i love morris: Sex throws people's lives off the rails

Wednesday, March 22, 2023

Sex throws people's lives off the rails

Sexual impulses can have such life-changing consequences in a whole assortment of ways. Is sex more trouble than it's worth? Sounds like a question that would be suitable for that New York Mills "great American think-off." Does that still exist?

We're supposed to laugh because why would something as intellectual-sounding as "great American think-off" be associated with a rural Minnesota town? Well, that's how the intelligentsia in our culture sees things.

Peter Schickele in his "PDQ Bach" comedic persona had his "New York Mills Philharmonic." The town has its niche in Minnesota history for producing the first real superstar in girls basketball: Janet Karvonen.

(Schickele also gave us "the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople.)

But what about sex? We don't think enough, I feel, about how base sexual impulses change the course of lives, in many cases ruining lives. So why did God instill in us this curious thing called sexual attraction?

My late mother would say the only purpose of such impulses is to promote procreation. Period and end of thought. So recreational sex is off the table? The kind of sex that Donald Trump sought with the famous porn star just months after his son Barron was born? The kind of sex for which Trump's dazed supporters give a pass, because their man has a divinely-blessed entitlement to power? Such a USA culture we have in the year 2023, n'est-ce pas?

We see it all around us: how sex profoundly affects the course of people's lives. It is in the news so often. Like I was listening to KFGO-Fargo just a couple days ago: a former Fargo South band director developed a "thing" for one of his students. What would make him cross a line, a line that most surely he was aware of, to where his life would be destroyed? Why?

He must have received intense higher education training to become a band teacher at a vital high school. So privileged, his position was. He should have thanked the good Lord for having gotten such training, gotten such a nice appointment. He could have had an exemplary life and career, basked in the satisfaction of it all in retirement.

But no. He felt sexual impulses and headed down a trail of perdition. All the education and training he received is on the scrap heap.

Band directors are very important to yours truly. I was blessed in my high school career in that activity. My interest has been keen ever since. So it is a tragedy that the virtuous endeavor gets a black eye as in Fargo South.

A teacher that cannot control his sexual feelings in an educational environment is a scoundrel. But I also have to wonder: to what extent is sexual misconduct, at least in many cases, due to a compulsion that God instilled in such offenders? I have wondered about this with Bill Cosby and others. Why did General Petraeus choose to engage in the type of dalliance that he did? Did he not know the consequences if caught? People can seem so overwhelmed by a sexual attraction.

These thoughts are relevant when it comes to adultery also. A person chooses to get married at one point in their life. Fine, it's based on love. How could it not be? Some people must have a gene that allows them to become attracted to someone else, to violate marriage. I definitely do not have that gene, would never consider doing such a thing. But it happens with fair frequency.

I absolutely cannot understand this adulterous relationship of T.J. Holmes and Amy Robach from the TV world. You no doubt have heard about it. These are the kind of people that are completely alien to me.

I had the very ugly experience once of working around a notorious adulterous relationship at the old Morris Sun Tribune newspaper. The violating couple ended up so open about it, they announced their intent to get married right in the newspaper. It was on occasion of their leaving the paper. I wonder if their departure was a coincidence.

I was flabbergasted and offended by this. But once this train starts running, I guess you can't stop it. So these two left the paper. They later got divorced.

So maybe I have been wise to avoid amorous relationships completely. Do you think?

Stevens County history includes the Hancock teacher/coach who got in trouble and served prison time. What a coach he was: his Hancock girls basketball team could fill the UMM P.E. Center. A girl testified that she could "feel he had an erection." I don't wish to review any further. The only way I might feel sympathy for the coach is to realize his background of serving in Vietnam. Those poor guys came back with such profound psychological scars. But of course it is not a sufficient excuse.

So let me review in full the story of this former Fargo South band director. This is depressing: from the KFGO website: "A state district judge has sentenced a former Fargo South High School band teacher to 2 1/2 years in prison for having an ongoing sexual relationship with a student."

I'm amused by the word "ongoing." As if a one-time thing would get a pass.

I have asked the question about Bill Cosby: "What kind of sex education did he get when he was growing up?" It can be scandalous when we neglect this kind of instruction, due I guess to "Victorian values." So we allow our boys to just learn stuff from the school playground. And we wonder how they can end up with such aberrant behavior.

Never in my life has anyone sat down with me to discuss sex. Mom sat me down once but went quite afield, as she talked about stuff like bees pollinating flowers. For her to get more "real" would have been too traumatic for her. So she had to hold off, and in the meantime I was "on my own" like a majority of boys in my generation. Just "winging it." Some of us could navigate through the shoals, as I guess I have - I have had no legal consequences for my ignorance - but others have had life-changing bad things happen to them.

Seems like many boys of my generation got married too young. In other words, they acted out of impulse. You might insert "sexual" before "impulse." What's the old saying: sex doesn't last, cooking does." I don't find that funny now, I find it true.

What's to become of this poor Fargo South band director in the rest of his life? All that talent for leading kids in music, which he surely had, and he just crashes and burns because of sexual impulses. He ends up on a scrap heap. So tragic. What kind of sex education did he receive when young?

Some of us just cannot be level-headed when dealing with sex. Is it because of inhibitions? The Victorian values? We are past due in putting all that behind us.