Oh No, My Son Is A Sex Symbol. What do you do when your kid becomes “sexy”?
Thesis statement: I was glad that my wife and I had three boys. I always joked that I would be the dad that carried a pair of pliers in my back pocket to take care of any boys who showed even the slightest amorous hint toward a daughter of mine; or looked at her with any kind of sexual over (or under) tone. Scratch that thought, I have unfortunately bred a fourteen year old, six-foot-three-inch, chic magnet. So, what do we do now? Maybe you are in the same boat as a parent. You have a son or daughter that, either by design or just by genetics, is becoming “sexy”. How do we help our children grow, feel confident with their identity and help them balance this tricky and dangerous time in their lives? Is there hope for purity for your kid in a culture that cannot differentiate between “attractive” and “sexy”? In this article we will explore this topic and some of the factors that influence our teenagers.
“I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made…”
Psalm 139:4, NKJV
The more teen girls (and increasingly women of all ages) start to realize how wonderfully my son is made, the more I am fearful.
I was glad that my wife and I had three boys. I always joked that I would be the dad that carried a pair of pliers in my back pocket to take care of any boys who showed even the slightest amorous hint toward a daughter of mine; or looked at her with any kind of sexual over (or under) tone.
Scratch that thought, I have unfortunately bred a fourteen year old, six-foot-three-inch, chic magnet. The ooh’s and ah’s from women when he was a lanky little seven year old red haired cutie should have been some indicator of the problems to come.
Mind you, this isn’t my opinion, that my son’s myspace.com photos are the object of multiple dozens of different girls whose comments range from the casual “You’re so cuuuuute,” to the brazen sexual proposition of loosely-moraled young girls, are obvious indicators. Oh, and he’s a musician, a guitar player, no less.
I subscribe to the theory of intelligent design. It is difficult for me to reconcile with the idea that the intricate and complex people that I encounter daily are the product of random chance and process. The theory of intelligent design is defined as “the assertion or belief that physical and biological systems observed in the universe result from purposeful design by an intelligent being rather than from chance or undirected natural processes.” (Dictionary.com NP)
That being the case, I believe we were made wonderfully and with the desire to be attractive to each other. In its basest form, it could be a purely physical attraction for the sake of procreation. In reality, however, our attractions are based on multiple factors, many of which are defined by our culture, religion and/or traditions. In the end, every person wants to be considered attractive. Desiring to be attractive, to somebody and in some cases anybody, is natural and can lead to a lifestyle of good hygiene, proper exercise and a healthy diet.
In The Deviant’s Advantage, by Ryan Mathews and Watts Wacker, the authors allude to the decay of ideas as they are exposed to new and different contexts created by culture, including the media, marketing, and other social institutions. They call this the “Abolition of Context.” This is an inability of people within a society to find commonly agreed-upon reference points. Unfortunately, there has been a blurring of the concept of attractiveness in our culture with the idea of being sexy. The concept behind “sexy” is worlds apart from that of “attractive” when you get to the end of the road each ultimately points down. (Mathews/Wacker 65)
Attractive: Providing pleasure or delight, esp. in appearance or manner; pleasing; charming; alluring: an attractive personality. (Dictionary.com NP)
Sexy: Concerned predominantly or excessively with sex; risqué. Sexually interesting or exciting; radiating sexuality. (Dictionary.com NP)
The Fashion Book, a catalogue of works from 20th century designers quotes fashion photographer, Mario Testino, or ‘Super Mario’ as he is called, as saying “Fashion is all about making a girl look sexy.” This statement is in reference to a photo he is credited with of model Nadja Auermann in French Glamour, whose left hand tugs at the bottom of the front of her micro-skirt, while simultaneously pulling her tucked-in shirt down from under her skirt bottom with her right hand, provocatively exposing her legs and thighs. (Phaidon 448)
In this context, when the goal of the fashion designers is to make “girls sexy,” intelligent design becomes about strategic display. Pants are cut to accentuate the hips and buttocks, shirts are designed to show cleavage or are made skin tight and semi-transparent to show off the torso and midriff as well as the “sexy” bra underneath. Mind you, these are the clothes in the winter season; summer is a micro version of the same provocative concepts. Yes, these are the clothes in the misses section, the ones designated for teen and preteen girls. The same can be said of much of the clothing designed for young men; low rise jeans that almost expose the pubic area, fitted t-shirts, and even body fragrances whose purpose is to “turn on” the opposite sex by chemically unleashing their sexual nature, thus rendering the female unable to control herself. Remember, when you say sex-y, you have said sex, every time, because that is what sexy is about.
This shift in mindset has changed the way girls and boys interact when it comes to sexuality and romance. After fifty years of young girls being advised not to call a boy on the phone, it is now the teenage girls doing the calling, or in the case of my son’s Myspace.com photo, the girls are doing the propositioning. Shmuley Boteach, a Jewish Rabbi and commentator in his book, Hating Women, is quoted “Whether they are influenced by the trickle-down effects of feminism, which has taught girls to be assertive in all areas of life, or have internalized the images of sexually powerful women in pop culture, American girls are more daring than ever… the teenage girl as sexual aggressor is a recurring character in music videos, almost macho in her pursuit of sex and advertising her pleasure in it.” (Boteach 119)
If a girl is supposed to be sexy then she must pursue sex and unfortunately trades her femininity for the degradation that almost naturally comes in response from the boys she pursues. “In a world without ladies, there can be no gentlemen.” (Boteach 118)
As of Tuesday, September 15, 2009, Facebook.com serves 300 million people globally (Zuckerburg NP). Myspace.com boasts 263, 920,012 members (Alexa NP), and 84% of teens own a cell phone and use it daily (C&R Researcher NP). Social networks and the proliferation of cell phones have changed the way our children interact. These “private” spaces have created a virtual gallery for our kids to parade themselves in front of their peers. While not all teens misuse their photo galleries, you owe it to yourself, and your kids, to check the photo galleries of their Myspace.com profile (and that of their friends). You may be surprised to see a menagerie of titillating pictures with suggestive comments including innuendo and some very brazen sexual dialogue. These social networks have created a venue for a new era of exhibitionists and a ready made voyeur audience of their peers.
Youthbeat.com, a site created by C & R Researcher, published a report that claims that 60% of tweens (preteen children) and 84% of teens surveyed owned their own cell phone. In the past parents added an extra phone line to make sure that the main line wasn’t tied up by their kids, now teens have cell phones that they use as much at home as away. “Cell phones are the ‘kid’s line’ of the 21st century.” (C&R Researcher NP)
Here is the quantum leap when it comes to your kid’s voyeur generation, the entrance of the cell phone as an integral part of their social life. In 33 Million People In The Room, Juliette Powell defines the term social network as an online platform where people can connect with each other. We used to send letters, and then we waited on phone calls, from there it shifted to emails which were substituted by text messages; now we connect through our online profiles, and become “friends” with each other on Facebook.com, Myspace.com or we follow each other on Twitter.com. The advent of the smart phone, a cell phone that is basically a portable web enabled computer, now gives teens the opportunity to be connected to the internet and their social network twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
The first thing people with smart phones do when they sit down together is take out their phones and set them on the table. “There may be two people at the table, but there are 33 million people in the room.” (Powell 7-8) Conversations become fodder for status updates on their social networks, in real time, right from their phone. A “private” conversation is broadcast to their whole network, instantaneously. Every party or get together is a photo-op with pictures taken and uploaded to their online magazines, in almost the same breath. Every conversation is a press release to the hordes of other people who are first level connections (direct friend connections), and like the studies done in the past about promiscuous sexual relationships, everyone that their connections are connected to (friends’ friend connections).
There is nothing inherently insidious about technology. In some things we can find balance, from others we abstain. The technology and its use or misuse is not the disease, but a symptom of something else. The question we have to ask after “What are they doing?” is “Why are they doing it?”
“Think sugar, say Splenda.” The little yellow packet may be the key to this whole dilemma. The artificial sweetener business is a $1 billion dollar industry and Splenda has captured 50% of those dollars, edging out other giants including Equal and Nutra-sweet. (Gogoi NP) What does this have to do with your teen being sexy? One word: substitution.
Splenda is touted as an artificial substitute for sugar, made from sugar, which tastes like sugar. The one thing that Splenda is not is a “cheap” substitute; in fact it costs considerably more than natural sugar. In the same way, the current sexually charged, hyper-connectivity within our kids’ culture is a substitute for the true intimacy that should occur within a strong family.
“Youth…need media for guidance and nurture in a society where other social institutions such as the family and the school, do not shape the youth culture as powerfully as they once did.” (Rainer 109) Media, what we’ve traditionally referred to as television and music must also include social networks and cell phones.
What is being substituted? Guidance, nurture, affirmation, acceptance, love, intimate relationships, all crucial elements needed to shape and develop a strong, healthy identity are substituted by instant messenger/multiple-person, multi-line cell phone calls/status updates and comment discussions, all happening simultaneously (guidance), photo comments (affirmation), top friends lists (acceptance), sexual dialogue and comments/online relationships (love), public dialogue about shallow and even profound topics (intimate relationships), these are not “cheap” substitutes, either. They are the investment of your kids’ entire lives. The reality is that the word “artificial” is a nice way of saying “fake.”
There is one group that we must hold solely responsible for a generation of teens who have completely substituted sexy for attractive, it’s not the media or fashion industry, it’s the parents. We purchase the clothes, provide access to media sources through our funding of cable and internet, and open the avenues of communication by paying for cell phones. I am not advocating a knee-jerk reaction that will send all of our kids scrambling back into the dark ages. I am, however, advocating that we can make a difference in the lives of our kids if we take the time to pay attention to what our kids are wearing and doing.
In order to be a positive balance in your child’s life, you are going to have to know what is actually going on. That may mean that you become more than “dumb ole’ Dad or Mom.” I wouldn’t suggest that you go and buy a pair of black sunglasses and an ear piece, but you may need to look at your job as a parent somewhat like a CIA agent, and begin gathering intelligence; but it’s not just enough to “know what’s going on”, you must play an active role in their life. Secondly, we as parents, whether in a traditional marriage, mixed family or single parent home, must begin to refocus our efforts on creating an environment in our homes that nurtures our children and gives them the “real thing” instead of the substitute; it will end up costing much less in the long run.
Works Cited
Boteach, Shmuley. Hating Women. New York: Harper Collins. 2005
Because it’s so easy to progress from one stage of a relationship to another, being a preteen/young teen, it is probably better for you to keep your guard up when it comes to any kind of physical touch with your perspective boyfriend/girlfriend.
Look at it this way, in your life is a series of fences. Each fence is set a little further away from your heart. The way a relationship should work is that first you have the person on the outside of the furthest fence. You get to know each other more through talking, texting, emailing about general things and you will either realize that you really don’t have as much in common as you thought and move on or that you have a lot in common and want to bring the relationship closer to your heart. A person’s conversation can give you an understanding of the direction they want to take your heart.
So, you open the gate to the next fence and allow the person to come closer to your heart through different things. You begin to talk about things that are more important to you and not so general, you begin to share feelings, dreams and hurts. Simply put you allow your heart to trust him a little more. If that trust isn’t broken then you will usually open the next gate and allow him closer to your heart again. Intimate: (of an association, knowledge, understanding, etc.) arising from close personal connection or familiar experience. From the Latin intim(us) – a close friend
This is where a lot of people begin to call each other boyfriend and girlfriend. In other words, I promise to be in an exclusive relationship with you. No other guy or girl is going to have access to my heart while we are in this relationship. This should take some time. Don’t feel like you have to rush this at all.
Exclusive: disposed to resist the admission of outsiders to association, intimacy, etc. from the Latin exclūdere to shut out, cut off
If you’ve read this far you’ll realize that there has been no physical contact. This is important because the basis for allowing anybody to touch you in any way has to be trust. Trust that they don’t have the wrong motive, that they aren’t selfish or aren’t going to try and hurt you or take advantage of you and that they understand your moral stand when it comes to purity. This fence doesn’t need to be opened for a long time.
The mistake that people make (especially in our society) is they jump straight to this fence, climbing over or tearing down the most important ones which are based in knowledge that leads to trust. So they go off of assumption.
Assume: to take for granted or without proof; suppose; postulate; posit:
Once this fence has been opened it is very hard to close. Many young people (and even adults) have opened this fence too early and ended up getting into trouble because they never built the trust and understanding with their boyfriend/girlfriend they needed to guard their heart.
This is where “at my age” is very important. At your age you haven’t had the time you need to completely understand yourself and set up all of the fences your going to need to protect your heart and that goes for the person you may have thought about even holding hands with. It’s also important for you to shy away from getting into relationships with people older than you, because they may be too advanced in these areas and have opened fences in their lives you haven’t even put up yet.
Remember, once you’ve opened the fence of physical contact the next fence is intimate contact (kissing, hugging and other things), and those fences can almost seem like they open by themselves and they are very hard to control and almost impossible to close again.
As crazy as it sounds you waiting to hold hands is going to make it much easier to guard your heart and that will help shape your future.
Here’s a scripture:
Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.
Proverbs 4:23 NLT
This sounds simplistic in black and white, but in reality it’s a big thing. This ministry has been used as a stepping stone until “real ministry” happens. It’s like a transitional time until the person can become a “real” pastor. If that is your goal, than you are not a youth pastor. Skip it and give the youth the privilege of having someone work in their lives because they have a passion for it, not as a rung in their ladder to success.
One of the reasons that youth ministries struggle so much with leadership and consistency is because so many youth pastors walk away from youth ministry in their early thirties taking years of experience with them. The misconception is that if you are going to be a youth pastor you have to be young but youth ministry is not restricted by age. I have met some fantastic youth pastors in their 40’s and 50’s and some young youth pastors that didn’t have a clue.
If you are just starting out in youth ministry find a couple of youth pastors that have been serving for years and connect with them. Your drive and willingness to take risks as a young person are an amazing asset to the youth ministry you are working with. The wisdom of veterans will be a great asset and balance to you. If you have been in youth ministry for a while you should take an inventory of those around you. Are there any people that you have mentored? Are you connected with the next generation of leaders? If not you should reevaluate your core ministry goal. Why are you doing this?
Establish an Identity.
One of the most important, if not the most important thing for a teen and/or young adult is identity. A foundational part of developing a solid and vibrant youth ministry is to create an identity for your youth group. This can be tricky because we have bought into the idea that youth ministry is basically about slick marketing and advertising savvy.
If you hire somebody to design a good logo, or come up with a catchy name you have not developed identity. You have developed a brand.
Branding is good and it can be important, but it’s not the same thing as identity. Kids don’t wear a certain brand because of the name or the logo, they wear it because it means something, something they can and/or are willing to “identify” with. The brand and logo are secondary to this more important concept: What does your youth ministry “mean”?
Define the ministry not in terms of cool graphics, catchy slogans or nifty logos, but in terms of purpose, value, cultural significance, and community. Is what the name and brand embody big enough? If you boil it all down is their something significant about what your youth ministry is doing other than creating an audience for you to speak to or a large number of teens gathered for bragging rights by you or the congregation you’re a part of?
What difference would it make in his/her life or world if a teen decided to buy into your concept? It’s got to be about more than coming to your church. If Christianity is about going to church it’s not about much.
Expect Greatness not Perfection.
When people say the words “young people” they are really saying “youngpeople.” One word, as a noun. Try it, out loud say young people the way you would normally say it. Why does this matter? Because when you say “youngpeople” instead of young people, you change the meaning of the words.
Youngpeople are a kind of quazi-human creature that are outside of the realm of normal expectations. On one hand we don’t expect a whole lot from them. We’re just glad they come to church and don’t have drugs in their pocket. On the other hand we expect perfection from them. “The ‘youngpeople’ should be the supreme example of what a person should be as a Christian. Their friends and family and the entire world are watching them and may be turned away from God if these “youngpeople” don’t do it exactly right.” I am exaggerating (a little) but you get the point.
Let’s look at the term the way we should, though. They are young, and they are people. I’m not trying to be sarcastic and yes, I know this is a simple concept, but it could change the way you relate to your “youngpeople.”
They are young. This means they aren’t going to have a lot of wisdom because they haven’t lived long enough to develop it. It means they are going to trust freely (for a while) and trust the wrong people and the right people. They are going to be fiercely loyal to their ideas, their music, their friends and the other things that make up their identity. They are going to be reckless and impulsive. The reason they are is because they don’t have a lot to lose. All of the investment has been from their parents. That’s not wrong or abnormal, it’s youth. Think maybe God designed them like that so they would be willing to go out and change the world? Do you remember when you thought you could do anything? They are going to be passionate. Your job isn’t to shut this all down and make them like you, they are not miniature adults, they don’t think like you because they don’t have all of the risks you have. Your job is to help them harness all of this energy and power, yes power, and point them in the right direction so they can make a difference in their world.
They are people. They are going to do amazing things, normal things and incredibly stupid things. They are going to be subject to their emotions, peer pressure (you still are), ups and downs and everything else everybody goes through. Don’t put them in the “youngpeople” category and limit them to that paradigm. They are people, created by God for a purpose with a capacity for greatness, but the propensity for failure. Expect greatness, but don’t expect perfection.
Be Intentional.
Most of these things will seem like no-brainers. It’s these simple things, however, that can make the difference between a good youth ministry and an effective youth ministry.
Can a youth ministry be good and not be effective? The answer is yes. It depends on the goal of the ministry. If your goal is to create a venue where teens can congregate, have good music and hear preaching you can certainly do that, but that doesn’t necessarily equate effectiveness. If it doesn’t change the lives and/or direction the teens are going in outside of the venue, and there is no transformation, no development, no difference in the lives of the teens than the ministry in Biblical terms it is not effective. Is it good? Yes. Fellowship in a positive environment is good, but is good what we are looking for as a youth ministry?
Effective comes from intention. You will see specific results if you have a specific plan. Are you trying to create community in your group? What community enhancing events have you planned? Do you have a group of kids that need to be born again? What have you done to create a pathway for them to gain the understanding of this somewhat abstract concept and apply it to their lives? Do you have a group of church kids that are inward focused and not reaching out to their school, family or world? How have you decided to lead the outward.
Effectiveness doesn’t just happen, it’s planned for. We sat down in November of 2008 and had a planning session for the first quarter of 2009. Our objective was to share the message of salvation with our students, many of whom were not familiar with the Biblical message. We planned to preach and teach about repentance in January. We then went into February teaching about baptism in Jesus name, what it meant and how it applied.
When we started into February we let the teens know that on the last Wednesday of the month we would be having a baptismal service. Needless to say on that last Wednesday we baptized 12 people and had several more over the following weeks. Were we surprised? No, we planned it, we were specific and focused. In March we taught about the Holy Ghost and it’s availability to us. Several students have received the Holy Ghost. This is what we planned, what we intended to happen and it did.
What needs to happen in your group? Find it, plan it, focus on your plan and see it happen.
If All Of Your Friends Think It’s Cool…
If you’ve got a “great” idea, a revolutionary idea even, that you are going to spring on your youth group and you call up all of your youth pastor friends and they think it’s “cool” and slap you on the back and hold their thumbs up, you might need to be worried.
Do you have one or two, maybe even a small group of young people who are your advisers? Could I use the word “mentor” here and you not be offended? I have now, and for several years since I passed out of the “cool” stage, had a few teens and post high school students who are my C.A.B. (I just made that up) Cool Advisory Board. My job isn’t to be cool, it’s to know what cool is.
“I’m not cool and I’m OK with that.” Yeah, my friends all laugh at me and finish my sentence when I start saying it, and if you visit Granite City you’ll see some “cool” stuff happening and every bit of it has been filtered through a young person because that is who it’s for.
We are trying to reach into a different generation, like missionaries. The first thing a missionary should do when they put their feet on the ground on the mission field is find someone that can translate the culture, not just the language. You need to do the same. You have young people around you (or you should) who understand their culture and the mission of the youth ministry. They are Ambassadors and are as important, if not more so, than the youth pastor because they are who truly interfaces with the youth culture.
You are reaching into their culture, they are in the culture. So before you move forward with this amazingly cool idea, ask a few of your mentors what they think. Chances are they might think it’s cool, too. But maybe not.
Teens Are Sensual
Of course, because we expect teens to be walking hormones, when you read the title you assumed (and I am assuming this) that I was going to talk about how all teens are sex crazed lunatics, but that, first of all that is not completely true and secondly that’s not the point of this blog. What I mean by sensual is that they are driven, like everyone, by their senses. What they hear and see affect their emotions and how they feel is what they go by.
What I’d like for you to consider is this, people’s lives are dictated by externals. As we grow in maturity, we begin to be able to balance those externals with wisdom, hopefully, and become more stable, mostly. We are still affected by externals and media producers have come to understand that in order to get our attention they have to use sensationalism. BANG, POW, BOOM!!! You get the idea. The news is filled with the biggest stories, the series on TV are flashy and the movies, musicians, tabloids and such are always over the top because they have to be in order to cram a (!) in our face so we’ll turn our head. (!) is big, it’s outrageous and it demands your attention now!
Your teens aren’t opposed to (!) in their lives, they are all about (!) because they are at the beginning of their foray into the world of independent sensory decision making. Before now their parents dictated where the (!) would be in their lives. They were told what was important, what was worth their time and how they should feel about things from their parent/guardians perspective. They didn’t choose their movies, books, friends, etc. so if there was a (!) anywhere it was filtered through their parents’ wisdom. This is true in most cases, but not in all and you may have some kids in your group whose parents are morons (yep, I said it) and let their kids fill their little mental pockets with whatever (!) they could get a hold of since they were five. That’s the kid you need to keep closest to you for his/her sake and the sake of the other kids in your group.
That’s why teen magazines and movies are sensational! You’ll see (!) in their lives when it comes to relationships!, emotions!, problems!, fears!, ect!, etc!. They seem to thrive on (!) and gather around it like moths to a flame. This is normal and you should expect it.
You can be a very effective youth pastor if you understand that you are not going to be able to take the (!) out of your youth group and instead you become a (!Filter). Find out what’s going on in their world and without being condescending give them insight from an external perspective, that being yours, to what they are watching or listening to and what they are being affected by.
One more thing, if your teens are all about (!) and your youth services or small groups don’t have (!) in them, you will not reach into your kids’ lives. They will be bored(!) and hate(!), not dislike, hate(!) coming to your class or meeting. Your messages, discussions and gatherings need to generate (!) in your youth. They need to address the things that are affecting your teens in their everyday (!) filled lives. So, start right now thinking of how you can be a !Filter and how you can generate (!) in your youth services, otherwise they’ll see you as a (,) in their lives. A moment of pause between two ideas, neither of them being you or your ministry.
In August of 2009 we had a series for Flashpoint called “In The Groove” with a message called “Dream On.”
When you dream there are always risks involved. Some people may mock you, scoff at your dream or even hate you because of what you desire or what you see in your future.
Sometimes your dream isn’t too big for you, it’s to big for them. It may be better for you not to share your dream with everyone. Find someone who believes in you. Share your dream with them, let them speak into your life and challenge you.
A believer isn’t going to say, “You can’t do that.”
They will say, “How do you plan to do that?”
They won’t say “That’s not possible.”
They will say, “What steps are you taking to make that happen?”
A dream is a good thing to have because it’s tomorrow wrapped in hope. So many people who have lost themselves in drugs or alcohol or have given in to violence or self-abuse have done so because they don’t have a hope for something better or a dream to drive them. Dictionary.com defines a dream as “an aspiration; goal; aim.”
The word aspiration is a beautiful word to use to describe a dream. To “aspire” literally means to “desire to breathe.” When you have a dream that drives you it becomes as important to you as your breath. So dream, dream with your eyes wide open and with a plan to make it happen.
Joseph dreamt he would rise up and become great and he was hated for it, but he never gave up on the dream.
“And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told [it] his brethren: and they hated him yet the more.” ~ Gen. 37:5 KJV
He had plenty of opposition and the dream even put him on the auction block of the slave trade and in the dark prison of Egypt, but in the end he did rise up and become great. Joseph’s dream saved his whole family, because he believed it and never gave up on it.
My prayer for you is from Psalm 20:4 in the NLT: “May he grant your heart’s desire and fulfill all your plans.”
