How does Fifty Shades of Grey fit into a Christian idea of sexuality? Stay tuned. This is Cynthia with Heart of the Meta-Radio for women seeking the elegance of Christ's wisdom. Do you like romance?
Do you know that there's romance in the Bible? Song of Solomon 1-2 says, let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine. In Song of Solomon, the king is addressing his bride. How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride, how much better is your love than wine in the fragrance of your oils than any spice?
And in places, if you look in, Song of Solomon, it gets pretty steamy. Yup, in the Bible! There's nothing wrong with romance in marriage that's the right place. I recall years ago hearing Howard Hendrix tell a story, I'm sure it was not a true story, about a city that had a cliff.
And they had problems because people would come to that cliff and they would fall off. And when they got to the bottom, they had a great envelope service and they'd run under the hospital, but they'd keep having people die. So they finally decided they were going to put a fence at the top of the hill and warning signs so that people would stop running to the cliff and falling off. And so that's kind of what we're going to do today.
We're going to talk a little bit about what's going on today with this book and movie called Fifty Shades of Grey. But we want to put up some warning signs here and talk about why this could be dangerous. So today I have Councillor Gwynn McCaslin. Welcome Gwynn.
Hi, Cindy. I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Gwynn, just tell us where you practice.
I have a private practice in The New York Times in Chicago, Ohio. It's called Hope Creek Counseling. And I've been on my own for about two years now. Tell me what the dangers are about this book and movie.
Well, I think a lot of the dangers of this book and movie are that mainstream is calling it okay. But I got a pretty decent synopsis off of Wikipedia that kind of walked you through the storyline. And the nice thing about doing something like that is that you don't get engrossed in the writing. You actually get the play-by-play of what's happening in the book.
And so you can actually look at it and react to what's going on without being so engaged in whatever literary stuff is going on in the book. But if you look at it, I would honestly quite intrigued by a couple of the people that had reviewed it. And one of the things that I had found was deep in the article, the glorification of the piece in the relationship. And I thought that's exactly what is going on in this book.
It glorifies the piece of relationship. And I think what I want to do today is talk a little bit about what healthy intimacy looks like so that you can recognize the imposter. Exactly. And you know, that's why I brought up this whole thing of romance in the Bible.
Because I think we have something better to offer. It's like taking trash versus gold. I mean, we have something wonderful. Why would you accept a counterfeit?
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Why are women so enamored with this? I think it's the whole of the forbidden.
One of the things I found that was kind of interesting is that using the CDC standard for emotional abuse and sexual violence, the study found that nearly every interaction between Anna and Christian with the emotional abuse of the nature, including stopping intimidation and isolation, that's on the Wikipedia website underneath this movie. The study also observed pervasive sexual violence within the CDC's definition, including Christian's use of alcohol to circumvent inability to consent. And Anna's exhibit, exhibit classic signs of an abuse woman, including constant perceived threat, stress management and altered identity. Isn't that crazy?
That's crazy. That's the world looking at this. Well, just to make sure people understand the person named Christian is the main character in the book that's the man. Right.
And Anna or Anastasia is the main character for the girl. And so if Wikipedia is saying that this is dangerous, then we certainly got to set up and pay attention. Now, give me some more information here on an abused woman because there may be people that don't understand that. I had told a lot of stuff on that actually in my research.
I'll read you some. Is it unhealthy? It would be some things to kind of think through. Does the person in your relationship with an extremely jealous or accused others of the other cheating puts the others down by calling names, cursing or making anyone feel bad about themselves?
Yell's at or treats the other like a child doesn't take the other person or the things that are important to him seriously. Does it listen when others talk, frequently criticizes other friends or families? Pressures the other for sex makes sex hurt or feel humiliating. Has ever threatened to hurt the other or commit suicide if they leave?
Cheats or threatens to cheat. Tells others how to dress. Has ever grabbed, pushed, hit or physically hurt the other? Blames the other for your own behavior.
Or like it gives me people. If you hadn't made me mad and I wouldn't have had to, whatever. Embarrasses or humiliates the other person. Snashes or throws or destroys things.
Tries to keep the other from having a job or furthering his or her education. Makes all of the decisions about what the two of you do. Tries to make the other feel crazy. Pays in mind games.
Goes back on promises. Acts controlling or possessive. Like you own your partner. Uses alcohol or drugs as an excuse for hurtful behavior.
Ignores or withholds affection as a way of punishing the other. Depends completely on the other to meet social and emotional needs. Now with that in mind, can I read the synopsis of this? Because with all of those things in mind, when you read through, you hear them.
So you have Anna Stacia, who is a 21 year old college senior. For reference, Kate works for the college newspaper. She's infinitely attractive. As a result, she's an interview in a good bed.
She wants to go back and photograph. Next day they go back to her photo shoot. He asks her out. He asks if she's dating anyone, especially the camera money.
Camera guy. Conversation with you. She learns he's single. But he says he is not a romantic.
She's intrigued. But she believes she's not attractive in her form. She receives a package from him the next day containing copies of tests of the Uber bills. Now I looked up that book.
I was appalled at the summary of that book. Basically what you have here is you have a very innocent young woman who is given a copy of a book that contains rape, that contains abuse, that contains manipulation, all kinds of manners of things. And it would have been, you know, a poll, no one in the book that has, it's from Dan Hollander and one of the fated of abuses, intimacy and secrecy. And in that stage, it says the first fated abuse can be considered a conscious, intentional setup that opens the refrigerator door to the site and taste of a hungry child, so to speak.
So basically what you have here is Christian, just sent her a book that strips away her innocence and exposes her to content that she probably had never experienced before. So you've got the first moment of victimization, which I thought was just ridiculous because most people probably wouldn't have a clue what test of the Uber bills was or whatever that book is. So basically his first contact with her, he is exposing her and grooming her for where the rest of this book goes. Okay so there is a grooming process.
Now that's interesting because most people are unaware of that. Talk a little about what grooming looks like. The grooming process can look completely different depending on the situation and depending on the perpetrator. But it's basically the first contact that a perpetrator has with his victim.
And it's basically the goal is to win them over, to build intimacy to just, it can look totally different. It can be buying candy for a kid to try to get them in a car. It can look like asking them why they're crying and really disengaging them emotionally. It can be like this and exposing them to something to the perpetrator's innocence like pornography or videos with inappropriate material in it.
Or just even talking sexually around somebody. But all of those behaviors have a goal of creating the opportunity to victimize. If that makes sense. So what kind of a person would give in to being made a victim?
Honestly anybody can be made a victim. Because one of the biggest things is that you're trusting. So somebody who is extremely trusting and naive is going to be somebody who already has two strikes against them when it comes to a perpetrator. One of the best things you can do to infillate your kids from abuse or perpetrators is to educate them on sexuality and actually name body parts where they are.
So education and making your kids aware. Now by that I'm not talking about taking a five-year-old and giving them sex. But they need to know body parts. They need to know inappropriate types.
They need to know what to do with a stranger. If anything like that happens they need to feel like they have a safe place to come talk about anything that might happen. But educating and making them aware is one of the best things. I have a friend who is doing self-defense with a police officer.
And one of the things he tells her is that his hardest thing to teach somebody is to be aware, alert and expect danger. That is the hardest thing to teach. Because most lives in time we just assume we're safe. And so we don't recognize this right when it happens.
Like you I read a synopsis of the plot. I did not read the story itself but I didn't want to be drawn into it nor give them any money. But I did notice that he seemed to be very manipulative. Now explain what manipulative is just so that we know.
Just so that we are aware of it. There's a bunch of different ways he can be manipulative. One is to be emotionally manipulative. Which is that you would hold your love or you tell the other person that they don't love you unless they do whatever you want them to do.
That's called a emotional blackmail. When you use emotions to buy and burn or what you want. There's other things like temper. A lot of times people will use their anger to get somebody to back down and do what they want.
That's manipulating with your emotions. You know turning it around and blaming somebody else for your anger or your lack of self-control. That would be manipulative. When you get into the world of domestic violence, one of the things you need to understand is that if the abuser grooms to the victim sometimes for years until the victim's sense of reality is so torn apart that what the abuser has said feels so real that what's true is healed off.
So part of the manipulation is honestly just this sometimes it's slow and consistent just taking away at the other person. There's a movie that's got, I think it's Bergman, angry Bergman, but it's called gaslighting. I think that's the movie. I think anyway, she marries a guy after a whirlwind romance and he slowly over time tries to make her believe she's losing her mind and he does that partially by turning down the lamps slowly over time so that it gets dimmer and dimmer and he convinces her eyes and you know the lights flickering at night.
He tells her he's not seeing anything. It's kind of the idea where he denies reality so much that she starts to think it's non-reality and the abuser starts to define reality. That would be scary. And what happens is sometimes it is so slow that you can be a very educated woman.
You can be a very strong person who would never think you'd be a victim of that and you find yourself right in the middle of it. Yeah, so it's important to know warning signs. You know to be able to look at lists and be able to go okay, I think we're okay or you know what no I'm seeing some signs of emotional abuse or I'm seeing some signs of physical or you know there's a little bit of sexual abuse here. This isn't one of the books that I absolutely really loved.
It's called The Relationship Workbook and it's by Kerry Moles M-O-L-E-S and I bought it off of Amazon but it has all kind of worksheets in it and it's actually a small group curriculum for people that have been in domestic violence or are in with relationships. So there's tons of like lists and checklists and things you can look through. Yeah and sometimes things in research really helps because if you know what to look for and you're watching for it you're less likely to fall in or stay in an abusive relationship. And that's what this young girl is drawn into an abusive relationship where the man is isolating her and then emotionally abusing her as well as he moves on to physical.
The next thing that happens in this book is that in a go-out with friends and in a drunk she calls him while she's immemigrated and he gets mad at her because she's drunk and he can tell so he comes to get her and he's called her for not taking proper care of himself. Now the interesting thing about that is some people would say oh well he's being caring and loving. The thing is abusive people will sometimes even look at you and go I know how to take care of you better than you do so you need to trust me. But one of the things here is that sometimes the appearance of care and like hiding someone for not taking care of themselves is actually one of the grooming techniques for abuse.
It goes right along with gifts, it goes right along while he cared about me so much you know he was trying to save me from my depression I've heard that one before. You know I've heard tons of different things he cared more than anybody else was caring about me. Sometimes that's honestly how an abusive person will hook somebody in. It's through showing lavish care and attention to the details of their lives.
And what happens is that blends over into them saying you need to be doing this and then they start taking over control and asserting their opinions all over things. So interesting isn't it? Yeah control is the issue. Right and it's funny because the first date they go on he takes her in a helicopter and does this whole lavish you know helicopter ride.
One of the things that the beautiful sometimes do is hold lavish gifts. I have one client that said that the time she thinks she was abusive the time she got gifts from a certain person. There was no affection or relationship built any other time. Well let's just contrast as to what unhealthy relationship is because obviously you don't want to get sucked into a codependent relationship.
But if you have two adults and one of them is doing something unhealthy what is an appropriate way to deal with that or do you? Well if you find somebody that is doing some of the things like the littling or hardcore criticism or trying to edit what you're wearing to the point where they won't let it go. I mean one you know hey that top I don't really like it on you you know okay but if it's a pattern that's a different story and honestly what I would tell any young person in a relationship is that your goal is never to change the other person. They come in with what they are with their character and they are responsible for their character.
So if you are trying to get healthier character out of them you need to run because that is not a relationship for you to be staying in. You are only responsible for yourself and for what you can do. Well I'm thinking about a specific situation in my own marriage my husband became very very ill and so there was a period of time that he was even dependent on me while he was ill and emotions were all over the place but I realized that there was a point in time that I was going to have to stop and move away and treat him as an adult because he could not go on that way forever because that would make me more like a mother than a wife. Right exactly and what you're talking about is there was a legit medical reason that necessitated you taking a little bit more responsibility in care that eventually resolved itself and you went back to equal partnership equal relationship.
Exactly yeah and see that's a different scenario because before that you guys had an equal partnership where you both specialize in what you're good at but that had to change a little bit when the medical necessities changed. Exactly but I was very aware that it wasn't healthy for me to continue that very long especially as a man you know he has its own image that needs to be strong and so I need to pull back and let him say I need help with this or whatever then I can step in and help him. Yeah which is your boundary in containing yourself yeah and if you do that out of respect for him right and out of respect for his domain and how he's managing himself but you see some of this in romance books that are not abusive you see a situation where a man steps in and starts you know doing something for the girl and it gives women the impression that man should be doing some of that. It's really important to know your boundaries and to know when you're stepping into somebody else's domain I like to say that there's only two reasons to step into somebody's domain and that is if you have a position that allows you to step in because you actually own some of that domain which would be a parent child relationship when that child lives in your home.
In other words their bedroom is inside of your home so the state of that bedroom you own because you own the home so that gives you the position to step in and establish the parameters for how that domain or bedroom is being kept or cleaned or whatever state of being is it okay so that would give you the position to step in which that changes when your children leave home okay if you do not have a position to step in then you need the other person's permission to step in. For example if I were to walk into your kitchen Cindy I would need to ask if I am going to get something out of your cupboards because it's your cupboards it would be ridiculous for me to walk into your kitchen and start rearranging your cupboards because it is not my domain. Now if you invited me over as a consultant to organize I would have your permission to look at your cupboards and suggest different things and maybe help you with them but I would have to have your permission to do that. Right because I invited your control at that point are you at your advice?
Exactly and when that permission expired I need to be out of there because two years later I can walk in and do the same thing. And in this situation this man is taking over and demanding something of her even isolating her. Exactly and he's giving her confusing messages too because part of what he's done with the contract and all that I expect you to be vulnerable with me but I'm not you can't touch me you're not allowed to look at me you know some of that is restricting himself so he's closed off to her. Now one of the things I will tell you is for true intimacy to exist in marriage there has to be safety where both people feel safe emotionally and physically with one another.
Now thinking comes by knowing that you're not going to trombone over my boundaries in my face that you're going to stop at my down-tree line and respect and you're going to ask for permission to come in or speak in. Now if I know that you're going to do that I'm going to feel safer with you which means I'm going to open myself more up to you okay and if I see you open yourself to me what blooms out of that is intimacy a true intimacy that reflects my heart. Where we're both equally sharing what's on our thoughts because we feel safe and we are both striving to create safety for the other person. And in that there can be true romance like I was reading as I started where Solomon and his bride enjoyed that together and that is healthy not abusive.
Right exactly and you know relationship has several stages you've got the romantic stage that kind of blossoms into a more mature love hopefully that's respectful and blossoms over time and is built over history. It works better over history than just suddenly especially for the woman. I mean we are intended to be crockpots you know if we take a long time to get as interested and that's good because the man is interested so quickly. And you know Cindy I like to do a tree drawing with people when I'm talking about being in a relationship with somebody because I think there's three main parts to a tree there's the root system that's underground.
There is the trunk of the tree and the big branches that hold up the leaf. They've got roots, trunks and leaves. I like to say that in relationship there's really three parts. There is the character that are the root system and the character of each person involved is what nurtures and secures the relationship in the context of what life looks like.
So in other words if I have two people with a lot of integrity hard work and loyalty to one another and they go through a season where it's rocky and there's no money and they're just struggling with one another. Okay they're both going to stay in it and they're going to work hard through it. That creates more safety than somebody who's like I'm out of here. There's a drop so this isn't supposed to be an I'm darn.
So your root system determines the health of the rest of the tree. If there's poison in your character it's going to poison all your relationships. That's why if you want to make your relationship healthier you have to work individually both of you together on your personal stuff and building character and following her after Christ. And then what happens is that you naturally poison to the rest of your relationship.
You just brought up the spiritual element which I was going to mention. There's so much more there in talking about eternal things and sharing those things together. There's a dimension there that goes way beyond just the physical and the friendship or the romance and it makes so much more rich. That's why I said in the beginning is that we're exchanging gold for the trash can because what's happening in this Fifty Shades of Grey is not beautiful but it's that in comparison beauty of what happens between a husband and wife who have that unity and all those different areas is incredible.
The other thing that's in the Fifty Shades of Grey is it's a contract. And when it going back to the relationship throwing that I was talking about the trunk is your commitment and there's two basic types of commitment you can have. One type is a covenant commitment and that is the kind that God lays out in scripture for us and the other kind is a contract and contracts were very familiar with if you don't do your part I'm really the contracts broken. I don't have to do my part.
And so what happens is they're so easily broken that they create instability and insecurity. With a covenant the difference is that I commit before God to love the other person I'm entering relationship with. Irregardless of what they do back I am committed to be faithful to my marriage. I am committing to love my spouse.
For husbands Ephesians chapter 5 talks about husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church. Ultimate and I will tell them they look that entire passage of the burden is on husbands to love their wives in a way that mirrors Christ loving the church. And then to the wives he says submit. But the interesting thing is if you've got somebody loving you to the point that people die for you how would you not want to submit to that?
That is creating safety. You know when you've got a guy that is treasuring you to that point you want him to lead you. You want to rest in his leadership. Yes and I've told my husband I would practically walk over broken glass around the world because he's so good to me.
You know because I have that kind of relationship he would never oppress me. Yeah and you know one of the biggest things that I see is with a man who is abusive there is usually a lot of insecurity which means he has to stifle the other person in the relationship because he loses face whenever they gain something. Now I'm saying this masculine disseminate but sometimes it's the other way around too. But the thing is okay when we are secure in ourselves we can look and rejoice with somebody else who is getting awarded or achieving something or or being exalted and we actually are proud to be their spouse.
We are actually encouraging their gifts and their talents because they bless us. They bless us at a unit. You know so you want the people that you're in relationship with the flourish. You want them to be all that they can be.
With someone who's more insecure the more you shine the more they feel like they're disappearing or the more they feel like they're less than. So what they do is they tear you down and make you disappear or they make you think you're crazy so that they are okay and they don't have any challenges and no one's challenging their position. This is so fascinating Gwen. I could talk about it.
I just so much appreciate what you've said today. How much insight you've given us. I hope that we clear things up for people who might be confused or in a state of not being sure or maybe in a situation that's not good that they'll be able to have the wisdom to get out. I appreciate you Gwen.
You're welcome. Thanks for having me.