Sex, Life and Work

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                   Sex, Life and Work

By Kenneth Bagnell

       I don’t happen to be a card carrying NDP voter. But I have always been been candid about my admiration and respect for the NDP’s leader in the House of Commons, Thomas Mulcair. His long court room experience shows that, in my view, he may just be the most effective opposition leader of memory: his quick incisive critiques, his flash of cunning wit and other attributes. These make him to me, the most effective opposition leader in my now lengthy memory.  That said, in recent days, he has stood even taller because of another and distinct aspect, as a parliamentarian: his open letter to Prime Minister Harper and Liberal Leader Trudeau. We all know what it’s about so one sentence will suffice to demonstrate his calm, controlled style and substance:

      “I know we are all keenly aware of the responsibility we share in ensuring harassment-free workplaces, both in our workplace here in Ottawa and in the wide variety of places of work across this country, and in showing leadership for addressing this issue in a respectful, effective and lasting manner.” This is his introduction to a proposal he was making to both leaders, Mr. Harper and Mr. Trudeau. He went on to request – offering several objective guidelines – a meeting of three men, Harper, Trudeau, and Mulcair, plus representatives of each party along with staff people of the Speakers office. The meeting’s purpose: “Our hope is to find the most appropriate procedures and policies for the unique environment which is Parliament, which can at the same time, work as a model for other workplaces.”  Liberal MP Dominic Leblanc of New Brunswick, reflected its reception: “What was in Mr. Mulcair’s letter is exactly where we should go.” The House of Commons needs it, but just as much, maybe more, the country needs it.     

      If you doubt the latter, consider but a few revealing statistics, all footnoted and complied by the Canadian Women’s Foundation, headed by a strong board of directors, mostly senior business women and university academics: half of all Canadian women have experienced a form of male violence, a fact from Statistics Canada. Every six days on average, a woman is killed by an intimate partner, a fact compiled by the respected Angus Reid Pollster. In a single year, according to a national survey, 460,000 women reported an incident of sexual assault, again verified by Statistics Canada. Finally, if necessary, Native women, suffer dreadfully more frequent abuse, the rate in Nunavut 13 times higher than the national rate, again from a 2011 Statistics Canada study. That’s enough.

        Years ago, when we were teenagers, it was different – at least somewhat. I remember my nice and pretty girlfriends in high school and how, once I “walked her home,” I got a gentle goodnight kiss. That was it. It was a bit more advanced, but still controlled at university. I went, in the 1950s, to Mount Allison. Back then there was absolutely no drinking; not at Mount A.  None! If there was, and the drinker was caught, his drink was taken and poured down the sink. (Sometimes legend says, the Dean of Men did the deed and the miscreant was made to stand and watch him as he did such.)  As today’s cliche puts it “That was then.”

     In the 1960s, social changes, vast and deep as we all know, swept the broad culture. One book, of a great many books was released at the end of the decade and serves only as one example: Open Marriage, which brought great notoriety to its authors, Nena and George O’Neill, one of their chapters advocating what the title suggests: non-monogamy. While there were many critics, of both the book and the practice, it did, sociologists say, have a lot to do with the acceptance of free and frequent sexual choice. (Many if not most such practitioners were said to be in the creative fields, actors, writers and so on.)  It should be stated that, a few years after it appeared, another came out, in which Nena O’Neill stood by fidelity. But it was too late; the sea change had begun and sexual activity was, for many (by no means most) almost recreational. One recent American poll on infidelity headed its findings: “Infidelity is widespread.” It’s backup: “Current studies indicate that 20 to 40 percent of heterosexual married men and 20 to 25 percent of heterosexual married women will have an extramarital affair….” Maybe.

      But now, beyond all these statistics there’s student drinking – almost by the gallon.. It flows on most university campuses – the exception being at evangelical colleges and convents. Last week, The Globe & Mail’s admirable Focus section ran a lengthy essay by Erin Anderssen, which, to me at least, left almost a sense that some of today’s universities are  awash in alcohol, which obviously aids and abets unplanned, unwanted – and thereby abusive – sexual activity. The article it can be read at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/authors/erin-anderssen   It covers virtually three pages, but one paragraph gives a sense of the often drunken state so many students, females included, when they say yes to an equally stoned male.

      This descriptive passage by Ms. Anderssen reflects activities by two students (both drunk) after their sexual encounter at renowned McGill. The paragraph opens with a reflection by Ms. Anderssen: “Did it constitute sexual assault? The woman says no, it did not. Yes, she was drunk, she acknowledges, but so was he. And she points out that they knew each other well, that they had done it before, and that she hadn’t really protested ……  “I find it really hard to define sexual assault when it involved me….”  And then this which seems hardly to clarify matters: “I should be able to define my experience as I choose.” For what it’s worth I find the student a touch sophomoric and quite self-centred. But that’s the way it is with her at least for now. After all, the broad society we live in, as a senior judge pointed out some years ago, has virtually wide open sexual clubs (my researcher counted over a dozen in Toronto alone), so university students can argue they only mirror aspects of our adult culture. Sad to say. Maybe when they have to meet life’s proverbial payroll, they’ll mature, even if just a little.

     

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All my past blogs are archived on my website: your comments are welcome there: www.kennethbagnell.com.