Honesty Hour: It's Porn.
We hide things that we know aren't right. It's human nature. It's Adam and Eve hiding in the garden after they had sinned. It's a child will hide a bad report card, or avoids talking about something that went wrong .
"In an early preview of the sex-filled film '50 Shades of Grey' for a 'Today' show audience, the daughter of actor Don Johnson and actress Melanie Griffith nervously said, 'I don't want my parents to see it.'"
"I don't want my parents to see it."
Why would she hide her part in a blockbuster film? Wouldn't her parents be proud of her fame? Her accomplishment? Her acting abilities? How she had followed in their footsteps into the entertainment industry?
She doesn't want her parents to see it because "50 Shades of Grey" - regardless of how it is portrayed by celebrities, social media or reviews, is pornography.
And we hide the things we know will disappoint the ones who authentically love us.
If you don't know much about "50 Shades of Grey," one of my favorite Catholic speakers and all around man after God's own heart, Matt Fradd, tells you 50 things about it that are quite good information to have.
100 million copies of this book sold. 100 million souls looking for love. LOVE.
How twisted is it that as a society, we are entertained by watching a man physically use a woman with skills he had to learn by visiting a sex dungeon. On top of that, these were skills that himself was so ashamed of that he had to go take a shower before touching his wife and newborn child.
His wife and newborn child.
To be living in a sacrament where you go home and you are called to sacrifice for your wife and for your family as Paul instructs in Ephesians 5:25 when he says "Husbands, love your wife just as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her."
Yet to provide for your family you are participating in an entertainment source in which objectifies both men and women and distorts the something so sacred - human sexuality - the very act that brought your newborn child into existence is now perverted for the world's entertainment source.
The closest human beings can come to on earth to reflect the Trinity is through sexual intercourse...so why wouldn't that be the thing that Satan attacks most viciously? One of the most beautiful reflections of God's love for us, cheapened.
If we truly knew how sacred sex is - instead of the view that "50 Shades of Grey" tells us what sex "should" be.
According to that book and screen play, sex should be controlling. Manipulating behavior.
That is the opposite of the beauty of sex that God created it to be.
Free. Total. Faithful. Fruitful.
"50 Shades of Grey" paints a stark contrast.
Free? Both the characters are held captive by their lust for each other's bodies and the pleasure they can give each other.
Total? How can you love the other totally when all you look to them for is what they can give to you - not how you can serve them?
Faithful? Christian talks about how many other women he's already been with....why should Anastasia be any different?
Fruitful? Is this relationship drawing both of them closer to Christ and His selfless love? Is it open to life? In fact, the relationship is draining the lives of Christian and Anastasia with each dip into further and further sin and damaging objectification.
A view into the destruction that can sink into lives ruined by abuse and objectification is found in the main character, Anastasia, who can be found on her bed in the last chapter of the book, crying because she has given her heart and body to a man who just wants her body.
Matt Fradd writes, "Some say, 'Yes, but being dominated and threatened is so much more exciting than faithful marital sex,' to me, that’s analogous the meth-head who thinks normal, un-high life is boring. In both cases I just want to extend sympathy."
Even the title of this book trilogy has two coins to it. The first is a play on words from the last name of the main character, Christian Grey. The second is more profound.
Anastasia claims the world isn't black and white. It's surrounded by different shades of grey.
What does Christ say about that? Is it really subjective to look at something like "50 Shades of Grey" and decide for yourself whether it's bad or good for you? In 1 Corinthians 13:6, Paul writes, "Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth."
But the so called love on this screen is glamorous! It's popular! It's exciting! An escape from reality! Society raves about this new "Mommy Porn" as it's frequently dubbed.
It is unfair to demand that for all to guard their eyes against the harms of lust and visual pornography, and then retreat to erotic entertainment and the manipulation of emotions, hidden under the guise of "Romance" and a "Love Story."
All should be appalled and sickened if we overheard a conversation from people glorifying visual pornography. If playboy magazines were strewn over and written into screen plays and people proudly downloaded pornography
That is a double standard and it needs to stop. Right now.
Porn is porn. Abuse is abuse. Objectification (of both sexes) is objectification.
Seems pretty black and white to me.