Officials with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra are facing a federal sexual harassment complaint by primary oboist Katherine Needleman (pictured above left) against concertmaster Jonathan Carney. She claims he propositioned her for sex, then retaliated when she denied his advances. (The concertmaster is second in importance only to the conductor.)

The Cleveland Orchestra’s concertmaster, William Preucil, celebrated as the best in the country, was recently suspended. Violinist Zeneba Bowers charges that after assaulting her, Preucil threatened to blacklist her if she told anyone.

Even world-renowned conductors have been ousted. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London canceled conductor Charles Dutoit’s appearances “for the immediate future” following allegations of sexual assault, including rape.

The Metropolitan Opera in New York City fired star conductor James Levine earlier this year, saying it found credible evidence that he engaged in “sexually abusive and harassing conduct both before and during the period when he worked at the Met.”

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Charles Dutoit? James Levine? I grew up in a musical home (and attended college on a full-tuition violin scholarship), so these are names I’ve known since my teens, always spoken with reverence.

Yet these revelations did not come as a great shock to some people in the classical music world. I interviewed a husband and wife who work as professional musicians and teach at the university level. They said the pervasiveness of sexual harassment “has been known for years, but nobody did anything about it.”

Unwanted touching, groping, and even assault are all too common in places like changing rooms and private lessons (two people alone in a small windowless room). “Many teachers are known to have ‘a reputation,’” my musician friends told me. “It’s been an open secret for a long time.”

If sexual harassment has been known for years, why did it take so long for women to feel at liberty to protest? A dark side of the sexual revolution of the 1960s is the way it has disempowered women. If society used to place expectations on women to be “good girls,” these days they often experience pressure to be as raunchy as men.

“If society used to place expectations on women to be ‘good girls,’ these days they often experience pressure to be as raunchy as men.”

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One survey found that from high school, girls feel enormous pressure to become a real-life embodiment of what boys watch in porn, providing their bodies as mere “sex aids.” Growing up in today’s porn culture, “girls learn that they are service stations for male gratification and pleasure.”

Many universities are even more pornified. In her book “The End of Sex,” Donna Freitas, a researcher at Notre Dame, reports that students deck themselves out like porn stars for campus parties.

Here are some of the theme parties listed by this researcher’s own students:

  • Politicians and prostitutes
  • Professors and naughty schoolgirls
  • Superheroes and super-sluts
  • Maids and millionaires
  • Dirty doctors and naughty nurses
  • Execs and sex [short for secretaries]

These theme parties imitate role-playing regularly found in porn, Freitas observes. And the titles make it clear students are expected “to play out male sexual fantasies.” Men’s roles reflect positions of power, respectability and success, while women’s roles are invariably subservient ones.

In her book “Pornified,” journalist Pamela Paul says many men are so saturated in images from porn, they “don’t even realize that what they’re asking for is degrading or unpleasant to women.”

And the pressure comes not only from men. Many versions of feminism send a message that women should strive to be just as sexually debauched as men. A Vanity Fair article quotes a student, named simply “Amanda,” who said the hookup culture is “a contest to see who cares less, and guys win a lot at caring less … But if you say any of this out loud, it’s like you’re weak, you’re not independent, you somehow missed the whole memo about third-wave feminism.”

The message to women is that if they say no, they are failing to be “sex positive.”

The #MeToo movement is a welcome signal that women are rejecting pressure to acquiesce in playing out male sexual fantasies. But for lasting cultural change, we need to alter the sexual messaging at every level of society, from university to high school to elementary school.

In too many professions, the problem of sexual harassment “has been known for years”— and it’s scandalous that “nobody did anything about it.”

It’s time to change the tune taught to both men and women. Violins should not be associated in any way with sexual violence.

Nancy Pearcey is professor and scholar in residence at Houston Baptist University and editor at large of The Pearcey Report. Her most recent book is “Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality.”

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