divorce on an epidemic scale is all right; child abandonment by one parent or another is all right; it is regrettable but still pretty much all right if a divorced parent neglects or refuses to pay child support; promiscuity is all right; adultery is all right. Promiscuity among teenagers is pretty much all right, for ‘that’s the way it is’; abortion as a birth control is all right; the prostitution of sex in advertisements and public entertainment is all right. but then, far down the road of freedom we decide that few lines ought to be drawn. child molestation, we wish to say, is not all right, nor is sexual violence, nor is pregnancy among unmarried teenagers. we are also against venereal diseases…trying to draw the line where we are trying to draw it, between carelessness and brutality, is like insisting that falling is flying-until you hit the ground-and then trying to outlaw hitting the ground.
wendell berry in sex, economy, freedom & community
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