Thursday, October 13, 2016

"Locker room banter"

I've seen two different reactions to Trump's "locker room banter"

Some male commentators say Trump isn't representative of how men talk to other men about women.

Other male commentators say Trump is representative of how men talk to other men about women.

I think some male commentators are speaking defensively.

A problem with the claim is that I doubt we can generalize. Obviously there are men who talk that way and then there are men who don't. Age can also be a factor. 

An older relative once told me something her husband related to her when he was in the service, during WWII. He said there were two kinds of men in his unit: men who wrote letters to their girlfriends back home every day. Then there were men who spoke in the crudest terms about women.

Implication being: some of the men were devoted to a particular woman. That's what they were hoping to come back to after the war. The other men were horndogs. 

Trump's sexual ethics are just what you'd expect from men without Christian restraint or sanctity. And, traditionally, the Christian faith has been a moderating influence on the general culture, even among unbelievers. 

But, of course, the culture is under assault from secularists. So men are reverting. And not just men. 

BTW, I'm not suggesting that Christian men are immune. In a culture where pornography is just a mouse-click away, I daresay precious few men, inside or outside the church, are untainted. 

1 comment:

  1. I wonder if Joanie would have loved Chachi had she known what he thinks about what's normative. Judge Jeanine seemed to begin to take umbrage, at least with respect to her personal attitude, regarding Scott Baio's sweeping remarks about how women behave over a glass of wine, but she took the discussion in another direction.

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