The libertine epidemic: A guide to social delusions

I was harrowed by the findings of BBC1's Panorama programme under the banner headline of Panorama - Love Hurts. It is perhaps the most ironic programme name I have ever come across.

The programme dealt with the waiting times patients face in the United Kingdom when they make an appointment to visit a sexual health clinic, known as a GUM (genito-urinary medicine clinic). The programme discovered that more than 25 per cent of the UK's GUMs are unable to treat patients needing an urgent appointment within the recommended 48 hours. In fact, in some cases patients could wait weeks before they can be seen, let alone treated.

The stark truth behind these seemingly bland statistics is that these findings have revealed an alarming large-scale epidemic of sexually-transmitted infections (STIs) in the UK. Cases of gonorrhoea and HIV have increased by 100 per cent in the past decade, while cases of syphilis have soared by 1,500 per cent.

Just under 500,000 young people under the age of 25 are infected with chlamydia in Britain, the most common sexually-transmitted infection.

While the programme tried to investigate the inadequacies of the 269 GUMs it contacted, it has, in fact, unwittingly, thrown into the spotlight the devastating effects of the libertine epidemic.

Britain is among the most sexually permissive in the so-called developed world. Britain's young people are perhaps among the most sexually active in Europe, with the UK constantly topping the lists for the highest level of teenage pregnancies. The number of abortions is also staggering.

It was once thought that by divesting society of the shackles of Christian morals, the grip of abstinence, self-discipline, spiritual inhibitions, and by denting the absolute truth with theories of relativism, mankind could evolve into a freer, more agreeable being, with a greater sense of self-satisfaction and a more developed sense of social conscience.

Not only has all this been proven to be codswallop, but we are bearing debilitating social consequences, because, with the so-called sexual revolution, along also came a higher level of sexual degradation, such as paedophilia and an increase in sexual harassment. In addition, we are the reluctant witnesses of a spiral of social decadence and the exposure to the fact that the libertine epidemic was the greatest build-up to the biggest social delusion.

I am talking about hard facts and plain statistics, and not about theories. Since the outbreak of the sexual revolution, we have experienced throughout the world multiple increases in family break-downs, social dysfunctional situations, such as a large number of persons living on their own, a large number of children without families, an increased number of sexually-related crimes, including child sexual abuse, violent and abusive disorders in adolescents, and an increase and candidness in previously abhorrent practices, such as sexual interaction with animals.

A motion was brought up very recently in Scandinavia, promoting a Bill to outlaw all forms of pornography, as it had been conclusively proven that pornography and its use led to a higher probability of the user committing sexually-related crimes and developing abusive tendencies.

You reap what you sow, the saying goes. If one child dies every minute from AIDS around the world, what have we sown? We have sown the seeds of death. By divesting marriage of its sanctity and by surgically dissecting the delicate and intrinsically built social structure, we have woven a discordant web of disassociated theories and illusions, which have led to a total and complete break-down in the communal sense of a caring and responsible society. We are now reaping social fragmentation, a society composed of lonely unsocial persons; we have managed to develop a culture of death, which is self-destructive. We can boast of the highest levels of suicide and self-harm, including widespread drug addiction and alcoholism, in all history of mankind.

In spite of this, the philosophers and deluded "enlightened" thinkers of the libertine revolution totally refuse to acknowledge that the source of society's ills is derived from the rotten seed they have sown. They blame those who advocate abstinence, those who lobby for "a partner for life", they ridicule the Church, and they belittle anyone who applies reason and logic in the face of this decadent social Siberia.

Advocates of sexual morality and responsibility, defenders of the institution of marriage and promoters of the family are reviled and tormented. They are called bigots, homophobes, conformists, extremists, diehards, dogmatists, chauvinists. They call on us to have compassion and to be humane, to be modern and to acquire the ability to tolerate and to find the middle ground.

But has it not been proven that the 100 per cent safeguard against the transmission of STIs is abstinence and the most watertight control of transmitted infections is by having a partner for life?

We shall reap what we sow. If we sow death, we cannot reap life.

Chev. de Giorgio is an active member of a number of voluntary and philanthropic non-profit making organisations. He works for an international British financial services group.