Women: It's raining men!
Wooo Momma, You're looking Good! Praise God Jehovah! (uh, halleluiah)
Advertising often gets the blame for capitalizing on the insecurity of others. Some say that advertising actually is cause of insecurity. I was trained to look for the base emotional appeal and sell to the base emotion. In other words, most folks don’t buy red cars because of their high visibility and to reduce traffic accidents. They buy red cars for how they will feel driving the car. Folks buy on emotion and back it with logic. (They do it in relationships as well) Even Volvo’s message about safety is based on a base emotional appeal. I would say that few people come to church to worship God. I suspect most are looking for something like inner peace and how they will feel. It’s less about God and more about me and how I will feel.
This morning I flipped on the television only to find a jubilant Kristie Alley doing cartwheels and flip-flops in the street because she has lost over 55 pounds and it is now raining men in her life. Halleluiah! What about those women who want to take care of themselves out of self love and not attach their self-worth to how many men find them attractive?
How 'bout "I did it for me" as an ad campaign? Instead of praisng God that it is raining men. It seems that God wants us to find our worth and to be healed in the deepest part of ourselves where the Spirit lives, moves and has Her being.
Please don’t get me wrong, when I was single I wanted it to rain women. And when I went out and met girls, life is good, until I realized that meeting women was just a way for me to feel good about myself and to cover my insecurity. I walked through the men's magazine section the other day. It's all women on the covers of men's magazines! The message goes both ways.
I’m all for health and fitness and looking and feeling good but this really struck me as odd. Why not feel good about oneself so that one won’t be dependent on food, men, women, drugs, sex, exercise in order feel be complete? It seemed that the message was once its raining men in your life you can feel good about yourself. Why not heal the part of oneself that wants to use food to find comfort? Why replace food with another addiction-- men or women?
What do you think?
12 Comments:
I couldn't agree with you more.
Many things have changed in my life since the birth of my daughter. For the first few months after her birth, I worked out like a fiend, and within six months has dropped 50 of the 60 pounds I'd gained during pregnancy. From there, I stalled.
Somehow, it finally sank in that I needed to love me as I was -- and that if I dropped the rest, it would be for my own comfort and health, and not because of the men I might attract. Only in the past month or two have I finally started to work hard on fitness...but this time, it's because I want to feel healthy, not because my ego needs a snack.
NIce to hear form you Allison. I was wondering where you were. Actually, I thought you quit reading and blogging. :)
As a woman in my mid 40's I work out and try to look good but I do it for me (well, and my husband). I have been fighting this topic this week as I was "hit" on by someone who I thought respected me.
It is very discouraging to see how many people live, move and breathe in the "physical" only.
I should not have to apologize for taking care of myself and trying to look good, but I KNOW that it is not WHO I AM! But I must accept that for some people it is ALL THEY WILL SEE!!
Thanks Donna,
I agree with you, you should NEVER have to apologize for loving and caring for yourself.
Thanks for sharing your story.
well said rick - it's so very sad that her accomplishment couldn't be for health, personal accomplishment and wholeness.
it sends a message that you are only 1/2 a person until you have a man in your life. so very sad.
I agree with you 100% Rick, but obviously women equate looking good with attracting men. It's been drilled into our heads since birth. I wish it weren’t so, I wish a man would say “she’s intelligent, kind, funny – who cares if she’s fat and/or unattractive”. It rarely works that way. Of course there are different degrees of attraction and one man’s idea of a good looking women is not the same as another’s so it all works out for most of us.
Question: Would you have asked your wife out on a date if she was 50 lbs overweight when you met her? What about 70 or 80 lbs?
Even your the comments above reflect that even though they are working out and staying fit for themselves, - the man issue factors in.
I think God wants us to be at a healthy weight but I also think our egos do enjoy being appreciated for how we look and there is nothing wrong with that! He also made us sexual beings that NEED to be attracted to each other for obvious reasons.
I have been fat and I have been thin. I am the same person no matter what weight I am. If I want to attract men I HAVE to lose weight. I know this for a fact because men approach me constantly when I am at my ideal weight and I am seemingly invisible when I am fat, or worse yet they are looking at me thinking something negative. I hate hearing “you’d be so pretty if you lost weight”. Thanks, that means I am ugly now.
Another thing that comes to mind is that some of us actually gain weight to protect ourselves from being attractive because we have a weakness for being inappropriately sexual.
I agree with what you said, but I don't see it changing. It's just how the world is and we live in the world.
Ironically, I just left my boyfriend, the only guy who ever accepted the chubby me. Now I am telling myself I am going to get back in shape “for my health” but I also admit it's because I want men to find me attractive again.
This is a really great topic, I am glad you brought it up.
I’ll just sign as,
Chubby and unwanted
(you know who this is)
Totally agree - besides God wants you to take care of His Temple - Your Body.
If you start to see things as your body is HIS temple and everything you put inside you are feeding GOD - would HE want it? We are commanded to take care of His Temple, we are commanded to Worship God the Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit - well if you accepted Jesus as your savior where do you thing the Holy Spirit lives - in your Heart. So, take care of it. I'm not saying to worship your human body - your shell - to be on an "ego trip" with yourself. Just take care of what you feed your Holy Spirit - Your heart - HE's there.
I'm not and haven't always been some skinny mini talking - I am 5' and once weighed about 170 - that is alot for a 5' person. I got down to 104 lbs after about 2 years. After several people telling me I looked sick - skinny - I ate and ate and quickly gained up to 128. Point is - weight is a struggle for me and I have to work at it - I have always look at what I'm eating and think about my Temple. ;o) It's not easy and I totally agree with your well versed blog!
Thanks!
There is so much truth out in your post and these comments. I would love it to rain men in my life - mainly because it doesn't. Yes, I dress up to look pretty in the hopes that men will pay me attention - I admit it makes me feel good!
It's not all about looks, as I think that the Lord is stopping this because he knows that I can't handle it well (history proves that I have realy boundary issues). But I also have to contend with guys in my church who are looking for the 'chemistry' - which basically means the lads mag stunner who turns them into dribbling wrecks. And I'm certainly not one of them!
I am still learning that I can love myself no matter what size or shape I am. And also that I need to improve my fitness for my own health, and not to attract a guy!
Sorry... I rambled. I feel my own post coming out of this one!
But well done to Kirstie. What a transformation!
The whole Kirstie Alley thing is typical of the diet industry. They are selling a product, not physical/emotional wellness.
Let's face it, money/profit is the diet industry's bottom line, not pounds lost, or the increased health that might be gained through weight loss.
This may sound overly simplistic, but I am convinced that until a person learns/chooses/decides to side with Christ against their own self loathing and self condemnation; they may never find genuine physical, emotional or spiritual health.
Whether I am thick or thin, no amount of attention from the opposite sex will ever be enough to fill the inner void that exists within me.
But Christ can.
What's more, I am never more beautiful than when I am seen through the eyes of love.
Which is exactly how Christ sees me; and more importantly how Christ is teaching me to see myself!
Rick:
What you've written about, I believe, has been a factor in human experience since Adam and Eve left the garden. Imagine how terrifying, empty and alone they must have felt -- and profoundly frightened -- to suddenly find themselves so irrevocably Outside, especially compared to how they'd felt before that. Human history, and indeed, so many of our moment-by-moment choices and interactions with others are propelled by the (often unconscious) drive to cope with and compensate for that terrified place within us.
Some people do it by trying to attract the opposite sex; others do it by being powerful or wealthy or "right" or well-educated or judgmental, or you name it. We all have our drug of choice to either numb ourselves, or try to survive in a world where we've had so many unsafe experiences from our earliest childhood.
Feeling fully whole and free in Christ is the only true antidote, of course, but it comes much more natural to our earthbound, fleshly natures to grasp at mechanisms that help us feel in control of the outcomes in our lives.
Frankly, I've never much cared about appearance, or "getting the glances," but that doesn't mean I haven't made an artform of trying to fill the empty, frightened places within. God pointed this out to me years ago, and I've learned something since then about just letting fear and pain walk alongside me, instead of not allowing it at any cost, while putting some of my old tricks back on the altar, again and again and again and again.
I read somewhere recently that "it takes a long time to become holy;" and none of us will be wholly whole until heaven.
ok, it's been a week since you posted this,but I found it(and its responses)so interesting that i wanted to comment...i don't have my source, sorry, but at a medical meeting last year, there was a study done that showed that women who lost mega pounds and then regained after several months ALL had histories of childhood sexual abuse....conclusion...these women perceived it to be unsafe to be attractive. A couple of the comments talked about being sexually inappropriate...or having trouble with boundaries...and I want to go out on a limb here---in cases where my patients are engaging in high risk sexual behaviors(or even crossing boundaries) they often have histories of abuse--it is a psych phenomenon of testing the boundaries, so to speak, hoping to pass each test...it can be disastrous if they have not come forward with this past history and come to understand that the abuse was NOT their fault...they can re-shape their self image...with help.OK, pretty intense after the whole Kirstie ad,,,sorry....
patti
Hi, I am a first time blogger and I wanted to respond...I loved what someone posted about choosing to side w/Christ against their own self loathing. I had a dear friend/mentor tell me thatI had to do that--basically that I had to "get over it" and choose to love and accept myself, warts and all. It's my pride that doesn't want to do that and gets in the way of relationships w/people and God. I look everywhere but to Jesus for a sense of self-worth because I know he will not lie to me about myself, and pride can't last long in front of him.
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