In
the aftermath of the recent Bill Cosby verdicts, I heard a piece of a
conversation between a women’s advocate and a talk show host. He voiced an
observation that I have heard so many times, regarding so many sexual assaults,
and from so many sources that it has begun to sound cliché. Somehow, crimes of
this sort are not about sex, but about power.
I
am always left scratching my head. No one would mistake the host I reference
for being progressive. He is one of the most politically conservative voices on
radio and television. So, trust me when I say this is not a political rant so
much as a theological one. How are Cosby’s crimes, as well as other forms of
rape, NOT about sex? I can see where
power may factor into the overall anatomy of such an offense, as a means to an
end. Still, these are, first and foremost, sexual offenses, and such offenders
are sexual predators and deviants, even the once beloved Cosby.
If
this seems like a distinction without a difference, bear with me. From where
does this tendency to emphasize power abuse over sexual deviation come? Could
it be that it is awkward to speak of the latter because “sexual deviation”
demands the starting point of “a sexual standard,” and that defining such a
standard is uncomfortable? After all, it seems that everyone these days is
entitled to define his or her own sexual standard. That anything goes between “consenting
adults” seems to be the one I hear most often.
Even
in these days of shifting standards, there would probably be consensus that
Cosby’s acts are deviant. Still, it is easier (and intellectually lazier) to
couch the issue in terms of power, because any discussion of “deviancy” demands
that we also define “normalcy.” Intuitively, people know that establishing such
a starting point would be a hopelessly arbitrary endeavor unless it was already
established for us.
For
the Christian, there is only standard, that is, one normalcy:
18Then the Lord God said, “It is not
good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” … 21So
the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while
he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.22And
the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man
he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out
of Man.”
24Therefore a man shall leave
his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one
flesh. – Genesis 2:18, 21-24
One
male, one female, one new and enduring monogamous union; This is the standard
of normalcy away from which everything else must be labelled “deviation.”
Obviously, human beings have been moving this ancient boundary stone almost
since the moment it was laid, but that only means that most moderns live by no
standard at all. After all, a standard is not a standard if it can be altered tomorrow
so as to accommodate some new movement, some new societal wind, some new lust,
some new emotion, or some new circumstance. Like the ancient Hebrews in the
days of the Judges, we think we are
free to do what seems right in our own eyes.
The
wheels in my head began to muse over this topic months ago, not because of
Cosby, but because of the so-called “Me Too” movement. (My wife warned me about
chiming-in. Words and motives are so easily misunderstood.) Allow me to make
this disclaimer preemptively: What I am about to say has nothing to do with
forcible rape, actions against a child or impaired person, or antics such as
Cosby’s. These things incense, and in some instances, enrage me.
With
that disclaimer out of the way, I must confess that I cannot get wound up by
every claim of “victimization” that has surfaced recently. I recall the use of
such terms as “the casting couch” and “sleeping one’s way to the top.” These phrases,
often accompanied by a wink, implied a willingness on the part of a female to
participate in an improper encounter so as to advance her own career. That does
not absolve the man in power - that creepy producer, executive, politician, etc. He remains the same deviant cad
most of us agree that he is. He may very well have abused his power as a means
to his decadent end. But, if a woman chooses to pay such a price so as to
achieve what she wants for herself, she has also relied on his power as a means
to fulfilling her own dreams. She has consented to place her own ambition ahead
of her chastity. She is no victim, and to claim such a status trivializes real
victimhood regarding authentic sexual crimes.
Again, to couch these matters in terms
of power rescues all of us from being placed in that awkward position of
asserting a standard, from which sexual deviancy can be defined. But, none of
these obfuscations will do any of us any good when the Judge of the World
shines His light upon the issue. God’s people must pursue purity in all such
matters, even the ones the world refuses to condemn.
