Now that I have your attention...
I figured I would start this thing out with a bang. I recently attended a showing of The Nativity Story (I will be posting
a review later).
One part got me thinking. It got me thinking, of course, about
something I had thought about before but it made it relevant for the
moment. There was a scene towards the beginning where Mary is
coming from the fields through town and pass by Joseph and another
man of similar age (they looked to be upper twenties or early
thirties) and as she passes by, she catches their attention. They both
follow her with their gaze as she moves on down the street. The
man working with Joseph gives him some look and he is lightly
repremanded non-verbally by Joseph. It isn't quite clear whether
the man was relaying the message, "She sure is a pretty girl" or
something like "You're in love, aren't you?" My initial reaction
was the first but then I figured it must have been the second because
of the context of the movie but at the time it was difficult to
perceive correctly because you didn't know yet that was Joseph.
But what got me thinking immediately was that if that had happened
today, both of them would have been labeled as pedophiles.
Remember, Mary was about 14 years old.
That depends, of course, on what the age of consent is in your state
or country. I am only writing from a view or the US since I don't
know what the rest of the world thinks about this. But I digress.
Questions that have been raised to me before are things such as;
what is the difference between a girl who is 18 and a girl who is
one day shy of being 18? Or what is the difference between a 16
year old in Kansas and a 13 year old in Arkansas?
In observing men in many different situations, especially in the
warehouses or on the sales crews where the men seem to have less
scruples about this sort of thing and are more open to talk about it,
I have come to the conclusion that the majority of men in the US are
sexually attracted to teenage girls and younger.
A common refrain heard in these circles is the phrase "If she's old
enough to bleed, she's old enough for me." And I have heard on more
than one occassion someone chime in with the fact that she wouldn't
even have to be that old. There are never any rebuttals to this idea
from these groups of guys. In ages past (example: when Mary and
Joseph were around) societies readily accepted pre-teen and teenage girls suitable for marraige. Some parts of the
world still work in this way.
So what has changed in a place like the US to make what was and is
in some places normal a crime so vile that one offense will affectively
ban a person from society for the remainder of his life?
You might be thinking 'This guy's a loon' even if you know me but hear
me out before making judgements like that.
The argument goes that girls are too young at that age to make a
proper choice and that may well be true. Certainly, life in the USA
in the 21st Century is a far more advanced and complicated society
than the world has ever known. And in the majority of these younger
marraiges the girls are not the ones making the decision. The
decision is made by an adult. So we have handed over the right to
decide to the girls but realize that girls that young are not able to
make a decision of that magnitude. Sounds reasonable.
However, if that is the case, why is the age 12 in some places yet
never older than 18 anywhere? If we are truly concerned about
maturity in big life decisions, shouldn't that age be set at 25? Or at
the very least 21? It is funny to me that the drinking age is 21 but
the age of consent is at the most 18. A girl can go and dance in an all nude strip club when they are 18 but if alchohal is served then
they have to wear cloths and they have to be 21. A guy can go into
an all nude strip club when he is 18 but the other
club which is much less explicit, he cannot set foot in until he is 21.
Does any of that make any sense?
So we end up with a huge amount of guys in this country who are
naturally attracted to young girls from a young age themselves but
are villified for this normal attraction.
And we as a society develope these appitites. We dress our little
girls provocativley from a very early age with halter tops, mini skirts,
thigh high leggings, high heels, bikinis and shirts, sweats and panties
and thongs with phrases like"Eye Candy" or "Don't Touch" printed
on them. We place our little girls on dance teams in skin tight
spandex and have them perform suggestive dance moves in front of
arenas full of teenage boys and men, young and old. We release movie
after movie with kids speaking vulgarities, making jokes about sex and some even having sexual encounters (off screen) and movies with
as many bare breasted teens as possible. We, at every level, from
Hollywood, to the music industry, to media, to clothing manufacturers, to marketing companies,
to our colleges, to our schools and even down to their very parents,
train these girls to be sexual objects and then these very same people
are shocked when sting operations bag hundreds of guys desiring sex
with a beautiful teenage girl.
I truly believe that if people knew the hearts of every man in
the world they would be stunned by the amount that would fall
into our definition of pedophile.
THE POINT
I understand that I took a long time to get here but I wanted to lay
out a very complicated situation to you.
We must, as a society, get back to holiness as a standard for our
young girls. From looking at history and accepted practices in other
parts of the world and indeed in this very country in the fairly recent
past, it is the purest of vanity to try to change men's attraction to
teenage girls. What needs to change is our view of sexuality and
our treatment of young girls and young women. We must return to
teaching our young girls their value beyond sex, modesty in dress
and actions, purity in thought, language and actions, the value of sex
in the safety of marraige, and the sacredness of the bonds of marraige.
And we must do this not only for the sake of our girls but also the
sake of our men.
How can we continue to preach to our children that sex whenever
and with whomever is is not only ok but desirable and parade our
young girls in front of men like so many peices of cake in front of a
diabetic and then become outraged when the outcome is pedophilia?
Our society is creating pedophiles and the scary part is that if history
is any kind of prognosticator, society will eventually view pedophilia
as an acceptable form of sexual activity because it refuses to part
with its own sexual perversions. We did away with a Creator because
Christianity subdued Darwin and his apprentice's sexual morays, we
did away with marraige because it hindered women's
rights, and we are doing away with heterosexuality because it
infringes upon the few who no longer want to live out their own
perversions of sexuality in the dark. Despite the almost violent
opposition that pedophiles face in today's society, even around the world, I can hear the whispers of change coming. It is too large of a
problem for law enforcement to deal with and there are millions
of men in this country who, when they read or see a report on a sting
know in their hearts that presented with the same opportunity, they
would give in as well. And when that recognition turns into sympathy,
our society will be one huge step closer to Rome and one huge step
closer to our Fall. In your own hearts, turn to Christ and seek a life
of Holiness and start standing up for holiness in the areas where
you have influence. The ways are far too extensive for me to list or
even possibly contemplate but that is for you to come up with.
Threatening legal action will not be effective.
A truth that everyone must learn (and it has taken me most of my
life to realize this) is that the only way to effectively change behaviour
is to change the heart. So come at it from that angle. Be kind, be
understanding but be firm.
Thank you for reading and your comments are valued.
p.s. I know that someone will be thinking that above, I
made an argument that men's attraction to young girls is
normal, the very thing I went on to warn against but when
the lifestyle of Biblical Holiness is applied, then no woman should be the object of lust in a man's heart
regardless of age. A man will set aside these things for his
eventual wife. Men's attractions are not the issue,
men's lust is. So how then does that affect age of consent laws?
That is something I will touch on in another writing.
