American Sexual Dysfunction

My personal blog is often a place to share art, a musical memory or general joy in the world around me that I happen to stumble on. But every once in a while it becomes an outlet for me to share something on a bigger scale. It becomes a personal diary where I put my thoughts into word and circulate them with those around me. It gives me clarity; sort of a journal entry.

With all the current wave of sexual allegations, #MeToo, political resignations, and careers destroyed I have been weighing the conversations. I am by no means choosing sides or battles. My method is usually to survey the larger picture for signs of reason among the raging chaos. Every story has worth. But I do think there is a larger epidemic under the surface that has been prevalent for my entire lifetime.

The concept of a Consenting Adult has always been merely a theory to me. The real dialogue between two people is usually less clear. It starts with dating and exploring sexuality in our teens. Rarely are conversations clear or informed. They mostly whisper around the subject and any exploring happens quietly behind closed doors where actions speak louder than our words. So the idea that two people are navigating and "consenting" is a myth.

My late life dabbling in on-line dating made this very obvious. I was always baffled that the internet made it feasible to say exactly who I was and what I was seeking, but yet it rarely played out that clearly. I can't tell you the number of times I was met with lies, dishonest married men, false profiles, stood-up dates, and awkward sexual encounters among SO many other things. These were not with teen children, but grown men who should have been much better at communicating who and what they were.

Later on while working in mental health & addiction, the whole consenting merry-go-round became even more skewed and was a dysfunctional apocalypse of humanity failing at the simplest of skills; speaking truth. Again, I am not pointing blame. But as a society, Americans are ridiculously inept at this primal rite. There is guilt, shame and a lack of honesty that shrouds all choices. 

So that brings us to the current state. There are witch hunts, accusations and pain that are brought into public forums. When the original conversations should have been much easier ones of a simple yes, no, or "I'm not remotely interested" without any sort of apology needed. These are the discussions we should be having as a society and as individuals. Let's behave like Adults first and then maybe we can broach the subject of Consenting as a sexual being.