In my last column I lamented the increasingly sexualized products now available in almost every store, especially those targeted at younger children. I received a lot of e-mail, and most of it asked me to address the problem of sexually explicit images on television which are increasingly impossible to avoid.
Before considering television, I have to go back to the discount stores and grocery chains. Isn't it odd that businesses which have no problem selling books with titles like, "What She really Wants For Christmas" or "Christmas In His Royal Bed" have cut most, if not all references to Christmas from their advertising, display and promotional materials?
Who is making these decisions?
The reason we and our children get an eyeful of silicone implants and garbage headlines from the tabloids every time we go through the check out stand is because no one objected. Now pornographic paperbacks without any age restrictions or warning labels are on the book racks, the girls clothing departments look like sex shops, and the raunchy videos. . . hey, no one's objecting. If a strip bar opened across the street from your house, I doubt you would just avoid looking and let it go, but for most people the embarrassment of taking a stand against evil. . .
Evil? Did I just equate tabloid and magazine covers at the check out aisles with evil?
Evil is the Nazi extermination of men, women and children. Evil is Stalin murdering millions of "cogs" and falsely imprisoning millions more. Evil is people who open fire at schools or the mall.
Sexy pictures are not evil. Those who think they are, well, there's evil for you. After all, didn't Hitler and Stalin want to run everyone's life and tell them what to do?
My interest in studying Hitler and Stalin, both God hating sexual perverts determined to destroy families, is that they came to power in post-Christian countries. I'm convinced our culture is traveling a similar path, and one obvious indication is our plummeting standards for decency. Sexual immorality and unbelief fuel each other, and they have always led to disaster in individuals, families and cultures.
According to scripture, sex was meant to be highly valued, but subservient to family. Today sex is overvalued, one might say hypervalued, while families are disintegrating. If sex were limited to faithful married couples, STDs would disappear without drugs. There are now over two dozen STDs and many of them have no known cure. HIV/AIDS has killed more than all our wars combined. One in four girls are sexually molested before reaching adulthood, and the percentage of molested boys is growing. I could bury you in statistics which should be shocking, but nothing shocks us anymore. Do people have the right to think about sex in any form? Is viewing or reading about people engaged in sex evil?
Every single one of us has a line which we think crossing is evil. Almost all would say sexual fantasies which involve abusing children or killing people are evil—way over the line. So there is a line. What basis do we have for drawing that line and where should that line be?
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Allright bro! Consensual sex! I'm totally there!
Did I hear you say it would be okay if your sister or daughter was a stripper or prostitute? Would it be all right if she joined the drug addicts in the porn industry? How about if she was used and dumped by some guy who just wanted to hook up? Would it be okay for a man to introduce your son to sex? Are you okay with a woman seducing your daughter? Would you want your child's struggles with drugs or infidelity splattered on the cover of the tabloids?
Only the blind can't see that today's hypersexed culture is doing irreparable damage to our families, especially the children.
I can't control the way life turns, but I would have my daughters and sons (and yours) chaste, innocent and able to present themselves to their spouse for a lifetime of sexual intimacy that remains in its proper place.
We must consider every person as someone's son or daughter—because they are. To cross the line, to seduce, deceive and use people for profit or pleasure is to be on the side of evil. Those responsible for the garbage children are now exposed to have crossed it, and they are dragging along all of us who do nothing to stop them.
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