A culture of life begins with virtuous men |
Men raised in late-20th- and early-21st-century America were systematically conditioned to shun the procreative aspect of sex.
The notion of “safe sex”, drilled into the minds of every teenage boy in health class, framed pregnancy not merely as unfortunate, but dangerous. To be a virtuous man no longer meant to fall in love and remain faithful to a single woman for life — that was the mark of a sucker — but to wear condoms with one’s various partners to avoid the apparent tragedy of unwanted pregnancy and the social stigma of venereal disease.
Untold millions of young men transitioned into adulthood without having encountered the traditional model of virtuous masculinity. Movies, television, and music encouraged sexual usury as a mark of manhood — the more women sexually conquered, the greater the man-cred. Male cultural icons of the 1990s dropped the public facade of gentlemanly restraint that had been apparent in previous decades. Where Frank Sinatra projected elegance and courtly charm that gave his well-known appetites a cool air, celebrity men of the ’90s openly bragged about having a multitude of commitment-free sexual partners. Movies directed at young men, such as the American Pie series,........