This Week in Sex: Blame the Hippies

Sexual abuse in clergy blamed on hippies

A five-year study, spearheaded by America's Catholic Bishops, looking into the cause of the clergy’s sexual-abuse crisis has concluded that it was neither the fault of the all-male celibate priesthood or latent homosexuality. Instead, they argue, the abuse occurred because of poorly prepared, overstressed priests working during the social and sexual turmoil of the 1960s. That’s right, the sexual revolution.

Compare that with another report that blames the '60s for the increasing incidence of STDs among senior citizens. "The flower children who were in their twenties back in the 1960s are now in their seventies," the article reads. "They're the make-love-not-war generation, and old habits die hard." It’s a dark day for hippies, when they’re blamed for everything from creepy priests to your grandmothers genital warts.

It's hard to tell if it’s funny or sad that the sexual revolution and the ‘60s are still cast as bogeyman to a lot of people, especially since we’re closing in on the fiftieth anniversary of the Summer of Love. Also, while some people in the sixties embraced "free love," — it was also the birth of modern conservatism, and the decade of Richard Nixon's "Silent Majority."

More importantly, a fantasy about a past where Jimi Hendrix is forever wailing on "All Along the Watchtower" and driving us to make bad choices, keeps the focus away from the actual problems. If old people are getting STDs, we should educate them. And, well, I don’t know what to do about the priests, but blaming flower power isn’t going to help.