I watched my daughter grow up as part of the Monica Lewinsky generation,* and the implications of an entire cohort of young women with tongue studs did not escape me. This older divorcee’s experiencing the fallout and doesn’t like it one bit. She’s in for a shock if she thinks it’s any different outside NYC, though. My advice to her: Adapt or die!
And again I’ll assert that Bill Clinton’s legacy –one for which I genuinely admire him — is that he accelerated the final collapse of sexual mores I’m sure he and Hillary talked about long ago when they were at Berkeley in the sixties along with everyone else back then.
* That is, the generations of women who experienced the Lewinsky story either during their teen or preteen years, or came upon it later, as history.
Coins have two sides. What would a divorced/widowed gentleman do to convince one of these 21st Century women that he wants to be judged on character and intellect, not on money, abs, sexual prowess, etc.
There are a lot of shallow women out there, and plenty of shallow men to date them. Striking out those two parts of the equation, then, what are we left with? Church socials? Computer dates? Personal ads in Craigslist?
That’s part of the flip-side of the whole “liberation” movement. If females are allowed to do whatever they want without shame, then many males will take advantage of the shameless ones and decide they don’t need to put in the time or effort on the higher “cost” relationships. This forces many of the would-be higher class females to play to the lowest common denominator in the competitive marketplace of match-making, at the same time it allows a lot of males to act to their basest nature rather than growing up and acting like a gentleman, or at least a man (as opposed to an overgrown adolescent). One slut can service a lot of guys, and between that, online porn, X-Boxes (et al), and fear of lawsuits and mind-games, a lot of guys have completely checked out of the “committed relationship” availability pool. Not a fun environment for a “committed relationship” sort to be swimming in, and likely bad for the long-term health of a society if it’s too wide-spread, but it’s great for the casual hook-up sorts.