The Disordered Objectification

I deal with crime victims and fraudmongers. That's what I get paid to do. And I don't know how much of my tongue will be missing when God finally gets me out of this job.

Some time ago, I blogged about a man from Iraq, a fan of Saddam Hussein, who compared his car being stolen to someeone having sex with his wife. He said he would not want her anymore after this, and actually SAID that it was like someone was having sex with his car.

(I wish I could banish the mental image that came so unbidden!)

I was offended by this...highly offended, but given his political and moral hero, I let it go realizing that the man may very well be deranged due to his cultural origins and political indoctrination, and thus perhaps he had reason (although wrong) for his disordered thought.

Then just this week, I spoke with a man, AMERICAN grew up here, and he said nearly the same thing. He compared his car to his girlfriend. He said that he wasn't sure that he would want his car back because it felt like the same thing as someone having sex with his girlfriend. He stopped just short of saying that it's like someone having sex with his car. I simply interrupted him and moved on to the next item of business.

I had to tightly reign in my very strong desire to reach through the phone, grab this asshole by the throat and explain to him that as a woman, I am not an object, neither is his girlfriend. 'Scuse the French, and no offense to those from France.

I would like to make something very, very very clear:

* A car is an object. It is a thing that is thus acted upon in order to be of any use at all.

* A woman is NOT an object. She is a person, and she has priceless value which does not require being acted upon in order to make her valuable.


Has this been understood by everyone? A WOMAN IS *NOT* AN OBJECT!

If your house is broken into, if your wallet is stolen, if your car, motorcycle, etc., is stolen, and you DARE to compare this to someone having sex with your girlfriend or wife, then you have a very serious problem. This is so disordered it is far beyond words.

Anyone who compares their girlfriend or wife to an object has clearly underscored the fact that they have objectified this priceless woman in their life. They have proven what Pope John Paul the Great said in Theology of the Body, and it PROVES beyond a doubt that radical feminism has failed. It PROVES that the prolific use of sex to define a relationship, and ourselves in relation to another or to ourselves has done NOTHING but deman us from being human to being mere objects.

Men, the women in your life are not cars, and if you see them as such, it proves you are using them. Stop doing this, take a serious self-inventory, amd realize that men and women who do not treat each other as objects are infinitely healthier in mind, body, and soul.

If you are one of these people who compares the car or other object to the woman, then realize you are living a double standard. Most of us own cars which have had other owners. Most people have multiple sexual partners in today's culture, thus the woman (or man) comes already "used". This has done nothing to further the value of life in our society, but rather, demeans it so completely so as to make it comparable only to whatever handy thing can be used and discarded without another thought.

If anyone ever again makes the mistake of making this satanic comparison, damn the recorder and damn the professionalism that censures my sharing of the truth. I'm not sure I can afford to lose another piece of my tongue just to keep my job...for without a tongue to speak to God's glory, then what good am I?

Oh, that's right...I'm a woman. As a woman I have infinite value. I cannot be compared to a heifer, a cow, a car, or a house. I am worth far more, and if you can't bother to buy me a ring, then your value as a man ain't even worth the ground I walk on.

This is a two way street...we need to bring respect for ourselves, our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit, and respect for each other back into the culture.

Maybe the culture won't value us, and maybe we'll go dateless or husbandless or wifeless for taking the high moral ground. But Jesus never said it would be easy...he only said that He'd be with us. So let's all get a backbone and if you hear anyone in your life spitting out the vile trash that betrays their objectification of people in their lives they claim to care about, then let them have it with both verbal barrels. This cannot continue in our culture. We are children of God, and we should start behaving as the royalty we are, as opposed to the barbarians we have so often chosen to be.