NBC’s “Today Show” had a segment on the subject of pre-marital sex, yesterday. According to a statistic cited, fully 90% of all Americans born since 1950 have had sex before marriage. I knew that the percentage was high, and even that it was probably a majority of Americans. I based my estimate on the fact that the country seems to be divided between those with conservative values (i.e. those who voted for President Bush) and those with liberal values (those who voted for Senator Kerry). Though not exclusively so, Conservatives tend to be more religious and Liberals tend to be more secular. I figured their sexual mores were divided more or less along the same lines. But I was wrong. 90 percent?! That includes both segments of our culture. That was a bit of a surprise.
In any case this is not so in the Torah world. Although I know that it happens, it is extremely rare for Orthodox Jews to have pre-marital sex. (Although I am told that in Orthodox “singles” enclaves like the Upper West Side of New York it is on the increase, I believe it is still a tiny minority. At least I hope that’s the case!)
What can be said about this amazing statistic? I think it deserves some analysis. For one thing it shows exactly the kind of world we live in... and that Orthodox Jews of nearly every stripe are not in significant numbers a part of that statistic. And that says a lot about our commitment to Torah values. The phrase “Azoi Vie s’Kristlezach, Yiddletzich” is not a universal truth. It is not true that all values of secular culture creep in to the Torah world. Certainly not these which are so anathematic to the Torah. True some of the negatives of our host culture are absorbed by the Torah world but it has a stopping point. The “buck” stops in a very significant place.
Why does the civilized world which is that of western culture so easily succumb to Taavah?
I think that it is in the nature of the way a free society evolves. In western culture the entertainment industry is a very powerful influence. The attention paid to Hollywood’s products by the vast majority of Americans is far greater than the attention paid to the moral values of their religious teachings, or of morals of their grandparents and great grandparents. Our great grandparents lived in a time that the entertainment industry wasn’t so pervasive... that of the-pre Hollywood era. Our Grandparents lived at a time when entertainment actually had some standards of decency in the pre-sixties Hollywood era.
There has been a defining down of decency in our culture ever since the sixties: the era of the baby boomer. I believe that the natural sexual drives of every human being combined with the following are some of the primary reasons for the moral decay of our culture:
1. There has been little or no moral teachings in the general culture about sexual behavior by parents over the past several decades.
2. The advent of oral-contraceptives has made pre-marital sex consequence free.
3. Hollywood’s depictions of love, romance, and sex has evolved with ever declining standards of decency.
4. Parents who received much of their parenting skills from Dr. Benjamin Spock’s book “Baby and Child Care” misunderstood Dr. Spock’s message of “permissiveness” in parenting: Just let their children do what ever they wanted with little or no discipline. This created a basically self centered... self indulgent type of individual.
5. There has been a relaxed dress code in schools ever since the sixties.
6. Parents and in some cases even grandparents who as “baby boomers” came of age in the sixties, themselves experimented with sex.
How any parent subjected to the above, who may now realize that sexual promiscuity is a bad idea, preach sexual restraint to their children? They can try. They should try. But their own example about moral values speaks louder than their words.
This, it seems to me, is the prescription for what we have today... 90% of all people having premarital sex.
It seems obvious to me that Christianity has failed miserably in teaching their flock. Whether Roman Catholic or Protestant, they have failed to instill sexual mores. Of course there are many Christians who are celibate until marriage. I would bet that they are mostly Evangelical. But that accounts for total of only10% of the entire population!
Not so Orthodox Jews. We have been pretty successful at instilling those values in our children even with all emphasis on sex that permeates every facet of our culture. This is a country obsessed with sex. And Americans are saints! ...compared to Europeans or South Americans. I think this says a lot about the commitment and values of Orthodox Jewry. We live in this kind of world and yet we are able to successfully transmit our values to our children.
The culture we live in also helps to somewhat explain the virtual explosion of sexual perversion that has been plaguing our community of late. Of course this is not the primary reason that we have sexual predators and abusers. But it has to be a contributing factor. Sexual stimuli are all over the place. It is almost impossible not to encounter it, no matter how sheltered we lead our lives.
It filters its way into our world... certainly for those of us who participate in the culture. But even for those who are careful to avoid it, there are billboards, ads on the sides of public busses, newspaper and magazine ads that feature nearly naked women. Just walking down the street on any summer day one will invariably encounter a woman in very immodest dress. Bare female midriffs are almost the norm. Is it any wonder that some weak willed people, stimulated so often, fall prey to their own Taavos?
What can be done about this constant bombardment of sexual stimuli? I don’t know. I do not believe that sheltering is the answer. At best, it is only a short term solution. And it can have disastrous consequences upon our children in some cases when exposure to it comes suddenly and without warning. If unprepared, it can really cause harm leading the curious mind to secretly seek more. But over exposure to the culture most certainly has its victims.
But at least in one sense we have been spared. We are not party to the current trend of pre-marital sex. And that is truly a blessing.
