Word Weld

 It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.

Luke 17:2

Everyone knows that pedophilia is evil, including the people participating and fighting for it to be legal. That is because everyone knows, regardless of how left-wing or progressive, or simply anarchistic they are, that children are not sexual. There comes a time when a child reaches sexual maturity, but then they are no longer considered a child. And most of us admit, as well, that even in the midst of puberty, when a child’s body is triggered to begin sexually maturing, they are still a child and not ready yet. Pedophilia, however, is still a major problem in this country, and getting worse. According to the a New York Times website, the increase in child porn online has been staggering, going from 3,000 reported images in 1998, to 100,000 in 2008, to 43 million currently. And according to the Times, the trend is interest in younger and younger children. It is very difficult to determine just how much of the available porn is child porn, because much of it goes unreported, and because searching through smut to gather statistics is a poisonous affair. Some estimate that more than 20% of porn is child related. According to the Child’s Advocacy Center, 43% of people who go online do so to view pornographic content, and around 3,000 websites pushing porn, in English alone. They report that the porn industry is worth about $100 billion. If just 20% of all that is child-related, that is a huge number of children being exploited by a huge number of perverted people.

But of course everyone knows or at least suspects this, even though they might not be familiar with the numbers and statistics. We are even now hearing about so-called M.A.P.s, or “minor attracted persons,” which is a movement to rebrand pedophilia as a part of the already bloated and questionable LGBT+ umbrella. We hear about missing children, about people who try to lure kids with candy or puppies, of women grabbing unattended children grocery stores. We make every effort to protect our children from the attention of dangerous people who have a dangerous predilection for children. We teach them not to talk to strangers, to beware of people offering sweets or claiming to be sent by mom or dad, and we don’t let them wander even the best streets and neighborhoods for fear of evil men. And we protect them online, putting stamps over their faces in pictures and making such images private.

Except for that one time we don’t protect them. You know, when they are at dance class, or when the annual beauty pageant is being organized. I know I’ve already lost many people. According to the internet, there is no verifiable link between pedophilia and pageants and dance classes. But I’m going to make this statement with all the boldness that I can muster: I believe there is. How, after all, could there not be? What is the first thing that evil child abusers do with the kids they steal? Don’t they doll them up and dress them up to feed their perverse appetites? I’ve seen too many pictures, of people I know, whose daughters are attending dance class. They have professional photos taken and share them online, photos of their gorgeous 9, 10, 11-year old (sometimes even younger), wearing something you would see Beyoncé or Taylor Swift in at a concert, with as much makeup Dolly Parton or a drag queen, and posed like Miley Cyrus. Most of the people who put their children into these things can be seen gushing over such pictures. Their child is beautiful, after all, and they want all the world to know just how beautiful their child really is. And they think it’s cute for a little girl to dress and pose like sexual icons and singers who should not be engaging in that behavior themselves, if our country had any moral decency.

And most of these girls’ fathers would be enraged to see them dressed in such a way, posing in such ways, in most other settings. But because such dance schools and pageants are considered innocent by people in our country, even questioning their morality or lack thereof has become taboo. It wasn’t that long ago that I saw a public image for such a pageant where the children were dolled up in makeup and skimpy outfits and paraded around in sexual poses, and commented about how offensive and dangerous it was. I was promptly descended upon by women involved, who not only attempted to shame me for attacking such an innocent and wholesome institution, but suggested that I was the pervert for even calling attention to its sexual nature. And it is sexual. Just because it is sanctioned by dance schools, or community groups, or even the mothers themselves, does not make it right. Calling a thing innocent does not make it innocent, and in a day and age where children are so much at risk from perverted people, how is it that pageantry and these sexualized dance routines and photo shoots could become endorsed by parents, of all people? These are the same people who claim that they would, without hesitation, shoot a pervert in the head, and advocate online for the death penalty for such criminals. How is it that people so aggressively protective of their children could expose them to such dangerous and problematic activities, that seem to fly in the face of their own assertions?

How many men would be ok with their wives dressing and dolling themselves up and then parading their half-exposed body around in suggestive poses for all the world to see, just to show how beautiful they are? No man of any decency would be ok with it. And no man with any decency would allow their daughter to do it, much less force them to participate. And why do they? Why are they willing to subject their children to such things? Why do even decent, good people have a blind spot when it comes to the sexual nature of pageants, proms, school cheer, and dance classes?

I submit to you that it is pride. As I have seen, both in regards to the posts I see about the events (and often the events themselves), as well as the reactions that I have gotten from speaking out against them, the answer is assuredly pride. The whole purpose of a beauty pageant is for someone to declare their daughter the most beautiful, and what is that, but pride? The parents say it in the posts on their child’s dance school page, gushing over how lovely the child is and proud they are of them. Pride is the original sin, which breeds so many others. We do not make our children beautiful or ugly, talented or untalented, nor choose children who will be of great ability. God created our children and gave them the traits He deemed fitting, and He gave them to us, we did not give them to ourselves. I too am proud of my children when they do good, or if they are beautiful, which they are. But I understand that I didn’t make them that way. They were given to me, as a gift, and if they had been talentless and ugly I would feel no differently about them. I also understand that beauty is a good thing, but that it comes with problems, and should be understood within the proper moral framework.

Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.

Proverbs 31:30

I could not have said it better than the Bible. The sexualization of children, be they 6 or 16, is wrong. People largely agree when it comes to child porn, or Netflix shows like Cuties, but when it comes to pageants, dance, cheer, and prom people don’t want to hear it! But it is the truth. Perhaps it is because our American culture, and even many professing or true Christians, have rejected the Biblical concept of modesty altogether. After all, I see plenty of Christian women and men at the beach in basically waterproof underwear. I see young women, good Christian people, wearing miniskirts to church, or taking a jog in workout clothes so tight as to leave very little to the imagination. And the feminist movement has led the way in much of this, to the satisfaction of men as a whole, who understand that a woman being “empowered” to dress immodestly and without shame is great news for them. That’s why the term voyeurism has fallen out of use: immoral men used to have to sneak around to see women’s bodies. Now the bodies are paraded around openly, and in the name of women being “free” no less. Modesty was intended by God to protect women: to discourage sinfulness on both sides. But we have abandoned the concept because we have decided it is too restrictive. We celebrated the loss of morality, even though haven’t seen anything good come of the loss of morality over the last 100 years. Indeed, more and more sin, debauchery, violence, crime, and corruption has followed, and when you marry that with pride, you come up with what we see today.

We see fathers and mothers posing next to their daughters on prom night, as she wears the most sexually appealing dress they can find, with holes cut everywhere so she can expose as much skin as possible. Then those same parents are dismayed to find out that their daughter got pregnant that night, and now they’re weighing the possibility of an abortion.

We see girls at sporting events, leaping around on the field with their exposed legs, midriffs, and shoulders, their private parts concealed only by underwear with the school logo on it. And their parents scream and whoop from the stands at their sexually suggestive performances, only to be shocked when they find out their daughter slept with the quarterback during an after party.

And yes, we see kids at dance recitals and pageants, far younger than either of the above, dressed up in revealing two-piece outfits, though they have scarcely anything to reveal, plastered in more makeup than their mothers would ever use, even at her own wedding or night out on the town, and posing and gyrating in the same ways as only the most depraved and godless pop singers.

Our culture, even the supposedly more moral and God-fearing southern culture, has a serious blind spot in regards to this issue. It is potentially dangerous, in a world where children are increasingly being targeted and exploited. But were this not enough, what I am saying is consistent with what God says in His Word. If God would have women to be modest, how much more would He have our daughters to be modest? How much more should we protect our daughters’ bodies? They can be beautiful without showing off their skin, and save such things for the purity of their eventual marriage to their eventual husband. If your child is beautiful, she doesn’t need makeup, exposed skin, or suggestive poses to show it. But what she does need is parents who will protect her, all of her, to the last square-inch of skin, from anyone who would seek to harm her, and who will teach her to follow God’s desire for her.

I will therefore that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.
In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;
But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.

1 Timothy 2:8-10

P.S.

I know the above article is unpopular. As stated, the prevalence in our culture of the activities above is widespread and widely considered to be completely innocent. I have been attacked before for calling attention to this issue, and I know many people personally whose children or whose extended family participate in these events. Reactions have been strong and many people doggedly believe that there is nothing wrong with their little daughters being in these situations. I understand how much this post steps on people’s toes and that it naturally offends them. I have had my toes stepped on and been offended by others who shared similar things with me. It is not my intention to attack anyone, especially people I know, but as I stated in the article, we are not helped by placing our children in these situations. They are not helped. The children involved are innocent, but they learn things from these events that they ought not: dressing immodestly is ok in some situations, or that it’s ok to be super proud of your good looks, or a host of other psychological issues that have been associated with beauty pageants and the like, even apart from the danger of perverts and predators. These kinds of activities are well-known to encourage obsessive behaviors, eating disorders, narcissism, and other such. We need to do what Hebrews says, and “lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us.” There are things that are sin, and then there are innocent things which lead to sin, there are “weights,” which may not be wrong in and of themselves, but are unhelpful, and lead to wrong in the end. The fact that these matters are never discussed is, I think, a huge problem in our culture and a failing of the church itself, because the culture is not God. What we want to think and believe is not God. God is God, and I know in my heart, from what I have studied in His word, that these things are not pleasing to Him. If we claim to love Him, we would do well to search this out ourselves. God be with you.