So here’s the deal…
Being that the theme of this month is focusing on sex and the media, I had a few videos that I wanted to show about the exploitation of women. Yet, ironically, while they showed ads that in are everyday non-wrapped-up-in-plastic magazines, I still didn’t want to make the super conservative visitors uncomfortable so I decided to go with this one instead. It’s entitled, ” The Sexualisation of Girls” and it’s about six minutes long:
Again, it’s actually pretty tame in comparison, but what I do appreciate about this British-based one is that it caused me to think about two things.
1) Being that it explores that “beauty pressure” that a lot of young women are under due to the images that they see in the media, I thought about how far from the beauty definition the world is: “Do not let your adornment be merely outward—arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel—rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God.” (I Peter 3:3-4-NKJV) Yeah, when’s the last time we saw an ad promotioning the beauty of a woman’s heart and character?!?
2) I also thought about how the narrator was saying that the media basically sets young girls up to be seen as sex objects by boys who become men. And indeed, if girls are used to wearing next to nothing and boys are used to seeing next to nothing, what mentality are we expecting them to have? It’s almost as if the media is desensitizing them to porn almost from birth. Again, how interesting it is to me, the exchange that God had with Adam and Eve outside of the Garden:
“Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, ‘Where are you?’
So he said, ‘I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.’
And He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?’
Then the man said, ‘The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.’
And the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’
The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me and I ate.'”—Genesis 3:9-13(NKJV)
WHY DON’T WE SEE A CONNECTION HERE? The body is a beautiful thing and in the right context, nudity is a wonderful thing to behold (Genesis 2:24-45). Yet, why is it that we are no longer thinking about what transpired between God and his children? *After sin*, they felt naked *and hid*. After sin, there was *shame* in their nakedness. And yet now, it’s basically a parade of flesh that we see…*daily*.
Is it that we don’t value the “time and place” for nakedness? Is it that we don’t think our bodies are sacred and holy ground? Do we not care that our children’s eyes are being inundated and some of us would even say visually assaulted with images that challenge them to esteem their own body and the body of others? *Relentlessly so.* Have some of us struggled with porn, if we’re honest with ourselves, done so in part due to all of the nudity/sex in media that we also saw as teenagers?
I really do dig the song that’s playing in the background of the docomentary. In thinking about how God wanted to body to be honored and how…flippantly it is treated now…
“How naked *are we* gonna get?”
Sound off…