Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Outrage over public sex acts at a Hoboken bar is overblown
posted online of a woman who climbed on top of the bar … and then she … then this dude (who may be a Pennsylvania state trooper, no less) ... … and then he … and then she … and I can’t describe the video. This is a PG-13 publication, and this was straight up XXX material. It was shocking.
As a result, The Hub has been hit with 15 some violations, shut down until a hearing, and caused the mayor of Hoboken, Ravi Bhalla, to say this was “affront to human decency.”
I obviously can’t link to the video in question, but it’s out there for enquiring minds. I watched it, you know, for journalistic purposes, and I will say this: The woman was a willing participant in the goings on. That much was clear. Was alcohol a contributing factor? Yeah, probably, but for real: No one can watch the video and say she was being taken advantage of. She was all-in.
And so yes. This is bad. People can’t be having sex, on bars, in public. I get that. Not cool. Unsanitary, at the very least. But an “affront to human decency?” as Bhalla called it? Or a “death knell for humanity,” as Star-Ledger columnist Mark Di Ionno put it?
Well, maybe. I mean, I get it. It’s beyond the pale.
But maybe we’re thinking about wrong, programmed to think about it wrong. After all, it’s just sex. You want to talk “affront to human decency?” You want to talk a “death knell for humanity?” How about every time some kid goes hungry in America? How about every time someone commits an act of violence? How about genocide, murder, rape, theft, and all of that?
Compared to a few women flashing their breasts and a few other women engaging in public sex acts, well, there is no comparison.
Perhaps we should take a look at our cousins for some perspective …
Chimpanzees are terrible monkeys. Mean, violent, quick to anger, brutal. Male-dominated and aggressive. They will, and do, murder each other.
We share 98.8 percent of our DNA with them.
Bonobos are different. They are much more peaceful, rarely seen in conflict. It’s a female-dominated society. They will, and do, have sex with each other all the time, everywhere. As a greeting, to quell conflict, before they eat. They’re constantly engaging in sex.
We share ... wait for it ... 98.8 percent of our DNA with them.
The chimp and the bonobo are our closest genetic matches, and the two monkeys are pretty much indistinguishable from each other, DNA-wise. But they are different. Now I don’t want to make it sound like all chimps are going around shivving each other and all bonobos are going around schtüping each other, but do five minutes of cursory research on the two, and you’d come away thinking, “man, it’s really a shame we have more in common with chimps than with bonobos.”
Bonobos wouldn’t think twice about what happened at The Hub. Everyone engaged in the action seemed to having a fun time. No one — again, based on the videos and eyewitness reports (I got a bunch of them while hosting on NJ101.5 Monday) — was being forced into doing anything they didn’t want to do, and no one was getting hurt in the process.
In the end, this was just consensual sexual activity. It may be off the grid, out of the box, and something 99.9 percent of would never do, but consensual sexual activity all the same. Let’s save the genuine outrage for the real brutal stuff. You know, when someone is actually getting hurt instead of having fun.
Better to make love than war, in short.