The sexual revolution is arguably the most extreme manifestation of the episodic nature of man. To surrender one’s life to sexual pleasure meant once and for all abandoning any attempt to give one’s existence a unifying meaning; this pleasure is, like no other, related to what is short-lived and ephemeral. Many wise men in the history of European thought consistently warned against the effects of the uncontrolled reign of pleasures over human life. In classical ethics pleasures were feared because they not only do not have a self-mitigating mechanism, but are likely, when unchecked, to do away with external mitigating measures. These warnings were not treated with the seriousness they deserved by modern utilitarians. With the growth of consumerism this fear evaporated. As the new rhetoric of sexual liberation declared the existing limitations on sex consumption unacceptable, the time finally came to push the cult of pleasure to a new low. Free sex was not only pleasure; it also stood for spontaneity against souls technology and productivity; it stood for peace and universal harmony, with no constraints, no domination, no discrimination.
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