Read an article in Relevant entitled, “Beauty Vs. Sexuality” and it has my mind churning. I like the way this guy thinks, but I bet there’s some people who will line up to shoot some holes in his theory.
Hugo Schwyzer writes,
In many discussions about modesty and the male gaze, someone quotes the famous line from Job: “I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl” (Job 31:1). Note the pesky adverb. If men can’t look at women without sexual longing, isn’t the “lustfully” redundant? Perhaps Scripture isn’t telling men not to look, it’s reminding men how to look. The problem of lust is that it’s selfish; when we lust we appropriate for ourselves what isn’t ours to take and, all too often, lose sight of the humanity of the person for whom we’re lusting. The implication in Job, however, is that men can “look” without lusting. The covenant isn’t to avoid looking, or even delighting in what is seen; the covenant is to look while stopping short of sexual objectification. If we believe men can’t separate these things, we sell them—and we sell the reality of grace—woefully short.
Because we refuse to take seriously men’s ability to not lust in the presence of loveliness, we shame the great many women who—whatever their other fabulous qualities—also want to be affirmed for their beauty. If every man is “fighting a battle” against lust, and if few men are capable of distinguishing appreciation for beauty from carnal longing, then every woman who dresses to be validated becomes a traitor to the cause of spiritual purity. The end result is devastating for too many. Lauren Lankford Dubinsky, founder of the Good Women Project, wrote in an email that “women are victimized by the soul-crushing weight of having your motives (or even personal worth) judged incorrectly on the basis of something as simple as an article of clothing. A huge percentage of women within the Church are silently battling eating disorders, self-harm, pornography addiction and depression—all stemming from misplaced shame, a shame they feel because fellow Christians have equated their beauty with intentional malice or deliberate seductiveness toward men.”
To put it another way, we shame men by insisting they’re fundamentally weak, constantly vulnerable to being overwhelmed by sexual impulses. We shame women for not being better stewards of that supposed weakness. That shame doesn’t just lead to unhealthy sexual relationships (including between husbands and wives); it leaves too many men feeling like potential predators and too many women feeling as if they’re vain, shallow temptresses.
I really loved when he wrote, “we refuse to take seriously men’s ability to not lust in the presence of loveliness.” That’s good stuff.
Would love to hear your thoughts. Do we too quickly rely on shame (towards both men and women) in the battle of lust?
