Sexuality

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A Word of Caution from the Facebook Status Killjoy


Much like the “bra color” forward that swept Facebook over the winter, a new forward has begun circulating:

Ok ladies here’s another game, like the bra color game was a total success and we had men wondering for days what was with the colors and it made it to the News. Well this game has to do with your handbag, where we put our handbag the moment we get home for example “on the couch”, “the kitchen counter”, “the dresser” well u get the idea. Just put your answer as your Status with nothing more than that and cut n paste this message and forward to all your FB female friends to their inbox. The bra game made it to the news. Let’s see how powerful we women really are!”

When I post blogs like this, I tend to get accused of needing to lighten up and not be so serious because stuff like this is “just for fun”, but take a moment and ask yourself, “What kind of power does this show we have?” The power to make people’s minds end up in the gutter? Is that the sort of power we want to exert over people? What is the intention of posting a status like this?

We can claim it’s all innocent fun, but in the sex-saturated world in which we live, anything can be turned into a sexual innuendo; why would you want to post something that will only encourage such saturation?

I take very seriously my responsibility to do everything within my power to not be a stumbling block for my brothers and sisters in Christ. While I cannot hold myself personally responsible for the thought life of others, I can be held responsible for doing things that do not encourage pure and holy thoughts.

Scripture tells us that, as believers, we have access to unimaginable power– the same Holy Spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells within us and gives us victory over sin (Romans 8:11)! If we have the power to overcome sin, why would we want to show our power by leading others into strongholds of sin?

Imagine for a moment that your son or daughter or husband or cousin or best friend struggles with sexual sin. He or she signs on to Facebook and is overwhelmed with lists of random surfaces found in the common home. What do you think their first thought is going to be? I can assure you that they aren’t thinking, “I bet this is a list of places the women in my life put their purses.” No, they are going to think exactly what this type of status intends for them to think. And they’re going to think about that woman doing it. Then your son or daughter or husband or cousin or best friend gets to go to church tomorrow and see that woman and be bombarded with that image again. And then that woman may be confused when your loved one can no longer look her in the eye or speak to her comfortably. She may wonder, “What’s his problem?” without ever considering that she may be the problem.

Doesn’t it just make sense that we should do everything we can to protect each other’s minds from such stumbling blocks instead of being the stumbling block? We cannot set ourselves up to be sexual objects and then be angry when we are treated as such.

Erin Davis blogged about the Bra Color game on the True Woman blog in January, and I believe her wise words apply here as well. You can read her edifying post here.

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 10:31 that whatever we do, we should do it to the glory of God, and yes, sister, this even includes what you post as your Facebook status. There is no part of the life of the Christian that is exempt from the “whatever” clause.

Just think about it…

UPDATE: As Douglas B. Brill stated in his secular article concerning the cheapening of the fight against cancer with the use of sex, clicking here will “help you become even more constructive in the fight against breast cancer.”

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“There aren’t any unbroken people.”


Great article by Scott Davis on the Exodus International Blog:

“My generation, and those coming after us, are sexually broken. Not just pedophiles and rapists. Not just gays and lesbians. All of us. Our culture is hyper-sexualized: why aren’t we speaking about it at least as frankly on Sunday mornings as they do on network television during “family hours?” Our church members are broken sexually in every way imaginable: can we give them the grace to bring their brokenness out into the light without condemnation?”

Read more here.

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Spiritual Maturity and Underroos


When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 1 Corinthians 13:11

We hear much today about the sexualization of children, especially young girls. With toys like Bratz dolls and child-sized warm up pants that read “Hott” on the rear end and babies’ onesies that say things like “I’m a boob man”, it is apparent that sexuality is the defining characteristic of humanity in our day and age.

It is an example of the entitlement culture in which we live that even in the areas of maturity and sexuality we want to have it all. Young girls desperately want to be grown up and our culture provides the clothes and accessories and tv shows to allow them to pretend to be grown ups. Grown men, on the other hand desperately desire to remain young boys and our culture provides them the means to do so as well: fantansy sports, Hooters restaurants, and the whole idea of “extended adolesence” and mid-life crises.

I began thinking about all of this on a trip to Target this afternoon. As I was walking through the store, I saw a display of Batman Underroos just like the kind my brothers wore when they were little. Except these Underroos were in the men’s underwear department. Before someone jumps on my case about taking things too seriously and encourages me to lighten up and have some fun, I would like to suggest that the Underroos themselves are not the problem, but they are indicative of our culture’s larger problem.

So many children today are required to grow up so quickly due to the choices made by the adults in their lives that they are robbed of any real childhood. Those same children spend the rest of their lives seeking to recapture the free-spirited innocence of their childhood and the cycle ends up being tragically repeated in the next generation with greater consequence. An extreme case in point would be the life of Michael Jackson. Many childhood stars crash and burn as adults because they were not able to have a “normal” developing childhood. Childhood is supposed to prepare us for life. It is a time in which our parents are to train us up in the way we should go (Prov.22:6). Parents should protect and provide for their children, teach them and love them, allow them to develop into adults at a normal pace so that when they become men and women they are prepared and eager to put away childish things and embrace the responsibility of adulthood. If we as adults would do everything within our power to allow children to be children, we might not have as many adults still desiring to be children.

But when you live in a society in which every man does what is right in his own eyes (per Judges 17:6; we call it post-modernism, God calls is idolatry), you end up with divorced men in Underroos who buy dolls that wear lingerie for their elementary-aged daughters. Sin truly is the twisting and reversal of all that God intended to be right in the world.

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Polyamory:The Next Sexual Revolution?


If this is the type of sexual confusion facing people living in Seattle, then Mark Driscoll needs to make his series on the Song of Solomon available to every household in the city. Many people have spent months blasting Mark’s series as being too blatant, too disrespectful, too graphic;I’d like to see some of those pastors counsel someone in a “polyamorous” relationship and see how far they get…

Read the article from Newsweek here.

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Is Twilight Emotional Porn?


Much is made today of the devastating effects of pornography in the lives of men. Articles and books have been written by the thousands outlining the emotional, financial, time and relational impact of porn addiction. I work for a ministry that deals everyday with the effects of pornography. We have learned that men are wired to respond sexually to visual stimulation—I have been told by numerous men that, try as we might, women will just never understand the power of lust and the battle they fight against their sexual desires. I believe them.

Sometimes I wonder if the damage done by pornography is felt more by the women in the lives of these men than by the men themselves. Porn gives men an unrealistic expectation of how women should look and behave. Because men tend to be visual creatures, they respond to what they see. When what they have in real life doesn’t match up to what they have trained themselves to respond to on TV or the computer screen, they turn to those images for satisfaction. The problem is that no woman meets those expectations; not even those women themselves. They are airbrushed actresses, playing a part in a fantasy that cannot come true in real life. There are few things more damaging to the self-worth and emotional well-being of a woman than to feel like her husband is more attracted and sexually connected to an image on a screen than he is to her.

What, you may ask, does this have to do with the book series Twilight? Just like men tend to be stimulated visually and crave sexual connection, women tend to be wired emotionally and crave relational connection. In the past couple of years, I have watched middle and high school girls become obsessed with this book series and its characters. Recently, I have begun watching my friends in their twenties and thirties become equally caught up in the lives of the characters on the pages. More than any other character in the series, the obsession really lies in Edward Cullen, the teenage vampire heartthrob that loves the heroine, Bella Swan. Not only is Bella the heroine, but the books are written in first person from her perspective– as you read, you become Bella. You read her thoughts, you feel her emotions, you are drawn into the story in a way that is next to impossible in a book written in the third person. Fantasy becomes your reality, and Edward is set up as the perfect gentleman—he loves Bella at first site, sacrifices himself in an attempt to protect her, gives himself up to make her happy. He becomes a Messiah figure in her life, and because you are so attached to Bella’s character, he becomes your messiah, too. Deep down, we are all wired with a desire to be saved. That’s what makes the “knight in shining armor” story stand the test of time.

There is nothing wrong with desiring a man who will exemplify the standard of sacrificial love; after all, Scripture tells us that our husbands are to love us as Christ loved the church, which means he is willing to lay down his life for his wife (Ephesians 5). But in becoming obsessed with this fictional character, are we placing a standard of fantasy perfection on the fallen, sinful men who God has called to both serve and lead us? Just like pornography sets an unrealistic visual expectation for men, is Edward setting an unrealistic emotional expectation for women, particularly teenage girls?

Don’t think I’m picking on Twilight; it’s just the latest in a long line of things I would consider emotional porn. If you aren’t sure what I mean by emotional porn, have you ever been dumped by a boyfriend or been disappointed or hurt by your husband in some way and comforted yourself on the couch with a night of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan “chick flicks”? Have you ever read a romance novel or watched a movie and thought, “If only he would treat me this way?” Have you watched The Notebook at least a dozen times and still sob like an infant, wondering if you will ever have a Noah Calhoun? The expectation has been set that men should sweep us off our feet—but then never put us back down.

And that is the crux of the issue—we are looking for a fulfillment in the creation that can only be found in the Creator (Romans 1:22-25). When a man seeks a woman who is a “real life porn star,” one who was created in the mind of a man instead of in the image of God, he is ultimately worshiping himself and his desires and he will always be disappointed. When a woman begins seeking a man who will meet her every need, satisfy her every desire, she has set herself up as an idol to be worshiped both by herself and by those around her, and she will always be disappointed. Only One is described in Scripture as “the fullness of him who fills all in all” (Ephesians 1:23).

While fantasy and fiction are fun, when we become so caught up in them that we begin to expect our fantasy in reality, a line has been crossed. So if you’ve read Twilight, has it altered the expectations you have set for the men in your life? Do you think it has created a fair expectation? And, does that expectation line up with the expectation laid out in Scripture of a godly man?