Today, I took a new step in my journey toward spiritual freedom.
A couple of weeks ago, I experienced a torturous ten or fifteen minutes of personal recrimination, and good old-fashioned white anglo-saxon protestant guilt, when I saw a stack of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit magazines at a local Barnes and Noble. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I literally walked out, then in, then out of the store before I decided not to buy one.
Ladies and gentlemen . . . this is not freedom. This is hell.
Do I recommend that every man pick up a Playboy at the nearest local store (or at least the nearest store that sells Playboys)?
Of course not. After all, our society has become so ridiculously repressed when it comes to sexuality, so hopelessly double-minded about what is, ultimately, one of the human race's most basic and natural activities, that I fear a lot of men would, on seeing a magazine containing nude and sensual photos of women, allow themselves to lose all sense of control and proportion--and become victims of a kind of sexual "binge and purge" cycle that, one begun, would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to stop.
(I speak from personal experience in this regard, as someone who has viewed a variety of XXX-rated and other overtly sexual products, including Playboy. Having an unhealthy attitude about my own sexuality going into this experience caused a horrifying degree of emotional (and spiritual) self-torture and self-hatred that I am still, to some extent, recovering from.)
However, if a man has a healthy attitude toward his own body, and has (as most men do) an interest in women, I don't see the harm if he chooses to pick up an issue of Playboy (or even a copy of Playboy's "No Boys Allowed" :)) if he so wishes.
It isn't a matter of what is viewed. It is a matter of how a potential buyer feels about himself and his innermost sexual drives and desires. Are they something he celebrates as a normal, everyday part of life--or are they, in his mind, associated with evil, and pain?
My friend, it is a terrible thing to go through life hating yourself . . . especially an important, essential aspect of yourself. Believe me, I know--I've been there. And if you, as I once did, think of Jesus as someone who, in the name of "freedom," wishes you to repress the most basic, defining elements of who you are, then you have a very twisted view of the faith you have adopted.
Freedom is simply that--freedom. The freedom to be yourself, the freedom to allow yourself to experience the things you were designed to experience as a man, woman, or transgender . . . these are things I believe essential to a pure, and healthy, understanding of the freedom that Jesus offers each of us. Perhaps this sounds heretical or even self-serving to you, perhaps you have never heard a Christian say anything like this before, or perhaps, like me, you always knew, in your heart, that there was something more to spiritual freedom than what conservative Christianity had to offer.
However hard this statement may be for you to accept . . . it is still true.
I went to the same store today, meandering through the bookshelves and the magazine racks, as I had done many weeks before--not intending to buy anything. I saw the Sports Illustrated--Swimsuit Edition display, its stack of magazines virtually unchanged from when I had seen them a couple of weeks before. After thinking about it, for a total of 2 or 3 minutes (and not going in and out of the store this time :)), I decided to pick up a copy. I strolled up to the counter, magazine in hand, smiled at the cashier, and bantered with her as I would during any normal purchase--it was, in fact, one of the friendliest exchanges I have had with a Barnes and Noble employee. I walked out of the store, bag in hand, and made my way to the downtown Fort Worth bus station.
I sat on the back of the bus, where I normally would sit, on my way to TCU--and spent the majority of the ride reading the Swimsuit Edition, right out in the open, as I would any other magazine or book.
I am happy to report that the sky did not fall, and I did not become a raging hormonal lunatic damned to attack any aspect of visualized nudity and sexuality he encounters. There was no "slippery slope," and I did not suddenly feel the fires of hell burning in my belly.
I simply enjoyed the magazine, leafed through its pictures, and admired the beauty I saw in them--and as hard as it may be for some readers to believe, I didn't even have the urge to masturbate. (Yes, I know some of you out there think overtly sexual material, by necessity, prompts masturbation . . . jeez, people, really--can we all at least pretend we're older than 14, please?)
Does God approve of what I did? Well, I don't know, but I can say this: whether he does or not, it is an issue between him and me.
Spiritual freedom, like political, social, or economic freedom, entails more than anything else the ability to make one's own decisions. If we cannot allow ourselves--and allow others--this freedom, then we are, I fear, worse than liars. We are, as Jesus said of the Pharisees, a people who neither allow ourselves to enter the kingdom of God, nor allow others the chance to see it for themselves.
A couple of weeks ago, I experienced a torturous ten or fifteen minutes of personal recrimination, and good old-fashioned white anglo-saxon protestant guilt, when I saw a stack of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit magazines at a local Barnes and Noble. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I literally walked out, then in, then out of the store before I decided not to buy one.
Ladies and gentlemen . . . this is not freedom. This is hell.
Do I recommend that every man pick up a Playboy at the nearest local store (or at least the nearest store that sells Playboys)?
Of course not. After all, our society has become so ridiculously repressed when it comes to sexuality, so hopelessly double-minded about what is, ultimately, one of the human race's most basic and natural activities, that I fear a lot of men would, on seeing a magazine containing nude and sensual photos of women, allow themselves to lose all sense of control and proportion--and become victims of a kind of sexual "binge and purge" cycle that, one begun, would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to stop.
(I speak from personal experience in this regard, as someone who has viewed a variety of XXX-rated and other overtly sexual products, including Playboy. Having an unhealthy attitude about my own sexuality going into this experience caused a horrifying degree of emotional (and spiritual) self-torture and self-hatred that I am still, to some extent, recovering from.)
However, if a man has a healthy attitude toward his own body, and has (as most men do) an interest in women, I don't see the harm if he chooses to pick up an issue of Playboy (or even a copy of Playboy's "No Boys Allowed" :)) if he so wishes.
It isn't a matter of what is viewed. It is a matter of how a potential buyer feels about himself and his innermost sexual drives and desires. Are they something he celebrates as a normal, everyday part of life--or are they, in his mind, associated with evil, and pain?
My friend, it is a terrible thing to go through life hating yourself . . . especially an important, essential aspect of yourself. Believe me, I know--I've been there. And if you, as I once did, think of Jesus as someone who, in the name of "freedom," wishes you to repress the most basic, defining elements of who you are, then you have a very twisted view of the faith you have adopted.
Freedom is simply that--freedom. The freedom to be yourself, the freedom to allow yourself to experience the things you were designed to experience as a man, woman, or transgender . . . these are things I believe essential to a pure, and healthy, understanding of the freedom that Jesus offers each of us. Perhaps this sounds heretical or even self-serving to you, perhaps you have never heard a Christian say anything like this before, or perhaps, like me, you always knew, in your heart, that there was something more to spiritual freedom than what conservative Christianity had to offer.
However hard this statement may be for you to accept . . . it is still true.
I went to the same store today, meandering through the bookshelves and the magazine racks, as I had done many weeks before--not intending to buy anything. I saw the Sports Illustrated--Swimsuit Edition display, its stack of magazines virtually unchanged from when I had seen them a couple of weeks before. After thinking about it, for a total of 2 or 3 minutes (and not going in and out of the store this time :)), I decided to pick up a copy. I strolled up to the counter, magazine in hand, smiled at the cashier, and bantered with her as I would during any normal purchase--it was, in fact, one of the friendliest exchanges I have had with a Barnes and Noble employee. I walked out of the store, bag in hand, and made my way to the downtown Fort Worth bus station.
I sat on the back of the bus, where I normally would sit, on my way to TCU--and spent the majority of the ride reading the Swimsuit Edition, right out in the open, as I would any other magazine or book.
I am happy to report that the sky did not fall, and I did not become a raging hormonal lunatic damned to attack any aspect of visualized nudity and sexuality he encounters. There was no "slippery slope," and I did not suddenly feel the fires of hell burning in my belly.
I simply enjoyed the magazine, leafed through its pictures, and admired the beauty I saw in them--and as hard as it may be for some readers to believe, I didn't even have the urge to masturbate. (Yes, I know some of you out there think overtly sexual material, by necessity, prompts masturbation . . . jeez, people, really--can we all at least pretend we're older than 14, please?)
Does God approve of what I did? Well, I don't know, but I can say this: whether he does or not, it is an issue between him and me.
Spiritual freedom, like political, social, or economic freedom, entails more than anything else the ability to make one's own decisions. If we cannot allow ourselves--and allow others--this freedom, then we are, I fear, worse than liars. We are, as Jesus said of the Pharisees, a people who neither allow ourselves to enter the kingdom of God, nor allow others the chance to see it for themselves.
posted by Brian Bly at 1:25 PM
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