BARBARA'S

It is vitally important to talk about healthy sexuality, and how to achieve it. But we must also be alert to dangers, warn our young people about these dangers, and help them to avoid them.

On Valentine’s Day — a day to celebrate friendship and love — a movie based on the Fifty Shades trilogy will begin showing in movie theaters around the world. In this movie, a college girl named Ana enters into a relationship with Chris, an ambitious and accomplished, but also very troubled, man. Because she is attracted to him, she consents to a sexual relationship, on his terms; she agrees to being humiliated and abused. Fifty Shades of Grey says this relationship is okay, because Ana has “consented” and because it’s not really Chris’ fault. He’s been traumatized, abandoned, and abused. What he does to Ana is just his way of dealing with his issues. But deep down he’s a good person, and he also does nice things for her. Eventually Ana helps him “to get rid of his demons.” So we can’t really say the relationship is “wrong”; there are lots of grey areas.

The book series on which the film is based has been wildly popular. It has broken sales records, selling tens of millions of copies. The three books held the top three spots on bestseller lists for much of 2012. They have been published in nearly forty countries. The launch trailer for the film is now the most watched trailer, with 100 million views and counting.

With so many people having read the books and watched the trailer, the film will also be wildly popular. Even if they haven’t read the books and don’t see the movie, your teens will hear about it and will absorb its toxic message. “Excluding hard pornography, says Dr. Miriam Grossman, an American child and adolescent psychologist, “I believe Hollywood has never produced a film so hazardous to young women.”

Why so “toxic”? Why so “hazardous”? Isn’t this a rather extreme judgment? Consider the following messages viewers will receive from Fifty Shades of Grey:

1. There is never a clear line between right and wrong.
You can never say that anything is clearly right or wrong. There are always grey areas.

2. Women want to be controlled and intimidated; pain and humiliation are erotic.
This message can be confusing for young women. “Is this what I should be wanting? Is this normal? What is normal?” It is also confusing for young men, as we can see from one young man’s letter to Dr. Grossman about the reactions of many girls to the book on which the movie is based:

Our girlfriends are almost obsessed with it, so we want to know, what’s the big deal? Its draw is the sexual fantasy. But what’s the fantasy? Being completely controlled and intimidated by a man who ties her up and degrades her? What? That’s what a woman dreams of? That’s what sold 100 million copies? My whole life I was taught to be sensitive, caring, and respectful. I mean, women always insist that’s what they want in a man. I’m totally shocked and confused.

3. Emotional and physical abuse are sexually arousing for both genders.
Pornography in teen relationships is normalized in Fifty Shades of Grey, and disturbed behavior is glamorized.

4.A girl can change an abusive person.

What should you do?

Discuss Fifty Shades with your young people. This can be awkward. Difficult. You don’t really want to talk about these things. You don’t want them to even know that such things happen. But they already know.

Whatever your relationship with young people, you need to be aware of the dangers to your teens. You need to address the dangers and help your teens to avoid them. Sexual intimacy is a sensitive subject, best addressed by parents. Talk with your sons and daughters. As a teacher or counselor, you should be ready to pick up any reference to the movie or any of its themes, and initiate discussion. As a pastor or youth leader, you should take the opportunity to talk about healthy attitudes to male-female relationships, dating, and romance. Teens need your wisdom and guidance.

Whatever your relationship to teens, you can find help for these discussions in Dr. Grossman’s A Parent’s Survival Guide to Fifty Shades of Grey. You need to help your teens understand

. . . that portraying women as objects to be used for sexual gratification is wrong. Period. Help them to distinguish between truth and lies. Help them to search Scripture for guidance on friendship and romance.

. . . what is normal in relationships and what is not. With a young woman’s safety at risk, there’s no room for confusion or doubt. “You want your daughter to be one hundred per cent certain: an intimate relationship that includes violence, consensual or not, is emotionally disturbed,” says Dr. Grossman, “It’s sick.” You want your young men to know that abusing a young woman is never okay, under any circumstances. An emotionally healthy woman wants a man with determination, ambition, and strength. She wants to be cherished, not controlled and abused.

. . . that they should run from an abusive relationship, not remain in it with the hope of changing the other person. We know that with God all things are possible, and that he can transform even the worst of individuals. But that doesn’t always happen. Choose a romantic partner on the basis of what he or she is now.

A pre-teen girl came home from school one day after a particularly graphic sex education class and said to her mother, “I wish I hadn’t heard all that.” Your teens can decide not to watch Fifty Shades of Grey. It will be harder for them to avoid seeing the trailer, and well nigh impossible to avoid hearing the messages. You need to help them recognize and flatly reject these dangerous ideas. Tell them that “part of growing up is recognizing what they don’t want to know, then turning and staying away from it” (Dr. Grossman).