Situational Sexual Ethics

1.  When I worked for state government in Tennessee, all employees were required to attend sexual harrassment training.  Among other things, we were required to watch a video showing possible scenarios of harrassment.  One video showed two men sitting in a break room.  In walks a woman in a skirt that was tight and short.  The first man, Jim, smiles at the woman and tells her that her skirt sure looks good!  She appears to ignore his comment and leaves the room.

The second man, Bob waits until the woman has left, then tells Jim that his comment was inappropriate. Jim replies that if the woman did not want comments like this, she needs to wear more modest clothes.

The narrator then asks us, which man is right? After which we are told that Bob is right, that Jim had no right to comment on her clothes; that women had the right to freely express themselves without fear of unwanted comments from men!

Flash forward a few years:

2. A popular new TV show features an extended family of grandparents, parents and grandchildren.  One of the grandchildren is played by a 10 year-old girl. In several episodes the girl is required to respond to, or speak, sexual humor.  In one sketch she experiences she kisses a boy, then talks about it to her grandpa that that was her first kiss. In another episode she says something her brother doesn't like.  Her brother, played by a twenty-two year old man, responds to her, "At least I don't stuff my bra!"

This show is by no means unique.  On another show whose plots are exclusively about abusers and their prey, a boy who is portrayed as a teenage sex slave, talks of, when he is subdued, gives in, gets down on his knees and services one man after another.

Mandy Patinkin, who was the original star of the show Criminal Minds, left the show because he felt the show gratuitously, episode after episode, displayed sexual and physical violence.

My best friend Brad used to say, "What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander."