The sexual revolution began in 1948 when an unstable and emotionally disturbed, sexually ambivalent zoologist, Alfred Kinsey, began studies on human sexuality with the object of liberalizing any restraints on sexual behaviour. Kinsey used questionable research methods, often focusing on homosexual communities, prostitutes, and sexual criminals as his research subjects. He then used the skewed results to overstate the prevalence of deviant and even criminal sexual behaviour, presenting them as normal. Further, he obtained information about the “sexual responses” of children from criminal interviewees who had been involved sexually with children. From this he declared that children were “sexual beings”. This theory has become the basis of modern sex education programmes.
Kinsey’s flawed studies were advanced as the reason why our traditional understanding of sexuality was wrong and must change. This new approach to sex was inflamed by the development of the contraceptive pill, which allowed women to participate in sexual activity without being concerned about pregnancy. Radical feminists promoted this approach, arguing that finally women could have sex lives as they perceived men did – casually and without emotional attachment. This notion of equality was incorrect, as women and men react differently to sexual activity, in that women, by their nature, find it much more challenging to detach sexuality from intimacy and emotional relationships.
The concept of sexual liberation held that any sexual aberration was normal and healthy. This transformed Western societies from a marriage culture into a relationship culture, where the focus was on sexual satisfaction above love, commitment, and progeny. This understanding of individual freedom has led to a sharp increase in broken families and children born out of wedlock, with a marked decrease in childbirths. This is because modern sexual freedom includes the concept that sex should be child-free, guilt free, and problem free. Should conception occur, abortion should be available as a backup, thus making sex a sterile activity.
Sexual Revolution Is a Process
The sexual revolution can be understood as a process because those who promote it are never satisfied with its present condition. They push the boundaries to the next aberration. We know that a new behaviour will soon be introduced when one stage has reached societal acceptance and has received legal protection. In short, once the sexual revolutionaries achieve one objective, they move seamlessly on to the next one. Abortion, homosexuality, and same-sex marriage are examples of the “progressive” changes in recent years.
Formerly a criminal offence, abortion, which has legal protection, now comes with government funding, and punishment for doctors and nurses who refuse to perform or refer for the procedure. Freedom to marry anyone of any sex becomes a duty for all society to accept. Those who speak against it are scorned and ridiculed. Those in the wedding industry, such as bakers, limousine drivers, and florists are obliged to support same-sex marriage or face severe financial penalties. All these changes are gradual and thrive by wearing down resistance from moral structures, habits, and cultural practices.
Transgenderism – The Current Stage
The present stage of the sexual revolution is the transgender agenda. This phase followed the imposition of same-sex marriage in Canada in 2005. In 2017, the law protecting transgenderism was passed (Bill C-16) by amending the federal Human Rights Act to prohibit discrimination against the transgendered on the basis of gender identity and expression.
The transgender agenda allows people to surgically and chemically attempt to change their sex. Penalties, such as imprisonment, can result for resisting this procedure (see April issue of REALity on Bill C-8, now named Bill C-6, which prohibits conversion therapy).
The Next Stage in the Sexual Revolution
The next stage in the sexual revolution will likely be the legalization of consensual non-monogamous relationships, called “polyamory”. This permits open relationships, making any cohabiting and sexual grouping acceptable. This includes three or more men and women living together, sharing living conditions and sexual intimacy. The polyamorous distinguish their lifestyle from cheating and adultery by claiming it hinges on the “consent” of the parties. Consensual non-monogamy is the emerging civil rights issue today. It demands that relationships be restructured to include “diversity”, which is referred to as “differing relationship structures” that must be given legal protection.
We know that this is the next step in the sexual revolution because:
- In 2019, the American Psychological Association (APA) formed a task force to promote consensual, non-monogamous relationships. It is proposing that such relationships be accorded legally-protected class status. The APA, by setting policy for a “right” to polyamory, is not treating such behaviour as an illness, but rather as a civil right which must be accepted and legally protected. This follows the same process that the APA followed to “liberate” abortion, sexual permissiveness, homosexuality, and the transgender phases of the sexual revolution. Clearly, its goal is to make any sexual grouping mainstream. It is currently developing fact sheets, brochures, reading lists, and therapy recommendations for an aberration that was once considered seriously disordered, but which the APA is now describing as “finding love”. This process will end in shifting the onus from regarding those who participate in these relationships as deviants, to regarding those who are not inclusive enough to accept this behaviour as deviants. In short, the APA is laying the groundwork for the next domino to fall in the long line of dubious civil rights victories secured in recent years.
- An academic foundation is being laid for polyamory in that there are already 600 academic papers published in support of it. This is to create a groundswell of civil rights victories by way of the courts, and to promote it in the media. In effect, this “research” creates a body of scholarship to put before the courts and the public in order to counteract ingrained social attitudes against polyamory.
- The media have already begun to portray polyamory as a natural association, painting it in Norman Rockwell-like, picture-perfect colours. For example, on July 6, 2020, the BBC began a series on polyamory. The series promotes a gentle, loving picture of a polyamorous arrangement of three thirty-somethings living together in contemporary London.
The New York Times, which serves as a sentry for all other newspapers and media outlets in the U.S. has published within the past year a series of articles explicitly endorsing polyamory, claiming that “people should have more options”. No mention appears in the articles of heartbreak, confusion in children’s lives, or the other health and emotional costs associated with such arrangements.
On August 12, 2020, the New York Times published an article claiming society no longer needs the traditional family structure to create children, but will inevitably use “poly-parenting – babies conceived by any number of parent donors of every combination or biological sex by using the process in vitro gametogenesis (IVG)”. It is argued that this will dispense with the centuries-old understanding that procreative unions come only in pairs, but can include parental threesomes and foursomes from across the spectrum of gender identity. - Over a dozen local governments are working on anti-discrimination ordinances to protect “relationship structure” definitions in city by-laws. On June 29, 2020, the city council in Somerville, Massachusetts passed, and the mayor signed, a by-law recognizing domestic partnerships formed not by “two persons” but rather by “people”. This is the first city to recognize polyamorous domestic partnerships. This by-law will result in assisting unmarried couples living together with health insurance coverage, local licensing, health care and other supports.
Children Caught in Polyamory
Lost in the promotion of polyamory is the fact that it is not a stable family structure and increases the risk of abuse, violence, and most importantly, harm for children because of its innate instability. This also leaves children in the midst and care of unrelated adults who do not have the same sensitivity to the child as a natural parent.
We cannot overlook the fact that two individuals living together, such as a husband and wife, have disagreements and dissension over responsibilities and parenting. Imagine how much more challenging an arrangement of three or more adults living together, both physically and sexually, will be? The arrangements also inevitably raise the emotion of jealousy among the sexual partners, leading to anger and abuse.
In January 2012, the journal, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, published a paper entitled “The Puzzle of Monogamous Marriage”. This paper exposed the fact that polygamous relationships have an elevated risk of abuse, neglect, and homicide because members of these households have a lower level of relatedness. In effect, increased child abuse and neglect occur in polygamous homes because some of the adults are not related to the children in the household. Sociologist Bradford Wilcox, in a 2011 article, “Suffer the Little Children” published in the journal Public Discourse explained this problem as follows:
We know that children living with a mother and her boyfriend are eleven times more likely to be sexually, physically, or emotionally abused than children living with their married, biological parents. Likewise, children living with their mother and her boyfriend are six times more likely to be physically, emotionally, or educationally neglected than children living with their married biological parents.
Inevitably, some children born within polyamorous arrangements will ask, “Who is my father?” a question difficult to answer with any certainty in these arrangements. Moreover, even if the child does know who his or her father is, it is traumatic to witness the father being amorous and affectionate with a woman not their mother. It makes for a sad and difficult childhood.