Here is yet another reboot of previous writings of mine. Most of this is pieced together and expanded upon from something I discovered a little less than a year ago.
I’d always been struck by the pure un-fairness that guys had the risk of being addicted and struggling with porn and sexual lust. Now yes, I know men have a choice. But I was always curious as to what women had to choose against. Just what their secret sin that was as universal and horrible and enticing as sex (or even the thought of sex) was to men.
Through conversations and experience the vail lifted. Lust for beauty is to men as lust for emotions is to women. From the very first woman, Eve, manipulation had been used to affection and attention. By asking Adam to take the fruit with her, she was asking him to sacrifice what he knew to be right for the sake of her worth.
Now yes, Eve was lied to when she took the fruit, but every woman has followed suit at one point in their life or another; every woman has manipulated a man for their self-worth.
Girls want to be noticed, to feel affection. After God finished cursing the serpent in Genesis He turned “To the woman he said, ‘Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.’”
If Eve had never sinned until that moment, her desire would be for her Lord, not a fellow man. But she glanced away from God and He gave her exactly what she had believed she wanted, to desire a man, to be consumed with him. But God added a clause, Adam will rule over her. This isn’t in a sexist, demeaning sorta way, it natural. Eve wanted to be desired, which gave Adam a commodity: his desires. He now held the power to fulfill her need with affection, or to turn away and let her fall to pity. He ruled her being.
A loop forms, intentionally or not; acting in her lust to feel special, a woman will go to men to feel special. Each man she goes to thinks that she truly desires him because of the inordinate amounts of attention she is giving him. He will, in turn, pay her compliments and affection because he has been singled out. Typically, being more physically driven than the woman, he will shift the relationship towards a physical in return for the emotional payment. The woman, knowing this will keep him interested makes a trade. Both are giving pieces of their emotions or physicality that they don’t value in order to receive the one they do. Words for actions; actions for words. We all have been trained to fall for spectacularism over substance through Western thought and practice, and this area is no different.
Women throw “I love you” and “You’re beautiful” to each other like free candy from a rusty van, but that is no where near as good as hearing it from any man. (Unless he is in said rusty van.) The attention alone satisfies the same desire that men satisfy with sex.
Compliments are women’s pornography. Five minutes of jacking up the flirting to get a short, sweet boost. If women desire to feel beautiful as much as men desire to see beauty; it makes perfect sense.
Its as if emotions and physicalness were two sides of a coin. In each interaction there is a potential for man or woman to vy for their side of the coin to land on top of the relationship A continuous battle rages, both sides pulling for their face of the coin to win. Coins, like magnets can’t become separate positive and negative poles any more than one can cut a coin in half and still have it be worth anything. Only with both parties settle down and forget themselves will they be satisfied.
What this means is that, despite the gender, people need to only give what Christ has already given.
In 1 Corinthians 6:18-20 Paul is instructs believers:
“Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”
At first glance it may only look like he is talking to the sexual desires, but really this applies just as easily to emotions. Women, you were bought at a price — Christ’s life. If that isn’t where our value comes from we are going to be a mess. Not unsuccessful or horrible, but broken. If we all redirected our efforts for our lusts (whether it be from our hidden internet history, our weekly profile picture change or our constant worry and day-dreams about marriage) and put that time spent in our relationship with Christ our lives will be better immensely better than they are now.
I’m still figuring this all out. By no means am I lust-less, or have solved the female mind.
But if I have fully laid by desires at the foot of the cross and also picked up my own cross to follow Christ then my ignorance and faults aren’t my defining features.
Comment or contact me via twitter or facebook if you have any thought, encouragement, or debatable topic.
