Wild Thing

From women exposing themselves for a camera crew on a beach in Florida, to cardio strip tease classes in Los Angeles, to the infamous Manhattan Cake Parties, girls have gone wild!  All the things that were once reviled as shameful – Playboy, strippers, wet T-shirt contests, and a porn aesthetic – are now embraced by young women as symbols of personal empowerment and sexual liberation. Videographer Joe Francis has built a multimillion dollar empire on the backs (or I should say breasts) of college-aged women who are willing to go wild on camera for the sake of a dare and a T-Shirt. His multimedia Girls Gone Wild venture has become a household name and a distinguishing phenomenon of popular culture.

But as shocking as their behavior is, the phenomenon of girls going wild isn’t really new. A generation ago, a British rock band called The Troggs, paid tribute to the groovy, peacenik, hippy-beaded, flower-powered, grass-smoking, love-making Girl-Gone-Wild of that era, with what Rolling Stone Magazine ranked as one of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time: “Wild Thing.”  The fortuitous invention of the birth control pill ensured that she could be a Wild Thing and hook up in the back of a Volkswagen without worrying about the usual risks of pregnancy.

The Girl-Gone-Wild of the twenties was the flapper.  She smoked, drank, danced, and had a giddy, risqué attitude. She cut her hair short, wore make-up, and went to petting parties.  The “Gibson Girl” was the Girl-Gone-Wild at the turn of the 19^th century. She was the “bad girl” who crossed boundaries of propriety and wore clothing that was unencumbered by bustles, layers, or corsets. She loosely piled her hair on top of her head and let a couple tendrils droop down seductively. Her loose clothing and hair signified a “loosened-up” sexual standard. And let’s not forget the Girl-Gone-Wild of the first century, who spent days getting her hair woven into intricate beaded creations that would rival the outrageous doo’s seen on the models on the runway in Paris. (Maybe she was trying to catch the guy in her hair like a fly in a web.)

So does that mean that every woman who adopts the latest fashion is a Girl-Gone-Wild? And if we could set up a time-travel machine and transport a Girl-Gone-Wild from the past into our era, would she cease to be a Wild Thing because she isn’t baring her breasts on video? Is a woman’s “wildness” simply determined by the extent to which she is a fashion diva? Or the extent to which she pushes the boundaries on what’s considered culturally acceptable?  Although external appearance and sexual behavior certainly play a part in determining if a particular woman has or hasn’t gone wild, the Bible teaches that there’s a whole lot more involved than that. What’s more, it teaches that Girl-Gone-Wild behavior isn’t restricted to young, single women. A woman can be a Girl-Gone-Wild at any stage of life.

It’s easy for us to distance ourselves from the bawdy college-aged women who are sexting, or exposing themselves for cameras, or mud wrestling in a bar like pigs in a pen, or necking with other girls to turn on the guys, or adopting a Sex and the City multi-partner lifestyle. It’s easy to shake our heads, look down our noses and self-righteously condemn them as Wild Things. It’s easy to convince ourselves that if we don’t happen to be young, or single, and if we’re not risqué, and if we stay a couple steps behind the cutting edge of fashion and propriety, that the Girl-Gone-Wild label couldn’t possibly apply to us.

But the truth of the matter is that it’s not just over-the-edge, single, college-aged girls who qualify as Wild Things. According to Scripture, there is a measure of Girl-Gone-Wildness in all of us. I’ll never forget the wrinkled, grey-haired 70-year old women sporting a well-worn wedding ring, who tottered up to me after a workshop with tears streaming down her face: “I came to your workshop to get some ideas about how to help my granddaughter, ” she said, “But I see now that it’s ME who is a Girl-Gone-Wild.”

The cautionary tale recorded in Proverbs chapter seven paints a picture of a typical Girl-Gone-Wild.  For the purpose of the narrative, the author depicts her as a young, married woman – an ordinary, average, “typical” Jane Doe you could meet at the church down the street. But she could be any woman: young, old, single, married, divorced, widow, mother, childless, teenager, grandma….whatever. The point of the story isn’t her age or marital status. It’s about the “wild” characteristics she displays. As you’ll soon see, these characteristics could show up in a woman of any age, and of any marital status, at any stage of life.

“Wild” is what we are whenever we disregard God, and rely instead, on the world’s advice, or on what seems right in our own eyes. This was the mistake of Eve, the first Girl-Gone-Wild, who went with her own gut instinct instead of trusting and obeying the Lord. She fell for Satan’s deceitful sales pitch (Genesis 3:1-5). The Evil One convinced her that:

• God’s ways are too restrictive. (“Did God actually say?”)
• She wouldn’t suffer any negative consequences by detouring from God’s plan. (“You will surely not die!”)
• She shouldn’t let herself be denied. (“When you eat your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God!”)

Eve fell into the trap of thinking that she had the right to judge the merits of the forbidden fruit for herself, rather than simply take God’s word for it. From her perspective, the fruit looked attractive (“a delight to the eyes“), harmless (“good for food“), and incredibly promising (“desired to make one wise“). So she took a bite. How many countless times has the Evil One used the same ploy? How many times have women fallen into the trap of viewing sin as attractive, harmless, and even promising? How many times have you?

Eve couldn’t have begun to envision the ugly, painful, deadly consequences of her choice – in her own life, in her relationship with God, in her relationship with her husband, in her children, and grandchildren, and in every human being that would ever live. She bit because Satan convinced her that the fruit would be sweet. But tragically, from that day on, the taste of bitter wormwood dominated her life.

We are all Eve’s daughters. All of us are born with Girl-Gone-Wild tendencies. Most of us have experienced bitterness, pain and even death in our relationships. That’s the bad news. The good news is that we have something infinitely more precious than Eve had. Because of the redeeming sacrifice of Christ Jesus on the cross, those who put their faith in Him get the gift of God’s indwelling Holy Spirit, and therefore, a supernatural capacity to discern and follow the Way of Wisdom. God’s grace is bigger than all our sin. The power of Jesus Christ can transform even the most messed-up and broken Wild Thing into a Girl-Gone-Wise.

© 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.