Sexual Desensitisation and The Death of Public Morality

A friend sent me a few pictures of participants in the recent Batabano “sexibration,” as I am now compelled to refer to it, and out of his grief at the level of public debauchery that was celebrated he suggested that this imported affront to public morality is a greater threat to Cayman that the issue of same-sex marriage. (Frankly, I am reluctant to forward those pictures electronically for fear of being accused of trafficking in pornography.)

I share my friend’s grief at this government approved and supported celebration of moral decadence, but was minded to respond to him that it is not a matter of either or in terms of whether we oppose same-sex marriage or this imported live pornographic display that is supposedly “Caymanian.” Both these expressions have their roots in the same issue, which is the over-sexualisation of our culture and the concomitant death of public morality.

When human sexuality is viewed primarily as a source of physical pleasure, and is treated virtually on the same level as any bodily function, the logical progression is to remove it from the category of morality and transfer it to the elevated category of rights. Objections, then, from such persons as my friend or me are quickly classified as hate speech, which has much greater resonance with those who gyrate and simulate sexual acts in public that the now antiquated accusation of “prudes.”

Are there no laws governing standards of public decency and morality? Are we to complain, on the one hand, about cruise ship tourists parading through town in bikinis, while not only permitting but celebrating the level of public near-nudity and sexual simulation that is the hallmark of Batabano? Perhaps we need to refrain from referring to the Cayman Islands as “a Christian nation” after all—not because we are not a nation, but because a great majority of those who inhabit these three rocks are not just post-Christian, but anti-Christian.

Finally, how can we expect that our children will be less sexually permissive, will not video and circulate their friends participating in sexual acts on our school compounds, and will refrain from risky sexual behaviour when our best attended public function is a monumental celebration of sexual excesses?