My oldest son and I went to see an action movie the other day. In one of the early scenes, a group of half-dressed women get off a bus. It was a sexually provocative scene, and I wondered whether or not it was registering on my fourteen-year-old’s mind.
After the movie, we were doing our regular debriefing of action scenes and comparisons of this movie to others in the genre when my son brought up the bus scene.
“You know, they don’t have to dress women like that.”
“Yeah, I know. Seemed so unnecessary, didn’t it?”
“Yes, and they don’t have to show so much. It’s hard for a kid who’s going through puberty.”
“Did it make you uncomfortable?”
“Yes, I had to have a fight with mind and say to myself, ‘I don’t want to look at that…Yes, I want to look….No, I don’t….’”
“I know, Son. That’s a battle you’re going to have to fight for the rest of your life, I’m afraid.”
“And they really didn’t have to do it in slow motion.”
Can I get an “Amen?”
Build Your Walls! Guard Your Gates! 