Modern Morality .

by jhine 48 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  DJS

  Jhine,

  Re: the sexualization of young children - Ditto times a thousand. It is disturbing. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of it is a lot of it is coming from the mothers. That's another OP, but I would certainly like to hear from the women on this forum about this. I see so many little girls, pre-teens and barely teens who are encouraged to dress like hookers, by their moms. ???? I do not understand this. They will be grown up, once grown, for the rest of their lives; they are only children once. Why are so many moms sexualizing their daughters?? New OP?
• 

  Pistoff

  Jhine:

  Do you have any statistics for this 'sky is falling' view?

  Is there an upside to more public knowledge of sex, and discussion of sex openly?

  What has affected families more, pornography that is viewed in private or that more families might never eat a meal together?

  You said:

  "It is the impact of our anything goes sexually attitude on family life that I am curious about."

  Who has that attitude? Most married people I know don't have that attitude; they are married because they believe in commitment, and they make reasonable attempts to shield children from inappropriate sexual material.

  Marriages fail for a variety of reasons, including sexual imcompatibility, but it seems hard to believe that they fail because one of the partners just all of a sudden decides that 'anything goes' sexually.

  Our children have grown up in the current more open atmosphere about sex; they don't know anything different.

  We grew up in a more repressed atmosphere, for better or worse, but to reach the conclusion that a mythical 'anything goes' attitude is causing mass failures of marriages has no basis.
• 

  keyser soze

  I don't think that we are better off as a society

  We no longer condone slavery or mass genocide or instilling fear and superstition to enforce a rigid moral code. Yes we are better off.
• 

  Fencing

  As I recall, there have been some studies into why everyone always thinks the past was better than the present, when it is absolutely, 100% demonstrably false. Think about it: You can meet someone who lived through massive world wars, people dying the streets from easily-preventable diseases, women being treated as little more than property, black people being lynched for the color of their skin - and they will still somehow think yesteryear was better than today and that society is going downhill. The Society preys on this thinking very effectively.

  The reason, is our brains don't like to dwell on the negative, and we whitewash a lot of our memories, filtering out a lot of the bad and focusing instead on the good. So, we idealize our past and remember it how we wanted it to be, not how it actually was.
• 

  jhine

  Pisstoff , more and more couples are choosing to cohabit , since 2001 the number of couples who live together has risen from 2.1 million to 2.9 million . Now as I said I am not making this into a debate about marriage ( though people keep coming back to this ) but about stable family life inot out of marriage . Another statistic I found was that now 45% of children born are to couples who cohabit , and the fact seems to be that they are more likely to split .

  this from a Government's state of the Nation report May 2010 -

  " Around three million children have experienced the separation of their parents . THIS IS PARTLY DUE TO THE RISE IN COHABITATION , GIVEN THE INCREASED LIKLIHOOD OF THE BREAKING UP OF COHABITING COUPLES "

  capitals mine .

  It also seems as if the myth of living together before marriage helps you to stay together is not right . This is from an article in the Daily Mail -

  "Several studies show that couples who live together before marrying are more likely to split after marriage than those who don't are are more dissatified in the marriage "

  It isn't just that though that I wanted to get people's opinion on . The sexualisation of younger and younger children , which does seem to be something that strikes a chord with people .

  I just have to look at the children at my grandaughter's school (5-11 yr olds ) and the way many dress even within the boundaries of a uniform , and how many are from one parent homes , not necessarily connected before anyone has heart failure , to see the difference in society from "the olden days " .

  I have not looked at the rates of sexually transmitted diseases in teenagers , again though I think getting younger . I know that in pharmacies around our town are free Chlamydia testing kits with signs asking if young people would like to self test !!! I'm sorry, but it cannot be good that the need is felt for such measures .

  Maybe I am harping back to the good old days , but I think that Phizzie's point about the rise in me-ism in general and the decline of a sense of social responsiblity of individuals is not so good either .

  Jan
• 

  Vidiot

  jhine - "It also seems as if the myth of living together before marriage helps you to stay together is not right."

  Funny; I've never heard of that "myth".

  And IMO, it's a red herring, anyway; couples don't "live together before marriage" because they think it'll help them "stay together".

  In all the cases I've known, they moved in together to - in part - see if thay can stand living together in the first place.
• 

  Bugbear

  40 years ago, when I was 26, I attended a number of weddings between teenagers 16-19 years of age. Several of the couples had to apply for special license, to marry, since the law in northern Europe didn´t permit that young couple to marry. You must be at least 18 years in this area of the world. The obvious reason for these couples to marry fast, was sexual frustration! They were JW,s and was not allowed to masturbate nor to have “boy or girl friends”. 9 months after their “marriage” there was a child borne. 2-3 years later, these couples were all separated. None of these families are still in “the truth”. I know still some of these children that that never had the “love feelings” from their parents that every child has the right to expect.

  In some cultures or “civilization” it is still “morally accepted” that girls are “given away” to older men at the age of 10-12 .

  The sexuality of men and woman, forces us to do things that we know are “morally” bad. This according to what we have learned from our childhood. But the moral standard varies from place to place. I think that the WTBS standard causes more problem both for men and woman and children. To be open minded and openly discuss our sexuality and behavior will improve that men, women, and children will understand this strange mechanism that arouses from our hormones and obviously are a very essential part of both animals and humans.

  Bugbear
• 

  Vidiot

  Phizzy - "This springs from the Judeo-Christian view of women as basically just chattels."

  Or, more accurately, the Biblical view...

  ...reread all the Biblical proscriptions regarding sex in the context of property ownership rather than morality, and it becomes pretty obvious.

  x

  Of course, one could take that line of reasoning and eventually conclude that since - in this day and age - we don't view other human beings as property, those Biblical sexual proscriptions might no longer apply...

  ...but since people are all inherently shitty and have no self-control or sense of propriety, you run the risk of the entire world quickly degenerating into a giant, heaving mass of sweating, slippery bodies.

  x

  Can't have that, now.
• 

  Pistoff

  jhine:

  "Pistoff , more and more couples are choosing to cohabit , since 2001 the number of couples who live together has risen from 2.1 million to 2.9 million . Now as I said I am not making this into a debate about marriage ( though people keep coming back to this ) but about stable family life inot out of marriage . Another statistic I found was that now 45% of children born are to couples who cohabit , and the fact seems to be that they are more likely to split .

  this from a Government's state of the Nation report May 2010 -

  " Around three million children have experienced the separation of their parents . THIS IS PARTLY DUE TO THE RISE IN COHABITATION , GIVEN THE INCREASED LIKLIHOOD OF THE BREAKING UP OF COHABITING COUPLES "

  Is there evidence of harm to the children from their parents splitting up?

  Was part of the harm to children of divorced parents due to their feeling like the exception rather than the norm?

  I grant that this is different, but is it necessarily bad?

  The OP just seems to be hand wringing.
• 

  jgnat

  So how can we tell if family life is deteriorating? Divorce rates is one measure. The analysis here in Canada is that divorce is down because couples are taking longer to marry. Mature couples, stable marriages. How else might we measure family health? I am serious here. What measures would you like to use? Crime rates are down. Infant mortality is down. Teen pregnancy is down.