What Dating Has Come To

Yesterday, while waiting at the pharmacy for them to fill a prescription for an antibiotic for a bad ear infection, I browsed other products to pass the time. On one of those "endcaps" (displays on the ends of aisles) I saw an array of home test products. Not for pregnancy, but other things like colorectal problems, cholesterol, and a goodly selection of tests for drug use--marijuana, amphetemines, cocaine, etc.

I suppose it's a sign of how far we have progressed from the drug scene of the 60s and 70s that we now have mandatory drug testing in many of our high schools and parents have at their fingertips their own home test units. I have to imagine the conversations that take place between parents and teenagers--and it's not hard, believe me--"If you're not taking drugs then it shouldn't matter if you take the test"; "Why don't you just believe me?"

What really spun me around completely, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since, is one small box marked "Drink Check": "Protect yourself, or your loved one from having illicit drugs slipped into a drink. Drink Check will detect if GHB or Ketamine have been slipped into your drink unknowingly. Do not allow yourself, or someone you love, to become a victim." On the box there is a picture of young man handing a drink to an unsuspecting young woman." (You can see for yourself here.) OK, if you can't trust the person giving you the drink to not be doping you in order to take sexual advantage of you in the first place, why would you want to accept a drink from such a person at all?

I understand that in certain situations a young woman may not be able to trust everyone at a particular "party" and someone unknown to her may be passing around drugged drinks. It's not the sort of place, though, you would want your kids to hang out.

I am still in a state of disbelief over this product, though I can see why it was developed. In such a decadent culture as ours, there will be no end to the bandaids and preventatives and educational efforts required to help protect our children and young adults from the fallout of behavior that should have never been tolerated in the first place. You either have a sexually-liberated society and pay the price in abortion, stds, date rape, etc. or you put sex back where it belongs. If the surrounding society doesn't support the latter, then it's even more of an uphill struggle.

I suppose I should have suspected that this product existed all along. If nothing else, one of the drinks I saw listed in the cocktail menu at a local Irish Pub--one that seems to be a favorite of the young urbanites buying the new lofts and condos not far from us--should have tipped me off. I forget the ingredients of the drink, but they dubbed it "Liquid Panty Removers."

Comments

[salar]

wow. That is kinda shocking. I keep saying no sign of decadence ought to surprise us here at the end of the age. Still does sometimes.

Only a widespread revival could turn this trend around, and so I keep praying!

Susan

[luthien]

Leaving date rape type drugs alone due to inexperience therewith (never having had alcohol outside my parents' home, being underage. Not that I've done other drugs (I haven't), but I have been tested for them) I really don't think that the degeneracy of modern youth is to blame for the home drug tests and mandatory drug testing. Members of the original drug scene generation know what they did as kids and know what a Pandora's box they opened; that's why they can't trust their own children not to do drugs now and suspect even innocent behavior!

[TheLeague]

A friend of mine once lamented that dating is so sad, so awful that a girl should never leave for a date without at leasst $50 in her purse. Just in case 1) he forgets to pay and/or 2) it gets so bad that she needs to make a run for it and catch a cab. It just seems that the more liberated women are supposed to be, the greater the threat dating poses physically and emotionally. My parent's generation was far more confident in their personalities and their sexuality than practically all of my so-called liberated friends.

[Dcn. Michael D. Harmon]

What interested me was the comment "or we put sex back where it belongs." There's a cover article in what a society that did that would look like, and how it might be accomplished. Unless the Lord returns first, we see from history that times of licentiousness bear the seeds of their own destruction. When the collapse is great enough, they are replaced by times of moral strictness. Sadly, the process is sometimes violent (though it was not in Victorian England.) I guess it just depends on how deep the rot has gone. Thesis: Compare European and American attitudes on sex. Compare social health. Compare populations trends. Stir well and serve.

[Joe Long]

With a six-year-old daughter, it is my fervent hope that Neo-Victorianism sweeps the land in the next decade or so.

[Kate B.]

Neo-Victorianism would need to be much healthier than real Victorianism if it is to do any good, in my opinion. The Victorians had rather odd notions of female sexuality (like, it didn't exist) and a thriving porn industry. Neither of those makes for a culture of healthy marriage. Sometimes I think that we (as in, we of the last century or so) became so obsessed with admitting that we were sexual beings, that we went overboard and tried to become nothing but. We need the pendulum to swing back to the middle (sexuality is part of who we are, and there are proper and improper ways to use it) rather than all the way to the other side. In my opinion.