Upholding Virtue

I know the Superbowl halftime show has been a really controversial topic, but it's been a topic that's been on my mind a lot actually. Recently my husband and I have been discussing pornography and how we want to teach our future children about it and address it within our family. It's such an important topic because it's rampant, accessible, and increasingly becoming normalized. 

I thought the halftime show was a good example of that. In one of the church's resources for teaching children, it defines pornography as pictures of people with little or no clothing on. I'd go on to say that porn is also any form of media that creates lust by objectifying people and that is intended to create sexual feelings and experiences that are not in correspondence with the Lord's commands regarding sexuality.

I'm not sure about you, but I'd definitely consider the Superbowl halftime show to include people wearing very little clothing and acting with the intent to arouse sexual feelings. I may be taking it to an extreme, but I'd consider the performance to be pornographic in a very real sense. I didn't think it was a coincidence that a special letter was read from the first presidency in church that very morning. It called for members, and especially parents to talk to their children about pornography. Countless families were watching the Superbowl, if kids saw the show, it was the perfect chance to explain to children what pornography is and how to deal with it in a healthy and appropriate way. 

I was a little surprised by how many people defended the show. I've heard many arguments and points for it, and I won't even try to address them all. All that I'm saying is that when I see poles, ropes, close ups on butts and boobs, then I see people being objectified and sexualized. I see something that is wrong. And when I see something that is wrong, I think I should walk away, turn it off and speak up. That's what I hope my kids do. 

If you kept watching the show or didn't see the harm in it, know that in no way am I trying to create guilt or a holier than you situation. Rather I wanted to share my perspective and invite you to maybe see and do things a little differently the next time. I actually didn't turn it off because I figured that surely it wouldn't get that extreme on public television, but it did. Here's some more thoughts behind my invitation to you and to myself. 

"We urge our families to protect their children in every way possible. We live in a permissive world, but we must make certain we do not become a part of that permissive world, that degenerate world. We are shocked at the depths to which many people of this world go to assert their freedom. We fear that the trends of permissiveness toward immorality are destroying the moral fabric of our generation.

“Sex is an extremely delicate part of our human relationships. When you assault that and degrade it, you make it an animalistic act and it is an assault on our humanity generally. We need to constantly guard against immorality, pornography, and sexual permissiveness that would destroy the purity of the family members, young and old” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1979, 5; or Ensign, May 1979, 5).

We can't afford to be permissive and we need to stand up for purity. I have a bunch more quotes I could share about being separate and distinct from the world in righteous and holy ways, but I figured this is getting long enough. I just hope we can stand for true goodness, for true love, and for true and healthy sexuality within the right relationships. I hope we can hold ourselves and media platforms and society to a higher standard. That standard should be one of virtue and one that protects and promotes individuals and families.