On the way to the stadium, she said, in plain view was a large billboard advertising an adult store. Whether it was a strip club or a retail store, she did not say. Regardless, the complaint is the same: that this advertisement is in plain view of all.
If the speaker’s gripe had stopped there, the she would have had my complete agreement and support. But it didn’t. She went on to complain that this billboard was where men could see it. Ignoring its effect on women or children, she proclaimed that it would “disrupt marriages,” and “strain relationships,” as though a single ad were capable of driving a wedge between a faithful husband and wife.
Personal story time. On the way down to visit my brother- and sister-in-law, there is a strip club. I know it’s there; its sign is plainly visible. But it is never anything more than scenery. I’ve never been tempted by it, and never has an argument or fight between Jessica and myself been instigated by it.
In a perfect world, there would be no such places of debauchery. (There’s a word I don’t get to use every day.) But it’s not. I can’t control the world; I can only control myself. I’m sick of hearing — and from a Christian radio host, no less — that men are little more than animals, no better than their basest desires.
This is one time when I will use the phrase “I am offended by this” unironically. I am offended by this. Not by the presence of strip clubs, stores which sell “adult content,” and the like — they are outside my sphere of influence, and so I ignore them — but by the attitude of leaders, especially religious leaders, that men have no choice but to submit to temptation. That removing temptation (as if that could ever completely happen) is the only way to get men to behave themselves.
I am better than that. I deserve to be treated better than that.
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