Thoughts on the Super Bowl halftime show
No, I didn’t watch it. But the reactions to the sexual spectacle that occurred on Super Bowl Sunday are myriad and still being talked about on social media, YouTube, and opinion pages in newspapers. There is no doubt the halftime show was both incredible and memorable. Those who delighted in the program by two beautiful and talented women praise it without reservation or restraint.
Still, all the while, a plethora of tweets, and critiques branded it as ” indecent, pornographic, shameless, and degrading. These also claim it exalted sexual bondage and exploitation. Feminists and other women’s groups constantly deplore the objectifying of women and their bodies. And, rightly so! But please explain how two attractive women pole dancing and thrusting their bodies with little clothes on and shaking their butts for the world to gawk at could do anything but objectify these women’s bodies?
We are all aware that women and girls are being abused and degraded in every subset of American culture. Crass, lewd, and powerful men have shown by their dissolute behavior that they have neither regard nor respect for any female they may perceive as vulnerable. The constant disclosures of such abusers regardless if they are entertainers, politicians, cops, clergy, sports celebrities, or just run-of-the-mill creeps shame us.
Nonetheless, in view, of the recent Super Bowl sex show, we need reminding that there is another side of the coin. A decade ago, who would have ever thought of a day when hundreds of bare-breasted women would march in parades to express their contempt for the President and make a political statement? All the while, many hundreds more sashayed about with their faces protruding through vagina-shaped head ornaments.
The claim of the organizers of such marches is widely stated to be for protesting exploitation and abuse. But such sexually explicit provocateurs, these who claim to be most angry about the disrespect, exploitation, and objectifying of women ought to consider this. These displays, speeches, and approval of the lewd behavior at a Super Bowl halftime show does nothing but incite and promote such practice.
Alison Lurie was a widely acclaimed Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, academic, and renowned expert on the meaning of fashion. She offered the following:
“For thousands of years, human beings have communicated with one another first in the language of dress. Long before I am near enough to talk to you on the street, in a meeting, or at a party, you announce your sex, age, and class to me through what you are wearing. You very possibly give me important information [or misinformation] as to your occupation, origin, personality, opinions, tastes, sexual desires, and current mood. I may not be able to put what I observe into words, but I register the information unconsciously, and you simultaneously do the same for me. By the time we meet and converse, we have already spoken to each other in an older and more universal tongue.”
Marilyn Horn, another prominent writer on the meaning of fashion, claims that “Clothing reflects a society’s development, condition, and values. Clothes are a tangible, visible symbol of the ideas and values that typify the times. It is commonly accepted among fashion experts that clothing is a powerful psychological and social instrument in shaping, and changing, the values of a nation. In general, research to date has demonstrated that society pretty much agrees on what a particular style of clothing means or what it is advocating.”
Mike Royko, the profane and now deceased, Pulitzer-Prize winning, Chicago-Tribune reporter, wrote the following colorful and potent article:
“If a woman chooses to bare her thighs to the eyes of strangers, she should be neither surprised nor angered if they stare, gawk, ogle, smirk, smack their lips, or pant. The fact is someone who wears a mini-skirt is, in effect, making a statement. She is saying, ‘Gaze upon my flesh.’ They may deny it, but why else would a female person wear so revealing a garment in public? It is pure and simple exhibitionism. A modified form of flashing. Now, if a man flashes, women say ‘eek,’ call a cop, and the poor soul is hauled to the jailhouse and labeled for life as a creep…”
And where does practically the whole of American culture stand regarding the language of dress? In much of our music, movies, sporting events, fashion, there is a constant pandering of gratuitous and aberrant sex and a venue and encouragement for indecency. The non-Christian cares nothing about Scripture or obeying Christ. But is that the way it should be with a professing and true Christian?
The Bible indicates throughout that the attire of a Christian woman ought never to make it more difficult for any man to maintain a decent thought-life. Conversely, when a Christian man claims that he is not affected by the sight of an attractive and scantily clad woman, this may indicate he has a deeper problem. Regardless, “appropriate clothing” for a Christian will never insult godliness, shame modesty, lack propriety, or disdain moderation.
William “Ed’ Nicholson is pastor of Grace Baptist Chapel at Little Summit in Dunbar Twp. He is a native of this area and has graduate degrees in both Education and Bible. He can be contacted at willnpa9@gmail.com or on Facebook.