Living Vicariously Through Tiger Woods

A search of blogs using the search terms “living vicariously through Tiger Woods” brought up too many hits to link to.

The comments were mostly along the lines of: “We live vicariously through the rich and famous so when they commit scandalous behavior, it shakes us.” It’s an interesting take on the endless parade of stories and mistresses.

But the comment i heard that really was most insightful on the whole thing came from guy i know who admitted that he was living vicariously in a different way. He was imagining himself having all those affairs. This guy was honest enough to admit that while outrage was being served up on every news outlet in existence, he was actually wishing he were in Tiger’s shoes _ for the mistress part, that is.

i daresay most men would not be as honest as my friend, even though they would all feel a pull in that direction. Many men, prior to Tiger’s indiscretions coming into the open, think about doing the very things Woods has done. They are men in marriages which aren’t particularly fulfilling; or they are men who are still seduced by the lie of pornography; or they are simply bored. In conversation many men will say the right words of outrage while all the time in their hearts they think about Woods: “Lucky Dog.” It adds to the whole drama that one of the women was a porn actress. So many men fantasize about being able to have an affair with a porn star.

And societally, we actually sell that as something that’s fine for men to want. Now Woods has acted on it. The shock and horror i am coming across in the news seems a bit disingenuous. i must say.

The question keeps being asked: “Who will be faithful? Who will have integrity?” Who has an answer?

And the double-standard is curious as well. We want our porn _ Victoria’s Secret on television and Droid phone apps and so on _ but when someone actually lives out those fantasies (ala Tiger) he’s a pariah.

 

Droid Apps: Get Your Porn Here

Cnet news has a couple stories here about the new Droid smartphone and its porn app.

Apparently this is a competitive edge over the iPhone.

What does it say about a culture when the people in that culture need to have porn on their mobile devices? We can’t stand the thought of being away from it, or at least we can’t imagine being anywhere without the possibility of accessing it at a moment’s notice.

That right there is a working definition of Addiction. Don’t separate me from my drug. In this case the drug is porn. Our society needs an intervention.

It’s been quite a week for the sexualization of our culture. First the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, now the Droid porn app.

 

The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show Postscript

Kylie Bisutti was dubbed the newest Victoria’s Secret “Angel” last night at the fashion show. Not that i watched, i didn’t.

But the news was heralded on the internet today as though it really meant something.

Please, don’t insult me with the use of the word “Angels” in this context, all it really shows me is that we have a cultural fascination with a misconception.

Angels are warriors for the Kingdom of God, not women who flaunt their sexuality before millions of viewers.

Rather, these women are simply Sirens singing us on our way to shipwreck on the rocks of run(a)way sexual promiscuity.

On one hand i don’t blame the women, at least not entirely. They are taking advantage of a modeling opportunity, and they want to feel beautiful. Understood.

But the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show only makes our culture more pornographic, and the tragedy is that the effect on women such as Ms. Bisutti is actually detrimental. She may see it as a modeling opportunity, but it’s far more serious than that.

 

The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show

It’s that time of year when we can count on special, holiday programming on television.  We get treated to It’s A Wonderful Life and Charlie Brown’s Christmas and so on.

In recent years, and airing tonight, we also get our soft-porn holiday offering on broadcast television, The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.

On CBS tonight, which just two nights ago hade a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie about a special needs boy who adopts a dog, women will parade around nearly naked.

This is further proof, that 0ur society can sexualize anything, even the collection of holidays celebrated this time of year.

Update:  It is encouraging to read here that Adam Lambert thinks he went too far the other night on the American Music Awards.

 

Adam Lambert, The American Music Awards and ‘Entertainment’

i didn’t see the broadcast of the American Music Awards, but from the stories i have read, Adam Lambert must have put on quite a performance.

More entertaining than the performance has been reading the spin Adam is putting on his actions, as well as his use of a well-worn cliche to justify them.

First, the spin: “It’s just entertainment.” In fact, the Associated Press story quoted him as saying everybody was enjoying his act and they were entertained. The key word is “entertainment;” it’s sort of like Hollywood’s get-out-of-jail-free card. Translation: we can do anything we want, as long as we call it “entertainment.” Then we can protect ourselves and tell everybody who objects to what we have done to lighten up _ after all, it’s just entertainment.

This is the insidious reality undergirding Hugh Hefner’s Playboy empire. The magazine carries the subtitle: “Entertainment for men.” By calling sex and sexual expression a form of entertainment, it makes the indulgence much more palatable in society. Hefner has been very successful is effectuating a massive shift in cultural attitudes toward women appearing naked in his magazine, and appearing nearly naked just about everywhere else.

Sex isn’t anything special, it’s just entertainment.

As for the well-worn cliche Adam has been using lately, i would like to hear a really good explanation of what “Envelope” it is he _ and many others _ seem so compelled to “Push.” His defense of sexually vulgar activity also included a claim that men have not been able to express themselves sexually in their musical performances over the years. i guess he hasn’t listened to much Rock N Roll then.  Or, at the least, he should turn on Mtv to get the picture.

 

 

 

Those Awkward Silences

There are those moments of awkward silence which always hit in a conversation when i mention that i am writing a book, and the person i am talking to asks what the book is about, only to hear me say: “Pornography addiction.”

And i always wonder if there is a better way to ease them into the idea that i am working on such a book in the first place. But there is very little anyone can do to provide a smooth merge into that subject. And of course, there is a certain irony in that.

After all, we are saturated everyday with various forms of pornography, yet we don’t seem comfortable discussing it. In some ways it’s like we are fish and the sea in which we swim is a pornographic culture.

Think i am exaggerating?

When you go to the supermarket you have to run a gauntlet of soft porn just to pay for your groceries. Have you ever really thought about how sexually saturated our culture must be if all the magazine covers feature women in revealing outfits and the word SEX is prominently written?

We are anesthetized because it is constant. Maybe those awkward silences are not such a bad thing after all. They might just be one way we wake up and see things as they really are.

 

 

 

Inadequacy

There was an interesting moment the other night when a brother shared some of his struggle regarding pornography with me and a small group of men. When the storyteller got the point of talking about his later childhood years, as well as his teen years, he used the word “inadequate.”

He said that he always struggled with feeling inadequate in general; the expectations of his parents and others usually left him feeling as though he just didn’t measure up.

When he said “inadequate,” the other men in the room hung their heads and nodded in agreement. The power of that word: inadequate. It describes so much of what we experience as men in this world. And it is a sense of inadequacy which often drives so much of our addictive behavior.

Pornography is certainly a counterfeit, but it presents itself as a great remedy.

And the feelings of  adequacy  and power which pornography advertises, unique from other possible addictions, is tremendously addictive. To feel potent enough to get the attention, and more, from a beautiful woman _ even if she is on a page or a screen _ is unlike any other rush. All the more if it is a live encounter. The way in which inadequacy evaporates in the heat of being desired is astounding.

And yet, in the world of pornography, all of that is a lie.

The illusion of potency and adequacy is ironic given the fact that the behavior of being enraptured by pornography is actually an emasculating experience. As John Eldredge says, “Pornography is the big lie because you get to feel like a man without actually having to be one.”

But the ache of our feeling of inadequacy runs deep into our hearts and souls. We are haunted by the question: “Do i measure up?” Or, in Eldredge’s words: “Do i have what it takes?”

We will never get the answer to either question in pornography. We are driven back to it over and over again because the question remains unanswered. And yet, we will run back to it because  the experience of sexual ecstasy is intensely powerful.

 

Skeletons In The Closet

A blogger asked the question in this post, “does everyone have a skeleton in the cupboard?”

Cupboard. Closet. The question and the point are well taken. i cannot answer for Everyone of course, but i think most of our closets (or cupboards) are chock full. Human nature being what it is, the assumption generally should be yes, each of us has a skeleton to be reckoned with.

How will we deal with them?

One of the greatest moments of freedom a person can know is when he or she stops the pretending, owns up to the skeleton being in the closet it and _ not only flings open the door _ but addresses the core issues that created that skeleton and kept it hidden all this time.

The posing that we go through in order to present ourselves to the world as though there were no skeletons is false. But honesty, especially the brutal type which will look the skeleton in the face and show it to others, takes great courage.

 

You’ll Never Walk Alone

There is no way to emphasize sufficiently the importance of brotherhood in walking the journey of freedom from addiction, as well the journey of masculinity.

We need one another as men in order that we would be real men. What is it that hinders us from reaching out to ask for the support of our brothers, even in a time of emotional and spiritual need? Whatever it is, we must renounce that inertia; that impulse to hide; that strong pull toward rugged individualism. In the moment of temptation there is nothing to be gained from resisting the strength which a brother _ or brothers _ can lend.

We need to know that we will never walk alone. We need to be the sort of men who do not let our brothers walk alone.

The stakes are simply too high. When all is said and done the man who will not call out for help will be the one regretting his fierce independence as he sees the wreckage wrought in his life from temptation that flowered into sin and took him down. His wife, kids and reputation in ruins, that man will think: “If only I had just called a brother.”

Again, how instructive are the great stories. It was not Frodo alone who took the ring back to Mordor, it was a Fellowship. It was not one soldier behind enemy lines bringing back Private Ryan, it was a group of soldiers together. We have been lied to by that segment of popular culture which elevates Rambo and John Wayne as the depiction of what it means to be a man.

Men need each other. And in the company of men, a man finds who he is. And it is those men who band together who do what is truly heroic: they move into the world to offer a strength which comes from God and is not corrupted by fleshly intentions.

To my brothers i say: You’ll Never Walk Alone.

 

Underestimating The Spiritual Impact Of Pornography

i was talking with a young man yesterday who was confused about some things going on in his life. Specifically, his emotions were haywire and he was obsessed with death in recent weeks. The more we talked the more i could see that something had a hold on him. As we talked i learned that in the last month he had discovered soft porn on video filing sharing sites on the Internet: sites such as YouTube and others.

Most of what he viewed would not be considered pornography by many people, but it is. And by consuming those videos, he was opening himself to demonic influence. The result was spiritual and emotional upheaval in his life.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember that the force animating pornography, whatever form it takes, is truly from the Evil One. But it is. And we should not be surprised when there are spiritual implications from our involvement with it.