Manipulated and hijacked, led like a dumb animal and being made to willingly go where I didn't want to go.
It makes me so mad, but the truth is that it's a regular experience for any man who desires to live a godly life in pornified culture such as ours. Watch almost any TV show or film, go on almost any website or read any newspaper and there'll undoubtedly be some obstacle to freedom laid in our path, an inviting image designed to hook the eyes and capture the mind.
It happened just last night at the cinema.
Cue a scene at a dinner party in a fairly high brow drama. Up until this point the film had been about science and politics, world war II and the legal system - it's all pretty cerebral, all fairly intellectual. A man and a woman are in conversation, they're getting on well, they flirt and then - all of sudden - snap to a scene of her naked chest against his, the two of them locked in passions embrace. Without warning, without any real need to do so bam! The filmmakers feel the need to inject a spike into my drink, to ensure my concentration is back and so make me an adulterer by Jesus' standards. And now I know that for the rest of the film and for days afterwards these images will follow me around, burnt somewhere near the front of brain inviting me to go somewhere and do something else to put fresh logs on lusts fire.
Ours is a culture that lacks any level of wisdom for the relationships between the sexes. Men live with having their libido constantly tickled and tempted by fantasy. Our women are then forced to bear the burden of having to live with oversexed males, feeling as though they can't bear up with the weight of expectation placed on them.
The male brain lights up like brain on drugs whenever it sees images of naked women. We know this, we know all about the super-normal principle that hacks the circuitry of neurology addicting us to images and froms. We know this, and yet we do it anyway. What the hell does that say about our culture? 'Dumb' isn't the word, 'evil' is.
I believe there's at least three clear things are at work here.
First there is the power of the £. To make money companies know they need to hold our attention, and what better way to hold our attention than to use the visual equivalent of superglue to keep us looking. Tits work, pure and simple - and it's tragic that's it that simple. Shove some breasts on camera and you'll guarantee yourself an audience; what becomes of those viewers and the lasting impact this tactic may have on a society isn't the concern of the profiteer.
Second there's, honestly, the basic appeal of our appetites. The truth is that I watched the above scene (and didn't look away) willingly, against my will. I did so for the same reason we all do things we know we shouldn't - because we want to. I could look away, I could say 'no' to another drink, I could refuse to pass on the gossip; I could but, honestly I don't want to. And in a society like ours a genuine question is 'why should I?' or the common 'if no one's hurt by it, what's the problem?'. Without any real motive for purity our anticulture of a society revels in its lusts and appetites. Hotter, bigger, bolder, more, more, more. Sail as close to the wind as you can, court danger, play with fire. There's no motive for restraint since there's no real reason to do so; these days we consider flagrant sinning with intent 'being a grown up'.
Third there's the casual disdain for men that's at work in the world all around us. 'Stupid man' someone might say 'Can't handle looking at breasts? Find the female body too much to handle - pathetic!' In a society such as ours there seems very little compassion expressed toward this most natural reality.
Honestly it's tiring and I'm beginning to wonder if I might just be better off moving into a cave by myself.
This dumb animal longs to live pure but like every other flawed human battles against his own nature.
In a world that won't help but instead works hard to make it worse, I thank God for friends who do.