cornell frat bros’ behavior reprehensible and disgusting, but at the same time, given the sexual permissiveness of our time, totally unsurprising in light of original sin, which begets those particular sins of lust, greed and power. It’s quite possible that the frat brothers did not commit a crime per se, but their behavior remains disgusting and terrible, because, as my grandfather might have said, “that’s no way to treat a lady.” Ditto for Jane Doe, whom my grandmother might have admonished “that’s not how a lady should act.”
My siblings and I were privileged and fortunate to be brought up under the old rules, which told us that, since sex was only permissible within the boundaries of man-woman marriage, it went without saying that any other sex was wrong, shameful and not to be tolerated — consensual or otherwise. But as with much of the ancient wisdom, prudence applies and there are degrees of danger and damage: rape is far more abhorrent and does far greater damage than, say, fornication among an otherwise committed unwed couple, and our scorn/ punishment is meted out accordingly. Grace and mercy are also always applicable, but forgiveness and love do not erase the consequences and penalties for one’s actions.
Now back to the faculty training session, where we were briefed on our new policies on all matters sexual, especially that of sexual consent. The federal government had seen fit to force us to adopt such policies. I would argue that these are superfluous at best, and contradictory at worst, because as a small, conservative Christian college, we still adhered to an older, much stricter set of sexual ethics, which is taken quite seriously. Before the sexual revolution, our sexual conduct policy, if required, could have been this simple:
“God’s Word over thousands of years gives us clear instruction: no sex outside of marriage. Marriage is a one man-one woman, exclusive, lifetime commitment. Yet we recognize that sex is a powerful force, and even the best-minded of us face constant temptation — God help us! Those who confess to violations of sexual purity or are found guilty of such will first be instructed to repent of their sin, because nothing is more important to us than proclaiming the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ. Based on the severity of the violation, violators may be subject to disciplinary action — including possible expulsion from the college and referral to the criminal jurisdiction — at the discretion of the administration.”
Post-sexual revolution, while we still held to this basic Biblical sexual ethic, we were forced by law to articulate, in the name of sexual conduct policy, language that essentially states: “We forbid sexual sins, but if you are going to engage in them, “be sure you have consent.”
This reminds me of those “most interesting man in the world” beer commercials: “I usually don’t commit sexual sin, but when I do, I get affirmative, ongoing consent.” I hope the absurdity here is evident: we already have a sexual ethic that outlaws all sexual offenses — both those that only we still see as wrong (such as fornication) and those which even sexually liberated modern culture still detests, albeit with wild inconsistency (such as rape and harassment). Didn’t it go without saying that any form of non-consensual sex is wrong and prohibited? Now, the government came along and forced us to, in effect, contradict ourselves and give a tortured endorsement of the modern imperative: “Anything goes as long as there’s consent.” Forcing a Christian college with traditional values to make sure its students get consent for their sexcapades would be like forcing vegans to promise they’ll eat only grass-fed organic beef — needless, absurd and offensive.
My grandparents’ generation, who came of age before World War II, did not have, nor did they need, complex sexual conduct policies. They had God’s clear law: no sex outside of man-woman marriage. This made sexual ethics simple, and what constituted a sex crime obvious. Did they always adhere to this ethic? Of course not — original sin and all. But when they sinned, those in the ark of the church lived in repentance and forgiveness of sins offered freely by the crucified and risen Christ. The church community both consoled them in their grief over sins — those they committed and those of which they were victims — and supported them in living Godly lives. Most importantly, members of those seemingly stodgy and Puritanical generations led by example: divorce was rare and maximum efforts were made to keep the fiery power of sex safely contained within the hearth of a lifelong man-woman family unit. I pray that those of us who confess Christ may likewise continue under God’s instruction on sexual matters and promote a return to sexual sanity. As the sexual revolution collapses in on itself with the incoherence of consent-only pseudo-morality, let us calmly and steadfastly abide by the ancient, solid, and functional framework.
Tyler Watts, Ph.D., an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation formerly with Ball State University, is professor of economics at Ferris State University.
