Christian Radio Host Busted for Slapping Woman’s ‘Butt Cheek’ Inside Target Restroom – And How This Conflicts With Preacher Doug Wilson’s Propriety of Rape Commentary
First, here is a link to the news story with some excerpts, followed by some observations by me:
(Link): Christian Radio Host Busted for Slapping Woman’s ‘Butt Cheek’ Inside Target Restroom by B P Markus
Excerpts:
- Feb 17, 2016
- A customer, (Link): The Blade reports.
- Mark Wayne Howington, 52, was arrested Thursday and charged with assault after a woman said she entered the restroom in the Ohio Target store and had it pulled open by Howington. As he passed her, he allegedly “slapped her butt cheek really hard,” according to a police report obtained by The Blade.
- The woman, Debra Piechowski, told ABC13 she was at a Target store with her niece in Toledo looking for a birthday and Valentine’s Day gift for her husband.
- Howington co-hosts a morning show on (Link): Proclaim FM, a Christian radio station.
- She went to security but the man who slapped her left really quickly.
Before I tie this in with pastor Doug Wilson (much farther below), I wanted to reiterate a few points I normally make about such stories when I post them.
I don’t know if this Howington guy is married or not, or a father. If he is either one or both, I can tell you this is another example of how being married or a parent are not indicators of maturity or godliness, as many Christians say they are. Nor is being married a guarantee a man is not going to pull sexual shenanigans on people who aren’t his wife.
Married people also sexually sin at times. Sexual sin is not the lone province of single adults.
Not only am I, a never married adult not having sex (I have chosen to stay celibate so far into my life), but I don’t go around doing things like slapping other people on their butts.
I for one have no further use for the “be equally yoked” teaching, which most Christians interpret to mean that a Christian should not marry a Non-Christian.
Whether this Howington is a “real” Christian or not is totally moot, far as I can tell – his Christian radio show employer must have felt he passed the sniff test, because they hired him to host some Christian radio program (at least I assume the show he was hosting was somehow Christian related, since it’s on a Christian network).
If this guy could fool a Christian radio station into believing he is a Christian, and he apparently did so, he could probably fool single Christian women into thinking he’s a “real deal” Christian, too.
Preacher Doug Wilson – yes, preacher (and sometimes blogger and author) is his vocation, though I don’t think he’s a true preacher, or an actual Christian for that matter – stirred up controversy a week or so ago by publishing a post on his blog basically conveying the idea that he thinks that women who are not submissive enough to men are asking to be raped, or that they deserve to be raped, or that it is inevitable they will be raped.
Wilson’s argument seems to be that if women do not avail themselves of male protection, or allow men to protect them, they will therefore be raped by other men.
Of course, Wilson will insist that none of this is what he meant, but yes, that is in fact what he meant.
Wilson routinely likes to hedge his controversial comments with qualifiers and loop holes so he can back track later if he encounters criticism over his posts. I think the guy knows damn well that many of his views and comments are inflammatory and will get people upset, which is his intent.
Doug Wilson is the same guy who thinks pedophilia can be cured by marrying a pedophile off to a woman, which I have (Link): blogged about on my blog before. Wilson also has incorrect and unbiblical views about singleness and celibacy (see (Link): this former post).
Other bloggers have taken Wilson to task for his odious views about how women who eschew male protection are asking to be raped.
Here are some of their posts:
- (Link, of site): Protection and propriety – Katie Botkin’s blog
- (Link, off site): Does Douglas Wilson Teach That Unsubmissive Women Deserve Rape? – from Jory Micah’s blog
- (Link, off site): A Controversy of Propriety – from Nate Sparks’ blog
Some of my thoughts about Doug Wilson’s view that women who refuse male protection are supposedly invariably, tacitly asking to be raped:
Wilson’s view is unrealistic. Not all women marry, so women will not always have a husband to act as a “protector” for them.
(I should maybe add that I believe that Wilson used the qualifier “godly” in his post, as in “godly protectors” versus men who are “ungodly.”)
The Apostle Paul said that remaining single is in some ways preferable to being married. Jesus said that staying single for the kingdom of God is fine (see for example (Link): Matthew 19:12).
Some women choose not to marry, while other women want to marry but are unable to find a partner.
Some women marry, only for their husband to divorce them, die, or have a stroke or some other medical condition that limits their physical or mental ability or acuity, which means these women end up having to protect themselves because there is no husband to protect them, or the husband is unable to do so.
Some women lack male relatives – maybe they never had any brothers, or their fathers are dead, or are too elderly and frail to protect them.
Some women are married to military personnel who get sent on deployments for months or years at a time, and these women have no choice but to live alone and fend for themselves.
My point being that there are times when a woman is, beyond her control, unable to have male protection in her life through no fault of her own. Wilson’s view fails to take all these exceptions into account.
Most women are not going to object to any person, whether male or female, coming to their assistance if they need it: if my home is on fire in the middle of the night, I am not going to care if the firefighter who tries to save me is a man or a woman, or if that person is a “godly” or “ungodly” rescuer.
If a male firefighter wants to rescue me from my burning home, I am not going to turn him down.
Further, a male, “ungodly” atheist firefighter can save my endangered ass in a house fire just as well as a “godly” Christian firefighter. Though I’m not going to pause in the middle of being rescued to ask my rescuer what his religious beliefs are – I don’t think I’d care all too much.
You may recall the news story of the Christian patriarchal “godly” Vision Forum Ministries President Doug Phillips, who sexually assaulted his teen-aged nanny, Lourdes.
If you are not familiar with that story, here is a link or two about it:
- (Link): CHRISTIAN GIANT SUED FOR ‘USING NANNY AS SEX OBJECT‘
- (Link): Doug Phillips’ Biblical Patriarchy Scandal Moves to the Courts
- (Link): Pastor Doug Phillips, Who Instructed Christians on Family Life, Allegedly Spent Years Harassing His Kids’ Nanny
Based on the material I have read of theirs I have come across or read about elsewhere, Christian patriarchalists claim that their brand of gender roles, godliness, lifestyle, and Christianity are intended in large part to protect women (and children), who they feel are very vulnerable and in need of protection.
Doug Phillips was no exception to this sort of thinking.
These Christian patriarchalists feel that Christian men are the most qualified, competent, and/or trustworthy men for the task of protecting women, but as I’ve seen time and again, these are the same men that are the first to abuse women or treat them disrespectfully.
Ironically, it’s their unbiblical, sexist views about gender roles (which they feel are godly and biblical, that go under the labels complementarianism or Christian patriarchy) that foster mindsets and environments that set women and girls up to be abused in the first place, and which perpetuate abuse against women and girls.
Sometimes, men, both Christian and Non, rape or murder their wives.
The very guys these complementarian or patriarchy pushers, such as Wilson, insist are there to provide “male protection” – the husband – are the very same guys who are harming women.
Here are just a few examples:
- (Link): Christian Husband Raped, Beat His Wife, Made Her Sign “Slave Contract”
- (Link): When Sex Becomes Abusive in Marriage by J. Slattery
- (Link): Pastor charged in wife’s murder was headed to Europe to marry boyfriend, prosecutor says
- (Link): Preacher Found Guilty of Murdering His Second Wife, Probably Killed The First One, He Had Affair With Vulnerable, Grieving Woman at His Church
If I am comprehending Wilson’s point correctly, that some women supposedly reject male protection at the macro level of society which in turn makes the “godly” men too apathetic to bother protecting women, if or when women are in the midst of being harmed, this does not follow.
If a man is a genuine Christian, if he is truly godly, he is going to come to the aid of a person in danger, regardless of societal attitudes about gender, sexuality, and women, or in spite of whatever heated rhetoric left wing feminists are spewing on their blogs and on cable TV news shows.
I would feel all that would probably also be true of most Non-Christian men who are even half way decent, compassionate, and empathetic (I would take it that Wilson would dub any and all Non-Christian men as “ungodly”).
If a man sees a woman being mugged or raped in front of him and does nothing to intervene, supposedly because he’s gotten messages from some women (say, secular left wing feminists) that women don’t want or need men, so that he just shrugs his shoulders and walks on by doing nothing to help, this attitude and behavior is still in direct violation of the teachings of Jesus Christ in passages such as (Link): Luke 10:25-37.
If a Christian man had to stand before an angry and agitated Jesus to explain why he neglected to assist any woman he came across who was in trouble, I do not think that “Because feminists in secular culture, some of whom have some pretty anti-male attitudes, made me apathetic towards helping women at all” is an excuse that would pass muster with Jesus.
If God (Link): expected Jonah to preach to the Ninevites, whom (Link): Jonah despised, I can guarantee you that God would still expect even the most right wing, complementarian, Republican Christian man to stop and assist any left wing, secular, Democrat-voting atheist woman who is hurting or in trouble.
By the way, may I suggest that given the sexist views these Christian men have of women, how often they suggest that women are temptresses to men, and that women need to dress modestly, so as not to cause a brother in Christ to stumble, that I suspect that their appeals to women to allow them to be protected by “godly” men are not really for the benefit of the women, but for their own: they are threatened by women, by women’s sexuality, and they also want to control women.
(This last insight is probably a “no duh!” to some readers of this post. Please note: I still believe that the Bible teaches sexual purity for both genders; I do not think that remaining chaste until marriage is a tool of the patriarchy to keep women down, as some feminists teach, though I can see how some Christian patriarchalists may mis-use sexual purity teachings unfairly towards girls and women.)
These Christian patriarchalists want to control what women do with their lives, thinking, occupations (or decide if women even can work outside the home), schooling, and sexuality, and the supposed concern for women’s safety is just window dressing to hide their true agenda.
Being married – having a “male protector” (which is how these sexists normally define “male protector,” as they usually don’t factor in such a thing as widowed, divorced, or never-married women) – is not a guarantee that a woman is not going to be attacked by so-called “godly” men.
This married woman, according to the news report I gave above, was shopping in a Target store to buy her husband a present, when this “godly” Christian radio host sexually assaulted her.
As for me, if or when I ever do marry, I think a Non-Christian spouse would be just as good – maybe even a safer choice – than a self-professing Christian male.
I have no desire to marry a condescending, misogynic complementarian or Christian patriarchal jerk-waffle who ultimately rationalizes violence or sexual assault against women, such as a Doug Phillips or a Doug Wilson, or any of the other self-professing Christian men out there who push these or similar, sexist noxious doctrines.
Above, where I said the following:
- If a Christian man had to stand before an angry and agitated Jesus to explain why he neglected to assist any woman he came across who was in trouble, I do not think that “Because feminists in secular culture, some of whom have some pretty anti-male attitudes, made me apathetic towards helping women at all” is an excuse that would pass muster with Jesus.
One other point I wanted to discuss is that I don’t think Wilson understands what feminists say or mean. Or perhaps he does understand perfectly well and is deliberately skewing what their arguments are.
A reminder to anyone new to my blog: I don’t fully agree with feminists on all subjects, by the way, so I do not apply the “feminist” label to myself. I have written blog posts before that are critical of some secular feminist views.
I am supposing that Wilson misconstrues any woman, feminist or not, but especially secular feminists, wanting to have their agency respected by men or by culture, as being the same thing as women wanting to toss off any and all male help at all in any and every situation – which is not what they are saying or asking for.
It seems to me that Wilson is conflating a woman’s wish to control her own life and choices in life with whole-scale rejection of all male assistance in any and all areas of life.
Wilson’s reaction to his misguided view of what feminists are saying is to respond with something like,
“Well, fine, then, sister, if you want to call all the shots in your life, that’s great and you can have it, but I, a man, won’t help you if you need help, and neither will any other man want to help you.”
This thinking is a akin to telling your five year old son that because he wants to tie his own shoes now, with no help from you – because he’s a big boy and can do it on his own now, thank you very much – that if you see a strange man enticing your son on the street with candy to get into his creepy pedophile van – your attitude would be,
- “Well, fine, if my son won’t let me tie his shoes for him, if he insists on some autonomy in his life and having growing independence, I won’t help him if he ever needs help. Hmrpfh!
“Let’s see how he likes it, then, when the stranger pulls him into the pedo van and fondles him, I won’t stop that pedo! - “Small children need to know that if they refuse to let their parents baby and protect them indefinitely, the parent will grow cold and no longer want to protect his child.”
That is the same twisted, perverse message Wilson is sending about gender relations and gender expectations.
Just because some women are saying they expect to be treated like adults, to have their choices respected, and to have the same opportunities in life that men have, does not mean women are saying, “we never, ever want men to help us in any way what- so- ever if a man is in a place or position to help.”
Nor should women asking for equal opportunity or for respect translate into the abhorrent, anti-Christian view that men are off the hook to help any women who may be in trouble, but this is a view that Wilson is pushing for.
Wilson really thinks women should be overly dependent on men, that women should be infantilized, and if women don’t want to go along with this, they should expect men to look the other way if or when women are beaten or raped. This view is not biblical at all.
If Wilson is going to keep blogging, he should consider encouraging any men who he may feel are prone to hold such revolting views that they should come to a woman’s aid, no matter what.
Wilson should also fight for women’s equality, instead of telling women, “Ladies, if you keep pushing for equality, it’s only going to turn men off, and have this- and- that negative consequence for you.”
Instead of helping women by speaking up for them, and instead of educating men to stand up for women, Wilson is trying the similar scare tactics on women that W. B. Wilcox does on adult singles, in that Wilcox tries to (Link): scare singles into marrying by telling them all the horrible things that will supposedly happen to them if they stay single.
Wilcox tells singles that the only way to avoid such horrible fates is to marry instantly. (Though the Bible esteems singlehood and says God totally respects adults who stay single, whether by choice or by circumstance, see (Link): 1 Cor 7.)
Wilson plays the same game with fear mongering, though in the context of gender relations: he tells ladies if they keep telling men they want to be treated equally, this only means men will be turned off and turn a blind eye to any woman they see who is in danger.
Wilson should be playing it the opposite, as I said: writing blog posts in support of women’s equality. If Wilson truly feels women wanting equality turns some men into apathetic do-nothings towards women, he should write blog posts telling men to stay in the fight and to help women achieve equality, not turn apathetic, nor become offended that not all women want a man to play the role of ‘Knight in Shining Armor.’
Wilson prefers to go the fear mongering, defeatist route when writing to or about women who don’t share his views on gender or whatever else. He could just as easily write posts in support of women who want equality.
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Related Posts:
(Link): Married Preacher and Father of Boy Exposes His Naked Penis to Teen Girl in Store
(Link): Update on Christian Rapist Man Who Used Christian Mingle Dating Site To Pick His Victims
(Link): Douglas Wilson and Christian Response FAIL to Sex / Sexual Sin – No Body Can Resist Sex (Part 2)
(Link): Modesty: A Female-Only Virtue? – Christian Double Standards – Hypocrisy
(Link): Decent Secular Relationship Advice: How to Pick Your Life Partner
(Link): News sites: Josh Duggar Joked About Molesting His Sisters, Has No Remorse for Extra-Marital Affairs
(Link): Married Christian Expert on Child Spirituality Pleads Guilty To Possessing Child Porn
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