We have our heads buried in the sand when it comes to love & intimacy.

During recent years, an average of 60,000 children a year were sexually abused in the United States alone. Year after year. Yet statistics also show that only about 30% of all sexual abuses actually get reported to authorities. No need to do the math here, but that is simply way too many children — young human beings — that are abused by adults.

Child abuse is only one form of expression of the dark side of humanity. We all have it. The dark side. But we do anything in our power to hide it. We would never wanna be caught having a ‘dirty’ or a ‘kinky’ thought about a minor. Yet many of us do (online porn with minors is one of the most popular categories on many porn sites). Many of us resist the dark side so much that it persists and consumes us eventually. And then we act out.

Harvey Weinstein was only the tip of the ice berg. He shed some light onto our own darkness. Yet most of us pretend that we’re better than Harvey. That we’re saints. That we’d never do anything like that. That he’s a monster. That he needs to be ‘put away’. But Harvey’s sexual acts against the women who he harrassed were simply muffled cries for help. The poor man grew up with no real intimacy in his family. His father was a man who showed no true love. He didn’t model respect towards women. The kinda love that nurtures a young man to become a respectful man was simply missing in their family. Sex became a way for Harvey to get validation. To matter. To get respect and feel wanted. It made him feel powerful. After all, he had all the money in the world yet women weren’t attracted to him for his humanity and for his nurturing way of being. They either wanted money or fame. So, he used his power to get what he wanted and give them what they wanted. Until it got out of hand and he needed it again and again. And even against their will.

We all wanna be loved, accepted and respected for who we are. The question is how do we get it? How do we get there? Sex certainly seems to be an instant access to feel loved, to feel desired, to feel like we matter. But its benefits — besides the physical — are fleeting. They last for minutes, hours, days at most. Then we need another fix. It’s like a drug. A sweaty validation, a risky romance, a mysterious flirt… it’s addictive. Literally. Some people can’t stop. They keep going and keep going and keep going until they cross the line. And when they do, everyone acts shocked. We can’t believe it. We pretend that there are a certain type of people out there — monsters — who need to be ‘locked up’ or ‘stoned’ for what they did. We judge, condem and eventually sweep the dirt under the rug hoping it would disappear. Just like we did with the Catholic church sex scandal. We assume that it will all go away if we just lock up the monsters and keep them away from society. But for some strange reason these ‘sex offenders’ keep multiplying and there are more and more cases reported each year. More child abuse, more sexual harassment, more rape… but we stick our heads into the sand and hope somehow we can stop them all and lock them all up. Or that our phsychologists and support groups will eventually heal this ‘disease’. Yet it’s not a disease. It’s a worldwide pandemic of missing intimacy. A pandemic that can be traced back to poor parenting skills from way back; limited resources and missing knowledge about how to raise healthy children with love and intimacy.

Marriages were entered for the wrong reasons and lasted for way too long, while children felt the disconnect and absence of love between their parents. Other marriages collapsed only a few years later because once the honeymoon phase passed, the poor newlyweds had no idea how to create a powerful partnership for life. We all think we have relationships and raising children figured out. But we don’t. We suck at it. Yet we’re not willing to admit it. We’re not willing to further educate ourselves on how to become a better husband or a better wife. Or how to become a better parent. We arrogantly claim that we know what to do. Yet we’re like toddlers trying to run a porcelain shop. We’re immature, inexperienced but we cover it up with our good ol’ fake superhero confidence. We’ll fake it until we make it. We’re the good guys who are gonna show the world how it’s done. Yet look at our divorce rate. Our child abuse rate. Our Prison population. Our image throughout the world. We’re cowboys with blazing saddles. We will shoot someone at point blank before we can look them in the eyes and face their humanity. We steamroll our way towards a non-existing destination without enjoying the journey. We rape our fellow human beings so that we can have a fleeting moment of satisfaction . We supress our sexual desires because our puritanical society tells us that it’s a sin. We underestimate the long term effect that lack of love & intimacy can have on our children. We simply turn a blind eye and bury our heads in the sand.

But why?

Because we don’t wanna take responsability for the fact that we’ve created a society that values success more than healthy families. We have no idea how to fix it, yet we pretend that we do. And we keep looking for the solution in the same drawer from which all the other solutions that didn’t work came from. Yet we reach back into the same drawer for more ineffective solutions. And nothing works. That’s the definition of insanity, by the way.

So, what’s the problem?

We need to take driving lessons to get a driver’s license to drive a car, yet in order to raise a child no education or tests are needed. No mandatory parenting classes for new parents, no continued parenting education, no state-organized support systems that can help us become better parents. And by the way, the same goes for marriage. Most of us enter into a marriage for the first time and we are expected to be able to master it immediately. We have a child for the first time and we’re expected to know what to do. We even defend ourselves by saying “Nobody can tell me how to raise my child”. Yet many parents out there struggle to raise healthy children and it’s not getting easier with all this technology keeping them from creating real love & intimacy with their children. But as a collective, we don’t see the value in mandatory parenting and relationship classes that would cause healthier families that would eventually lower the crime rates, reduce sexual abuse, cut down the prison population and create a world that works for everyone.

What it all comes down to is that we are completely kidding ourselves. We are delusional. We are ignorant. We are reckless. We are lazy. We don’t really want to do the work it takes. We’d rather put a ‘world peace’ sticker on our car and continue raising our children the way we know how — the way that hasn’t really worked. We’d rather go on fancy vacations to forget our realities than have a real conversation with our partner about what’s not working in the marriage. We’d rather spend thousands and thousands of dollars on therapists on the back end than take relationship classes before or after getting married. We’d rather give part of our taxes to the prison system than agree to take mandatory parenting classes that could prevent this dark cycle.

So, when are we gonna take our heads back out of the sand?

What is it gonna take? Huh?

I believe that it’s gonna have to be a law that gets passed that’s gonna hold us accountable for continously working on improving ourselves as parents and as life-partners. Better parents and better life-partners make for a better world. Marriage and Child Birth are priviledges and should be treated as such. It is time that we realize that only a healthy childhood can create a healthy adult that will create a peaceful world.