#MeToo and the Deep Cultural Concerns It Highlights

Social media has been taken by storm in recent weeks with brave women sharing their #metoo stories. Stories about how “they too” have been sexually abused, sexually assaulted, or sexually harassed during their lifetime. This movement of women sharing their stories has shone light on the dark reality of our culture viewing women as objects whose “place” is to gratify men’s sexual desires, and not much more than that. This is oppression and injustice and is a tragedy to the heart of God.

As men, we often describe our sin of lust as a “struggle” or a “battle,” but the #metoo movement reminds us of the truth that in reality, it is the abuse and degregation of women.

Not all men are rapists or have overtly sexually harassed a woman, but whenever we lust, we reinforce the monster of objectification in our world. We are saying we agree with sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and sexual assault. We may not consciously admit to this, but it’s all a part of the same sport. You can’t judge the house on fire across the street while you play with matches and gasoline in your own driveway.

Lust breeds more lust. Lust is a mindset and a lifestyle, not an isolated action. Lust is a professor that teaches men to objectify women; it doesn’t have an on/off switch. Even if a man doesn’t take the advanced course in lust and turn it into the action of rape or harassment, he is still a ticking time bomb, perpetuating the world as a place that dehumanizes women. A place that is unsafe for women and treats them as inferior, without the innate dignity they have as image bearers of God.

The Sad Irony of Our Culture and #MeToo

Swimming schools produce swimmers, music schools produce musicians, and art schools produce artists.  The sad irony of our culture is we have not realized the same holds true for lust and its subsequent actions like sexual abuse, rape, and sexual harassment. Our culture is a lust school, and guess what lust schools produce?

Our culture loves to objectify women on the big screen, the small screen, and everywhere in between, but then seems baffled when men start seeing women in real life this way. Game of Thrones has won 38 Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Drama Series in 2015 and 2016. A Game of Thrones director, Neil Marshall, quoting an unnamed GOT producer on the Empire.com Podcast said:

This particular exec, like, took me to one side and said, “Look, I represent the pervert side of the audience. Ok?  Everybody else is the serious drama side. I represent the perv side of the audience, and I want full frontal nudity in this scene. So you go ahead and do it.”

This is not art, friends. It is the school of sexual abuse and objectification that educated 30 million U.S. viewers in its Season 7 premiere alone, not including the 185 other countries and territories it was broadcast in.

Related: If you’re watching Game of Thrones, you’re watching porn.

Or the Fifty Shades of Grey movie franchise, which has been nominated for an Oscar and brought in $950 million dollars between the first two movies. The books had sold over 125 million copies by 2015. Every Valentine’s Day, my local library decks itself out with Fifty Shades books and décor, because what says love and Valentine’s Day better than rape?

Related: 4 Lies About Sexuality in Fifty Shades of Grey

I’m not just referring to rape scenes as the problem here. Anytime a man sees a naked woman’s body on a screen, it is one more lesson that this is the place for a woman’s body: naked and sexual. So why are we so surprised when he applies this lesson to the women he sees in real life?

Our culture romanticizes the objectification of woman time and time and time again, then is aghast (rightfully so) when men act out what they see on the screen. Whenever an act of sexual abuse, harassment, or assault happens, it is never the victim’s fault, ever. That’s not my point at all here. My point is to show how Satan is the great deceiver and he has our culture so blind it can’t tell its up from its down. Sexual assault, abuse, harassment, and the objectification of women are awful, awful, things. Yet, somehow Satan has gotten our culture, men and women alike, to be absolutely ecstatic over them, as long as they are larger than life, with pulsing music behind them, on HD big screen TV’s.

Every time we watch, purchase, or click on a TV show, movie, or book that displays this objectification, we are voting for more objectification in our world and in our own lives. We are voting for more #metoo stories to have to be written.

Waking Up from the Lie

We are all fools for believing Satan’s lie and it’s time to wake up. You can’t play with the fire and not get burned. Or as Proverbs 6:27 puts it, “Can a man scoop a flame into his lap and not have his clothes catch on fire?”

The answer to that question is a resounding NO. Some men will take the Oscar-winning porn they watch and will assault, abuse, and harass women because of it. Others will watch it and will continue a lifetime habit (not “struggle” or “battle”) of assaulting, abusing, and harassing women in their minds. Maybe it will manifest itself into action and maybe it won’t, but both of these men’s clothes are on fire. And as we’ve seen from the #metoo movement, way too many women have been burned by these flames.

Our world is a scary place for women, a scary place I’ve brought three daughters into. What breaks my heart is that as long as Game of Thrones, Fifty Shades of Grey, and their many beloved, award-winning counterparts put gas on the fire of lust and objectification, it’s only going to get worse. The fire is already an inferno that the porn industry as well our culture’s obsession with sex outside of marriage are pouring an infinite supply of fuel onto.

It can feel downright hopeless.

Related: 5 Things to Do About #MeToo

What we each have to remember, men and women both, is that we can turn the tide in our own lives by refusing to attend Satan’s many schools. We can stop believing the deception that our little bit of pleasure isn’t harming anyone, because it’s harming everyone, including ourselves and those we love the most. God didn’t create us to be degraded as objects or to be people-consuming monsters. He created us in His image, full of love, dignity, and respect. Anything outside of this needs to be seen for what it is, repented of, and spoken out against.