My rant, above, isn't necessarily focused on personal sexua| interests. What I'm concerned about is a downward spiral of the human moral compass and lack of personal accountability that is apparently running rampant. From excess flatulence to menses leakage, our culture lays it all out on the line. Not one thing is sacred, anymore.

With this failure to hold ourselves to a higher standard comes an "acceptance" of any and every form of abuse imaginable. If a woman OR man is assaulted and raped, they are responsible for their victimization. If a human being is systematically abused, they are at fault for "...not leaving...," regardless of the tremendous data, information, and knowledge of the dynamics of abuse. If one human being defrauds another of their personal finances, it is the fault of the victim for "not knowing" that they were being defrauded.

We see this in news reports, on a daily basis. Doing the "right thing" is no longer a noble effort. The young man who assisted Law Enforcement to locate and identify the Stubenville rapists is facing a HARSHER sentence for "hacking" than the actual criminals who committed the crimes received. Snowden........he "blew the whistle" on the Verizon scandal where hundreds of thousands of customers' records were MONITORED without their knowledge or consent. "Doing the right thing" is no longer an aspiration.

Of the thousands of people that I have met throughout my lifetime, a greater percentage of them were, at some point, victimized by a human predator. From random violent crimes to entering into a legal, binding contract of marriage, to being defrauded by a religious leader, I've heard it all. Rarely do these victims ever experience closure or "justice."

Even with all of the information and knowledge that we have amassed with the explosion of technology and "enlightenment," we are not progressing as a society or culture. We are just as bigoted as we ever were. We exploit sex more than any other modern culture. We continue to blame victims and excuse criminals, especially if there is a "label" available to refer to. We still do not hold our elected officials accountable for misdeeds. And, "greed" and "envy" are being marketed as desirable and acceptable qualities through media programming and marketing (Kardashians, Teen Moms, Dance Moms, Jersey Shore, etc.).

Our children have become so dumbed-down that they cannot recall their own phone numbers without consulting a technological device. They cannot communicate - truly "commune" - with their fellow human beings on any level because interactions are now conducted in text messages. They are no longer being "raised" to be productive and contributing members of society - they are, instead, given every whim from gaming consoles to iPhones and cut themselves because the only thing that they are able to "feel" is physical pain. Parents of these children are warehousing them as ornaments to be trotted out when it's convenient, and cloistering them with technology to raise them when it isn't. Anti-bullying campaigns are teaching children that they are powerless and have no individual recourse to physically defend themselves against predatory peers without being labeled as "violent."

The only "heroes" that we have, today, are multi-million-dollar sports figures. How and why is any sports figure deserving of such salaries when medical researchers who spend their sleepless nights searching for answers, treatments, and cures that will benefit mankind earn a fraction of the obscene 29 million dollar annual salary of Alex Rodriguez? Why is this true and why do we, as a culture, tolerate, accept, and even encourage this inequity?

The whole point of my rant was that we are not evolving, one iota. We are still rewarding gladiators and "bad" behaviors with salary, celebrity, notoriety, and undue attention. The society of understanding, encouragement, enlightenment, and insight is simply an illusion - we are not evolving, by any stretch of the imagination. And, I don't see this ever changing. Perhaps, this is the course of the human species: to appear, exploit, destroy, and go extinct in the blink of a galactic eye.