This week my friend accepted a job with Playboy International, as an interior design intern for their New York bars and nightclubs. Another one of my friends is growing in reputation as a burlesque dancer who is fusing the modern and traditional styles. And most of my other friends who work in more ‘normal’ jobs would probably say they are happy for these friends – they are pursuing their dreams, getting good money and having fun. What can be wrong about that? I like seeing my friends happy too, and I am excited that they are accomplishing goals and having fun, however I can’t quite reconcile why happiness is found in working for an industry that feeds the objectification of women and that normalises sex as a commodity.
When did we accept synonymity of sex with red, black and naughty? And why do we construe violent, abusive and pornified images, as the norm for sexy? Our ears are blasted by the advertising jingle for a popular male deodorant, which uses Bom-Chicka-Wah-Wah, the onomatopoeia guitar riff from porn movies of the 70s. This has even provided inspiration for the single released comprising of these lyrics:
“what if in the morning there is guilt and regret? Better than another night watching TV with you pets”
Am I just the fuddy-duddy, Jesus-loving, old-fashioned and conservative Christian friend? Do you think, as the apostle Paul does in Ephesians 4, that our society has lost all sensitivity?
Then again, should we even be surprised that there are no objective moral norms, given our society holds no belief in an objective moral-norm-giver.
they are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more. ephesians 4:17-19
6 comments:
This is a great post Hayley. I was thinking similarly this morning - is our society constantly progressing forwards (as some would have us believe), or are we in fact going backwards? I guess it depends on how you define 'progression'. If progression is just removing boundaries to do whatever we like without limitation, then perhaps we are progressing. However, I'd like to think that we would learn over time from history's and humanity's mistakes (and God's instruction) and we would place limitations on our behaviour based on what is good, not only for ourselves, but those we share the world with. I can't say this reflects the dominant attitude of the world we live in though...
Hi Hayley,
Great post. I'm not sure what to make of this, but I drove past a bus-stop ad for Marie Claire magazine yesterday and there were four squares, each presumably telling us what's inside the magazine. One was cooking, I can't remember two of them, but the last one was "Sex and Babies", which surprised me. You almost never see sex and babies talked about in the same sentence in our culture. Either you're having lots of good sex, and babies are a curse that you dispose of, or you've got babies and you can guarantee you aren't getting any (good) sex.
Quite refreshing to see it, actually.
Just checking if my OpenID is working...
Girl you said it all! I agreed with what you said 100%
here's an interesting article I just came across - "the pornification of a generation" - http://www.newsweek.com/id/162792/output/print
Ben - I agree,our society tries in so many ways to erase any connection between sex and babies.
Carien - nice to see you in blog land!!!
Thanks for the link Steve.
I will hopefully blog some more on this soon...
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