Roberta “Bobbi” Gibb grew up running for the sheer love of it. Training for the Boston Marathon without running shoes or a coach, Gibb ran up to 30 and 40 miles a day. What Gibb didn’t know: The event was closed to women due to the widely believed myth that women pursuing vigorous athletics would damage their reproductive organs. My mother was pregnant with me in early 1966 when Gibb received a letter stating “women were not physiologically capable of running 26 miles and furthermore, under the rules that governed international sports, they were not allowed to run.” (source) The myth has since been debunked, though it still makes notable appearances. Continue reading Male and Female He Created Them
Category Archives: Sexual Ethics
Those Seductive Suits — #StumblingBlock discussion on BreakPoint.org
The admonitions regarding “what should/should not women wear so as not to cause lust in men” have always struck me as misguided at best and damaging at worst. Last week The Salt Collective ran a satirical post on this issue. The ensuing debate in the comment section inspired my On Modesty bit of fiction, but I still couldn’t articulate my thoughts in plain prose. The discussion on Gina Dalfonzo’s post, Those Seductive Suits, at The BreakPoint Blog has come to my rescue.
Continue reading Those Seductive Suits — #StumblingBlock discussion on BreakPoint.org
On Modesty
Fiction inspired by the comment section of
When Suits Become a Stumbling Block: A Plea to My Brothers in Christ
They told me not to wear yoga pants,
–so I stopped wearing yoga pants.
They told me not to wear shorts,
–so I stopped wearing shorts.
They told me not to display myself in public,
–so I stopped running.
They told me not to show skin,
–so I stopped swimming.
They told me to not cause lust by what I wore
–so I dressed like a prepubescent girl.
And then I was raped by a pedophile.
Heath Lambert Combats Pornography
“My prayer is that we will leave here motivated to do something about this problem [of pornography].” –Heath Lambert
As I wrote earlier this week, Heath Lambert gave the opening sermon at The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) Leadership Summit of the Southern Baptist Convention. I applaud the ERLC for opening the summit with a pernicious problem residing within our churches which is easy for perpetrators to hide. The videos from the summit are now available. Continue reading Heath Lambert Combats Pornography
Pornography, your name is Woman?
During a live broadcast of The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission today, Heath Lambert spoke about the grave problem of pornography in our churches. I applaud him for shining light into a dark, dark secret within our churches. I became aware of this event through the #ERLCsummit hashtag on Twitter.
However, I question some of how he relayed his message. Continue reading Pornography, your name is Woman?