History books in the future are going to include the word “BuzzFeed” whenever the demise of the United States of America is mentioned. In their latest embrace of the destructively absurd, BuzzFeed has produced a short video about a young woman getting tested for a sexually transmitted disease (STD). (Note: The video uses the technically correct tag “STI” but I’m going to use the more commonly known colloquialism “STD.“) Ali Vingiano, the video’s producer, said in an interview with The Huffington Post that the purpose of the video is “to normalize how we talk about STIs, and the people we associate with having them.” After bemoaning culture’s perspective on STDs, she added, “We wanted to challenge that narrative and broaden our viewers [sic] ideas of what the reality of an STI looked like.”
In the video, the viewer is introduced to two friends on the way to the doctor’s office so that one of them, named Amy, can get tested. At the doctor’s office, Amy protests that she’s not the type of person who gets STDs; after all, she’s “only had sex with, like, five people, maybe six.” The video goes on to show the aftermath as she waits to hear the news from the doctor’s office. Attempting to cheer her up, Amy’s friend tells her that an STD is “pretty bada**; it’s like a sex wound.” The scene ends with the assertion that, “It’s normal; it happens all the time,” followed up by a friendly comparison of the number of sex partners each friend has had.
When Amy tells her on-again-off-again boyfriend about her STD test, his normal, sane response is shamed by the video. Referring to him as an obscene body part, the friend tells Amy that “he doesn’t deserve you.” Bear in mind, the boyfriend’s understandably concerned response was muted. He didn’t mock her. He didn’t scorn her. The implication is that he wants to remove the “on” part of the on-again-off-again boyfriend label. An understandable response, especially if he’s not the one who gave the STD to her.
The short video closes the day after Amy goes on a date with a “cute” co-worker. The date went well, but she is assuming that he won’t want to proceed with the relationship because of the STD. Amy’s friend responds, “You don’t have to date sh***y people because a sh***y thing might have happened to you. You deserve to be happy.” She then hears from the “cute” coworker who wants to go on another date. In the next and final scene, Amy receives a phone call from her doctor. She answers the phone, and the video ends without providing an answer to the question of “does she have an STD or not?”
The video doesn’t provide an answer because, in the worldview of BuzzFeed, consequences that threaten your self-defined happiness are to be ignored. And, according to BuzzFeed and the video, “You deserve to be happy.” No one and, apparently, no thing has the right to suggest otherwise. There are no external, objective standards that can dictate right or wrong to us; our happiness is the only standard by which we judge our actions.
In a world where everything is supposedly relative—most importantly sexuality—natural consequences are problematic. STDs remind us that there is an external, objective standard to which we are to adhere. The Creator of the universe has a prescribed sexual ethic, regardless of whether or not sinners want to acknowledge it. God made sex for the marriage bed, specifically between a married man and woman. Liberals do not want any constraints placed on their “relativistic” pursuit of the lust of their flesh, hence, STDs must be normalized. If you do not fall in line with the liberal worldview, you will be labeled a sh***y person and shamed for things like not wanting to start dating someone who has an STD.
The thing is, no matter how hard liberals attempt to ignore or deny the consequences of their sin, the consequences will still be there. BuzzFeed is encouraging young people to stick their heads in the sand and ignore the fact that STDs are, in fact, bad and shameful. In the increasingly absurd world of liberalism, the pursuit of hedonistic and relativistic sexual practices has to be protected at all costs, even if that cost includes people’s health.
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