Let’s face it, Evangelicals have an irrational fear of breasts. Evangelical men are so weak that if a woman exposes even a portion of her breasts they are sure to fall into sin. I find it amazing that the Christian God can save them from any and every sin but he is quite powerless to keep them from being tempted and led astray by a woman’s breasts.
Let me illustrate this for you.
The following picture first appeared in the 1937 Popular Photography Magazine.
In 1937 this picture of a burlesque dancer appeared without the black bar over her breasts. 75 years later, when this picture was republished in the May 2012 magazine, the black bar was added to cover the woman’s bare breasts.
Why?
Several readers objected to the black bar being placed over the woman’s breasts. They considered it prudish and censorship, two things not normally on display in a photography magazine. (and I subscribe to the magazine)
The caption for the picture stated, “it was illustrated with semi-nude shots we have to black-bar today.” One reader asked for an explanation for the phrase “we have to.”
Why did the editors of Popular Photography magazine put a black-bar over the woman’s breasts? This was their reply:
The editors decided to add the black-bar to a photo originally published in Popular Photography in 1937 because we feared that running a topless photo would have gotten the issue pulled from distribution by some retailers, school libraries, and other outlets.
We have the answer to WHY and now we must ask the WHO question. Who is it that would object to this woman’s breasts being bared?
Those of us who follow the culture war carefully know who the WHO is. It is Evangelicals with breast-a-phobia. Groups like One Million Moms, the American Family Association, and Focus on the Family look for opportunities to gin up controversy. Let a Janet Jackson-like breast exposure occur and 48 hours later the Evangelical Borg are calling for people to cancel their subscriptions and calling on them to let their local libraries know they don’t appreciate the library exposing their children to porn. (no it is not porn but in the Evangelical mind porn has a far different definition)
The editors of Popular Photography need to realize that the Evangelical bark is a lot worse than its bite. Ignore them. Library directors need to ignore them too. The picture in question is not on the cover so no child is going to be breast-traumatized by walking past the magazine rack.
Pity the poor Evangelical. So weak that they can not withstand a look at a woman’s breasts. It should come as no surprise that Evangelical men and pastors find themselves in all kinds of trouble…..They are taught they are weak. They are taught they are but one sin away from being a pervert, child molester, porn addict, or rapist.
Teen boys are constantly berated and reminded that God will judge them if they give into temptation. After all, everyone knows photography magazines and National Geographic Magazine are gateway magazines. Let a teen boy gaze on naked women in these magazines and the next thing you will know they will be filled with raging lust and who knows what they will turn into next.
So silly, isn’t it?
Yes, they are taught that they are weak from the time they are small children. The song “Jesus Loves Me” says “they are weak, but he is strong.” Sad that children are told they have no power, no strength. People need to realize that nudity does not equal sex…and being nude is a different concept than being “naked”…at least it does in the nudist community.
Brave post. I ended up ranting this weekend on my own blog about Evangelicals and porn..sweet sweet porn
I am glad that’s not case in Europe, otherwise there will be nothing left in the museums.
I’ve read numerous stories about public school teachers (mostly in the south) whose jobs were threatened for taking kids on field trips to museums that featured nude art & sculpture. Stuff I “gazed upon” during my 1960s childhood. Sure, the teacher had to tell off some of the kids for pointing and saying “Woo-woo!!” But no one lost their job or their moral compass.
This is equal parts hilarious and sadly true… especially the part about teenage boys and sexual guilt (I’m sure teenage girls have more than their share of it as well). I remember my church days when just looking at, say, the SI swimsuit issue was ‘lustful’. And, so sayeth Jesus, if you look at woman lustfully you’ve already committed ‘adultery’.
One of the nicest things about being a non-believer has been becoming comfortable with my sexuality. I watched a video with Charlize Theron today, and I have no shame in admitting that I can’t look at her without undressing her with my eyes. I have no shame in the sexual chemistry I have with women I meet (sometimes). We’re sexual creatures! Only by embracing our sexuality can we understand it and pursue it in healthy, responsible ways.
In the city near me, there have been several of these overwrought attempts to get all books that certain groups deem “pornographic” hidden in the large bookstores. Just ordinary art books and sex manuals, nothing truly hard core. One regional grocery chain was actually pressured into putting Playboy and Cosmopolitan in covers. I really believe if they just put them on the top shelves, no children would notice them until they were old enough to ask their parents questions and get answers. No need for any drama. When they get cranked up like this, I always wonder why they don’t object to all the coffee table size books with battle pictures being left in reach of children.
I showed Hubby this post and told him “Watch out, baby, there’s power in these breasts”. We were laughing so hard. The whole sexual temptations thing is so out of proportion in these churches. Geez, Biblegod is incredibly powerless against the power of women’s breasts and so are Biblegod’s men of the church.
Ridiculous!
I do think that when people are taught that they are weak, it lets them be weak. They aren’t taught to be strong and self reliant. They are taught they need help from above constantly. How can people learn to be strong in the presence of this kind of thinking? So bad for building real character. Crawl out of the cesspool and become mature men and women who can handle real life situations like people in bathing suits at the beach.
The human form is beautiful, and there’s no shame in it. But, I think there is a difference between nude art displaying the artistry of the human body, and pornography which seems disrespectful and exploitative, often of women, IMO.
You describe the whole phenomenon very incisively. As a Christian teenager, I was constantly warned never to be alone with a member of the opposite sex. We were all told that, if that happened, we WOULD be tempted, and we WOULD give in to that temptation.
I couldn’t believe it when I left my church school to a more secular institution, and all atheist boys weren’t getting laid. I thought non-Christian teen years were just one giant orgy.
I see the way evangelicals dress today, this is more of a thing of the past. We have low neck lines from the stage praise team….This does not bother me, maybe it bothers some, but not me.
Raging lust? Buddy, my husband is nearly 50 years old. Where do I buy some?
Well, mine is 64, and I’d like to know when he is going to slow down a little! You may be surprised what happens when yours retires and has more free time.LOL.
I’ll have to force him to retire, then
This is so dead on. I work teaching science in a Christian school, and I was recently teaching about burn victims and how to calculate survival rates. I was teaching how to figure out what percentage of the body had been burned, and I had a female nude diagram with percentages written on her body. Nothing was explicit, but administration insisted that I draw clothes over my diagram (modest, knee length skirt with appropriate shirt) or get a new diagram. Well, I remembered to put clothes on all the student copies of the powerpoint, but totally forgot and pulled up the original powerpoint to display. The collective gasps of the students and the utter shock and awe would make one think I was showing a porno. It has been over a month and I am still fielding crap about that one tiny mistake. Christians and their breasts, I swear!
I expect the evangelicals would, deep down inside, prefer all women to wear burquas like the Muslims, so that no men would look at their wives or daughters lustfully. Americans seem to be moving backwards in relation to equality of the sexes. Things were better in the 60s and 70s, it seems to me.
Let’s not forget when John Ashcroft was Attorney General and had drapes made to cover the statue of Lady Justice!
Thanks for the reminder about Ashcroft.
Yes – this IS such a silly fear. I used to be so afraid of breast exposure myself when an evangelical. I thought FOR SURE my then-IFB-soon-to-be-husband would fall straight into sin. LOL
Evangelical Borg. So apt!