By Dennis Howard

The Viagra Generation has arrived. That's the "me generation" on steroids. And there is no sadder example than South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford.

Thanks to his hormone-driven affairs, Sanford betrayed more than his wife and family. He betrayed a great many people who once viewed him as a credible conservative leader as well as the values he once claimed to stand for. In the process, he betrayed himself.

He also proved to be another in a long line of hamartic heroes brought down by human failings. That part is fairly easily forgiven, but the prerequisite for forgiveness is genuine contrition and repentance, not waffling denial and rationalization.

His initial apologies had a tinny lack of credibility as details kept emerging. There were more unaccounted trysts at government expense. There were more women. There was more everything. Letting things out one drip at a time is water torture, not contrition.

The dripping sentimentality of his emails sounded like something lifted from an over-heated romance novel. Was he practicing for a new career as a romance novelist? (Don't hold your breath, Danielle Steele!)

Sanford also gave Dave Letterman a chance to recover from his pathetic foray into gutter-level jokes about Sarah Palin. For Letterman, it meant a comeback of sorts. For Sanford, it sealed his fate.

Sadly, he failed to do the one thing he had to do. And that is to show himself convincingly repentant for the damage he had done to his wife and sons. Instead, he sought refuge in the most adolescent excuse in the world, "I don't love her anymore."

That excuse, of course, is one the pillars of the "New Morality," which came of age in the steaming '60's. But its roots go way back to the "free love" movement of the early 1920's when Margaret Sanger launched the long, slow decay of our national morals.

That was the birth of "If it feels good, do it" . . . regardless of the moral, spiritual, sociaI and economic costs. They include the horrendous cost of family breakdown, drug and alcohol addiction, exploding jail populations, the STD and AIDS epidemics, and the awesome $35 trillion cost of 51+ million abortions since 1970.

The modus operandi of the New Morality is: "If you can't deny it, rationalize it as best you can." And that's pretty much what Sanford was initially trying to do. He acted as if his personal crisis was some kind of peak experience. In fact, it is the second oldest sin in the world -- right after "the pride that goeth before the fall."

Romantic love is truly a many-splendored thing, but it probably gets human beings into more trouble than anything else. God meant sexual attraction as a way of getting people into marriage, not out of it. Sanford had it backwards.

Romantic love rarely survives unchanged in the ordinary course of family life. Changing diapers and wiping noses don't have the same effect on human dopamine as midnight trysts on a boat off Buenes Aires. We make up for the humdrum of domestic life by jumping at any excuse for a holiday that can rekindle warm and tender feelings. Monkeys don't send their mates flowers, cards and candy on their birthdays and anniversaries. Men do.

But far more often, relationships are deepened by shared trials, sorrows, joys, sickness and sometimes even tragedy.

Love achieves new dimensions as couples experience the caring each partner brings to their relationship, to their children and to others, including friends and neighbors in need. No one admired Mark Sanford more for his service to the people of South Carolina than his wife and sons. That's what made him their hero.

He is hardly the first man to fall prey to human weakness in this, the Viagra generation. Even old Bob Dole bragged about having E.D. (The disease, not the horse.) But now I see that MSNBC has a new show called "ED." Confusing to say the least.

It's also an era when women like Carrie Prejean are seduced into stripping down to a bikini in the hope of winning fame and fortune.
We've forgotten that God made women that beautiful so that one lucky guy would throw himself at her feet for the rest of his life. It is God's way of domesticating the human male.

Repentance and forgiveness remain central to marriage and to life. Healing comes not from denial, but from the redemptive experience of honestly admitting one's faults, experiencing genuine remorse, and seeking healing and forgiveness.

Sanford should be old enough to know that. We can only hope and pray that the effort at reconciliation between him and his wife and children is successful. Not so that he can keep his job as governor, but his more important one as husband and Dad.

Mark Sanford needs to put aside the deceptive illusion of romantic love and get off the pity pot. He needs to open his heart and soul to what real love is all about. He needs to honestly admit his failings and resolve to honor his commitments to his family one day at a time . . . for the rest of his life.

Sooner or later, we must all stand on our own two feet before God and take responsibility for what we have done and what we have failed to do. Better to do it sooner rather than risk waking one day and finding out that we are already too late.

Dennis Howard is a veteran Catholic journalist and creative marketing consultant. He currently serves as president of the Movement for a Better America, Inc., a non-profit educational organization located in Mt. Freedom, NJ. For more of his writing, visit the MBA website