Apparently my former church has decided to tackle the subject of pornography, for which I applaud them. It takes a lot of courage to bring something like that up because my experience among evangelicals is that they are rather squeamish about talking about sexual matters. Oh, they are very good with the "thou shall nots" where the general public is concerned, but when it comes to discussing things among themselves, and especially when an unmarried person is present, they get all tongue-tied. Well, it's time to stop the fiction that only married people should know about sexual matters.
In the course of the evening the tired old subject of modesty and purity (for girls) came up, and I said, you talk about how the way young people dress these days (especially girls) shows that they have no sense of respect or restraint, but what are you teaching your sons and grandsons? Are you teaching them to watch how they dress and move? Well, yes, yes, we are teaching our sons and grandsons to act decently and respectfully, they said. But that is not what I asked.
I grew up in an environment in which to be a young woman meant that you constantly had to be on guard. You had to watch how you dressed. How you walked. How you sat. You were warned about the dangers of sexually arousing guys, that if it happened, it was your fault. At that time it was still common "knowledge" that women who were raped were raped because they were asking for it. No nice girl, no good Christian girl, ever was the object of unwelcome sexual advances. If she was, it was proof that she wasn't.
Boys, on the contrary, were given no such warning about their conduct and appearance. Yet, all throughout history, young boys, prepubescent boys, have been lumped in with women as objects of lust. Some societies were more open about it than others. But, as I said to them, the ugly truth is that there are men out there who are sexually aroused by boys. Your sons. Your grandsons.
If male arousal is based on sight (and there is a good deal of evidence to say that men are more visually aroused than women), and if it is true that the way a woman dresses plays a big role in creating that arousal, then it is equally true that young boys also draw sexual attention to themselves by the way they dress and act. Think about it. I do not think it is coincidence that pedophilia has been a problem among some Catholic priests and sports coaches. I don't know to what extent that priests and altar servers disrobe when they are putting on vestments or taking them off (I never was admitted to that particular world), but locker room nudity, well, that is the norm. It is not surprising, then, that you find men who are sexually attracted to boys taking advantage of the opportunities these situations present.
Yet, what do we tell young boys about this subject? That they too, can be the object of lust, just like a woman? And how do we tell them? We warn our young girls, I said, but we say nothing at all to our young boys. Because we don't want to think like that. We don't want to go there. It's easy to say to girls about the signals they send. It is not easy to say to boys about the signals they send. Because it has never dawned on us that boys may be sending signals too. And what those signals might consist of. Because it doesn't cross our minds that an older man may be lusting after our sons and grandsons. It's not part of our world at all. Until it hits home. I don't know if it's coincidence that the church has brought up this subject now, or if it has something to do with the fact a local man was recently indicted for child pornography. But it is a subject that cannot be ignored.
In the course of the evening the tired old subject of modesty and purity (for girls) came up, and I said, you talk about how the way young people dress these days (especially girls) shows that they have no sense of respect or restraint, but what are you teaching your sons and grandsons? Are you teaching them to watch how they dress and move? Well, yes, yes, we are teaching our sons and grandsons to act decently and respectfully, they said. But that is not what I asked.
I grew up in an environment in which to be a young woman meant that you constantly had to be on guard. You had to watch how you dressed. How you walked. How you sat. You were warned about the dangers of sexually arousing guys, that if it happened, it was your fault. At that time it was still common "knowledge" that women who were raped were raped because they were asking for it. No nice girl, no good Christian girl, ever was the object of unwelcome sexual advances. If she was, it was proof that she wasn't.
Boys, on the contrary, were given no such warning about their conduct and appearance. Yet, all throughout history, young boys, prepubescent boys, have been lumped in with women as objects of lust. Some societies were more open about it than others. But, as I said to them, the ugly truth is that there are men out there who are sexually aroused by boys. Your sons. Your grandsons.
If male arousal is based on sight (and there is a good deal of evidence to say that men are more visually aroused than women), and if it is true that the way a woman dresses plays a big role in creating that arousal, then it is equally true that young boys also draw sexual attention to themselves by the way they dress and act. Think about it. I do not think it is coincidence that pedophilia has been a problem among some Catholic priests and sports coaches. I don't know to what extent that priests and altar servers disrobe when they are putting on vestments or taking them off (I never was admitted to that particular world), but locker room nudity, well, that is the norm. It is not surprising, then, that you find men who are sexually attracted to boys taking advantage of the opportunities these situations present.
Yet, what do we tell young boys about this subject? That they too, can be the object of lust, just like a woman? And how do we tell them? We warn our young girls, I said, but we say nothing at all to our young boys. Because we don't want to think like that. We don't want to go there. It's easy to say to girls about the signals they send. It is not easy to say to boys about the signals they send. Because it has never dawned on us that boys may be sending signals too. And what those signals might consist of. Because it doesn't cross our minds that an older man may be lusting after our sons and grandsons. It's not part of our world at all. Until it hits home. I don't know if it's coincidence that the church has brought up this subject now, or if it has something to do with the fact a local man was recently indicted for child pornography. But it is a subject that cannot be ignored.
