On Beauty

A friend of mine posted something on Facebook the other day that, well, really ticked me off. It wasn’t so much that she said it, but the reality of the truth behind what she said, when it should be the furthest thing from the truth.


Her post:

A woman’s beauty is supposed to be her grand project and constant insecurity. We’re meant to shellac our lips with five different glosses, but always think we’re fat. Beauty is Zeno’s paradox. We should endlessly strive for it, but it’s not socially acceptable to admit we’re there. We can’t perceive it in ourselves. It belongs to the guy screaming “nice tits”.

Molly Crabapple, The World of a Professional Naked Girl


Now, it took me some time to decide whether I should link to the article from which this quote came. There is profanity in the article, and some of the content will probably shock most people who read this blog. In the end, I chose to link to it because it is reality. Hiding from truth doesn’t make it any less truthful, it only makes us ignorant and ill equipped to confront some of the truths of this world with the hope of the gospel.


In my initial response to her, I said this:

The problem begins with “beauty is supposed to be her grand project and constant insecurity.” Why?

Why is external beauty supposed to be what a woman focuses on more than anything else? Why is that where she is supposed to find her identity and acceptance?

The problem isn’t just that people would think it vain to confess one’s self as beautiful, because that can be done gracefully and humbly. The problem is a result of a secular humanist society (which has been around forever) where inner qualities such as charity, wisdom, and grace, things that should really mark a person as beautiful (man or woman), have been thrown out the window [for something more temporally appealing as physical beauty].


Clearly, for the Christian, this must be easy to see. Yet, after reading this article, I sit here with my heart breaking, because I know, that to some degree, I’ve been part of the problem in this type of objectification, at least as far as what is said in the quote itself. Sure, some of it may have been innocuous enough, but some of it far more blatant, at least in my mind even if I never verbalized it.

The reality is that girls like the one in this article will walk around broken, used, and abused in some fashion until the men stop giving them a reason to make less of themselves. Until men challenge men on this front, and until men challenge women to be more than what worthless boys will ask them to be, we will continue to have women throw away their dignity for cash. I’m sure they feel that sting the first time. Maybe even every time. Then at some point they feel themselves too far gone, without hope.

Thank God for the hope found in Jesus. The hope that can restore all things.

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