Hypocrisy and Morals

Stories like this one are almost too unremarkable to comment on.

The principal of a New York Catholic school was arrested Sunday after being caught naked with two other men on a vacant property.

The easy reaction, of course, is to point and start railing about the hypocrisy of the Christian right (within which I most firmly include the Catholic hierarchy). There's a deeper mistake here, although I won't discount the hypocrisy argument completely (under the heading "Glass Houses").

My question is simply, how much of this anonymous, random sex is simply a natural part of male behavior? And, ancillary to that question, depending on your approach, how many instances of solicitation in public restrooms, parks and the like can be ascribed to the frustration -- call it "desperation" -- engendered by overly restrictive "moral" codes that simply don't acknowledge the realities of human behavior?

The question for the moralist, as far as I see it, is not whether this is "good" or "bad," but how this can be incorporated into a moral stance that leads to behavior that is positive.

This is something that deserves more careful thought than I can give it today, but keep in mind one thing: if you're a regular visitor here, you know that I consider "traditional" morality a shallow and completely insufficient framework on which to build values.

Talk amongst yourselves.