apprehending appeasement

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."

Winston Churchill

This morning I woke up and read an impassioned plea on Facebook. It was from an amazing young woman that we got to know when one of our good friends from Munich fell in love with her and got married. She was asking her Facebook friends to go to her Blog and view the comments she had received in response to a post she had written. 

This is the link to her Blog and the offending post. http://ruthiedean.com/2013/01/27/your-body-is-not-the-problem/ 

I obediently went to the Blog and read the comments. 

In case you have neither the time nor inclination to read the many comments on her Blog let me offer the Cliff Notes. 

She was inundated with well meaning men and women explaining that while it was indeed horrible that women are shamed by Christian leaders about what they wear she really needed to remember that women have a responsibility to their Christian brothers who are overwhelmed by feelings of lust when they see women in certain appealing apparel. 

I, being a well meaning man, thought it behooved me to speak into the virtual discussion on the merits of women caring about how their choice of wardrobe effects men in their life. I apologized profusely to all the women who might ever read Ruthie's blog on behalf of all men and explained it isn't their responsibility to worry about their male friends' sexual urges. That would be the men's responsibility! Then I wrote this  

 “If the most beautiful woman you can imagine walked into church next Sunday naked and jumped on your lap and begged you to have sex with her, here is the response God and I expect you to aim for. We expect you to be able to get her out of the room, while protecting her dignity and honor, without shaming her in anyway, and ensuring you have made no judgement at all about her choices.”

This is what my standard for how Christian men ought to be able to behave in even the most unlikely circumstances. 

Then as the day progressed I thought more on the subject. It riles me when I hear of women being shamed and objectified in defense of what seems the indefensible. Every man who I lead understands that I expect them to take captive every thought and to engage self-control in every area of their lives. 

Defeat is acceptable if you have fought the good fight. Surrender is contemptible if you never even tried  resistance!

"Millions for defense! Not one cent for tribute!” 

Stealing from the great Charles Cotesworth Pinckney from America's early Independence history to aid me in expressing a personal ethos when it comes to taking personal responsibility for my own actions and attitudes. 

I think men in Christianity need to apprehend our tendency to appease our baser impulses to sexually objectify women in our society. I have heard some great men of God explain away the male sexual impulses as almost irresistible. They follow that declaration by stating that therefore women must bear the responsibility for men's sexual impulses by hiding their feminine sexuality from their Brethrens' sight.

When we surrender the high ground and try to appease the monster inside ourselves we find it will eventually consume us. Today's young men are exposed to a level of pornography that would have been unbelievable only 20 years ago. The advent of the Internet has unleashed a torrent of sexual aberration on our society. The recent research suggests young men 18-25 have seen thousands of graphic images that skew their concept of how women ought to look and what women are meant to do. This isn't a puristic response from the hard right of Evangelicalism. This was on MSNBC's Morning Joe a few weeks ago! 

We need to start a dialogue with our young men explaining that it is morally reprehensible to objectify another human being. 

We also need to emulate the great old Roman senator Gaius Laenas who drew a circle in the sand and sent the eastern despot Mithridates on his way! Our young men have been enslaved by a far worse tyrant and we older men lack the gumption of our forebears and are busy offering up our daughters in hopes of appeasing the monster and saving our sons. 

I'm a history buff, and I like the old heroes. I think the ladies in my life deserve the chance to live a life that isn't constantly being objectified either by young men who only see an object to satisfy their momentary passion or by older men and women who want to objectify by blaming the young women for why the men are objectifying them. 

I know this is close to a semi-rant online and that I'm in danger of falling into the cliche of the irate Blogger....

But I have a wife and I'm deeply offended that some young man might be so reprehensibly ignorant as to think my wife is a fine object for his unbridled libido! Few young men see my wife on my arm and think allowing his eyes free reign is a good idea at that moment. I fill a room with my personality and despite 17 years of passivity I sadly retain the shadow of the violent streets a I grew up on. Young men take a deep breath and dig deep down inside and always find the capacity to look my wife in the eyes when they talk to her! My looming tattooed presence usually ensures that amount of self-control....

I'm a "line in the sand" kind of guy...... appeasement only encourages encroachment.