Men Step Up

[Conservativation]

This is it in a nustshell. On the last pages she even says as much that our poor men are bombarded with images everyday and they have it oh so hard and we should support them because they work long hours and have stressful jobs and it makes them weak blah blah blah....
Maybe, just maybe if we stop coddling men and justifying thier weaknesses they would step up.

How about SIN, stop coddling SIN. Men are not being coddled on something. Its sad that this offends you...truly sad.
Someone comes to you for help about something, lets say, and they lay out, oh.....lets see......
Here's a good one

Woman says "I just cant have sex with my husband....we hadd sex for years and it was great but lately things that happened to me in childhood are flooding back, and I cannot do it"

So.....coddle her, or tell her to step up?


Here's another.....someone comes with an addiction to alcohol. They say they grew up with alcoholic parents, started drinking as a teen, and are addicted.
So, tell them all that background is just justification, dont bring that up again as its justifying their sin....just step up and stop it


Or, morbidly obese person says they want to lose weight, they are ruled by their appetite, and they are under tremendous stress, and they are anaturally stressed person......so......is the appetite and stress to be said "SHUT UP ABOUT THAT STUFF!!!!!!!!!!! we dont need to know your excuses you weak moron, it isnt helpful that you justify your sin you idiot, you and your kind just need to shut up and step up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"



OR.....how about what we ACTUALLY DO (except of course for those horrible men because things of a sexual nature so offend women we cannot utter them)...what we DO, is ask questions......HEY, heres a new idea especially for women-----------> uh, try to EMPATHIZE???? Are women not the queens of empathy?
Well yes but, er, but, not , no way about this sex stuff, we CANNOT empathize with a weakness in our men friends....or actually well yes we can, just not THIS weakness, because it presses our angry buttons and we cant seem to separate background and explanations of weaknesses for excuses no matter how simply its stated, indeed we REFUSE to separate background info, we REFUSE to empathize, because it makes us FEEL like they are getting away with something.


sheesh its the most uncharitable attitude Ive seen in a long time.

 

[Lyndie]

Thank you for restoring my faith that it is possible for a female to have basic reading comprehension skills.

Thank you for letting us know that you think women are illiterate. This tells us a whole lot about how you see women.

 

[Conservativation]

The book may not have the word 'normal' in there. However, anyone can see that with the survey and all the comments from the men and the writer herself, that it is a 'normal behavior' for men.
The word normal isn't there, but it is implied. Did God create me to be an alcoholic?????

You are skipping a step Lyndie.
Its irrational what you all are doing. And its WRONG.

The alcoholic has a WEAKNESS. Talking about the WEAKNESS is NOT saying the alcoholic was created TO BE DRINKING and therefore is excused.

You skip from weakness to action in your analysis, and utterly fail to see that a weakness and an action are TOTALLY DIFFERENT THINGS.

 

[Conservativation]

Thank you for letting us know that you think women are illiterate. This tells us a whole lot about how you see women.

Women are not illiterate.....but, women seem to have a HUGE problem with inference and between the lines things you make up, because of some emotional button one issue pushes.

That woman read the words on the page....ONLY the words on the page.

YOU ARE inferring, THEN ranting against your inferred meaning.

Its maddening, unfair, wrong, and dishonest. But you will hang to it for dear life because its one, maybe the "best" one, of several misconceptions that allow some women's moral superiority complex.

Let ME do some inferring.....you'd like say oh no I know Im no better than men.....but them the corpus of these posts SUGGESTS (see my inferring?) that you DO see yourself morally better, because YOU dont go round justifying sin etc etc.

I can easily infer that. Lets talk about it then....since I inferred it, very reasonably...lets discuss women's smug superiority complex, and lets come against that. Lets hang it on womens neck and say STOP IT. I dont even know that you actually HAVE a weakness to USE to justify it....so this is REALLY bad. There isnt even a made up excuse.

 

[chaz345]

Thank you for letting us know that you think women are illiterate. This tells us a whole lot about how you see women.

No not illiterate overall, but on this one particular topic there does seem to be a HUGE problem in comprehending much of anything.

Consider this. IF your interpretation of what Feldman was saying was correct, how would the book have become as widely sold as it is? How would something so obviously counter to the Bible have exploded in popularity? And most importantly since the huge majority of Christian (or any) relationship book purchases are either done by or driven by women, how would something that "so clearly" justifies bad behavior by men have become so popular?

 

[mkgal1]

The book may not have the word 'normal' in there. However, anyone can see that with the survey and all the comments from the men and the writer herself, that it is a 'normal behavior' for men.
The word normal isn't there, but it is implied. Did God create me to be an alcoholic?????

That is what I was thinking about.....when she states that "God did create him like this. And He said His creation was good."
That just seems to be saying that any struggle someone battles with is God-created....like, alchoholism.

One person can take a few drinks and stop......the next person...no matter how badly they want to....cannot seem to stop at a few drinks. What is a non-issue to one person....is an internal battle with the next. We call THAT a disease. We don't accept that as God-created.

Looking and noticing ISN'T a problem, IMO. Having that register in the mind as "great body"...isn't a problem. It is when it is stated in a book (and accepted as "God-created"...that a married man will go down an aisle of Home Depot to catch another glimpse....or have trouble keeping his mind off the thought that she is somewhere in the store....that I have a problem with. I don't see that as "God-created" That is a tendency for idolatry...that is no different than us, as Christians, to have one foot in our relationship with God....and one foot in sin. I don't believe HE created any of us THAT way. The Bible even tells us...."we cannot serve two masters...we will love one and hate the other."

 

[JanniGirl]

Just because something is popular doesn't make it Biblical. Barking up the wrong tree with that one, Chaz.

 

[JanniGirl]

I do wish that men on this board actually embraced being "real men" that's "real men of character". Then we'd be having a REAL discussion rather than "if only women were more understanding, everything would be ok." Sounds like a whining child, doesn't it?

 

[mkgal1]

You are skipping a step Lyndie.
Its irrational what you all are doing. And its WRONG.

The alcoholic has a WEAKNESS. Talking about the WEAKNESS is NOT saying the alcoholic was created TO BE DRINKING and therefore is excused.

You skip from weakness to action in your analysis, and utterly fail to see that a weakness and an action are TOTALLY DIFFERENT THINGS.

I could be wrong...but, I believe that is Lyndie's point...that this tendency (to go down aisle's to get another glimpse....or to have trouble focusing on a presentation given by an attractive female) is more of a weakness...not something that is God-created.

The book is doing more than just "talking about a weakness"....it is calling the "weakness"..."God-created"...and going further to blur the lines, and says "and He said all creation was good".


Obviously God created men to find women attractive...and likewise....women find men attractive--that IS God-created....but, moving that into the area of being mentally distracted because of it....that...IMO...is a weakness. That is no different than gluttony...alchoholism.....OCD....etc.

It just confuses the issue to call it "God-created".

 

[chaz345]

I do wish that men on this board actually embraced being "real men" that's "real men of character". Then we'd be having a REAL discussion rather than "if only women were more understanding, everything would be ok." Sounds like a whining child, doesn't it?

Character involves not assuming the worst about an entire group based on your experiences with one or a few members of that group. Something you have ZERO room to lecture others on.

We could have a real discussion if some people could comprehend that there can be, and in fact usually is, a difference between what the speaker/author means and what the listener/reader hears.

 

[chaz345]

I could be wrong...but, I believe that is Lyndie's point...that this tendency (to go down aisle's to get another glimpse....or to have trouble focusing on a presentation given by an attractive female) is more of a weakness...not something that is God-created.

The book is doing more than just "talking about a weakness"....it is calling the "weakness"..."God-created"...and going further to blur the lines, and says "and He said all creation was good".


Obviously God created men to find women attractive...and likewise....women find men attractive--that IS God-created....but, moving that into the area of being mentally distracted because of it....that...IMO...is a weakness. That is no different than gluttony...alchoholism.....OCD....etc.

It just confuses the issue to call it "God-created".

But it doesn't say that the tendency to become distracted or to try to get another glimpse is good. It just doesn't. It talks about how the men admitting that they do that feel like they need to fight the urge to do so.

 

[Lyndie]

Here's a situation I'd like the guy's opinion on-
I went to my former pastor and his wife and told them I was having trouble in my marriage. My husband wasn't providing, wasn't talking, and turning all the issues around and making them my fault. You know what they told me? If I respected him more, gave him more sex and stopped expecting things from him, my marriage would be okay because that's the way men are. So we want our men to step up, however we should not expect things from them...that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

 

[Lyndie]

But it doesn't say that the tendency to become distracted or to try to get another glimpse is good. It just doesn't. It talks about how the men admitting that they do that feel like they need to fight the urge to do so.

But nowhere did I find anyone saying men shouldn't do that either.

 

[Robinsegg]

The book may not have the word 'normal' in there. However, anyone can see that with the survey and all the comments from the men and the writer herself, that it is a 'normal behavior' for men.
The word normal isn't there, but it is implied. Did God create me to be an alcoholic?????

Normal = Sin
That's the way we are born.
Thus, it is normal & natural to sin.
It is only through the power of Christ that we can overcome sin.
Whether that sin is harming the body (gluttony, self-harm, tobacco, etc), lust, hatred, lying, disrespect of parents, idols, coveting, or stealing doesn't matter . . . it's still sin (James 2:10).
Each Christian should be looking to the Christians in their "circle of influence" both for encouragement and to encourage in fighting temptation to sin. We shouldn't be excusing it, but we should be helping each other to identify it and fight it.

Back to the original topic: God created men as the head of the family for a reason. Men, by and large, *do* need to "step up" and lead their families and lead the church. Women, by and large, need to be willing to take "helpmeet" positions and encourage their men in their attempts to "step up".

Rachel

 

[mkgal1]

But it doesn't say that the tendency to become distracted or to try to get another glimpse is good. It just doesn't. It talks about how the men admitting that they do that feel like they need to fight the urge to do so.

Straight from the book:

• “If I’m not careful, a few minutes later I might be
wondering what she’s like in bed.”​

If you had been with me, listening to those men, what would you be thinking? I confess that their answers both amazed and dismayed me. Yet as I heard men I trusted reveal similar reactions over and over, I realized that this must be normal.​

Although I’d always heard that men are visual, I had never really understood what that actually
meant. I had been totally oblivious.​

WHAT “MEN ARE VISUAL” MEANS​

Here’s the insight I stumbled on by accident, which has radically reshaped my understanding of men:​

Even happily married men are instinctively pulled to visually “consume” attractive women, and these

images can be just as alluring whether they are live or recollected.​

Two areas of this “men are visual” thing surfaced that I, at least, didn’t really get before:​

• First, a woman with a great body is an “eye magnet” that is incredibly difficult to avoid, and even if a man forces himself not to look, he is acutely aware of her presence.​

• Second, even when no such eye magnet is present, each man has a “mental Rolodex” of stored images
that can intrude into his thoughts without warning or can be called up at will.​

*I hope I didn't violate any CW rules by posting all that.​

I agree with everything...up to the point of "or can be called up at will"...then, she ends that chapter with the quote about "God did create him like this. And He said His creation was good." ​

To me....including the "or can be called up at will" along with all of this blurs the lines. It seems to be saying that "calling up at will" is God-created and okay since it is included in the definition of what being visual is and that man was created by God to be visual---thus...he was created to bring these images up at will. I don't believe that...THAT is what I have an issue with. She doesn't clearly define where the line is...although she does speak about "rejecting the images"...she also simultaneously includes "bringing them up at will". It is a contradiction, IMO. Or...at minimum....a confusing message. ​

 

[chaz345]

Here's a situation I'd like the guy's opinion on-
I went to my former pastor and his wife and told them I was having trouble in my marriage. My husband wasn't providing, wasn't talking, and turning all the issues around and making them my fault. You know what they told me? If I respected him more, gave him more sex and stopped expecting things from him, my marriage would be okay because that's the way men are. So we want our men to step up, however we should not expect things from them...that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

If that was the ONLY advice that they input into the situation then it was bad advice. If,it were combined with admonshment to him that he needs to do better in those areas, then it would be an entirely different matter though.

 

[chaz345]

But nowhere did I find anyone saying men shouldn't do that either.

You missed where the men making those admissions felt the need to fight those urges?

 

[chaz345]

Straight from the book:

• “If I’m not careful, a few minutes later I might be
wondering what she’s like in bed.”​

If you had been with me, listening to those men, what would you be thinking? I confess that their answers both amazed and dismayed me. Yet as I heard men I trusted reveal similar reactions over and over, I realized that this must be normal.​

Although I’d always heard that men are visual, I had never really understood what that actually ​

meant. I had been totally oblivious.​

WHAT “MEN ARE VISUAL” MEANS

Here’s the insight I stumbled on by accident, which has

radically reshaped my understanding of men:​

Even happily married men are instinctively pulled

to visually “consume” attractive women, and these

images can be just as alluring whether they are live

or recollected.​

​

​

​

Two areas of this “men are visual” thing surfaced that I,

at least, didn’t really get before:​

​

​

• First, a woman with a great body is an “eye magnet”

that is incredibly difficult to avoid, and even if a ​

​

man forces himself not to look, he is acutely aware ​

of her presence.​

• Second, even when no such eye magnet is present, each man has a “mental Rolodex” of stored images

that can intrude into his thoughts without warning or can be called up at will.​

​

​

*I hope I didn't violate any CW rules by posting all that.​

I agree with everything...up to the point of "or can be called up at will"...then, she ends that chapter with the quote about "God did create him like this. And He said His creation was good." ​

To me....including the "or can be called up at will" along with all of this blurs the lines. It seems to be saying that "calling up at will" is God-created and okay since it is included in the definition of what being visual is and that man was created by God to be visual---thus...he was created to bring these images up at will. I don't believe that...THAT is what I have an issue with. She doesn't clearly define where the line is...although she does speak about "rejecting the images"...she also simultaneously includes "bringing them up at will". It is a contradiction, IMO. Or...at minimum....a confusing message. ​

One question.

By definition does normal mean good and acceptable?

 

[Lyndie]

Again, nowhere does it say that urge is WRONG! Is the urge to kill someone wrong? Is the urge to have an affair wrong? YES!!! If we want our me to step up and become Christlike, how about asking God to take that urge from you instead of say "I'm made that way"????

 

[chaz345]

Back to the original topic: God created men as the head of the family for a reason. Men, by and large, *do* need to "step up" and lead their families and lead the church. Women, by and large, need to be willing to take "helpmeet" positions and encourage their men in their attempts to "step up".

Rachel

EXACTLY. Now I know by agreeing with that I'm likely to get accused of blaming women for men's failures. So be it. Not the first time, won't be the last.

A problem is that many men are choosing to not "step up". That choice is 100% their responsibility. See, 100% their own responsibility so I'm not blaming anyone else. But as I've said before, the efforts of the church in this area for the last 30 or more years have basically amounted to just repeatedly saying "men step up". Nothing wrong with that message. It's true, it does need to happen. But 30 or more years of saying it over and over is having little to no effect. Maybe, just maybe it's time to try something else. Not instead of, but in addition to the men step up message.