It's essential to life, almost everyone's obsessed with it, yet it's the source of endless problems.

Wildly conflicting views about it lie at the core of many of today's most contentious issues.

Even ultimate matters concerning God, sin, heaven and hell are somehow closely tied to it and how we deal with it in this life.

Sex. It's the sacred entry point for human life into our world, yet it frequently appears in the form of grotesque criminality. As such, sexual abuse has become the focal point for one of America's most sensational mega-stories over the last year.

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The story – actually a never-ending torrent of reports implicating almost 100 different men since accusations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein surfaced in October – chronicles an epidemic of prominent men allegedly using their power and authority to seduce, manipulate, bribe, bamboozle, intimidate, coerce and physically force women into sex.

Beyond Weinstein (accused of sexual abuse by 84 different women), the alleged offenders range from entertainment icons like actors Dustin Hoffman (eight accusers) and Kevin Spacey (15 accusers), comedian Louis C.K. (five accusers) and director/screenwriter James Toback (38 accusers) to news media bigshots like CBS/PBS host Charlie Rose (eight accusers), NBC "Today" anchor Matt Lauer (seven accusers), MSNBC's Mark Halperin (12 accusers) and New York Times White House reporter Glenn Thrush (four accusers) to U.S. Appeals Court Judge Alex Kozinski (six accusers) to Metropolitan Opera conductor James Levine (four accusers) to New Orleans-based TV chef John Besh (25 accusers) to – of course – politicians including Rep. John Conyers (six accusers), Sen. Al Franken (eight accusers) and many others. Indeed, it was recently revealed that millions of taxpayer dollars have been quietly doled out to settle harassment claims against members of Congress in recent years.

Notably, the vast majority of those implicated over the last few months are on the political left, though at least one – former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore (eight accusers), a conservative Christian – narrowly lost December's Senate election because of decades-old sexual allegations against him, one involving a 14-year-old girl.

And of course, multiple women have accused President Donald Trump of having committed various sexual improprieties over the years.

It's not coincidental that those on the left comprise most of the offenders. During the 1990s, Oregon Sen. Bob Packwood was notorious for forcing himself on dozens of women staffers (he wrote in his diary there were "22 staff members I'd made love to and probably 75 others I've had a passionate relationship with") and ultimately was forced by his Senate peers to resign in disgrace. But how, since the allegations against him were common knowledge for years, did he get away with such outrageous conduct for so long? It was because, though a nominal Republican, Packwood was a progressive liberal, at least with regard to "women's issues," and as such was a singularly prominent and fierce champion of abortion and Planned Parenthood. The apparent psychology underlying this arrangement, likewise evident in many current celebrity sex-abuse cases, was: Support, protect and defend cherished left-wing feminist causes like abortion, and in return many grateful women will reward you – or at least accommodate or tolerate your atrocious, predatory behavior.

Of course, most everyone agrees that using one's power and position to extort sexual favors is shameful and wrong. But beyond that point of agreement, the story gets complicated, and not just because of today's intensely politicized environment wherein one's attitude toward a particular sexual abuser often hinges on whether you agree with his politics. But also because a wide range of alleged misbehaviors are being lumped together under wildly broad terms like "sexual harassment."

For example, Juanita Broaddrick credibly accused Bill Clinton of forcible rape, a heinous crime once punishable in the U.S. by death. At the other end of the spectrum, 2006 Miss USA contestant Samantha Holvey told CNN that the pageant's then-owner, Donald Trump, "personally inspected each woman" beforehand and would "step in front of each girl and look you over from head to toe like we were just meat, we were just sexual objects, that we were not people." Unseemly, perhaps, but there's a world of difference between He raped me and He looked at me like a piece of meat.

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'Progressiveness and open-mindedness'

To understand what's really happening and why, we must realize this seemingly sudden epidemic of powerful men sexually abusing women and girls (and sometimes boys) is just the tiny tip of a very large iceberg.

In many arenas of American life – not just Hollywood, the news media and the halls of Congress – sex has gone completely rogue. For just one example, Silicon Valley is now notorious for outrageous, drug-fueled sex parties (formerly called "orgies") featuring the same "casting couch" dynamic of young women participating in hopes of advancing their careers. Male guests at these sex parties include "powerful investors, well-known entrepreneurs and top executives," writes Bloomberg TV anchor Emily Chang in her new book "Brotopia: Breaking up the Boys' Club of Silicon Valley."

What could these sex-crazed tech pioneers possibly be thinking? Explains Chang: "Their behavior at these high-end parties is an extension of the progressiveness and open-mindedness – the audacity, if you will – that make founders think they can change the world."

Hold that thought – that sexual anarchy is the natural outgrowth of progress and enlightenment – as we widen the angle of our lens to reveal that we are currently swimming, drowning actually, in an ocean of wild sexuality, and all by design. Since the 1960s, America has been engulfed in an unfolding sexual revolution as radical and life-changing as the most dramatic coup d'etat.

A million abortions per year (that's one dead child every 29 seconds), millions of out-of-wedlock births (40 percent of all U.S. births), a ubiquitous "hook-up" culture of casual sex, 110 million Americans with a sexually transmitted disease, and, of course, hard-core pornography pervading every nook and cranny of society all testify to the wholesale abandonment of the Judeo-Christian morality of previous generations. Not to mention the glorification of homosexuality (indeed, its elevation to the status of specially protected class), the redefinition of marriage and the creation of dozens of bizarre new genders that never before existed in all of human history.

The predictable result of all this wild "sexual freedom"? Confusion, immorality, insecurity, pain, guilt, addiction, mental illness, infidelity, divorce, family breakdown, depression, self-destructive behavior and suicide.

And how did this hellish situation come about? It is entirely the work of the political and cultural left.

Leftists have been dreaming, scheming, preaching, protesting, demanding, litigating and legislating total sexual freedom – complete sexual anarchy, no rules whatsoever – for decades. Now that their wish has finally come true and the "old rules" have been done away with, they're still complaining – about people crossing ethical and moral lines with regard to sex!

Let that sink in: These are the same people who didn't ever want to be told any sexual behavior was wrong, immoral, predatory, disordered, aberrant, sinful or criminal. (Remember the popular LGBT saying used to deflect all criticism: "Love is love.")

So, for example, while many justifiably recoil in horror at reports of sexual predators seducing underage actors in Hollywood – chillingly detailed in the acclaimed documentary film, "An Open Secret" – the truth is, pretty much the entire gay subculture could not exist without this same kind of predation on minors. That's right, older males initiating (and essentially converting) younger males into homosexuality has long been a fixture in gay culture.

Consensual versus moral

But wait, some will still argue, sexual freedom is OK, as long as it's consensual.

In post-Christian America, "consensuality" has replaced "morality" as the standard of what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Rather than adhere to a Judeo-Christian standard of right and wrong, the new standard is simply the mutual consent of the people participating.

But this is nonsense, since actually following such a standard would require there be no laws, for example, against even the most dangerous and addictive drugs, since both user and pusher act "consensually."

More to the point, embracing consensuality as our standard, without morality, is like driving drunk and accidentally running someone over. You didn't mean to kill anybody – but you did. And since you were living in a reckless, irresponsible, willfully blind manner, tragedy was inevitable and you are guilty of that person's death, whether you intended it or not. When you're morally reckless and irresponsible, you simply cannot know when you're hurting somebody else, because you've intentionally made yourself blind to life's most basic spiritual laws of right and wrong in dealing with other people.

Thus, pedophiles do not regard pursuing sexual relations with prepubescent children as wrong. Remember, "Love is love." In fact, pedophiles see their cause as the next great civil rights movement. Besides, it's all consensual. What about adultery, now a huge business with various "cheating" (or "affair dating") websites encouraging, facilitating and arranging extramarital affairs? Is adultery "consensual"? Does the spouse being cheated on "consent"? What about your children in middle school, high school and college being pressured in myriad ways to become "sexually active"? When they give in to this relentless pressure, is it "consensual"? Really? When our hypersexualized culture pressures, intimidates and scares impressionable girls into believing they have to "put out" for their boyfriend or they'll end up miserable, unpopular and lonely, and she gives in and has sex, was it "consensual"? Of course not.

As a talk-show-host friend of mine likes to say, "The culture is a child molester."

In one form or another, obvious or subtle, the dynamic we now rightly condemn in today's sensational epidemic of sex misconduct is the exact same dynamic rampant throughout the rest of society, which many have gleefully encouraged and defended, while self-righteously attacking all who have questioned their sexual coup and tried in vain to bring us back to moral sanity.

So what's the solution?

There is one and only one thing that has acted as a bulwark against wild sexuality – and the resultant utter destruction of societies – in human history.

"Sex has always been a war zone," I point out in "The Marketing of Evil." "Sexual purity – living within certain behavioral confines deemed wholesome and moral, even if it means denying or delaying gratification of one's own powerful drives – has always been a major dividing line between those attempting to obey God's laws and those rebelling against them (or denying they exist)."

This chasm between what we call Judeo-Christian sexual morality and, basically, the rest of the world becomes stunningly clear in Dennis Prager's award-winning essay, "Why Judaism Rejected Homosexuality":

When Judaism demanded that all sexual activity be channeled into marriage, it changed the world. It is not overstated to say that the Torah's prohibition of non-marital sex made the creation of Western civilization possible. Societies that did not place boundaries around sexuality were stymied in their development. The subsequent dominance of the Western world can largely be attributed to the sexual revolution initiated by Judaism, and later carried forward by Christianity. The revolution consisted of forcing the sexual genie into the marital bottle. It ensured that sex no longer dominated society, heightened male-female love and sexuality (and thereby almost alone created the possibility of love and eroticism within marriage), and began the arduous task of elevating the status of women. By contrast, throughout the ancient world, and up to the recent past in many parts of the world, sexuality infused virtually all of society. Human sexuality, especially male sexuality, is utterly wild. Men have had sex with women and with men; with little girls and young boys; with a single partner and in large groups; with total strangers and immediate family members; and with a variety of domesticated animals. There is little, animate or inanimate, that has not excited some men sexually. Among the consequences of the unchanneled sex drive is the sexualization of everything – including religion. Unless the sex drive is appropriately harnessed (not squelched – which leads to its own destructive consequences), higher religion could not have developed. Thus, the first thing Judaism did was to de-sexualize God – "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" by His will, not through any sexual behavior. This broke with all other religions, and it alone changed human history.

Prager goes on to catalog the various gods of the ancient world, showing that virtually all of them were depicted as engaging in sexual relations. Thus, "given the sexual activity of the gods, it is not surprising that the religions themselves were replete with all forms of sexual activity," he explains, citing numerous examples of ancient and even more recent religious traditions that included "sacred" ceremonial sex of various sorts and ritual prostitution within religious sanctuaries, such as sex between Hindu monks and nuns, and even sex with children.

Judaism placed controls on sexual activity. It could no longer dominate religion and social life. It was to be sanctified – which in Hebrew means "separated" – from the world and placed in the home, in the bed of husband and wife. Judaism's restricting of sexual behavior was one of the essential elements that enabled society to progress. Along with ethical monotheism, the revolution begun by the Torah when it declared war on the sexual practices of the world wrought the most far-reaching changes in history.

There you have it. The jewel of human civilization – comprising the biblical laws of life meant to guide us safely and surely through this troubled world – has been foolishly thrown into the trash heap, reviled, spat upon and worse.

The left, which has been obsessed with removing Judeo-Christian morality from our schools, culture and minds for several generations, now claims to be shocked – shocked – at the inevitable excesses and crimes they themselves have brought about.

As the saying goes, be careful what you ask for, because you just might get it.

And let us remember also the famous line from Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov": "If God does not exist, everything is permitted." To which the left would hasten to add, "… as long as it's consensual."

The preceding is excerpted from the January issue of Whistleblower magazine, titled "PREDATOR NATION: The politics of sex in post-Christian America," edited monthly for WND by David Kupelian. Whistleblower is available in both print and digital versions.

Get David Kupelian's culture-war classic, "The Marketing of Evil," now in paperback, as well as its sequel "How Evil Works" and his latest, "The Snapping of the American Mind: Healing a Nation Broken by a Lawless Government and Godless Culture."

Follow David Kupelian on Facebook.