It isn’t my intention to cast aspersions on the character of murder victim George Weber. And please don’t try to call me a homophobe because everyone knows I’m pro-gay rights. I am not convinced however, as some may argue, that the website Craigslist bears the majority of the responsibility for his gruesome death. What is at fault is a larger culture of depravity and self-loathing, drug use and abdication of responsibility, particularly the responsibility for your own safety.

First the facts of the case. George Weber connected with 16-year-old Anarchist/Satanist/Sadist John Katehis when the minor responded to Weber’s Craigslist ad looking for a partner for rough sex. The two rescheduled a March 18th rendezvous to the following Friday, where Weber is believed to have paid Katehis $60 to engage in S&M and bondage with him. Weber was to be the “bottom” for Katehis. At some point the 47-year-old Weber, hands and feet bound with duct tape, was stabbed around 50 times by Katehis.

Much has been made about Katehis’s MySpace which clearly showed him to be potentially dangerous. It is unlikely Weber came across that however.What we do know is that the 47-year-old Weber invited a strange young man (and I believe Weber assumed he was 18 since Katehis has an online history of lying about his age) to his house for a rough sex session prefaced by the two drinking vodka and snorting cocaine. If while reading this it seems blatantly obvious that this would end badly then you are apparently ahead of the game. Weber is not alone in posting ads looking for this same thing and as far as I know no friend of the broadcaster has even expressed shock at what 30 years ago would be considered a death too unseemly for comment.

Weber was a masochist who wanted to be choked while performing oral sex on a young man. In today’s society we simply shrug at this as if there is nothing wrong with the pathological compulsion to be sexually humiliated and abused even though in this case the reasons such a thing shouldn’t be condoned is staring us right in the face. The sadists who make up the S component in S&M are not simply people with a “kink” who want to party with you. They are people for whom pain and suffering, and death, are more arousing than the sex itself. Masochism at it’s very base it a desire to be abused or re-enact abuse, so by its very nature it attracts abusive, dangerous people.

Not to mention the cocaine. Cocaine users are unpredictable at best, and again while I wouldn’t claim Weber is responsible for his own murder, he was responsible for his own safety. And at the risk of being insensitive here the facts are this: George Weber met a strange teen and got him drunk and coked up with the intention of allowing that teen to bind him with duct tape and abuse him while he performed oral sex the teen. Express this desire to a psychiatrist and that person may feel sufficiently fearful for your safety that you’ll be committed. In the aftermath of a murder it is considered in bad taste to mention that this compulsive abuse seeking is a recipe for personal disaster.

New York is full of people who not only condone, but encourage this sort of death-seeking and worse, have convinced each other it isn’t unsafe at all. The most basic responsibility a man has is his own safety and the safety of his loved ones. It’s an old fashioned concept but it is true, and when we live in a state of blissful naivete and abdicate that basic responsibility to ourselves and others we invite people into our lives who will take advantage of that. When we allow our inner demons to drive us to Caligula-like depravity, and consciousness numbing substance abuse, we consign ourselves to a hell of our own making where the demons are very real, and very evil.

Make no mistake, only John Katehis is responsible for George Weber’s murder, but it is a society that produces “men” who don’t have the slightest hint of the self-preservation instinct, who are unaware of the dangers of allowing strangers to physically dominate them, who fill their off hours in drugs and sexual activities that would have gotten him arrested if not for Katehis’ savage disregard for human life, that is responsible for his death.

When I lived in New York for so many years, I witnessed the effeminization of men (and infantilization of women) being lauded as a more modern and progressive cultural alternative to “Red State” ideas of being a Man’s Man. I met many people who sneered in disgust at the idea that you should always be prepared to defend yourself or your family. The idea that you are the only person responsible for you, that you need to guarantee your own safety and learn to avoid danger was considered wild-eyed insanity. But in a city where men and women are regularly preyed on by people just like John Katehis, what drives men to stick their heads in the sand and not take responsibility for their own safety?

We’ll never know, but I would suggest that when our culture began to look down on the concept of manliness we began our slide into perpetual sexualized adolescence, which in turn creates an illusion of safety that entraps those people who, like Weber, are driven to push themselves to the limit to satisfy some inner compulsion. As more people blame the site where Weber and Katehis met we’ll perpetuate that illusion, until the next George Weber when we’ll need to point the finger at yet another symptom of our own decline.