by erika haveman
This article contains some language that may offend. It’s raw and uncensored, and I apologize in advance if anything offends. It may be something you read before your child does, but I believe the message is something people of all ages need to heed.
Miley Cyrus. Beyonce. Nicki Minaj. Lady Gaga. Rihanna. Ariana Grande. Demi Lovato. Selena Gomez. Every female ever in a Tyga music video. Even Taylor Swift. This list could go on.
What do these celebrities have in common? Regularly they expose their bodies and nobody bats an eye.
Jennifer Lien. Brad Pitt. Tommy Lee Jones. Mae West.
It’s a short list – and you probably don’t know anybody besides Brad Pitt. But what do these celebrities have in common? Criminal charges of indecent exposure.
Jennifer flashed some teenagers and mooned them in 2015. Brad allegedly mooned drivers on the Pacific Coast Highway in California in 1988. Tommy Lee dropped his pants at a 1990 concert. In 1927 Mae and her entire cast of *Sex* were booked for an indecent public performance.
Does something seem a little “off” here to you? Okay, I’m not condoning Tommy Lee’s lack of pants or Mae West’s play by any means. Here’s a little information about Mae West’s play: after 375 shows it was shut down, and she was tried and convicted on corrupting the morals of youth. This was 1927. I had to Google to even find out what celebrities were charged in the past with indecent exposure, and though I knew who Mae West was I didn’t know she wrote and starred in plays that she wrote. *Sex* was about…well you guessed it. Set in a Montreal brothel, the play confronts the issue of women separated by class and attitudes of sexuality. West’s character learns the painful lesson that women are not bound in sisterhood simply because they have both shared the betrayal of men.**
It actually sounds like the play would have challenged stereotypes of the day – but does this make it acceptable?
I’m not Miley fan (or a fan of any of the women I listed, as a matter of fact) but there are millions of them out there. I recently watched an interview she gave with Jimmy Kimmel. She came out wearing what could only be qualified as a shrug hanging loosely from her shoulders with stickers on her boobs. How is this comfortable? Like actually it boggles my mind how any woman ever is comfortable with wearing stickers over her nipples in public as a fashion statement.
In looking up women for the first list I watched a few seconds of some of their music videos. Why is what they do and wear necessary? I mean thank you for wearing…something?
Here’s what I don’t understand. Celebrities like Jennifer Lien – who nobody knows anything about celebrities has even heard of – will be charged for flashing and mooning young teenage boys, while countless other celebrities who are household names will be brushed over because they have slight pieces of material covering their tits and butts. The math is off on this one.
I am not, of course, supporting what Jennifer did. But here’s what I’m thinking: most 13 year old boys (the “victim’s” in Jennifer’s case) out there have already been exposed to a lot more than Jennifer’s body. They have easy access to images and videos a lot worse than Beyonce’s 7/11. Yet we accept this as normal, a phase they’ll grow out of, and something that won’t have long term affects. We don’t lose a wink of sleep over the fact that these celebrities are making millions by exposing their bodies to us. When it comes to making money and being famous, less seems to be more.
I read an article once that said Madonna doesn’t let her children watch music videos or TV. People applaud her for this and encourage others to follow suit. What doesn’t make sense, though, is that Madonna still makes a living off of how other people do allow their children to watch TV. Her latest video (at least I think it’s her latest…I can’t say I looked too hard) has a very addicting, upbeat sound. The song is something I could probably find myself pumping some terrible bass to in my mom-like car. I won’t though, because it’s much too offensive. And the video? It features several of the above mentioned celebrities – and it opens with 4 young girls pretending to be grown women. Good for you – advocating that TV is trash to your children. What about all the other children?
I grew up in a home where I wasn’t allowed to watch shows like The Simpsons or Friends or The OC – even as a teenager. I watch them now, and I see why my parents hadn’t allowed them, but they are (and were) certainly the tame side of this awful reality celebrities offer us, even then.
Do we really think about what goes in? Jesus says that it’s not what goes in our bodies that makes us unclean, it’s what comes out. Do we consider the implications of this? I’ve found, in my own life, that everything that goes in eventually must come out. We cannot contain it inside of us and it will manifest itself in one way or another. Had a burrito for lunch? That’s a nice trip to the bathroom later. Sure it was delicious and it will always be worth it – but this itself proves that everything has it’s cycle. Not everything is always worth it. A lot of what goes in is harmful and hurtful, not just to ourselves. We’re exposed everyday to indecencies that we can’t control for ourselves or for those that we love. So how do we avoid the mess of the outtake if we cannot avoid the mess of the intake?
I don’t believe that cutting yourself off from something in the world is always the solution. If it’s sinful and habitual to you, then yes it needs to be stifled and you need healing. I’m presently in the constant process of this after several (countless?) years of hiding. However I know that between what the Lord has called me to and the reality of life is that I will not be able to avoid triggers for the rest of my life. But what will I do when I’m triggered? What will I do when I am the victim of indecent exposure?
I have a couple options of what the outcome will look like, specifically when it comes to the indecent exposure I’m talking about. You see I do have a choice in the outcome. The one is to begin to mimic what I’m seeing. I see this all the time. Instagram feeds, Twitter posts, Facebook updates. Girls exposing themselves in ways they feel will never harm themselves or others. I wonder if they ever consider their future children? Is that what they’d want their daughters to be doing? Does any mother really hope their little princess grows up into Nicki Minaj? I’m not sure I’ve met that mother, though she’s bound to exist. We don’t always consider the long term impact our choices today have, nor do we think that we’re acting one way because of something that was exposed to us.
My other option is to reject what I’m seeing, and move forward with a face of integrity. This is the harder road. I will not be noticed very often, if at all. I will get less (if any) dates. I will want to give up my faith because it’s too hard. I will want to party, have sex, and get drunk. I will cry myself to sleep not because I’m lonely, but because I don’t have what I want. Being whole won’t feel like I’m a whole person. I’ll have more questions, wrestle with confusion and doubt, and wonder why my needs aren’t being met. I’ll wonder what needs are and why they exist.
It’s a lot easier to submit to the indecent exposure, to accept it for what it is and join in on the apparent fun.
There will come a day when I will need to stand before a great God. A mighty God. A holy God. One set apart, chosen. The I AM. His sacredness is something I’m still learning to comprehend (and no doubt I will forever be learning). Yet I will be before Him and I will need to account for the choices I’ve made, the lives that I affected because of how I chose to respond to indecent exposure. I know He’ll tell me that He made a choice to fight for me long before I knew who He was – but the weight of this truth is often lost. Grace is often numbed. Every time I choose indecency I’m allowing a desensitization of my heart and soul to overtake my ability to rationally make a decision. That stops now. Will you stop with me? Will you take a stand for your children – to be real with them about the pain of life, and how they can choose indecency or integrity? Together we can stop indecent exposure from ruining our hearts, souls and minds.
Finally pray. Don’t pray for yourself. I can bet you do that enough. Pray for your sisters. Your brothers. Pray for the list of women I wrote down at the top. Pray for your children. Pray for the children of your friends.
Life is happening all around us every second of every day. Will we simply let indecent exposure continue to be accepted, or will we take a stand and let integrity rule?
**Information taken from Goodreads.com; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/463185.Three_Plays_by_Mae_West
the rambling missionary 