Today I was perusing Facebook and saw that six of my Facebook friends had shared the following article, “Sincerely, One of Many Girls Who Care.” I began to write a comment and pretty soon it was over 800 words… longer than most of the blogs I post.
I realized I had something to say and as much as it scares me to post it so publicly, I think something needs to be said. Please hear me, in the following blog I do not wish to argue whether lust is a problem. I wish to comment on the way the subject is presented. On how it can and often is perceived as judgement to non-believers. I also think putting the emphasis on what a woman is wearing is only addressing the surface of a much deeper issue and can contribute to victim-blaming in cases of sexual assault.
I also want to fully acknowledge that I don’t know everything and that I am learning about God’s character everyday. However, just because I will never know everything shouldn’t stop me from saying something.
Please read her article first to understand my response. Without further ado, here it is.
Dear Anna,
I can see your heart behind the post, and I think I agree with it. I can get behind the belief that men and women should wait for a good spouse and not settle for someone based on the way they look. But I believe that this article can be perceived as painting men as weak, and women as responsible for their weakness.
Let me explain with a story.
I am a missionary and I have spent many months overseas loving on men and women from all walks of life. In fact, my team and I held healing retreats for widows in Uganda. For the retreats we would have women draw with crayons, how they viewed God, stories of pain and redemption etc. One of our contacts told us to cut out that activity because many of these women had never held a crayon before and it might be embarrassing for them to try. My team and I thought long and hard about it and while I was praying I felt God say, it’s about empowerment, not enablement. That is to say we should empower the women to try something completely new with the crayons and believe that they could learn how to draw, rather than enabling them to never learn because it might be embarrassing for them.
We decided to go forward with the drawing activity and let me tell you the freedom it brought was amazing. Not only were they able to express their feelings in a new way, they now had confidence to believe they could learn new things. They were empowered to move beyond rather than enabled to stay with what they knew.
I think it is similar for men who deal with lust. The simple fact of the matter is that you are never going to get rid of all the bikinis in the world, and further more, I don’t think you should.
Men are going to see girls in a bikini every once in a while. Instead of enabling him to blame his lust on what his eyes saw, let’s empower him to choose to control his thoughts. He is strong, not weak and more than capable of controlling where his thoughts go.
I have traveled to some countries where women are to be covered from head to toe in burkas and you know what I found, that lust is much more rampant and violent there than in countries where bikinis are socially acceptable. Even covering my legs and arms I was constantly looked at, shouted at, grabbed, and even masturbated at.
Why is it that the countries where women are forced to cover the most skin are, in my experience, the countries where the objectification of women is the most rampant?
Clearly lust is not driven by what the woman is wearing but the state of how women are viewed. In the Muslim country I was in, it took three women to be equivalent of a man and if a woman wasn’t wearing a hijab it was justifiable to rape her. After all he was induced to lust because her neck was showing.
Women in burkas are raped all the time, but it must be because too much skin was showing right? Wrong. Lust is not something you see with the eyes. It might start there in most cases, but beyond that it is a condition of the mind. And I do believe that men are more than capable of controlling their minds.
Don’t get me wrong, I, too, think porn is incredibly destructive, but I don’t think a girl in bikini is.
Yes, men, wait for the right girl. Yes, men, choose a woman of honor. But don’t blame your lustful thoughts on society. Yes, it might be harder to keep a pure mind in a place where women’s bodies are shown as objects, but you’re tougher than that. Your character is stronger.
You might think I have no idea what I am talking about because I am woman and I don’t know what lust is. But I assure you I do, women want sex and I have to fight for my purity of mind too. But I am not going to blame my lustful thoughts on a guy with nice pecs and a six pack. My thoughts are my responsibility and mine alone.
It makes me sad that this is how a lot of people view Christian culture. It makes me sad that this comment is the first I see, “This article demonizes women for having control over their own bodies and wardrobes. It infantilizes men, and it unfairly demeans non believers like myself. You want me to believe in your God? I would suggest not posting stuff like this in His name…”
I am a Christian and my God is a God of love. He is a God of grace who forgives when we screw up. And I believe he thinks more of men than to succumb to lustful thoughts and more of women to be responsible for such lust.
Anna, I know your heart was in the right place when you wrote this article, but it comes across as only addressing the surface of a deeper problem. Please consider how men and women are portrayed in this blog and think about how you might be perpetuating some ideas that might not be God’s at all.
Sincerely,
Another Girl Who Cares.
Meghan,
I have a ministry for young women and a blog of my own, and I agree with some of what you are saying here – men are definitely responsible for controlling their eyes and for their lust. But Anna’s post was not an ‘either/or’ issue. It was a post dealing with just ONE aspect of the lust battle: the battle men face each day. As Christian women, we SHOULD have mercy on the battle men are fighting – these are the godly men, like my husband, we WANT fighting for what is pure!
Lust is a heart response to a visual stimulant; it is a CHOICE, which you noted. So as women of God, we also have a choice: to aid our brothers in this battle, or to contribute to it. Are they responsible for their choices? Definitely! But so are we. So instead of justifying a bikini, let’s ask ourselves: how does this help me reflect my own worship of God? How am I battling lust for BOTH sexes, protecting the beauty of my gender, and preventing my own objectification by wearing this (or anything else)?
Anna is your sister in Christ, and so am I. She’s not being sexist. She is simply showing her support and the fact that she DOES care about the lust battle. So much so, she chooses not to contribute to it.
Phylicia,
I think we agree on a lot of things. I do want godly men and women fighting for purity, but I think as, with most battles, it begins in the mind. I think when we try and tackle the appearance of things (ie girls in bikinis) we often neglect the heart battle.
As we both agreed lust is a choice, so let’s seek internally about why we indulge these thoughts instead of shaming the girl who wore the bikini.
Think about how Christian culture talks about modesty and how the rest of the world views it. People on her blog commented how they felt judged and if we are communicating judgement I think we need stop and check ourselves.
In my experience it is never judgement that has won people to Christ, but love. I think we should be loving on people no matter what they wear, or look like, or talk like, or smell like.
If they should be convicted about any of the above I think that should happen from an inner heart change and over time, not because someone told them it was wrong.
Phylicia, I am thankful that you and Anna both are my sisters in Christ and I know your heart is in the right place. I also care for the lust battle, very much. I have worked with enough women who have come out of the sex trade to know how damaging lust can be.
But I am not going to fight the lust battle by shaming the girls for what they wear. That is judgement, not love. I will fight for purity, but not at the expense of people feeling loved and accepted.
I don’t claim to know everything. I acknowledge that I have SO much yet to learn about God and his character. But what I do know about him is that He is Love. So if we are making people think otherwise, we might be doing something wrong.
Wonderful wonderful post. Purity Culture and Modesty discussions in Christian culture so frequently focus on what the women should do, and do not tackle the heart of the issue. I study violence against women and your points here are so accurate and important. Thank you.
Mary, thank you so much for reading. I am so encouraged by your comment. Let’s change the way we look at lust and modesty.