BRETT STEVENS, at the website Amerika, argues that the loss of chastity as a social ideal is part of a larger denigration of hierarchy. As such, it is connected to economic decline of the middle class. He writes:

Do we want each sexual act to have meaning, or should we remove context? Do we want a nation of equally impoverished middle classes, or a hierarchy? These questions are eternal because they are mathematical, not human, in origin.