Author: Emily Vandenbosch

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Opinions

Cameras and Mirrors

Recently, the hashtag #NoPornNovember has been gaining an incredible amount of traction. Since the issue of sexual assault has been featured heavily in the media recently, this is no surprise. Allegations have been raised against famous porn stars Ron Jeremy and James Dean, as well as against Harvey Weinstein, bringing the dangers of objectification to the forefront of our minds. #NoPornNovember and adjoining campaigns seek to raise awareness about the negative effects of porn and encourage those recovering from addiction to speak up by saturating social media with posts, videos, and photos that share personal stories.

Most people on Houghton’s campus would join a campaign like this (if they have not already) and would agree that sexual assault, sexually abusive “entertainment,” and objectification are innately wrong. The majority of students would genuinely consider all the aforementioned topics sinful and degrading, since these ways of engaging with others fail to see others through the perspective of Christ’s love. Personally, I am an advocate for the Fight the New Drug movement and am in full support of raising awareness to aid in the fight against and recovery from pornographic materials.

However, I do not think that using a hashtag, having conversations about abuse and human trafficking, or even abstaining from porn altogether fully combat the issues. There is something deeper: a more subtle, pervasive threat that we have missed.

We are quick to oppose explicit pornography and the oppressive culture it produces, but what about the culture that produces pornography? We might not watch a sexually explicit film, but how many times do we laugh during an episode of New Girl or The Office that normalizes pornography and unhealthy relationships? We support women’s rights and chastise those who define women as sexual objects, but do so with the catchy beat of Swalla by Jason Derulo blasting in the background. The subconscious messages in a classic PG-13 movie showing women giggling when a coworker makes unwanted advances and those in an adult film normalizing abuse are not as different as we would like to think. Yet, when the content is branded as a romantic comedy, a satire, or a sexual joke at the lunch table casually brushed off, it is okay. It is funny. It was not meant to hurt anyone. A line is drawn between objectifying male genitalia for a couple laughs with friends and objectifying sexual partnerships between men and women in a pornographic film.

But friends, I do not care where it is from: objectification is objectification. Many of us who would happily advocate against the proliferation of pornography have absentmindedly ignored forms of media that are not explicitly defined as inappropriate. So long as it does not look like pornography, it is not perceived as objectification. We may think if it was not intended to hurt, then it does not deserve our attention, but in our averted gaze we have missed the larger narrative. As Christians it is our responsibility to pay attention, to look deeply into the chasm of our entertainment, and to honestly ask ourselves if we are doing all we can to dismantle the distorted sexual identity our culture has adopted. And right now, when I answer that question, it is with a solemn “no.”

This does not mean that watching casual entertainment and consuming pornography are the same act, but that the underlying messages are eerily similar. If we want to fight one, we must fight the other. In both instances, a mask — humour, sexual expression, ignorance — veils a grotesque picture of humanity. When we look at our identities through the lens of modern entertainment we do not see masterpieces. We do not see human beings. We see objects used as the brunt of a ten second joke or the momentary pleasure given to a person who has been depicted as an animal with uncontrollable desires. And when we cannot see ourselves clearly in the house of mirrors, everything else around us becomes hopelessly disfigured. Cruder jokes are permissible, standards for respect are lowered, and the formerly clear lines become blurred.

So, as many of us rally to anti-pornography movements against explicit objectification, let us take a closer look at the implicit messages we consume, adopt, and share. We should listen to our pulses beating instead of to lyrics about how tight her jeans are, and feel the embrace of hug instead of the emptiness left after viewing porn for the hundredth time. We should laugh when he makes you smile instead of when she cracks a dirty joke. Restore the complexity and humanity of yourself and those around you. And please, do not avert your gaze from just the explicit.

Emily is a Senior majoring in communication with a concentration in media arts and visual communication.

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Opinions

Why Can’t We Be (Just) Friends?

Boy and girl meet at Houghton. Boy and girl become friends and spend years together, laughing and enjoying each other’s company. Boy and girl do not date or get married or fall madly in love.

Wait, what? How is that possible? This is Houghton. Couple Capital of the North East, where hopeful romantics come searching for the love of their lives, and in special cases, even walk away with a degree.

We have all experienced the constant pressure small, Christian school culture places on students to be in a serious relationship. Think about how quickly assumptions are made when a guy and girl establish a friendship: they are constantly required to defend the innocence of their relationship and claim, “No! We are just friends.”  “ Just friends” implying that there is something more to achieve, beyond the understanding, compassion, sacrifice, joy, sadness, and beauty present in every healthy, long-standing friendship, something that involves walking around the Quad four times, a wedding band, and lots of babies.

But, what if instead of believing that dating/marriage is the highest friendship, we starting believing that friendship is the highest form of friendship? Within the bonds of deep, genuine friendship, men and women can learn respect, honor, compassion and forgiveness for people so different from themselves, and we can learn to want the absolute best for someone, whether they are a stranger or a partner.

Of course, I am not asking us to disregard the unique intimacy present in romantic relationship or how they provide a distinctive view into the Love of Christ. But romance is not the only context in which guys and girls can interact, and we cannot forget that.

There are two major problems that arise when we idolize romantic relationships over strong friendships.

First, those who do not desire or are unable to date often become ostracized at worst and pressured to change at best. Whenever two single people chat or have lunch, their friends start prodding and winking. It is as if being single or not wanting to date is a curse we must overcome to reach complete humanness. But we are not made complete by the romantic addition of another human being.

We would agree that if a dating relationship exists only for physical touch and contained zero friendship, it would be rather unhealthy. So why do we consider a guy-girl friendship that does not involve physical intimacy unhealthy? Is not friendship the part that makes it so wonderful and valuable?

But the second, more problematic issue is that if we see every person of the opposite gender as a potential spouse or date, then we stop seeing him or her as a human being and lose the ability to foster positive co-ed interactions. We are afraid to grab a coffee or strike up an unexpected conversation with the opposite gender because it will look like a date. Seriously, if you saw a guy and girl eat lunch alone together twice in one week, what would you think?

The stigma and pressure surrounding guy-girl interactions prevents us from learning more about the opposite gender. We need to learn how to understand and serve those different from us without the fear that a friendly conversation is actually a date. We need to see those around us as brothers and sisters in Christ, as people we want to demonstrate sacrificial love to. Communication and empathy are crucial to displaying Christ’s Love, real, genuine, selfless love , to those around us. Besides, Jesus loves you more deeply, fully and completely than any human ever could, and you don’t see him trying to go out with you.
Chivalry is not dead at Houghton. Let us hope friendship is not either.

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Opinions

In Travel We Trust

The concept of “wanderlust,” a strong desire for travel, fills our Pinterest boards and news-feeds. It shapes our Instagram posts, our conversations, and our futures. More than anything though, it upsets and discontents our hearts, which is ironic since the most prescribed cure for unhappiness is a road trip or backpacking vacation.

Photo by: Nate Moore
Photo by: Nate Moore

Don’t know what to study or where to attend college? Take a year off to explore. Going through a rough breakup? Cross-country road trip it is. Need to discover yourself or gain perspective? Take a week-long missions trip.

We wander, which leads to more wandering, and more wandering, as the insatiable desire for travel becomes a drug we cannot live without. One location is never enough. Trusting travel to satisfy us means that we must always be somewhere else. We pour time and money into experiencing the world, but find ourselves empty and unfulfilled, in search of the next big thing.

I know this because it happened to me. The day I learned there was more to the world than my house on a farm, I wanted to explore it. Western New York would never be enough, and Houghton offered me the opportunity to squash the “travel bug” with a semester abroad in England. My cohort and I saw historical sites, tasted new cuisine, traveled on the Tube, visited Ireland, and spent three months chasing what I believed was the key to happiness.

Then we came back, back to cows, crickets, and gravel roads. The open fields and dark woods that had fueled my childhood creativity became obstacles to experience. What was I supposed to discover in an empty cornfield? Boredom struck hard and fast, and with no car and no money, there could be no adventure. My purpose and happiness had become so invested in a location that when I was not somewhere interesting, I did not completely know myself.

To combat my post-London angst, I tried a emily-quote“micro-adventure” challenge, which encourages you to find a tiny adventure within a 10 mile radius every day for a week. On the second day, I visited a park in my neighborhood, and as I watched little children run around on the open grass, I found what is lost in a travel-centered world: imagination. The children did not need a real mountain to climb or castle to defend, they were already there in the middle of an open park.

Adventure is about perspective, not location. A plane may take you a thousand miles from home, but if you never leave the hotel room, does it matter where you are? Attitude can make the trees in my backyard the Amazon rainforest, a school playground an ancient fortress and the Sahara Desert just a big sandbox.

Of course, traveling is not necessarily wrong. In fact, the love of traveling stems from the same healthy desire for exploration and discovery we need to change our perspectives. However, the thrill of travel cannot be what we build our lives or our cultures on. If it is, we risk missing out on the beauty of everyday life, as well as defining  a well-lived life, and well-traveled life. Purpose and satisfaction are not found in a different location. They are found in being content with where we are, because until we can delve into where we are, we will never truly appreciate where we are going.