{"id":2764,"date":"2012-02-15T22:25:37","date_gmt":"2012-02-15T22:25:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/?p=2764"},"modified":"2014-11-15T06:57:53","modified_gmt":"2014-11-15T06:57:53","slug":"the-cost-of-a-permissive-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/the-cost-of-a-permissive-society\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cost of a Permissive Society"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_2765\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2765\" style=\"width: 225px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/2010AugustColchester-005.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2765 \" title=\"PENTAX DIGITAL CAMERA\" src=\"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/2010AugustColchester-005-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/2010AugustColchester-005-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/2010AugustColchester-005-600x800.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/2010AugustColchester-005-768x1024.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2765\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">British law needs to support marriage, not encourage promiscuity and divorce<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jubilee-centre.org\/document.php?id=424\" target=\"_blank\">Jubilee Centre report<\/a> from last December, author and therapist Guy Brandon demonstrated that the economic ramifications of our permissive society are almost beyond reckoning.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Moral Hazard<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Mr Brandon, the author of <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Just-Sex-Guy-Brandon\/dp\/1844743713\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1328299467&amp;sr=8-1?tag=robsrearef-20\" target=\"_blank\">Just Sex: is it Ever Just Sex?<\/a><\/em>, used quantitative cost-analysis to disprove the notion that \u201csex between consenting adults is no one else\u2019s business\u201d, a mantra that has been repeated by both Ken Livingstone and Max Mosley.<\/p>\n<p>By using the category of \u2018moral hazard\u2019, he showed that British society has created a system that incentivizes promiscuity.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;\u2018Moral Hazard\u2019, he explains, \u201coccurs when a contract or financial arrangement creates incentives for the parties involved to behave against the interest of others\u2019 \u2013 typically because one party is insulated from risk.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One of the ways British society does this is through a system in which the financial consequences of promiscuity are not carried by the people directly involved but diffused throughout society collectively.<\/p>\n<p>The British Government has also created a moral hazard when it began to allow the welfare safety net to be exploited in ways which incentivise family breakdown. \u201cAt present,\u201d Brandon writes, \u201cthe tax and benefits system makes it economically more favourable for some parents to live apart \u2013 the so-called couple penalty. Ending this must be a priority.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Why Free Sex is Never Free<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The Jubilee Centre article, titled \u2018<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jubilee-centre.org\/document.php?id=424\" target=\"_blank\">Free sex: Who pays?: Moral hazard and sexual ethics<\/a>\u2019, suggests that while \u201cthe costs of sexual freedom and relationship breakdown to the taxpayer and wider economy are complex and difficult to calculate\u2026 \u00a3100 billion annually is probably a reasonable starting point: about twice as much as alcohol abuse, smoking and obesity combined.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The following are some the areas where the costs of sexual licence are felt the strongest in our economy:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2774\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2774\" style=\"width: 260px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/images1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2774\" title=\"images\" src=\"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/images1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"260\" height=\"194\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2774\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The entire society is forced to cover the cost of promiscuity<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>Promiscuity often leads to STI\u2019s, which cost the British taxpayer more than \u00a31 billion per year.<\/li>\n<li>Promiscuity often leads to HIV. The estimated 83,000 cases of HIV in the UK at the end of 2008 represent a total lifetime cost of \u00a326 billion.<\/li>\n<li>Promiscuity leads to teenage pregnancy which cost the NHS \u00a363 million per year, and a further \u00a329 million for infertility and other complications arising from chlamydia alone.<\/li>\n<li>Promiscuity often leads to abortions, and 96% of abortions are carried out on the NHS at a cost of \u00a3650 each, or \u00a3118 million.<\/li>\n<li>Promiscuity often contributes to separation from marriage and cohabiting relationships (including promiscuity prior to entering such relationships), which entails huge increases in tax credit payments, lone parent benefits, housing benefits, in addition to the health, crime and educational impact of relationship breakdown. Altogether this totals about \u00a342 billion a year.<\/li>\n<li>In contributing to relationship breakdown, promiscuity leads to Absenteeism. The loss of working hours following relationship breakdown costs the economy at least \u00a320 billion a year.<\/li>\n<li>In contributing to relationship breakdown, promiscuity can lead to domestic violence which costs the British taxpayer around \u00a33.4 billion a year, and around \u00a321 billion today in \u2018human and emotional costs.\u2019<\/li>\n<li>The effect of relationship breakdown on children leads to educational underachievement which results in an estimated \u00a340,000 for each child, reducing GDP by \u00a36 billion. Much of this cost can be directly attributable to the promiscuous activity which contributed to the relationship breakdown.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These facts, all of which Brandon meticulously documents, helps to undermine the common narrative that sex is a choice made only by the couple most directly involved with only limited consequences beyond the two of them. This narrative has found expression in phrases such as \u2018recreational sex\u2019 and \u2018casual sex\u2019, which obscure the reality that the entire society picks up the bill for promiscuity.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Brandon contrasts our system with that of ancient Israel which put institutional and legal parameters in place to limit moral hazard. His discussion of Old Testament law provides a helpful framework that our own law-makers would do well to glean from.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jubilee-centre.org\/document.php?id=424\" target=\"_blank\">Jubilee Centre report<\/a> is not as strong in laying out a solution to the problem, although Mr Brandon does make some suggestions on how Government policy makers can limit the degree of moral hazard that is operative.<\/p>\n<p>The first step is simply for the British Government to recognize the full scope of the economic problem. Up to now Government has focused considerable attention on discouraging teenage pregnancy and encouraging \u2018safe sex.\u2019 However, promiscuity itself has received scant attention, and is even <a href=\"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/?p=2750\" target=\"_blank\">actively discouraged by much Government policy<\/a>. As Mr. Brandon has said,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cThe UK Treasury does not make the link between the vast costs of relationship breakdown and its drivers, David Cameron\u2019s emphasis on the family notwithstanding. Public policy barely acknowledges the existence of the problem, let alone the scale.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>From an economic point of view, it is not enough to merely encourage safe sex and discourage teenage pregnancy. Until promiscuity itself is adequately addressed, the economic problem will only increase.<\/p>\n<p><strong>WRITE:<\/strong> to your MP and share some of Mr. Brandon\u2019s concerns. You may even want to print out a copy of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jubilee-centre.org\/document.php?id=424\" target=\"_blank\">Jubilee Centre report<\/a> to mail to your MP. Ask for your comments to be forwarded to the appropriate minister. Make the point that<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Parliament needs to abolish the \u2018couple penalty.\u2019<\/li>\n<li>No-fault divorce on demand must go.<\/li>\n<li>The entire culture of sex education must be abolished, since this encourages promiscuity and rarely, if ever, teaches the virtues of chastity. (See our article &#8216;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/?p=2750\" target=\"_blank\">Ferrari Condemns \u2018state-sanctioned child abuse.<\/a>&#8216;)<\/li>\n<li>Government must take more responsibility to limit the amount of nudity that occurs in the public spaces of the television airwaves. This is because <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/culture\/tvandradio\/5278897\/Children-who-watch-adult-television-have-sexual-intercourse-earlier.html\" target=\"_blank\">there is evidence<\/a> that such nudity (especially when it involves sex) contributes to promiscuity at younger ages.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a Jubilee Centre report from last December, author and therapist Guy Brandon demonstrated that the economic ramifications of our permissive society are almost beyond reckoning. Moral Hazard Mr Brandon, the author of Just Sex: is it Ever Just Sex?, used quantitative cost-analysis to disprove the notion that \u201csex between consenting adults is no one [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[316,7,317,315,313,314,312],"class_list":["post-2764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sex-education","tag-david-blankenhorn","tag-david-cameron","tag-dietrich-bonhoeffer","tag-jubilee-centre","tag-ken-livingstone","tag-max-mosley","tag-moral-hazard"],"aioseo_notices":[],"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Robin","author_link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/author\/robin\/"},"rttpg_comment":6,"rttpg_category":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/category\/education-children\/sex-education\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Sex Education<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"In a Jubilee Centre report from last December, author and therapist Guy Brandon demonstrated that the economic ramifications of our permissive society are almost beyond reckoning. Moral Hazard Mr Brandon, the author of Just Sex: is it Ever Just Sex?, used quantitative cost-analysis to disprove the notion that \u201csex between consenting adults is no one&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2764\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}