Mr. Right When You Need Him is a real doll! He’s handsome, considerate, and knows just the right thing to say. He comes with eight interchangeable voice balloons that say such sweet nothings as “May I take you shoe shopping? And “As always, you’re right.” Three voice balloons are blank so that you can get Mr. Right to say exactly what you want him to say.

The owner’s manual instructs single women that they are not alone.

“There are 43 million of you single gals out there and all 43 million of you have one thing in common: You’re all not satisfied with the man/men in your lives.”

Like Betty Boop, this novelty item I picked up in a bookstore last week is obviously intended to be funny. But it illustrates an interesting tension that women are feeling in their relationships these days. Women have bought into the idea that a woman can shape a man into who she wants him to be by calling the shots in the relationship. She will be happy when she finds a man that will do what she wants him to do.

So she initiates, pursues, manipulates, nags, demands and cajoles her man into being the type of man she thinks she wants him to be. Like the Wild Thing of Proverbs 7, she is loud, sassy, brazen, wily and manipulative. She tries to control him, but the results are far from satisfactory. She’s not satisfied with the man in her life. She just can’t seem to make the relationship work.

The owner’s manual promises that “Mr. Right When You Need Him” can solve that problem. He will be a woman’s consistent supporter in an inconsistent world, her number-one protector, and her first and foremost fan. And that is the desire of a woman’s heart, isn’t it? To be consistently and faithfully loved, protected, and cherished? The reason so many women are disappointed, is that no man on the face of this earth can satisfy the deep desires of their hearts – neither the silly cardboard “Mr. Right When You Need Him,” nor a flesh-and-blood man who appears to match the cultural ideal. The more a woman tries to make a man satisfy her deep desires, the more disappointed she will be.

The yearning to be fully loved, protected, and cherished can only be satisfied in a relationship with Jesus Christ. You 43 million single gals out there need to know that Jesus is the answer to the deepest desire of your hearts. No other man can always be there for you – right when you need Him.

© Mary A. Kassian

One of the displayed novelty items that caught my eye was a small box called “The Betty Boop Man-Training Kit.” It contained a small collectible Gumby-type Betty Boop doll, about 2 inches tall, displayed behind a heart-shaped window.  Betty Boop’s kiss print was prominent on the front of the box.

There’s nothing unusual about the idea that scantily clad Betty would use her seductive charm and kisses to “train” a man. The classic Betty Boop, and women throughout history, have used that tact. But the other message on the box was startling. With capital letters and an exclamation mark, Betty Boop’s modern Man-Training Kit encouraged women to “WHIP HIM GOOD!” — The innocent looking big-eyed Betty Boop doll sported a formidable black whip in her hand for that very purpose.

The back of the box advises:

“Is your man behaving more like “Man’s Best Friend”? Teach your old dog new tricks with the help of a sexy, sweet, and sassy classic–Betty Boop! This kit includes a one-of-a-kind bendable Betty Boop figurine with whip in hand and a 32-page Betty-style man-training manual.”

The training manual is filled with all sorts of exhortations to the reader about what Mr. Handsome ought to be doing for her – things like stroking her ego, respecting her opinions, knowing her shoe size, serving her breakfast in bed, respecting animals (?!), sending her flowers, massaging her feet, ensuring that he doesn’t smell bad, taking her out, learning to cook, keeping an umbrella handy, opening doors for her.  The final piece of advice is for girls to forever remember that “no man is entitled to your ‘Boop oop a doop!’ He has to earn it!”

There’s no doubt that this “Man-Training Kit” is meant to be cute and funny, but it contains a number of subtle, disturbing, underlying messages:

1. Men are like animals.
2. Women have a right to have men serve them.
3. It’s up to a woman to “train” her man to behave properly.
4. A woman can control her man through sexuality and/or aggression.
5. A woman  can use a whip (punishment) to force her man to do what she wants.
6. A woman should use sex as a reward and/or punishment.

What is particularly disturbing is that if roles were reversed so it were Bobby instead of Betty Boop- if  Bobby were encouraged to “WHIP HER GOOD!; if Bobby called Betty his “old dog”; if Bobby had an attitude of entitlement and forcibly demanded that Betty serve and obey him; if Bobby had demands for Betty’s behavior without any parameters for his own  – we’d decry this novelty item as demeaning, abusive, oppressive, and horribly offensive. Bookstores wouldn’t carry it.

Modern-day women are being encouraged to become the very thing that the feminists of the sixties condemned. Betty Boop’s Man-Training Kit demonstrates that popular culture is cultivating a generation of women who feel superior, and are demeaning, abusive, oppressive, and horribly offensive toward men.

© Mary A. Kassian

Melissa Click, an assistant professor of communication who surveyed 4,000 Twilight fans, aged 11 to 70, at a fan convention in Dallas last summer, noted, “With teens, we actually found that they appreciated the messages of abstinence.” Click and her co-author’s research primarily address the reasons behind the teenage vampire craze. They discovered that many teen girls are attracted to the idea of love that goes beyond the physical. Click’s colleague, Jennifer Stevens Aubrey believes the series is a “backlash to the ‘hooking-up’ culture.”

Click and Aubrey plan to publish their findings next spring in a collaborative book, “Bitten by Twilight: Youth culture, media and the vampire franchise.” The media environment is saturated with teens in sexual relationships,” says Click, “[Twilight] does provide something different for girls. I’ve had girls say to me: I’m going to wait for my Edward.’ And they think that’s really cool.”

Take 18-year-old Twilight fan France-Renee Miron, for example. “Most boys now around our age, all they want is to get you in bed. They don’t care about the romance part,” said Miron, “In the book and in the film, (Edward) doesn’t want to have sex. [His love] is really different.”Miron’s friend, Valierie Lefebvre, chipped in that the book shows that relationships can develop and grow without unmarried couples being sexually active.

Click observed that many girls interviewed felt relieved that Bella and Edward had to control their sexual impulses. “They liked that it was the man putting brakes on sexual activity. For them it probably highlighted the development of the relationship – the romantic relationship – between the two, instead of the sexual relationship.”

Click and Aubrey’s findings match the conclusion of Mike Farrell, a partner at Toronto youth research firm Youthography. In a 2008 Canada-wide study, Youthography surveyed around 500 teen girls ages 14 to 18 about 50 different “values” from current events to sex. They’ve been tracking these values for the past 9 years. According to Youthography, only a quarter of young teenage girls are interested in sex, while more than half indicated that they were more interested in marriage and having children.

“There are some fundamental things that haven’t changed that much. And one of those, especially with girls, is the focus on a search for meaningful love that is hopeful, passionate, real,” says Farrell, “Despite an increasingly sexualized youth culture, the desire for romance among teenage girls has remained.”

I don’t recommend the Twilight movie. I’m not a fan of the messages it contains. But I find it interesting that pop culture is starting to take note that relationships built on illicit free sex are unfulfilling, and that sex ought to be the consummation rather than the forerunner of commitment.

(Reference:”Lack of sex attracts teens to Twilight” study by Laura Stone, Canwest News Service, Ottawa. Published in the Edmonton Journal, November 19, 2009)

© Mary A. Kassian

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Girl-Gone-Wild: Relationships Grow
Girl-Gone-Wise: Relationships Deteriorate

Girl-Gone-Wild: “For many a victim she laid low, and all her slain are a mighty throng.” Proverbs 7:26

Girl-Gone-Wise: “The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down.” Proverbs 14:1

“For many a victim she laid low, and all her slain are a mighty throng” is military language. Several commentators think the Sage used this description to bring to his son’s mind the familiar image of the Phoenician goddess, Astarte. Astarte is queen of the Morning Star, goddess of war-a wild and furious warrior who sadistically “plunges knee-deep in knights’ blood; hip deep in the gore of heroes.” She is also Queen of the Evening Star, goddess of sensuality and passion. She is beautiful, desirable, sexual, savage, and deadly. She’s a ruthless conqueror who leaves the battlefield strewn with corpses. Solomon hoped the allusion would help his son grasp the danger of associating with such a woman.

The seductress causes the downfall and destruction of many men. From all outward appearances, she’s just a beautiful woman looking for a friend. But in actuality, she’s a “man-slayer.” She uses men. She hurts them. She’s not a builder, she’s a destroyer. She tears her “victim” down and “lays him low.” The fact that she uses him to meet her own selfish ends, disregards that it will affect him negatively, and discards him when he no longer serves her purposes demonstrates contempt and a severe lack of respect.

Have you noticed how prevalent disrespect toward men has become? In the sixties, women complained that men victimized and disrespected them. Now the tables have turned. Our sons, husbands, fathers, and men-friends are subjected to malicious jokes and attitudes that wouldn’t be tolerated toward any other group. Women portray them as selfish, lazy, inconsiderate, hormone-crazed buffoons. They gleefully slander and tear them down simply because they are male. Women today are like the Phoenician goddess. One moment, they entice men with their beauty and sexual prowess, and the next, they pull out their swords and slice them down.

Male-bashing, the stereotyping and portrayal of men as brutal, stupid, or otherwise objectionable, is commonplace. In Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture, professors Katherine Young and Paul Nathanson from McGill University warn that male-bashing is so pervasive in movies, television, comic strips, and even greeting cards, it could have “disastrous consequences” for the well-being of the next generation.

Christians are not innocent of this sin. I am astonished when I see the haughtiness and contempt with which Christian women treat men. I feel grieved when I hear them tell jokes, mock, deride, put down, and criticize their male colleagues, friends, boyfriends, and husbands. I wonder how they can have the audacity to disrespect and hurt those whom God has created. Sadly, the church is filled with man-slayers. Instead of building men up, we attack, destroy, and bring them down. We use the sword of our tongues to lay them low. Disrespect is one of the main reasons relationships break down. Can you imagine how much longer they’d last if we treated our husbands and friends with respect and didn’t lash out to wound them? If, instead of criticizing, complaining, whining, and demanding that they live up to their responsibilities, we took care to ensure that we lived up to ours?

The following list summarizes some of the Bible’s directives on how we ought to regard and respect others. They represent the nuts-and-bolts on what God requires of us in our relationships with one another:

• “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:3-5)
• “Love builds up.” (1 Corinthians 8:1)
• “Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.” (Romans 15:2)
• “Encourage one another and build one another up.” (1 Thessalonians 5:11)
• “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” (Ephesians 4:29)
• “See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another.” (1 Thessalonians 5:15)
• “Do not grumble against one another.” (James 5:9)
• “Bear one another’s burdens.” (Galatians 6:2)
• “With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love.” (Ephesians 4:2)
• “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:32)
• “Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” (Colossians 3:13)
• “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” (John 13:34)
• “Let all things be done for building up.” (1 Corinthians 14:26)

The thing about these commands is that they have no qualifiers. They’re not dependent on how our partner behaves. They don’t say, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth if no corrupting talk comes out of his.” Or “Build him up if he builds you up.” Or “Be kind and tenderhearted, forgiving him if he is kind and tenderhearted, forgiving you.” God doesn’t give us the option of respecting only those who are respectable. He commands: “Honor everyone!” (1 Peter 2:17). The reasons most relationships break down is that the parties spend more time pointing fingers at how the other person is failing to be honorable, rather than making sure that they themselves are.

It breaks my heart when I see wives “man-slaying” their husbands-cutting them down instead of building them up. Women, don’t ever forget that when you hurt your husband, you hurt yourself. “The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down” (Proverbs 14:1). A Girl-Gone-Wise does not tear down. She is a builder and not a destroyer. She demonstrates respect.

© Mary A. Kassian

This is a pre-publication excerpt from “Girls Gone Wise in a World gone Wild,” © Mary A. Kassian to be published by Moody Publishers in 2010. All rights reserved. You are welcome to link to this post, but please do not copy and/or reproduce this copyrighted material without express written permission of Moody Publishing.

I have to hold myself back every time a white-haired grandma leans in to her pig-tailed granddaughter and teasingly asks her, “So, do you have a boyfriend?” This, usually said with a chuckle and a batting of the eyes, is generally meant to be just silly conversation, but I know too much to consider it to be cute. It is dangerous.  Being in a dating relationship for six months or longer is a significant risk factor for early teen sexual activity. Can you see why it might not be “cute” for our 8-12 year olds to be boy crazy or to have multiple boyfriends while they are still in the fourth grade? If she develops the pattern of “needing” a guy when she is eight or nine, she’s going to be in many six-month relationships in her early teen years. That’s not wise. Let’s help her stay off the boy crazy train.

I have two sixteen-year-old girls who have not only stayed off of it, but have managed to pull a few friends off. How do you navigate through boy craziness? There are three critical things you must do to prepare your princess to be successful in her quest for purity. First, you’ll need to have the big sex talk. Don’t think for a minute that it’s too early. Experts agree that sexual value formation begins when a child is between the ages of 8-10. A healthy, age-appropriate conversation during those years is critical. Second, you need to begin to establish your family philosophy on dating and begin to explain it to your child in stages. This will begin with the first stage of teaching her to related to boys as friends, not boyfriends in fourth grade! Finally, mom, it’s time to start dreaming of her future. If you take the time now to establish a dream of purity and a white wedding dress in her heart, it will know what to aim for and will be less likely to settle for anything less.

The book of Proverbs describes a virtuous woman. It says that she does her husband good “all the days of her life.” I think that includes when she’s seven!