Porn to Pence, Lust and Lauer

Strange times with all the recent revelations. First, who wanted to believe that about Dr. Huxtable? Unbelievable that was just the start. Statement after statement by women who have been harassed, assaulted and even raped by not just men in power, but lots of men in power!

First off, this just has to be said.  Bravo, Mike Pence. The uproar earlier this year about his rules regarding not eating alone with women who were not his wife, was ridiculous. He was described as being discriminatory against women, and his rules perpetuate disadvantages to women. Hmm . . . protecting his marriage by setting boundaries, what.a.jerk. Keep your modeling of moral courage to yourself, pal.

Good thing Bill O'Reilly, Matt Lauer, and others in recent news didn't burden those they worked with with such antiquated rules.

We pillory those who try to do what is right, and then act surprised when people who observe no such rules behave badly. Cannot have it both ways.

Women have gotten the short end of the stick as far back as Eve getting hoodwinked by the serpent- that is a given. And quite honestly, I am pretty sure men can opine on that about as well as whites can on racism, so I will keep it zipped on both accounts.

While the problem may be bigger than many will believe, some care should be taken here. For example, get this . . . not all accusers are telling the truth! Tucker Carlson recently spoke about his awful experience of being falsely accused by someone he never even met. Accusations equate to convictions for men, especially those who trade on their good name.

So, men are worried too. UCLA professor Kim Elsesser found that, in 2006, 75% of men worried about sexual harassment issues at work, and 30% of her sample had co-workers question them about the true motives behind a cross-gender relationship. How do you think those numbers are in December 2017?

Our society sure wants it both ways. We want boys dressing in girls' locker rooms. We want to take the filters off computers our kids can access at school and at the library. We want to be tough on crime yet we suspect the men in blue. The list goes on.

We want to say a woman should be able to wear what she wants without getting unwanted attention. Well, duh, I agree with that; but that is not the law of the jungle. I suspect Lady Gaga would not wear her meat dress on the Serengeti.

When a woman is wearing anything that my wife would not approve of, I deliberately will not look anywhere in her direction. I don't want anyone to come close to thinking I am leering at women, so if my radar picks up that she is wearing something less or something tight, then I look the other way. Last thing I want is for my kid to think I am checking out some babe in yoga pants at the mall. (As if I go to the mall.)

And we want porn. Lots of it. Just on one site, PornHub, many of us spent over 4.5 billion hours watching porn in 2016. 44,000 visitors every minute of every day visit that site. Porn grosses more in sales than Hollywood, and more money that the NFL, NBA and MBL. Combined. Yay us.

To add some perspective . . .

• 64% of all men in the U.S. view porn monthly. (Same average for Christian men, in case you think religion is moral insurance.)
• 11 is the average age a child first stumbles on to porn.
• The divorce rate doubles for men who use porn, and triples for women who indulge.
• 88% of porn videos contain violence.

There are studies that show that porn shrinks brains, increases violence, and encourages sexual predatory behavior.

No wonder there are so many perverts out there.