How To Stop Sexualizing Everything by D. C. McAllister
This is rather long, but well worth the read:
(Link): How To Stop Sexualizing Everything by D C McAllister
Excerpts:
- Our society needs a phileo resurgence so we can express ourselves with the nonsexual passion and love we really feel.
- … I guess I am kind of weird. I confess: I’m very passionate about my friends. But am I the abnormal one, or is there something wrong with our society? My daughter isn’t unusual, and her response was pretty typical. Many people have that reaction to women who are passionate about their friends—and even more so for men!…I wish “bromance” would disappear from the American lexicon forever.
- That’s because it represents everything that’s wrong with our culture when it comes to friendship.Instead of friendship being noble, nonromantic, and normal, it has become the exception, romanticized to the point that we’re uncomfortable describing it and experiencing it for what it is. Even as we try to distinguish it from homosexuality, we are corrupting real friendship by placing it in the context of romance….How Romanticism and Puritanism Corrupts Friendship
The problem with our modern culture is friendship has been corrupted. Lewis says it began with the age of sentimentality and romanticism.
Friendship love, with its blend of individuality and community, rationality and freedom of choice, as well as its deep intimacy, raises us “to the level of gods or angels.”
But then came romanticism with its return to nature and exaltation of sentiment, instinct, and the “dark gods in the blood.”
“Under this new dispensation,” Lewis writes, “all that had once commended this love [friendship] now began to work against it.” A culture riding the wave of passion abandoned phileo for eros, and the effects on society have been devastating in ways people don’t begin to understand.
While Lewis puts the blame of phileo’s decline at the feet of romanticism, I think there is another culprit. Puritanism and Victorian sensibilities have also played a role in friendship’s decline.
Puritanism put a damper on passions as if they are the seat of evil within the soul.
Passionate friendships between opposite sexes weren’t allowed as women were shuffled into the kitchen while the men discussed business among themselves in the study.
Showing feeling—especially in a physical way—even in same-sex friendships was discouraged, and while the Puritans were hardly stoic, they guarded against passion outside of marriage and the expression of too much “worldly” feeling.
This tight control on feelings seeped into our culture, worsened by Victorian aloofness. We became a society that shook hands instead of kissed.
….But something else was also taking place [in American culture]—the sexual revolution, a romanticized reaction to America’s Puritanical attitudes.
Everything became about sex, and this sexualization of our culture has become more intense over time.
Just look at advertising. Teeth whitening, floor cleaners, automobiles, dolls, food, drinks, make-up, even bubble gum—all associated with sex. Common things that are completely asexual have sexuality attached to it. Everything is about sex. We’re saturated with it.
The effect of these two warring attitudes—Puritanism and sexualization—has had a distorting effect on friendship. On the one hand, people don’t feel free to show emotions. On the other, when they do, those feelings are sexualized.
…. The more friendship is misunderstood and ignored, the more people will identify as homosexual and bisexual.
The more we condition our perceptions in a sexual way and the more children are exposed to sex even before they develop meaningful friendships, the less likely they will be able to separate healthy nonsexual feelings from sexual ones.
Sex will become the defining feature of all their feelings. Eros will have slain phileo.
….. I think one of the greatest dangers of our sexualized culture has nothing to do with typical morality about sex as we understand it. It has to do with the deterioration of true, deep friendships.
… Friendship makes people happy and actually strengthens marriages. The rise of polyamory is one example relating to this final point. One of the biggest arguments for polyamory (many sexual partners in a relationship) is that one person isn’t enough. “I need more than just my husband,” one polyamorist told me.
…. Nothing (besides being completely alone) is more unfulfilling than to have no friends and just be with one person your whole life. That person simply can’t meet all your emotional needs (especially if you’re a deep-feeling personality). You need more people. But what you need are friends—real, loving friends—not more sexual relationships.
… Our society needs a phileo resurgence, to discard the sexualized overlay on our relationships and express ourselves with the nonsexual passion and love we really feel. The reward is stability, wholeness, and a deep satisfaction as we connect with other people in an intimate way.
Related Posts On This Blog:
(Link): Halloween Pole-Dancing Lawn Skeletons Deemed Too Risque’ For ‘Family-Friendly’ Block
(Link): When Adult Virginity and Adult Celibacy Are Viewed As Inconvenient or As Impediments
(Link): Do Married Couples Slight Their Family Members as Well as Their Friends? / “Greedy Marriages”
Link): Why Comic Characters and Super Heroes Can’t Marry – Marriage Makes People Selfish
(Link): John Hugh Morgan Still Lurking At My Blog as of summer 2015 – What Nerve
(Link): Patriarchy tends to sexualize all male / female relationships (article via Junia Project blog)
(Link): Brotherly Love: Christians and Male-Female Friendships
(Link): Topics: Friendship is Possible / Sexualization By Culture Of All Relationships
(Link): The Sexualization of God and Jesus
(Link): Paul, Singleness, And Mutuality: Three Proposals for The Church (from Junia Project)
(Link): Why So Much Fornication – Because Christians Have No Expectation of Sexual Purity or Self Control
(Link): Marketing Companies Offering ‘Sexy Jesus’ Calendar, Selfies With Jesus
(Link): Does God Require Singles to Be Perfect Before He Will Send Them a Spouse
Christian Pundit 
Hi, I just found this blog. 29 year old single, Christian male. Just wanted to say I appreciate this space.
Thank you.