No I am not just talking about lingerie or undergarments for women. But my thoughts were definitely triggered tonight seeing posts about the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. Honestly, I couldn’t care less.

What I do care about are the women who walk down the runway barely covered. I care about the men who gawk at them like they are nothing more than a commodity and sex icon. I care about the girls and women that look to the Victoria’s Secret models wondering how they could possibly look so good all the while wondering why their own bodies could never measure up.

Let me start with saying this: I am not against women wearing pretty undergarments. Yes, I own Vicky’s undies and bras. I’d say a majority of women in America do. I’m not necessarily against it or the company. I’m also not against fashion shows or models. However, what I do find myself more and more being upset by is the growing allowance of our culture, especially from Christians, in the objectification of women. It is even growing in the objectification of men. Women are not a commodity. Men are not a commodity. They are not a sex object. I fear that the more we allow things like the VS Fashion Show, we allow women to only be treated as such.

I fear women are devalued.
I fear women are dehumanized to being only an object glamorized for sex.
I fear too many young girls and young adult women have self-esteem issues.
I fear too many boys and men see girls and women as toys and not people.
I fear this is only getting worse.

My biggest fear is that far too many Christians are blind to the road we are going down.

Everything I am writing about right now is not limited to the VS Fashion Show, but to our culture in general. It is simply the fact that tonight while perusing on Facebook and Twitter, I saw such an overflow of men and women posting about the show… who looked sexiest, how they wish they could look like those women, and how many guys want to screw them. Pardon my terms there, but frankly, it makes me sick. It makes me sick that so many people- so many Christians who should be striving for honoring people and loving them with a love that redeems- can justify condoning things that treat people as less than human and something only for pleasure and sex. I am not saying this out of judgment toward anyone who watched the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, but I am saying this with a heart rather heavy and broken for a world that rapidly is devaluing people more and more.

I know my thoughts on the VS Fashion Show might offend some of you, as you might have been one of the viewers. I’m not judging you nor am I saying you’re a horrible person. All I ask is that you take a moment to consider this: do things, like Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, honor and respect women, or could it actually be a source where we devalue women and glamorize them as a sex object? I beg you to take it one step further. What about some of the shows you watch or music you listen to. In a world that is far from innocence, we are surrounded by sexuality in all its many faces. And when someone’s sexuality- whether for men or women- is degraded to simply becoming an object for sex or a representation of that, they are no longer really seen as human. When car commercials can get better sales, not because of a beautiful car, but a nearly naked woman… I see something wrong with that kind of advertising, which sadly is all too common. When Joe Boxer, by Kmart, reduced their latest Christmas ad to six guys squat thrusting so they could shake their “Christmas balls” to the song “Jingle Bells”…I see not a funny ad about boxers but six men now becoming part of the trend of commercialized sexual objectification.

When commercial after commercial, company after company decides to market their company as one that uses women, uses men as nothing less than an OBJECT to sell sex, it breaks my heart for this world. For a long time people have known that “sex sells”. But the problem with it now is that it is no longer about sex selling the object, and instead the person in the ad now being the object to sell; the not so subtle messaging of sex all the while the original item is the subliminal message. Queue a world with everything from molestation to rape to trafficking to abuse. I am not saying everything leads to those extremes, but our culture, because we continue to allow growing and increasing messages and images of sexualization of girls, boys, men, and women, we subtly begin to shape our minds to allow the more extremes.

The secret, the one that Victoria is all about, is just the start. Sex and sexuality should be something that matters more than the value that is placed in society and culture. It shouldn’t be something taken advantage of and treated as useless, meaningless, disposable, or invaluable. Sex isn’t cheap. It is not a commodity. It matters. Every person matters and with that includes their sexuality. For far too long we have allowed, with little to no fight, the sexualization of culture, of men and women. Something needs to change.