As I wrap up the final week of my current job (I am about to start a new one!), I was reflecting on many things, like I always do. Part of my job requires me to transport our clients to and from appointments and sometimes school. I always have the radio on and I prefer country stations or Christian radio stations. If a client asks to change the station or changes it anyway, I put up no fight. So most often, I end up listening to the popular hip-hop station. I am very often, disgusted with what I hear. I am embarrassed at the lyrics and content. I am appalled that such young ears and hearts identify and welcome such filth. Of course they don’t realize the filth and disgusting nature of what they are listening to as it’s just so popular, to them, its normal.
There is one song in particular that…horrifies me. The normalcy present in the song is shocking. We shake our heads in disapproval when our young people are committing suicide over social media chaos linked to sexting and other deplorable acts. As someone that has worked with teens for many years, has been following Christ for multiple years now, all I can do is be in awe at how gruesome these messages are.
When the young person gets out of the vehicle at their destination, I turn the radio to my stations. I’m a city girl that loves country music. I’ll tell you why. In comparison to current hip-hop, these men sing about family and working hard. Tim McGraw’s latest single, “Humble and Kind,” — Sam Hunt with “Take Your Time” (my favorite)—Dierks Bentley’s “I Hold On.”
Now let me tie my thoughts together. My music preference is not the subject of this post, but just a catalyst to my point. In Yo Gotti’s song, “Down in the DM,” he says, “snapchat me that P—- if it’s cool.” I hate it. I see it as the worst way to objectify someone. Aside from using a woman just for sex or watching pornography, men have now subjugated women to the purpose of sexual stimulation solely based on their genitals, a PHOTO of their genitals at that! There’s no verbal communication, no physical interaction, and definitely no face to face contact. A woman’s face is not even valued. When I was a self-proclaimed feminist, I hated such objectification. Objectification was the root of all evil, it was what we were educating ourselves against. It was the enemy. Treating women as sex objects was the worst thing anyone could do.
Yesterday all of this was on my mind as I dropped off a client at their school. While I sat at red light, IT came to me. It’s a given the men objectify women. It’s also another truth that women objectify themselves.
But why is no one talking about how men objectify themselves?
As much as I have studied God’s design for women, I have by default learned just as much as God’s design for men. I see the enemy at work more and more within our own gender identities and gender roles. We are all aware of the Transgender chaos… bathrooms, Presidential decrees, store policies. The rainbow flags fly high and cliché flamboyant personalities surface. Sure we should be paying attention.
Transgender is a colorful smokescreen. What’s beneath the surface is a quieter perversion, a stealthier temptation. It’s a struggle for me as a woman to help other women stay the course with our One True God. It’s a bigger struggle to be an example not just for women but for men. Men cannot know a woman of God, unless he is a man of God. He cannot be a full man of God if he continues to objectify himself sexually. Too many men have not harnessed their vessels (1 Thessalonians 4:4) and they allow their sex drive to run amok. They idolize the Evolutionary stance that males instinctively desire to spread their seed. Let us refer to the Word.
That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor (1 Th 4:4, KJV)
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. (2Co 4:7, KJV).
To use music again, how many of today popular music are about sex? Not the romantic sensual love-making, baby-making music of the past but raw unconstrained sex. I listen to these songs that are exclusively about intoxication via illegal substances, money, and sex. Each activity intertwined with the next and accentuated with other illegal activities (dealing drugs). I imagine a tribe of men, laid up in a house all day, unemployed, using drugs and dealing them, fishing for women via social media, asking for pictures, and doing their best to talk a woman into having sex. If the actual sex is off the table a mere photo will do. Their dominant focus is on themselves and gratifying their flesh. No one else matters. Men with no responsibilities, they don’t take it on nor do they welcome it. They shrink back at the slightest mention of work. These men are often heard stating, “Money over B—-es.”
To answer my own question, why is no one talking about how men objectify themselves? Perhaps if I use another phrase it will tap into your psyche.
Phallic worship. A quick look into Greek, Roman, Asian, Ancient Egyptian and Scandinavian culture, the Pre-Colombian Americas all have phallic worship in their midst. Antiquity, idolatry, polytheism, rituals, there is even a modern day religion.
Why is this called worship and not objectification? It is because it is a lie from the enemy. The story of Lucifer being thrown out of Heaven due to his desire to be higher than God, thinking of himself higher than he ought to (Isaiah 14:12-14) has been told over and over. The enemy is still the most self- centered being in the universe, he continues to use this arrogance and self-worship as the best way to turn our eyes and hearts from God.
Men, you were made in the image of God. You were made for so much more than having sex with women. Multiple women do not make a man. In Proverbs, King Solomon gives us advice mostly detailing what wisdom looks like. Proverbs 5 tell us to pay attention and stay away from the adulterous woman (we could infer also any person that is tempting us into sexual sin). He is warning us that later down the road we will regret not welcoming discipline and correction. (v15) Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well— means sleep with your own wife and no one else! (v16-17) Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares? Let them be yours alone, never to be share with strangers. —means even if you have access to other women, never share your body with strangers! Proverbs 7:21 warns us that those of us that allow ourselves to be seduced are like an ox going to the slaughter like a deer stepping into a noose til an arrow pierces his like, like a bird darting into a snare, little knowing it will cost him his life. Proverbs 9 warns us of inviting folly [the opposite of wisdom] into our lives. Folly was likened to an unruly [disobedient] woman that welcomes the simple [unintelligent] into her house, she says, “(v17) Stolen water is sweet; food eaten in secret is delicious!” (v18) But little do they know that the dead are there, that her guests are deep in the realm of the dead.
Men, through the ages you have objectified women. Woman was made from your rib, so when you objectify her, you objectify yourself. You have objectified yourselves by revering your vessels. Making statues, gods, and much more based on what GOD gave you. We are not called to worship our own earthly bodies, let alone specific anatomical features, but we are called to worship the Living God!
Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own, you were bought with a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. (1Cor 6:19-20)
We are to honor God with our bodies, not honor our bodies. Everything that we are and everything that we do, should be honoring God. The Old Testament tells people to put away the strange gods… and serve Him only (1Sam 7:3-4), while the New Testament tells us often to die to our flesh, to be carnally minded is death (Romans 8:6).
I will tell you one last time, there is more to you than your sexual exploits.
Confessions of a Recovering Feminist 