This doesn’t make any sense. Here in America, we who claim to be enlightened and liberated react with shock and dismay at reports of women in other cultures being raped and abused and sold into sexual slavery. And we should be shocked and dismayed. Yet at the very same time, we celebrate a book and movie about sexual bondage and abuse, about a woman who becomes a man’s degraded sex victim.
This is utterly perverse.
In recent years, we have become increasingly aware of the terrible mistreatment of women in much of the Muslim world and beyond.
We react with horror when we hear about two Indian women who were raped and then hung for losing their virginity.
We are shocked to see pictures of formerly beautiful women whose faces have been disfigured by acid attacks at the hands of jilted suitors.
We are appalled to hear of young girls auctioned off as sex slaves, part of the ever-growing plague of human trafficking.
How can women be treated as pieces of property? Where is their equality, their dignity, their full personhood?
We do well to be outraged over these atrocities, and we do well to raise our voices in protest.
But we do well to ask ourselves some serious questions, too.
How much better is our culture than these other cultures?
How much better is our culture, which “sexploits” women every hour of the day?
How much better is a culture that portrays women as sexual objects on thousands of magazine covers, that celebrates them the more they take off their clothes, that applauds them the more they gyrate on stage, that photographs them the more they show off their surgically enhanced endowments?
What kind of “liberation” is this for women?
We may scorn Islamic fundamentalism which requires women to cover everything but their eyes in public, but we have gone to the other extreme.
If you don’t believe me, just check out the latest edition of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition.
Better still, don’t check it out. It’s vulgar and obscene (imagine that being your daughter on the cover), and ask the store manager where you shop to remove it from the checkout counters.
Or consider the lyrics of some popular hip hop and rap songs, speaking of women in the crudest ways imaginable. Add to this the fact that there are plenty of female performers who go right along with this, singing lewd songs about their own body parts.
All this points to a much larger problem, a problem highlighted by the incredible success enjoyed by the “Fifty Shades of Grey” book, which has sold more than 100 million copies in 50 languages, not to mention the anticipated success of the soon-to-be released movie.
Headlines now declare that the sale of sex toys is increasing, in particular, implements of “bondage and discipline,” and it is not just men buying these tools of perversion. It is women who are buying them, not to mention women who make up a large number of the readers of the book and who are expected to make up a large portion of the movie audience.
We’re even hearing more news stories talk about various master-slave couples casually describing the lifestyles they lead and the perversions they enjoy.
Does anyone feel the same moral outrage I feel, or have we completely lost our minds?
I appreciate the voices of conservative women like Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute and Dawn Hawkins, executive director of Morality in Media, who have drawn attention to the abusive nature of the “Fifty Shades” phenomenon.
Dawn has led the #FIFTYSHADESISABUSE campaign, noting that “The ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ book series and franchise promote torture as sexually gratifying and normalize domestic violence, particularly violence against women. This type of material cultivates a rape and sexual violence culture and is now permeating our society.”
Exactly. And so, while “enlightened” women speak out against this culture of anti-female violence and degradation, many of them now devour “Fifty Shades” and eagerly await the movie’s release.
With all my heart, I pray that God would awaken us out of this immoral stupor and bring us back to our godly senses.
I know about “Fifty Shades” only from what I have read in articles, having not the slightest interest to read the book or see the movie. But I’m quite sure it is a violation of decency and morality, not to mention an utter slap in the face of every woman in the world. It’s also an insult to men, as if this perverse sexuality is the real expression of who we are.
And so, I appeal to every woman of conscience: While you stand up for the dignity of the rape victim in Pakistan, please stand up for your own dignity here in America.
And I appeal to every man of conscience: Do not look at women merely as sexual objects to fulfill your gratification. Honor them as your esteemed friends, colleagues and spouses, also created in the image and likeness of God.
The bad news is that our society has completely lost its way.
The good news is that all too often, we don’t wake up until we hit bottom, and we are about to hit bottom with a crash.
The awakening could be near.
