Two Random Thoughts...on Monogamy and ProstiTots!
So...I was thinking earlier about a question that I saw on one of those crazy long surveys that people have seen a million times through e-mails and social networking sites, but will still fill out again when bored. The question was "do you believe it's possible to be faithful for life?" Here's my idea on that...which I think is more complicated than a simple survey-type answer.
Yes, it is POSSIBLE to be faithful for life. Likely? No. I am by no means justifying infidelity and the pain it causes to other people, families, etc. especially if it breaks marital vows. However, I am looking at things a bit more realistically. I believe that these days, people put way too much stock in finding "happy ever after." The perfect fairy tale ending. Somebody who will never hurt them or disappoint them. Because if they, at some point DO end up hurting them in any way, all of a sudden they question whether they are "the one" now and if they can be happy with them. They tend to get out of that relationship ASAP and move on to finding the NEXT "one" who can be their prince or princess charming. Not always but a lot of the time. Here's the fact. People are human. People are weak. People shouldn't, but sometimes do, make REALLY stupid choices. Sometimes it's because they are a not-so-great person and are concerned only with their well being and desires. Sometimes it's because they are trying to fill needs that aren't being reasonably met at home. Sometimes their hormones take over their logic and they make a really stupid choice. It's not justifiable, but the fact is, it's a possibility, for several reasons. The other thing is that, why is THAT always seen as a relationship deal breaker? What about the other vows? To love, honor, and cherish? Cherish...doesn't that mean to admire and be respectful? Something along those lines? To enjoy who they are and what they do instead of nagging and pointing out everything they do wrong all day every day? Why isn't that the deal breaker vow? If it were, I believe that more people would get divorced over that than infidelity, because it's more rampant. Often the loss of "loving" "honoring" and "cherishing" comes BEFORE that breaking of the whole "forsaking all others" portion. So either they are keeping their vows, or they aren't. Or maybe one person stopped keeping the vows that are easily forgotten and broken and so their partner ultimately breaks the BIG one and are then villianized for it...when really the other person was just as guilty in a different way? From a church standpoint, yes, adultery is more serious than having a bad day and berating your spouse. BOTH are wrong though. BOTH lead to marital discord. BOTH break vows. So I'm not coming from it from a viewpoint of what's worse - I'm looking at it from a viewpoint of the ULTIMATE goal being a happy, satisfying, loving, lifelong and beyond marriage. Which brings me back to the first point. People aren't perfect. People make mistakes. Some people easily break the vows of "cherishing" their spouse because they are easily caught up in thinking and speaking harshly and negatively. Some might be more likely to break the "forsaking all others" vow because of any number of things. My bottom line is that, going into a marriage, knowing that both partners possess weakness, should the question be, "is doing (insert ANY marital vow here) for life truly possible?" or should it be "is this a kind of person that you believe in and love enough and know already to be a good enough person in so many ways that even SHOULD they make a mistake, regardless of which vow they might break, that you would be willing to stick to your vows and forgive them and continue working toward the ultimate goal of a happy marriage and family with them provided you are both trying?" That's the key. There is no "one size fits all" answer but in my opinion, at this point in time, I believe that a MISTAKE can be and should be forgiven and that the focus should remain on the ultimate goal of a happy home and family. It's hard. It's gonna suck getting through it. It's going to take a lot of time and effort from both spouses. But it CAN be worked through. It shouldn't happen to begin with...but it's not an automatic "deal-breaker" in my eyes. But if a person has ongoing affairs or dalliances and shows little or no remorse and/or refuses to stop and shows NO interest in saving the relationship or family, then yeah. Divorce is then, in my eyes, an appropriate consideration. In the first case though it seems to be more about satisfying a spouse's bruised ego and hurt heart than about what may be best for the marriage and family ESPECIALLY where kids are concerned. I hold these views about if it's possible, likely, and whether or not it happening is a deal breaker because I have seen several cases in my life where people have been hurt by infidelity to some degree or another. And instead of running to divorce, as so many would these days, whether out of anger, or hurt, or revenge, or pride etc. they stuck together and they put in the time and the tears and the apologies and the forgiveness to get through it. And they are TRULY happy now. I've seen proof that it is, in fact, possible to overcome if both want to and in my opinion working through problems, whatever their magnitude, and improving with time, learning more about your vows and how to honor them is PART of a marriage and can and usually will lead to a much happier and more deeply satisfying marriage and life than simply leaving every time somebody lets you down - even if it IS in a big way. So yeah...those are basically my views on it. I just hate seeing infidelity almost always related as the "big sin" and "primary deal breaker" in relationships when, in most cases, it probably doesn't have to be. I don't like seeing that one zeroed in on as the huge no-no because it puts the focus on when you should leave a relationship and marriage instead of focusing on forgiveness and working through problems together, and, in a sense, having that kind of "deal-breaker" also tells your spouse where not to cross the line. Are you committed to making a marriage work for life or beyond or aren't you? Not your spouse - you? Then WHY would you give them a point and say "Well, up to this point I'd forgive, you can get away with this much. But that - no. That's when I'd give up trying." You just gave them the exact buttons to push. If they were to ever want to leave and give up, but know that you won't "until..." or "unless..." then they now know exactly what to do in order to get their way of having you give up trying on the marriage as well. If you are truly committed to a lifelong, happy, loving marriage than I doubt you should tell your partner exactly what line they can cross before you give up on them. I also hate seeing that ONE thing villainized because it tends to ignore the other not-so-big ones. The ones that, while considered smaller and less important, still cause just as much emotional and mental pain and hurt. The ones that, in many cases, lead to the other partner committing that big one. Those thoughts might be a big jumbled but at least it got my general ideas on it out.
Now...ProstiTots! ProstiTots are kids, mostly prepubescent, who dress and/or act along the lines of Britney or Lindsay. It's part of the sexualizing of kids at increasingly younger ages - highly disturbing. So today, I watched a video of a "dance recital" for 7 year old girls. They wore costumes that bore a striking resemblance to lingerie used in the song "Lady Marmalade" by Christina Aguilera, Pink, Lil Kim, and Mya...oh, except that unfortunately in that video the singers were MORE covered up for the most part than these children were. I have several issues with this performance that I saw. First of all the song choice itself. I get that "pop" music is listened to by people of all ages. Some children may like a song because of a good beat or music or even just because it's the new cool song without truly understanding and/or relating to it. However, for a dance recital, I don't think that 7 year olds should be performing to a song which is essentially saying "If you loved me so much than you should have married me." Hello?! They're SEVEN. They shouldn't be able to relate to that song AT ALL. It's not a bad song. It's just a poor song choice for a young girls' dance concert. Not to mention that there are some lines in it which, aside from being unrelatable for such young children, are inappropriate for them to be singing or performing to. I can think of a few but the one I have the biggest problem with it "I'm up on him, he's up on me." That is about club-type dancing. TOTALLY not okay for children to be thinking, singing, or performing about. Ever. They shouldn't even know what that line means and if they don't know what it means they shouldn't be flaunting a performance to it. Second of all the outfits. How can we possibly get so angry at pedophiles for feeling and thinking the way that they do while still putting prepubescent girls on display in little more than a bra and hot pants? Obviously pedophiles are perverted and evil people. But at the same time, knowing that such people DO exist, shouldn't we want to cover and protect our children to a reasonable degree rather than letting them prance around on-stage in outfits, that on an adult woman, would be meant to appear sexually appealing? My view is that if an adult would wear it or something similar in order to look "sexy" then a CHILD should not wear it at all because that is never the message they should even possibly be sending. That seems like a good rule of thumb to me. Some exceptions may be possible but overall - keep in mind what message the clothes themselves send. Not just the fact that they are on a 7 year old girl. That does not completely take away their message. The third issue is the dancing itself. The girls don't even HAVE anything yet and still they are "shaking it" and have some sexually suggestive movements within the dance. When I was seven, I didn't know it was possible to move my body in those ways. It's the same rule of thumb as the clothes. If a grown woman would do use a movement to try and turn a guy on or look sexy...a child should absolutely NOT do it. Even if most people can look at it and not see anything sexual about it, it is teaching the children sexually suggestive attitudes, movements, etc. at an age where they should know almost NOTHING about it. The final problem I have with this performance is the idiots trying to justify it by saying that everyone needs to "get their minds out of the gutter" and instead focus on how talented these girls are. Okay...I'm not in the gutter in the sense that I am checking these girls out. They are not sexually attractive to me, at all, period. What bothers me is that they shouldn't know anything ABOUT how to dress or act sexually attractive and yet the whole performance reeked of them trying to do so - most likely because of adults around them making horrific costume, musical, and choreography decisions. Like I said, if an adult would do it to be "sexy," then not ALL of the message of that style of dress or movement is lost just because a child does it or wears it. It's disturbing because they shouldn't have any sexuality at that age whatsoever, ESPECIALLY in any sort of a public arena, and yet they did to some degree simply by the clothes they weren't wearing and the ways in which they were trying to move and shake their bodies. It WASN'T sexy, but in and of themselves, they were sexual type things. That's why it rubbed people the wrong way. Because it was completely out of place given who was doing them. As far as how talented they were, yes, they were VERY good. But let's look at it this way. A 7 year old girl could have the voice of Mariah Carey. A stunning, angelic, beautiful, multi-octave voice. It is appropriate for her to sing a sexually suggestive song? Even if the lyrics weren't outright raunchy? Just hinting at sexual experiences? NO!!! Abso-freaking-lutely NOT! I don't care if she does an amazing rendition of it and is just SO talented on it. SHE IS SEVEN. It's not okay and even if a girl WANTS to do it because she has seen that that's what it takes to get ahead or get noticed or get famous and rich these days - her parents should be there to say "No. You're a child, whether you like it or not. You need to be playing outside and focus on being a kid. Not learning how to flaunt yourself in such adult and suggestive ways." Just my two cents.
Yes, it is POSSIBLE to be faithful for life. Likely? No. I am by no means justifying infidelity and the pain it causes to other people, families, etc. especially if it breaks marital vows. However, I am looking at things a bit more realistically. I believe that these days, people put way too much stock in finding "happy ever after." The perfect fairy tale ending. Somebody who will never hurt them or disappoint them. Because if they, at some point DO end up hurting them in any way, all of a sudden they question whether they are "the one" now and if they can be happy with them. They tend to get out of that relationship ASAP and move on to finding the NEXT "one" who can be their prince or princess charming. Not always but a lot of the time. Here's the fact. People are human. People are weak. People shouldn't, but sometimes do, make REALLY stupid choices. Sometimes it's because they are a not-so-great person and are concerned only with their well being and desires. Sometimes it's because they are trying to fill needs that aren't being reasonably met at home. Sometimes their hormones take over their logic and they make a really stupid choice. It's not justifiable, but the fact is, it's a possibility, for several reasons. The other thing is that, why is THAT always seen as a relationship deal breaker? What about the other vows? To love, honor, and cherish? Cherish...doesn't that mean to admire and be respectful? Something along those lines? To enjoy who they are and what they do instead of nagging and pointing out everything they do wrong all day every day? Why isn't that the deal breaker vow? If it were, I believe that more people would get divorced over that than infidelity, because it's more rampant. Often the loss of "loving" "honoring" and "cherishing" comes BEFORE that breaking of the whole "forsaking all others" portion. So either they are keeping their vows, or they aren't. Or maybe one person stopped keeping the vows that are easily forgotten and broken and so their partner ultimately breaks the BIG one and are then villianized for it...when really the other person was just as guilty in a different way? From a church standpoint, yes, adultery is more serious than having a bad day and berating your spouse. BOTH are wrong though. BOTH lead to marital discord. BOTH break vows. So I'm not coming from it from a viewpoint of what's worse - I'm looking at it from a viewpoint of the ULTIMATE goal being a happy, satisfying, loving, lifelong and beyond marriage. Which brings me back to the first point. People aren't perfect. People make mistakes. Some people easily break the vows of "cherishing" their spouse because they are easily caught up in thinking and speaking harshly and negatively. Some might be more likely to break the "forsaking all others" vow because of any number of things. My bottom line is that, going into a marriage, knowing that both partners possess weakness, should the question be, "is doing (insert ANY marital vow here) for life truly possible?" or should it be "is this a kind of person that you believe in and love enough and know already to be a good enough person in so many ways that even SHOULD they make a mistake, regardless of which vow they might break, that you would be willing to stick to your vows and forgive them and continue working toward the ultimate goal of a happy marriage and family with them provided you are both trying?" That's the key. There is no "one size fits all" answer but in my opinion, at this point in time, I believe that a MISTAKE can be and should be forgiven and that the focus should remain on the ultimate goal of a happy home and family. It's hard. It's gonna suck getting through it. It's going to take a lot of time and effort from both spouses. But it CAN be worked through. It shouldn't happen to begin with...but it's not an automatic "deal-breaker" in my eyes. But if a person has ongoing affairs or dalliances and shows little or no remorse and/or refuses to stop and shows NO interest in saving the relationship or family, then yeah. Divorce is then, in my eyes, an appropriate consideration. In the first case though it seems to be more about satisfying a spouse's bruised ego and hurt heart than about what may be best for the marriage and family ESPECIALLY where kids are concerned. I hold these views about if it's possible, likely, and whether or not it happening is a deal breaker because I have seen several cases in my life where people have been hurt by infidelity to some degree or another. And instead of running to divorce, as so many would these days, whether out of anger, or hurt, or revenge, or pride etc. they stuck together and they put in the time and the tears and the apologies and the forgiveness to get through it. And they are TRULY happy now. I've seen proof that it is, in fact, possible to overcome if both want to and in my opinion working through problems, whatever their magnitude, and improving with time, learning more about your vows and how to honor them is PART of a marriage and can and usually will lead to a much happier and more deeply satisfying marriage and life than simply leaving every time somebody lets you down - even if it IS in a big way. So yeah...those are basically my views on it. I just hate seeing infidelity almost always related as the "big sin" and "primary deal breaker" in relationships when, in most cases, it probably doesn't have to be. I don't like seeing that one zeroed in on as the huge no-no because it puts the focus on when you should leave a relationship and marriage instead of focusing on forgiveness and working through problems together, and, in a sense, having that kind of "deal-breaker" also tells your spouse where not to cross the line. Are you committed to making a marriage work for life or beyond or aren't you? Not your spouse - you? Then WHY would you give them a point and say "Well, up to this point I'd forgive, you can get away with this much. But that - no. That's when I'd give up trying." You just gave them the exact buttons to push. If they were to ever want to leave and give up, but know that you won't "until..." or "unless..." then they now know exactly what to do in order to get their way of having you give up trying on the marriage as well. If you are truly committed to a lifelong, happy, loving marriage than I doubt you should tell your partner exactly what line they can cross before you give up on them. I also hate seeing that ONE thing villainized because it tends to ignore the other not-so-big ones. The ones that, while considered smaller and less important, still cause just as much emotional and mental pain and hurt. The ones that, in many cases, lead to the other partner committing that big one. Those thoughts might be a big jumbled but at least it got my general ideas on it out.
Now...ProstiTots! ProstiTots are kids, mostly prepubescent, who dress and/or act along the lines of Britney or Lindsay. It's part of the sexualizing of kids at increasingly younger ages - highly disturbing. So today, I watched a video of a "dance recital" for 7 year old girls. They wore costumes that bore a striking resemblance to lingerie used in the song "Lady Marmalade" by Christina Aguilera, Pink, Lil Kim, and Mya...oh, except that unfortunately in that video the singers were MORE covered up for the most part than these children were. I have several issues with this performance that I saw. First of all the song choice itself. I get that "pop" music is listened to by people of all ages. Some children may like a song because of a good beat or music or even just because it's the new cool song without truly understanding and/or relating to it. However, for a dance recital, I don't think that 7 year olds should be performing to a song which is essentially saying "If you loved me so much than you should have married me." Hello?! They're SEVEN. They shouldn't be able to relate to that song AT ALL. It's not a bad song. It's just a poor song choice for a young girls' dance concert. Not to mention that there are some lines in it which, aside from being unrelatable for such young children, are inappropriate for them to be singing or performing to. I can think of a few but the one I have the biggest problem with it "I'm up on him, he's up on me." That is about club-type dancing. TOTALLY not okay for children to be thinking, singing, or performing about. Ever. They shouldn't even know what that line means and if they don't know what it means they shouldn't be flaunting a performance to it. Second of all the outfits. How can we possibly get so angry at pedophiles for feeling and thinking the way that they do while still putting prepubescent girls on display in little more than a bra and hot pants? Obviously pedophiles are perverted and evil people. But at the same time, knowing that such people DO exist, shouldn't we want to cover and protect our children to a reasonable degree rather than letting them prance around on-stage in outfits, that on an adult woman, would be meant to appear sexually appealing? My view is that if an adult would wear it or something similar in order to look "sexy" then a CHILD should not wear it at all because that is never the message they should even possibly be sending. That seems like a good rule of thumb to me. Some exceptions may be possible but overall - keep in mind what message the clothes themselves send. Not just the fact that they are on a 7 year old girl. That does not completely take away their message. The third issue is the dancing itself. The girls don't even HAVE anything yet and still they are "shaking it" and have some sexually suggestive movements within the dance. When I was seven, I didn't know it was possible to move my body in those ways. It's the same rule of thumb as the clothes. If a grown woman would do use a movement to try and turn a guy on or look sexy...a child should absolutely NOT do it. Even if most people can look at it and not see anything sexual about it, it is teaching the children sexually suggestive attitudes, movements, etc. at an age where they should know almost NOTHING about it. The final problem I have with this performance is the idiots trying to justify it by saying that everyone needs to "get their minds out of the gutter" and instead focus on how talented these girls are. Okay...I'm not in the gutter in the sense that I am checking these girls out. They are not sexually attractive to me, at all, period. What bothers me is that they shouldn't know anything ABOUT how to dress or act sexually attractive and yet the whole performance reeked of them trying to do so - most likely because of adults around them making horrific costume, musical, and choreography decisions. Like I said, if an adult would do it to be "sexy," then not ALL of the message of that style of dress or movement is lost just because a child does it or wears it. It's disturbing because they shouldn't have any sexuality at that age whatsoever, ESPECIALLY in any sort of a public arena, and yet they did to some degree simply by the clothes they weren't wearing and the ways in which they were trying to move and shake their bodies. It WASN'T sexy, but in and of themselves, they were sexual type things. That's why it rubbed people the wrong way. Because it was completely out of place given who was doing them. As far as how talented they were, yes, they were VERY good. But let's look at it this way. A 7 year old girl could have the voice of Mariah Carey. A stunning, angelic, beautiful, multi-octave voice. It is appropriate for her to sing a sexually suggestive song? Even if the lyrics weren't outright raunchy? Just hinting at sexual experiences? NO!!! Abso-freaking-lutely NOT! I don't care if she does an amazing rendition of it and is just SO talented on it. SHE IS SEVEN. It's not okay and even if a girl WANTS to do it because she has seen that that's what it takes to get ahead or get noticed or get famous and rich these days - her parents should be there to say "No. You're a child, whether you like it or not. You need to be playing outside and focus on being a kid. Not learning how to flaunt yourself in such adult and suggestive ways." Just my two cents.