Sexual hypocrisy

For the past several months, the television news media appears to have been falling all over itself covering the supposed wild popularity of the "Fifty Shades of Grey" franchise. Morning show co-hosts, both male and female, can't seem to contain their excitement over production of the first "Fifty Shades" movie due out some time next year.

In an era of high sexual perversion, I'm not at all surprised that the kinky, dark side of sex is being exploited, glamourized and sensationalized. However, I do find it surprising that mainstream media is embracing this darker side of popular culture given heightened vigilance society has toward sexual crimes and misconduct.

In a single morning show episode, NBC's "Today Show" co-hosts debated the appropriateness of a Colorado school district suspending a six-year-old boy for kissing a girl on the hand, while excitedly anticipating the upcoming release of the first "Fifty Shades" movie.

How can we say in one breath that what the little boy did was inappropriate, and in the next exclaim how excited we are to see a sexually explicit movie about bondage and domination? It makes absolutely no sense. It is absurd.

We chastize a little boy for committing sexual harassment, simply for kissing a little girl's hand; something that was a show of respect in times gone by. But we turn right around and act like a bunch of giddy school kids awaiting a movie that we want to see because it speaks to our inner desires.

The hypocrisy over the way our culture views sex and sexual expression couldn't be more evident.

We chide people for their public expressions of romance, calling such actions harassment. But we embrace "tolerance" and open-mindedness when it comes to sexual expression in art.

We cheer artistic sexual expression, but we ignore how these messages can get conveyed by viewers, readers and consumers of such. We seem appalled when consumers translate this expression in public.

Really?

Seems to me like a natural consequence.

If we say it's okay to promote alternative sexual lifestyles, but not okay to act them out publicly, where is the rationale in that? If it's okay to promote sex, but not okay to act out sex, what sense does this make?

I agree that acting out sex publicly can be very destructive and should be discouraged. But so should the explicit and implicit messages that our culture sends people through art and expression.

It makes no rational sense at all to condemn an act but embrace the message that can influence an act.

But that's what human culture does. We want it all: The ability to express ourselves without restraint, but then we want the ability to regulate our actions.

Until we recognize that thoughts influence actions, I doubt humanity will ever see its hypocrisy.