I’ve listened with inner surprise as friends explained their preferences in bed.

You really do that? I want to say. We all have the capacity to surprise each other with what we do in private.

I’m not a sex therapist. I’m not a counselor.

But, as a philosopher I have some ideas. And with a bit of trepidation, I’m going to share them on the question on BDSM.

Photo credit: http://www.handcuffs.org/

BDSM is an acronym for bondage and discipline (BD), sadism and masochism (SM).The goal of BDSM relationships is to take on complementary but unequal roles (role-play like master/slave, pirate/captive, Nazi/Jew) in order to create a dominant/submissive situation.  Men and women who practice BDSM often get kicks from pain and humiliation (both receiving and inflicting).

I had to rely on wikipedia for that. I have no experience with BDSM. And I realize reading E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Gray makes me no expert.

I’ve already weighed in on the novel, for this post I want to zero in on the whips and punishment question.

Issue #1 – Masking Knowledge

Role-playing, as Phyllis from The Office says (yes, I’m quoting a fictional character for this one), can be “really fun.”  We all have good, silly, and ultimately hot, God-given fantasies we ought to explore a bit more (in the playfulness and fun of our marriage).  We also have fantasies that require corseting a person into a role that doesn’t fit them.

Which to choose?

Dominants (Dom) and Submissives (Sub) know all about role-playing. Their relationship depends on tipping the power ratio within love-making.  As a believer in the essential equality of men and women I want to ask: How does playing at subjugation rather than equality in bed affect life beyond the bedroom?

In the recent bestseller, Fifty Shades of Gray, Ana doesn’t want to become a Sub because it means giving up her freedom to touch Christian when she wants, to sleep with him each night, to know him beyond his role as a Dom.

I think Ana’s reticence is spot-on.

Love-making, intimacy, fantasies are for the ultimate end of knowledge.

Role-playing comes at a pretty high cost. If a husband always wants to play pirate to his wife’s captive role, the wife only learns one slice of who he is in love-making. She doesn’t get to see him vulnerable.

Finally, a wife or husband may assume a role that might actually clash with who they are.  I remember a story of a young woman who decided to play a genie during her honeymoon. Her husband was both baffled and seriously entertained.  I don’t mean sexually. He was doubled over laughing because the costume masked who she was and replaced her with a laughable charade.

Role-play requires a suspension of knowledge about the other person. Masks… doesn’t that belong more in the espionage and superhero realm than in love-making?

Problem #2 – Re-enacting Punishment

In one of the sadder moments in Don Draper’s life (AMC’s drama Mad Men) he invites a prostitute to his home. As she begins her work, he demands she slap him across the face.

Don Draper

“Again,” he yells.

She backhands him again. Slap, slap, slap.

Draper looks relieved.

Does he thinks he deserves it?  Followers of Mad Men know Draper’s self-loathing goes back decades. Don Draper isn’t even his real name.

BDSM bothers me because it offers a sexually arousing practice that re-enacts punishment.  Hugo Schwyzer explains that BDSM offers some abused people “recovery through ritualized acts of domination and submission.” (which is also Christian’s explanation of his past initiation into BDSM in Fifty Shades). To read more about BDSM as recovery (viewer discretion advised) see Not Your Usual BDSM and Abuse Story.

I do not believe some people (the ones that get knocked around more often than not) are hard-wired as Submissives. Nor do I think a Dom’s commands to stop drinking or get a job is the best way to develop a sense of identity. The Sub is still playing a role.

Further, I believe arousal at someone else’s pain indicates something about pain in that person’s life. If Sue gets turned on by hurting her friends, even if her friends want to be hurt, we call this a problem. Even if it’s between two consenting adults.

If Sue gets turned on by hurting her husband, even if he wants it, we can also call this a problem. Even if it’s between consenting adults.

As someone who has experienced people in authority taking liberties over me that I did not grant, the power of BDSM to both unleash and arouse feels (in my untried and unprofessional opinion) like dousing fire with kerosene and then claiming control over the flames.  As I’ve written previously (Sex, Food and Fifty Shades of Gray) just because something makes you feel powerful or turned on does not mean it is a power for good in your life.

Using pain, even willing pain (the BDSM code of ethics SCC—I know, more acronyms—means Safe, Sane and Consensual), to recover from worse memories says more about how bad life used to be. It doesn’t give BDSM a ringing endorsement.

Problem #3 – #FirstWorldProblem

BDSM often entails elaborate costumes, equipment and preparation.  Like the twitter trend #FirstWorldProblem (e.g. Freaking out because you lost your Ray-bans) BDSM seems to be a first world problem.

When you’re working to keep your children fed and away from prostitution in order to feed your family, BDSM appears as a final ditch aphrodisiac for bored, but wealthy married couples.  For some non-BDSM ideas of re-igniting your sex life please see my post Sex, Food and Fifty Shades of Gray.

I Can Imagine

Perhaps there are wives and husbands who can make love untinged by any sexual or emotional abuse, couples who role-play fantasies of authenticity. Perhaps they walk BDSM’s razor edge between pleasure and pain to successfully arouse each other without re-enacting or committing abuse.

I can imagine it, but I have yet to meet them.

“The only thing that matters is how I feel about myself, my personal integrity, and my relationship with my Creator.”

–Ashley Judd

Ashley Judd recently wrote, “Patriarchy is not men.  Patriarchy is a system in which both women and men participate.” I could not agree more. Patriarchy is held in place at least partially by women.

What is patriarchy? permanent rule by male/s. Other names it goes by: complementarianism, Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

As a seminary graduate who follows Jesus, these titles are misleading. I believe in the sexes complementing each other, and I believe in Biblical womanhood (and manhood, too).

So why is Judd frustrated with patriarchy?

En mass women and men have accused her new “puffy” face as a result of plastic surgery, a look that she explains is the result of 6 months of laziness.  Her response in The Daily Beast explains among other things that the problem with the public’s response in a patriarchal belief one version of beauty is all a woman like her can contribute.  Ashley Judd’s face and body are being picked apart by scavengers, patriarchal scavengers.

Photo credit: collage US Weekly (of course), photos: Gary Gershoff/WireImage.com; George Pimentel/WireImage.com

Now how is objectifying women a patriarchal thing?  I’m glad you asked.

First, let me share that Judd isn’t taking it lying down.

She insists upon forming a feminist discussion, not one driven by patriarchy or the standard that men’s bodies, goals or sexual fantasies determine women’s value. As she writes,

If this conversation about me is going to be had, I will do my part to insist that it is a feminist one. Who makes the fantastic leap from being sick, or gaining some weight . . . to a conclusion of plastic surgery? Our culture, that’s who.   The insanity has to stop, because as focused on me as it appears to have been, it is about all girls and women. It affects each and every one of us: our self-image, how we show up in our relationships and at work, our sense of our worth, value, and potential as human beings. 

First, she’s correct in seeing patriarchy as the cause. I’ll get to that in a moment.

Second, she is using “feminist” correctly. Though I’ve written about this before “What Does Feminism Mean to You?” with reasons Jesus was a feminist, it bears repeating in context of Judd’s quote.

Feminism is not a synonym for godless or lesbian. Feminist is not the opposite of “chauvinist” (sorry, Mark Driscoll). Feminist is not identical with a pro-choice advocate or a bra-less, hairy female.

Feminist when used correctly, as the most conservative dictionary defines it, means “Belief in or advocacy of women’s social, political, and economic rights, especially with regard to equality of the sexes.”

And feminism hasn’t won and is now being replaced by something more “sane.”

“We are no more a post-feminist society than we are a post-racial one. The goals of feminism have yet to be reached.” Lisa Solod explains in “What We Need to Talk about When we Talk about Sex and Feminism” at The Good Men Project.

And what exactly are the goals of feminism? my colleague Paul Franks asked after I tweeted Solod’s quote above.

I’m glad you asked.

Feminism is a belief that women are as valuable as men.

Valuable enough to choose the best career combining their gifts, their desires and their life goals.

Valuable enough to reflect God’s characteristics.

Valuable enough to be able and worthy contributors to every aspect of life.

This is not to discount women’s differences. I believe in our distinctions, wrote a whole book about them in fact (Ruby Slippers). But my conclusion is that every slice of society and culture,

from pulpit preaching,

to final decision making in the family,

to spiritual leadership,

to the highest office of the land

would benefit from unmuting women’s voices.

Feminism wants to actively reach for woman’s voice in every aspect of life. To include women as more than an ornament.

Most people say they agree with this idea, that women are not just ornamental. I know Christian patriarchalists who are emphatic that women ought not be objectified.

However, when a patriarchalist makes the man the spiritual leader of the home, they remove spiritual authority and responsibility from women.  This turns an adult female into a permanent underling of the tie-breaking male “head.” Not even Jesus subjected himself permanently to the authority of the Father (Matt 28:18). The wife becomes the receiver, the object of the male’s decision making. And any time a human is treated as an object, not a subject, you have objectification. The same is true in our churches, but that is another matter.

Why don’t more people take the term “feminist” as their own? Why are secular people quicker to own it than religions? My theory is that the term “feminist” has been so smeared by religious organizations that it confuses religious people. Feminist has become a scary term to take up in evangelical circles. It’s also an impossible term to adapt if you believe women cannot play certain roles, hold certain offices.

But until another culturally recognized (and I mean in secular and sacred places) term comes to light, I will use “feminist” to talk about this equal value of men and women.

What I appreciate is how Judd gets the danger of patriarchy.  Listen to her elucidate as I contextualize her quote above,

That women are joining in the ongoing disassembling of my appearance is salient. Patriarchy is not men. Patriarchy is a system in which both women and men participate. It privileges, inter alia (I had to look this up it means “among other things”), the interests of boys and men over the bodily integrity, autonomy, and dignity of girls and women. It is subtle, insidious, and never more dangerous than when women passionately deny that they themselves are engaging in it. This abnormal obsession with women’s faces and bodies has become so normal that we (I include myself at times—I absolutely fall for it still) have internalized patriarchy almost seamlessly. We are unable at times to identify ourselves as our own denigrating abusers, or as abusing other girls and women.

In closing Judd makes a call to sisterhood, ”I ask especially how we can leverage strong female-to-female alliances to confront and change . . . that there is no winning here as women.”

Small as I am, I offer her my alliance to confront and change.

The goal of feminism that women ought never be objectified is worth defending.

I know men who proclaim in Sunday services words sharpened by a one-woman audience at home.  Pastors around the country, relying on the women in their lives to help them. Personally, I count it a good thing when a man relies on a woman. I’m toe-deep in a book on this The Resignation of Eve: What if Adam’s Rib is no longer Willing to be the Church’s Backbone (BarnaBooks, 2012)

Depending on who you are, you may need more encouragement to rely on a women. Or you might be a woman who needs encouragement to rely on a man.

We all open doors for each other.

In the first pages of Ruby Slippers I wrote,

This book is dedicated to the men who opened doors for me.

My grandfather who opened Grace.

My father who opened Truth.

My husband, Dale,

who propped both doors open

so we might run through them together.

Dale has been holding and propping doors for over ten years. He taught me to take myself seriously.

I tweeted this, my #FeministEureka moment this week “When my husband asked me to swap domesticity for starting a non-profit with him Soulation.org”

I used to labor, unsuccessfully, over cheap steaks and slow-cooking vegetables to serve him up a warm meal (because that’s what women do when they love their men, right?) when Dale wanted to take me out to eat so we could talk, so I wouldn’t be diluted with the Betty Draper pattern I’d bought.  Slowly my grip on my apron loosened and I went out and bought speaking clothes.

I learned to buy make-up and get my hair cut so I stood out for the right reasons.

Now I have some sweet little speaking outfits, and some realistic aprons (the kind you can wipe your hands on) because a man gave me more than half a chance.

Dale is a husband that backs up my ministry.

And I back our ministry, but not in the conventional sense. I garner more speaking engagements, more writing opportunities, and more blog readers. But I funnel them back into Soulation where Dale also speaks, writes and blogs.  Dale still insists on sharing the spotlight, even if he’s pushed into the shadows a bit more.  Last week he observed that, “RubySlippers is the jewel of the Soulation crown, *** readers a day.” There was no malice, no envy in his tone.

Made me realize what he’s given up in propping the door open.

This weekend, after a near death experience (crazy driver!) I felt a stirring of the Spirit. I prayed aloud and listened aloud (for more on this spiritual practice ask and I’ll blog about it). I sensed an idea from the heavens, rooted in the rood that drives us Jesus-followers forward.

I sensed God say,

“Give Dale a month, an entire month where you are Mom with a capital “M.” Give him the space to hammer out his next book, the memoir on spiritual abuse.  Prop open a door for him and let me take care of you and your career.”

Prop open a door for Dale.

I know there are women who propped open doors for greater men than my husband.

A triumvirate of females propped the ministry doors for Jesus of Nazareth. They opened the portals with the only collateral a woman had in those ancient Roman days. They used their inheritance to fund his wandering, miraculous, prophetic ways. These women funded the Son of God.

I wonder what Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household thought of it, his wife such a prominent donor in Jesus’ non-profit.

I wonder what Magdalene’s family thought, another cultish dark dream? to fund a homeless man who spoke so fearlessly. He’d probably wind up killed.

I wonder about Susanna.

But we have it in Luke, “Also some women, who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Johanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping support him out of their means” (Luke 8:2-4)

I want to know about the many others.  A ragamuffin bunch, unclean by the Jewish God’s standards.  Healed of dirty things, vulnerable, worse for wear, probably loopy, still socially tainted . . . but powerful.

They put their money on the right guy.

These women’s 401ks and bonds were liquified into the coins that filled Judas’ purse, the green stuff that bought the Passover meal and food to fill the bellies of the crowd that surged into Peter’s home in Capernaum (Mark 2:1).

Photo credit: imperiumarts.com/roman.html

Rich ladies still run things.

I may not be rolling in millions, but I’m rich in organization and time management. I can manage my work and Finn for a month so Dale can rush through a door I wedge open.

8-5, Monday through Friday, can I do it? can I be Mother?

I actually believe I’ll enjoy it.

For one month.

Let’s see what this rich lady can do.

I think some people get nagging, I mean they get why it’s so tempting.

I do.

Nagging “the interaction in which one person repeatedly makes a request, the other person repeatedly ignored and both become increasingly annoyed” defined last Wednesday by Elizabeth Bernstein, in the Wall Street Journal’s Meet The Marriage Killer: It’s More Common Than Adultery and Potentially as Toxic, So Why is it So Hard to Stop Nagging?

Bernstein calls it a vicious cycle.

Comic Credit: Wall Street Journal

I ask Dale about the pile of papers on the table.

He explains it’s work he needs to have out to remember to get done.

I remind him about our lovely wicker basket system (lovely because you can put papers within and shut them from my eyes)

He explains the wicker basket is full.

It’s full? Well, that’s because you haven’t dedicated and organized and prioritized. I then begin to outline a new plan, for him.

He interrupts me to restate his need for papers on the kitchen table. Or else, it won’t get done!

Now, how can you argue with that?

Recently, I believed we solved this problem by purchasing a new kitchen table. It’s antique finish awed Dale enough to leave all the piles of paper on the floor, making it difficult to slide into his place for mealtime.

“You really need to do something about this pile of papers,” I remind him yesterday

Repeat above conversation.

Mr. Nag?

Why do women nag more than men?

“Because we are conditioned to feel more responsible for managing home and family life, we are more sensitive to early sign of problems in a relationship . . . etc. etc” or so say the experts from the Journal. Thank you Ms. Bernstein.

But really, now.

So when Dale asks me, repeatedly to not place my clothes on the ladder (he might slip!) and I tell him it’s easier for me and besides, that’s what eyes are for.

And he keeps asking and asking.

We don't look like this when we're nagging each other.

Is this not nagging?

Or when Dale requests that I do not move his carefully piled papers on the table, again and again.

Oh, men can nag. I bet I can get even the most unrelational, unemotional, unsocial man to nag.

Recipe: find the thing THEY are responsible for and don’t take care of it, again and again.

They will remind you, again and again.

I do not recommend this.

My father was really good at nagging me to not touch his Porshe 911 with my hands (There is invisible dust, Joni, that your fingers press into and scratch the paint. Don’t touch it!). He asked me repeatedly. Somehow the creamy white begged me to forget.

I didn’t try to turn my dad into a nagger, but I did.

If nagging is such a problem and so wide-spread, what can we do? The WSJ suggests that nagging makes men feel like little boys (girls, you’re not being sexy!), that nagging can ruin marriages (scared, yet?).  Bernstein says we must begin by admitting it (confess your sins? a good start), doing personality tests, learning better communication.

Nice suggestions, but not that helpful, not foundational enough.

Like most stuff journalists pump out,  they’re superb at problem revealing, not at problem solving.

Equally Shared Parenting

I’ve recently picked up a book that was serendipitously displayed at my local library in the parenting section–a section full of book titles that normally make me laugh (Screamfree Parenting, Successful Parenting, True Parenting)

Equally Shared Parenting: Rewriting the Rules for a New Generation of Parents by Marc and Amy Vachon, featured in The New York Times in 2008 article “When Mom and Dad Share it All“.

I didn’t laugh. I just marched over and seized it.

Found within, a husband and wife introduce me to my tribe (EquallySharedParenting.com: Half the Work, All the Fun), the group of people who have chosen, voluntarily and happily to share all of parenting and life’s joys and responsibilities. They call this equally shared parenting (ESP).

The boy who started it all.

Ingredients: 2 willing partners

Goals: full partnership in each of the four domains

4 Domains: childraising, breadwinning, house-work and time for self.

Yeild: a marriage where responsibility isn’t divided along gender roles, but along equality.

Now how in the world do you do that?

First, they believe it’s not fair for one spouse to get sidelined to assistant in parenting (what do I feed him? where are his socks?), they (usually the father) miss out on too much.

Second, they believe it’s not fair for one spouse to get sidelined in terms of career (but I made 1/2 of what you do), they (usually the mother) miss out on too much.

Solution: share.

Their book is a detailed look at how to share, from learning to ask employers for part-time work (The guy tries over half a dozen times before learning HOW to ask), to relinquishing control on typical female or male roles (spoiler alert: the main reason guys don’t help with childcare is because women teach them to feel incompetent), to expecting and giving trust.

What a godly idea, though the Vachon’s don’t profess any faith, their mutuality, respect and equality rivals what I’ve envisioned parenting, career and marriage can be if I were brave enough to try.

I’m half way through and taking copious notes. If I get enough feedback from this post, I’ll post a full review.

For now, let me apply their principle to the nagging problems in our lives.

ESP and Nagging

If women relinquish the Mom Power Grab to take all the responsibility (deciding childcare options, scheduling all activities, doctor’s appointments, packing diaper bag, present purchases, bedtime, potty training method etc) and goodies (first time experience at zoo, birthdays, first step, swimming lessons, nighttime snuggles, post-injury comfort, etc) Dads can have a chance to own the responsibility and goodies of child-raising, too.

And the increase of responsibility = lower nagging.

How?  A responsible mother or father must in turn learn competence. And there is no quicker terminator of nagging than competence. It eliminates all the bad-mouthing of incompetent, unavailable, disagreeable, insensitive husbands, for instance.

Now, this is not easy. Today, Dale had Finn for the morning hours so I could watercolor.  I was to meet them at the Old Town Hot Springs for workout and swim time together.  I was right on time, but passed Dale’s Jeep making a left turn in front of me and pulling into (no it can’t be!)

McDONALDS! as drove past.

I was on the phone with a friend, thankfully, which kept me from leaping into the Mom Power grab.

I wanted to call Dale, remind him that there were better eating options for Finn than McDonalds.

I would have liked to text him the extra snacks I packed (a sign I didn’t really trust him to pack food!) in my car that Finn could eat.

I wanted to tell him he was going to be late, as well.

Instead I cruised right by and only miss a few seconds of my friend’s story.

Dale with Finn at 4 months

Dale was responsible.

Could I trust him?

Could I?

Even if he doesn’t father like I mother.

If I want to say no to nagging… YES.

ESP refuses to transfer ownership of any one domain automatically back on one partner for credit or blame.  For instance, Finn’s got a blow-out at McDonalds (okay, I go there voluntarily), Dale finds extra wipes in the diaper bag. A nearby mother comments, “Good thing Mom packed extra wipes!”  But it was Dad who packed them.

Or say our bank account is shrinking faster than expected due to new home building project. Instead of asking, “Didn’t you plan for this?” of Dale, we work out how we can both make compromises, more savings, less purchases.

With ESP, making money, finding time for our personal hobbies, taking care of Finn, keeping the house (clean, stocked, washed, ordered) is not one person’s sole domain.

Now, of course ESP isn’t for everybody. But it is an attempt to name the thing I’ve been trying to label co-parenting. This equally shared parenting is what Dale and I have been trying to do.

Emphasis on “trying”.

And what’s more exciting, lots of other people are doing it. And they’re not just incredibly lucky, independently wealthy or crazy peeps either.  These are couples who want to make sacrifices so that no one parent is shouldered with the primary task of bringing in the income or raising the children.

So back to nagging about those papers.  Would you believe it? Nagging goes down if I’m not the only one in charge of vacuuming and dusting around Dale’s pile of papers?

Dale finds his own way and time to tidy up when vacuuming is something he does as well. Do you have any idea of how hard it is to vacuum around papers? You don’t have to argue about it, experience is a lovely and swift teacher.

Getting Rid of the Nag

If you struggle with nagging, one of the sweetest little gifts for a Valentine’s Day present is to back up five paces on the nagging issue.

Who has control over it? Whose domain is getting neglected?

In other words, if the dishes aren’t done, who gets inconvenienced?

If it’s both of you, then nagging won’t be a problem. (Side note: sharing chores does require that you 1- agree what needs attention 2- agree to let the other person clean as they see fit). We both clean as if this is OUR property, not someplace our mom will come after and fix the shoddy job. It also means that my standard of cleanliness may or may not be the same as Dale’s. This is where letting my standard bend to Dale’s (also clean) standard comes in. Very few women can do this.

And this is why we nag.

In our home, Dale does all the dishes, unless he cooks, then we switch.  But if the dishes aren’t done, and I cannot make the next meal, the meal doesn’t get made (or we eat cereal out of mugs with plastic spoons). Or I work around the mess, but I don’t complain about the dirty dishes (this is a seven year old skill that isn’t completely in the bag, yet), I cook and make the dishes pile a little larger. It is impossible to make a meal without making some mess (which means more for Dale to eventually clean).

Peanut butter and jelly on paper towels all around.

Dale is not a fan of peanut butter and jelly for all his meals.

The responsibility is shared. We all get impacted by how we do or don’t clean, cook, watch Finn, work on Soulation, take a break. Equality, shared responsibility, even in the areas that seem like the “man’s” or the “woman’s” realm.

And Mr. and Mrs. Nag are slowly retreating.

And with their tail lights in my review mirror, I might just break open that box of chocolates!

I believe that our beliefs about our humanity, our femininity and masculinity directly affect what we will do, how we will grow, how we will fail and how we will recover.

I’ve only 200 pages left of Daniel Walker’s “God in a Brothel: An Undercover Journey into Sex Trafficking and Rescue” (these are iPhone pages, out of 2051). The book walked me alongside Walker as he infiltrated countless brothels around the world, including women trafficked in our own Atlanta, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

Photo Credit: modernsocialworker.blogspot.com

Each chapter ends with a page of helpful statistics that reveal how widespread this problem runs. Men who frequent brothels come from every walk and every appearance in life. However, he did say the stereotypical sex tourist was “overweight, unattractive and with few social skills.” What could this mean?

Is there a connection with us in the western world denigrating the unattractive and their search for validation. The cult of beauty doesn’t merely affect women. If men cannot find approval here, will some buy it elsewhere.

While actively fighting to record and amass evidence to incarcerate the pimps of these brothels, Walker also leads us to a place of pity. Henry David Thoreau,

“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” Henry David Thoreau

Are these men imprisioned by lust and greed or are they truly living every man’s fantasy? Walker talks about the enslavement and deprivation that the sex tourists create for themselves. This made me wonder, what if we rescued men from false ideas (e.g. conquering heroes deserve the fawning of many women, sexual conquest means men are sexy and wanted, sex with virgins leads to purity, multiple sexual partners of multiple ages, ethnicities multiple times prove they are really Men’s Men) as proactively and passionately as we rescued their victims from human trafficking.

This battle of ideas is precisely where Paul says the Evil One wages war. “We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor 10:5).

Walker showed me how the brothel was as much a part of God’s creation as a crystal cathedral, that God has not surrendered this ground to anyone, and that women and men working there were as much his image bearers as you or me. Walker adequately teaches that human trafficking isn’t the main or only problem, that this atrocity flows from poverty, sexism, gender inequality and addition. I believe sexism and gender inequality is something I can actively do something about today in how I write and think about and love men and women. This is why I co-run Soulation.

In the final chapters I saw Walker break. His story explains why and how, a story I will not tell you here.

Suffice it to say, I believe Walker makes it clear that his broken theory of gender (masculinity means men must have adventure to be happy, women cannot handle certain hard things about life) led to certain decisions (I can’t tell my wife how bad it is out here, it would be cruel to hurt her with this information) that paves the path for his double life and pushes him down a slippery road that forces him out of undercover missions.

He find he needs rescue just as women and children need rescue.

If you have any interest into the problem of forced prostitution, reading God in a Brothel will help you see the layers of reasons behind why women and children continue to be trafficked, raped, destroyed. The problem may begin with men’s demands for sex, but it doesn’t end there.

You may even find yourself part of the problem.

What I appreciated most was Walker’s honesty of the messiness of rescuing others. Especially when you think your own stance is mighty enough to lift others up.

Walker realized, rather late, that his “work inevitably and insidiously began to affect my attitude toward my own wife . . . perhaps most destructive was my growing inability to be completely vulnerable and open with Alice about all that I was seeing, doing and becoming.”

Bingo. Whenever men think invulnerability is key to masculinity the evil one has reared his head. This is a lie.

Neither male nor female can become appropriately human if they are trying to be invulnerable.

Walker’s work reminds me of another person’s. She is also engaged with rescuing children from human trafficking. A new friend, Melissa Hartwick, is moving to Nicaragua in a few days. As she explains,

I’m moving to a place where I will have to have a guard outside my house at night. I’m taking on the responsibility of 5 children, with another 10 or more likely to join me within the first year. I’m becoming a full time mother to teenagers at the age of 23. We won’t have hot water. We don’t even have a kitchen counter. We will live mainly off of rice and beans and water. We’ll be battling lice, ecoli, and parasites, and have very little medical care in the case of anything serious. I’ll be feeding these kids, giving them clothing, overseeing their schooling, and teaching them trades.

I’m leaving my entire family. My sister just had a baby. I’m giving up years of playing with my niece and time with my brother and his new wife. I won’t be able to come home to visit often at all, because I can’t just up and leave my children. Which means that I will only be able to see my friends about once every other year. I’ve also sold everything I have in order to help fund this home.

I had a dream job. I was a bridal gown designer, and I even had some of my dresses in local fashion shows and magazines. But I shut my company down in order to love these children. And yet, and I want you to really get this point: it does not seem like a sacrifice. Because these children are the most important thing in the world to me. I cry knowing that one of my daughters is being beaten, and I am not there to save her from it. I ache knowing that my children are going through pain, and I am not there to help them through it, to love them and hold them and tell them everything will be alright, that Papa God loves them so very much, and so do I. That they are part of a forever family now, and I will never leave them, just as their Papa God will never leave them.

What’s perhaps most interesting to me is that Melissa, like Daniel, longs to rescue as well, and yet, she doesn’t believe her sex is the stronger one. She grew up learning that women are naturally subordinate. While struggling against the idea only recently did she land on RubySlippers and other blogs helping her see another way to understand God’s idea for women. Just a few weeks ago Melissa wrote me for the first time,

I want to let you know about my life work, as I think it will be encouraging to you. In 23 days I am moving to Nicaragua to start and operate Casa de Gozo, a rescue center and home for orphaned or abandoned children and children at risk of sex trafficking and prostitution. Please keep me in your prayers, especially as I will be living there and running this by myself. Thanks so much, Jonalyn!
Melissa Hartwick

Melissa Hartwick

I began writing Melissa, sending her books to prepare her heart and mind and praying for her.

I see that Melissa’s desire to help is already accompanied by a believe in her own personal vulnerability. She isn’t winding her gender identity around her mission to save the Nicaraguan children. Instead, she’s giving up her trappings of identity, her career and her family, her comforts and her American future to slip her hand into Jesus’ hand and follow. I pray she will not break like Daniel Walker.

But, if she does, I know the God of the broken remains near. And that this God is ready to use the broken (God Wants the Broken) of this world. The story isn’t over for Daniel Walker, nor for Melissa Hartwick, nor for you or for me.

Daniel Walker got it right, his mission was about Rescue: men, women, children. We need salvation, not by another human, but but a Being great enough to understand our human weakness and great enough to pull us up.

I thought they were my friends, they were strong, attractive, Spanish guys. We were in the same honors math classes together.

Photo credit: redbookmag.com

I wore a powder blue fitted dress with white patent leather pumps. The heels were carved of stacked wood, but the dress hit the 4″ above the knee rule.

That day those men started talking.

In Spanish.

About my legs.

Having taken French I wasn’t exactly sure what they were saying.

But the way they said it.

The tone, the eyes, the elbowing.

I knew even before the translation.

The dress changed the way they saw me. And I had worn it, not to be eye-candy, but because I felt delicious in those colors.

Chauvinism in my high school?

Or was is simply appreciation of my legs?

What is a Chauvinist?

Photo credit: digitalmusicinsider.com

According to The American Heritage Dictionary (my fav) chauvinism is “Prejudiced belief in the superiority of one’s own gender, group, or kind”.

Prejudiced belief, that means beliefs untried with the people of this world.

I’ve met chauvinists in church green rooms after a sermon. I’ve shared a stage with them. I’ve worked for them, lived with them, shared meals with them and even dated them. They don’t all look like Dwight Schrute or talk like Michael Scott or score like Jack Donaghy.

Some of the men I’ve loved the most are chauvinists. They assume things that blow their cover.

They eat first.

They are exempt from serving someone outside their gender, group, class.

They are in charge, no matter what the subject, place or need of the moment.

They are top dog.

Three Ingredients in Chauvinists

If you want a quick test for the first tell-tale sign of a chauvinist, look for lack of empathy.

The second is their drive. Chauvinist are driven by the dual engine of immaturity and insecurity.

Take my friend, Saul, for example (don’t worry, that’s not his real name). When we get together, he assumes everyone wants to hear his stories. He rarely asks others for their opinion, nor does he ask them about their experiences. And he cannot listen without spring-boarding, using my example to tell a larger, louder, longer story.

Saul never got a chance to grieve some very damaging events in his teen years. He is emotionally immature.  So in some ways after dinner with him, I feel like I’ve had dinner with a junior higher.  I feel like I’ve served him, but he’s assumed he entertained me all evening.

His Me Monster behavior indicates, also, that he cannot tolerate competition or someone else gaining control.

Saul’s life is a model example of fallen masculinity, the third aspect and philosophical foundation for male chauvinism.

The code of fallen masculinity says that a “real man” will out-compete others, out control others and finally (and most significantly) have a steady disdain for women.  For more see, Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen’s My Brother’s Keeper.

If a man disdains a woman (just as if a woman disdains a man) he will not come right out and state it. Rather, he will show you, by small freighted statements.

Photo credit: blog.amigram.com

Let me give you some examples.

“You throw like a girl.” A clear example of disdain for women, letting a novice female arm insult a boy’s desire to learn.  Let’s just say you throw poorly, as we all have to learn.

“Sissy, pansy, pussy.”  All of which use slang aspects of women to insult a man.

“Dumb blondes.”  Are they ever thinking of a guy with yellow hair?

“Woman drivers.” Not usually a compliment.

“Women can’t publicly preach (or lead, or direct, or manage) men. They are distracting (or too emotional, or weak, or irrational, or just plain unfit). If you think, as I did, that the Bible is clear about this and a woman’s role, compare Judges 4:4, 2 Chron 34:22 with 2 Tim 2:12-15. For more see my essay with Dale, Unmuted.

“Putting on a little weight there, aren’t you?” to a pregnant woman. How could you ever mistake a woman’s new life in her womb for extra cellulite?

“My wife could never be the main bread winner.” This one needs follow-up. Why?

“I bring home the bacon, I don’t cook it.”

“Gotta check with the wife.” This one is subtle disrespect, as it includes a statement of asking permission, but all while reducing the personhood of one’s spouse.  Another version, “The woman can’t get out her in time.”

“You have all day to vacuum the living room. Don’t do it now while I’m in here.” I heard this statement this last week

“Women have roles.” Though a non-chauvinist could say this, it is less common.  I find it most interesting that it is often men commanding women at large to get back into the role God ordained for them (insecurity over what will happen if a woman is in charge of . . . a man?!). Even if Scripture mandated roles (something I no longer see) it would be women’s responsibility before God to find that place, not a man’s to put her there.  Also, interesting that the opposite is less common, “Men have roles!”

“Sorry, honey, but this might be just an area you have to submit to me.” Ignoring Ephesians 5:21.

“Since Paul says the marriage bed is undefiled and I am the head of this home, my sexual gratification should be your number one priority. And I want this . . .” Refusing to see the context of the marriage bed being undefiled (for more see Heb 13:4).  Refusing to understand that head is a metaphor literally turned on its head in Eph. 5, to mean first of all service, giving up all rights, including the right to live (“laying down his life” Eph 5:25 and 28).

and my personal favorite,

“God made men more rational, therefore He asked men to have the tie-breaking vote, to make all final decisions in the home.” What  root grows this statement? Some might say it’s the natural outworking of submission or headship from the New Testament. I disagree, as the healthiest husbands I know do not pull the submission card, nor state how they make final decisions. Rather healthy marriages in practice look like two equals working out of their giftedness, not playing their prescribed gender roles. (for more on this please see Unmuted: The Welcome Colors of a Woman’s Voice).

Think these statements are outdated?

I’ve heard them all in the last 10 years.

Can you tell how each of the above statements are motivated by lack of empathy, insecurity, immaturity and fallen masculinity?  For more on one of the roots for male  domination of women see the book or my review When a Man You Love is Abused, by Cecil Murphey.

If you’d like more elaboration or explanation of any statements in this list (e.g. How exactly is is chauvinistic to think that the man should make all final decisions?), please ask in the comments.

Not all Chauvinists are Men

Here’s the most important part of this post: you and I are in as much danger of chauvinism as any white male.  Why?

First, women are a (small or large?) part of keeping chauvinists enabled, empowered and cheered forward simply by believing that men are inherently better.

Often, it’s because we actually believe there is nothing so magnificent or noble as a male. Part of this is good, think of the old marriage vow “with my body I thee worship.” But another part is not good  . . . I think of Kate Winslet’s character’s comment to Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in the excellent book and movie, Revolutionary Road.

Photo credit: static.moviefanatic.com

“Don’t you know what you are?” Winslet.

“What?” DiCapprio.

“You’re the most beautiful thing in all the world . . . a man.” Winslet.

Now I’m for mutual admiration and desire in marriage, but a man is not the crown of creation and neither is the woman. If you want a crown of creation, it’s the two working together (Gen 2:23-25).

And if you believe women are overall better human beings just by virtue of their femaleness, you are also a chauvinist… a female chauvinist.  I’ve seen it in church circles when men or women claim to be more spiritual, more moral, more enlightened, or in any other ways superior in worth to a man. Want some female chauvinist statements? ask me.

How to Treat a Chauvinist

How do you treat a child who is immature, insecure and wounded?

You love her. You listen, you wait and you empathize with her world. Until you find her open to hearing from you. Unless she is your student or child, you do not blast into her world with statements like “You are an immature, insecure mess!”

How do you treat a full grown man who is immature, insecure and wounded?
The exact same way.

I’ve bit my tongue more than once when grown men with beards and degrees and power tip their chauvinistic cards.

I recall a crowded room dominated by testosterone where I met a well-traveled apologist. I invited him to engage with me about the subject of Christian feminist with the question,”How does that argument line up with what Christian feminists believe?” The room quieted.

“Christian feminists?” he snorted. “They don’t exist.”

I smiled briefly and went back to the buffet to calm down.  I knew what I wanted to say,

“I beg your pardon, you’re speaking to one.”

But, I don’t think that was the way to win him. He certainly wasn’t looking for relief from his misconception, neither were the other men in that room.

Instead, I worked with respect and peace on the panel next to him. I disagreed about some of the ways he answered the theological questions and I shared them.

But I did not disarm him of his view that Christian feminists don’t exist.

Jesus said it well, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

How do we keep from chauvinism ourselves? How do we foster empathy and ward off insecurity, immaturity, the fallen male code?

That’s for another post, for I can say right now . . .

If you can battle your insecurity with courageous voyaging into your soul . . . (for instance,  discover what keeps you from having an open mind in certain areas)

If you can discover the places you are not yet an adult (I recommend Changes That Heal by Cloud and Townsend and  the Holy Spirit for that journey) . . .

If you can cultivate empathy so that you can understand the root of chauvinism, then . . .

you are living worthy of being called a child of the Most High. You are refusing to be a clashing cymbal, rather . . .

you are a fragrance of the kingdom that has no end, where Truth Slips her hands through Beauty’s arm and Goodness graces every person, ever race, every gender.

Postscript . . . Chauvinism is NOT the Same as Chivalry

Photo credit: karenswhimsy.com

Because I have a deep concern to love the men in my life, because I’m also wary of being called a flaming femi-Nazi, I want to be clear about a few things that are NOT chauvinistic.

It is not chauvinistic to open a door for a woman, just as it’s not chauvinistic for a woman to bandage a man’s sliced arm.  This is what it looks like to use our strengths to serve the opposite sex.

And it’s sexy and cool and utterly fitted to this fallen world where we need each other. We are not independent one from the other, as Paul said, “However, in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman” (1 Cor 11:11).

When the Spanish guys in my high school complimented my legs I don’t think they were being chauvinists, not yet. It began when they began referring to me by “Legs,” when I stopped being a peer with them and went to being an object for them.

Chauvinism is the enemy of friendship, love, servanthood.

So when L on our construction site asks me if I need help along the icy hill, I accept it and appreciate him, knowing he is using his awareness and strength to help me out.

Helping those outside of our gender, group or kind is not chauvinism, rather its the opposite.

Dale doesn’t think new year resolutions are all they’re cracked up to be.

I tend to disagree, mainly because I’m a lover of opportunities to change in grandiose ways, ways I can write about and check up on. Dale is a changer in bits and pieces, he’s also big on changing when the need arises. As he says, “I’m not waiting until a new year to change something.”

And he  hasn’t. A few weeks back we struggled to find a place for us both to feel like we weren’t drowning (Mercy For Christmas).  I felt annoyed and terse and unappreciated. I know he felt the same.

We were working hard, but often not wing-to-wing, more like two whirling tops. Nothing like this morning when I looked up from my laptop and say to him, “I can’t believe how many emails I still have to just read,” putting my cold hands on my flushed face.

He pauses long enough to cool the smoke from his racing fingers on my laptop and looks back at me, “Take them one by one.” I smile and feel known and like he’s in this with me.  I feel togetherness as I dive back into the inbox.

We’ve found a new way to co-parent, a way to find time when we need it, a life-giving change.

Dale decided to give up his writing, any creative writing, any book ideas, any memoir hopes. He’s pulled them all off the stove because he couldn’t, in his words, “Do it all.”

How many men can say that?

I don’t know.

But I was relieved to know Dale understood he dilemma that so many women face. The 2:3 ratio.

You can have 2 of the 3: a husband, kids, a career.

You can have a husband and a career, but not kids, not well-loved ones.

You can have a career and kids, but no husband, not a happy one.

You can have a husband and kids, but not a career, not a good one.

But not all three. Not if you’re a woman.

Of course, that’s an overstatement, but does it resonate with any of you?

I sure get it.

Dale’s decided to take a hit in his career so he can be more present with Finn.

And you know what? Just a few breaks mean a world of difference for me, for Finn, for him. I’ve even begun brainstorming ways I can watch Finn longer so Dale can get back to writing. But we will see.

I can’t do it all, either.

We’ve both agreed that we don’t want to see Finn as time punched into a chore we dread. Finn is not time we waste or time we have to just grit our teeth and get through to get back to Soulation. Finn will pick that up, and he’ll understand that he’s not as attractive or interesting or important.

And we don’t believe that.

So, for now, Dale is waiting on his writing. As the resident true artist in our  house (yes, I’m an artist, too, but I don’t have the artistic temperament ), he needs lengthy bits of time to write.

It was hard for me to watch a man I know is a gifted writer put that aside. He will work managing Soulation, writing emails, managing writers and video ideas.

And he will work alongside me, continuing to make time for me to write in my fits and starts (like this morning).

For now, we’ve found a boat to carry us through another rapid. It’s safe and dry and cozy–that’s a nice word for small.

And, for now, we’re smiling into each other’s eyes, watching the water and peeps rush by.

We’re not as fast, but we’re together.

New Year Wantings

This year, I’m wanting to read weekday nights and watch fun things like Mad Men weekend nights. Last year’s “Year of the Book” lit up my hunger for reading again. I’m not letting it go. It’s too wonderful.

I’m wanting to watercolor once a week. I will not feel bad about not doing more.

I want to learn Spanish and talk more with Finn in Spanish.

I’m wanting to practice my Spanish with my sister (thank you, Abby!) each week on the phone.

I’m wanting to save energy so at night I can talk and listen and make love to Dale.

I’m wanting to leave my house a little messier and leave those I love a little more peaceful.

God give me my all my wants and save me from them, too.

10 Year Anniversary at Huntington Beach - see Finn's foot?