‘Consent’ abolishes responsibility of men to behave like gentlemen

OPINION:

Question: If the woman in the photo of Al Franken (where he’s groping her while she sleeps) would have given “consent,” then would this be right and good? If morality is really nothing more than mutual “consent” and Sen. Franken could prove that she said this was okay to do while she lay sleeping, he would have nothing — absolutely nothing — to be “ashamed” of. Right?

Today’s culture of “consent” places all responsibility for moral judgment on women and completely exonerates men to live as cads (as long as they can find women to say they don’t care). “Consent” assumes that men are no longer capable of governing themselves by an immutable standard of what is right and what is wrong.

Morality is no longer fixed but always in flux. Right behavior is not a constant but rather simply a mater of approval. If the woman consents to being groped then it’s right. If she doesn’t then it’s wrong. If she wants to have sex then a man can have at it with fury. All a man needs to do is find a woman — any woman — who will “consent” to his libidinous appetites and what was wrong five minutes ago, now becomes right.

This is a world of no self-evident truths — a world of the created rather than the Creator. It is a world where the exact same actions of Al Franken, Donald Trump and Bill Clinton are deemed moral, if consented to by their prey, but yet abhorrent if not.

Personal culpability for doing the “right thing” regardless of what someone else believes and/or consents to, is never considered. Men are not expected to demonstrate character but rather to just go about the business finding a willing accomplice. Just get her to “consent” and rut about at will. No worries. No guilt. No responsibility. Mutual agreement is the final measure of what is right and what is wrong.

“Being good” is no longer an objective reality but rather a subjective construct that is totally dependent on what someone else says you can or can’t do. Groping a woman is okay if she says it is okay but wrong if she says it’s not.

Staring voyeuristically at her in magazines or on websites is considered harmless recreation but doing the exact same thing through a window blind is deviant and criminal. Celebrating women as objects of recreation on the cover of Sports Illustrated is good, but actually treating them like objects of recreation is bad. Good has become evil and evil has become good.

We have created a nation of moral geldings rather than a nation of gentlemen. No conscience. No internal restraining force. Constantly looking for the next conquest under the cover of “consent,” today’s man seeks only to satiate his libido. After all, there is no reason not to other than the woman who says “no” and it never occurs to him that he might have the human responsibility to not ask her to say “yes” in the first place.

“In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful” — C.S. Lewis

• Everett Piper is president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University.