A lot of people might say there isn't a point in talking about, but considering like 97% or more of men will have done it at some point in their lives, and I believe 80%+ of women will have as well, it's a rather relevant topic. Not to mention that if a person tries to abruptly get rid of the habit when they are used to it, and let's say they are dating as well, it could cause them to do things with their date that they wouldn't have otherwise and would later regret. And not everyone agrees with you that it's sinful. The devil loves keeping people in ignorance. If he can keep them from talking, he can keep them from getting valuable info.
And people who might be affected by it don't have to read the threads. Also, even talking about chocolate could affect someone in a negative way. We can't just give up talking altogether because a random person here or there might have a negative reaction to it. What happens if our talking could help a ton more people than the minor amount it hurt? Overall, we would have saved a lot of people possible pain and far worse sins.
First off, the topic isn't mentioned in the Bible, so therefore no one can point to a verse and say "There, the Bible says this or that." That said, it's a highly debated topic among Christians.
My personal viewpoint is that there are a lot of more important issues to be concerned about than the M issue, and we as a group of people should focus more of our time on those other issues. As long as a person is responsible with their body and understands why they do it and what to do with those kind of feelings when they come up, then I think that is what is important. The M word can be a very useful tool for those times that a person sees too many tv or internet ads, or watches a scene in a movie that they were expecting to see, or whatever. M'ing also releases endorphins and oxytocin in the brain which helps a person to feel better and have stress relieved. While I wish there were a lot more things in the world to help with stress relief (which I am helping to work on), there currently aren't, and so people often turn to things worse than M'ing, including alcohol, drugs, and sex. And so M'ing can keep people from committing a lot more serious actions. And yes, M'ing can be done without lusting. Perhaps in a perfect world it wouldn't be thought about or needed, (though even this might be debated some), but this world is far from perfect and the action can have a lot of value. It could kind of be thought of like automobiles- they have a horrible effect on the environment (global warming), but this is the best we have right now, so until society changes so that we have something better, we have to manage with the resources we have.
Perhaps the reason some people are affected the way they are when these type of discussions come up is because so many people avoid talking about the topic in the first place...
I don't think men are really that different from women. I think men and women are trained by society to be very different when they shouldn't be.
As for me, I'm sensitive (I keep other people's feelings in mind. I'm not necessarily easily offended though), I'm smart, and there are quite a few times during church services where I had tears start to well up.
So many guys are into sports, drinking, and sex because society has trained them to believe that that is what a "man" is about, which really is just a bunch of garbage.
What would I want women to know? Don't settle for a stereotypical man. If you do, you might just get shallow results. And perhaps research how to counteract society's push on little boys to act in the undesirable ways we see today, and work to change that negative impact from society so the next generation of boys doesn't have to grow up like that.
Some people don't want to deal with long distance relationship issues.
As for me, if I were looking for a relationship, distance would not be an issue. It's highly unlikely that the "perfect" one for a person is always going to poof right into the same town as them so that they can meet. I think people should be realistic, and God allowed us to have websites like this to help with that.
But hey, if certain people want to limit their options, they reap from that choice.
Temporarily, if not a better person to have a best friend was around, then yes. But typically one wants someone who is like them to be their best friend, and if we are Christians, then that would be less likely to be a homosexual.
But honestly, there are probably homosexuals who understand and love people (the way God wants us to) better than some Christians do. Some people who call themselves Christians are rather unpleasant folks, and do more damage to the Kingdom of God than some non-Christians do. So I would rather have a non-Christian as a friend who recognized God's ways even if he/she didn't realize that those ways were from God, than have a friend who claimed (or perhaps somehow was) a Christian but was very judgmental and made people's lives miserable.
Cutting off all of one's friends of the opposite sex isn't healthy; it's a sign of a lack of trust if the future spouse is trying to push it. We're called to be grown-ups, and while a lot of guys in the world don't act like grown-ups, it doesn't mean we get rid of something that's good simply because we assume something bad might happen.
Two- A lot of guys who call themselves Christians aren't Christians. Many guys are looking for sex, and they will also be willing to lie to you in order to get it. In my opinion, people who are dating shouldn't even be making out, because that's like "hey, we're being physically intimate...but we are only going so far." It's right on the border that encourages people to go further, and then you have women and sometimes even men wondering why the other person kept trying to go further.
Three- Calling every day is being legalistic. I don't think demands should be made here at all. Requests can be made, but if the person just isn't up to your standards, find someone else. I doubt you would like someone else trying to force you into doing stuff that you may not have the energy for or what to do; it's the same way with other people as well.
I don't expect to see magical transformations of your opinions. I know where you guys come from (you've been raised to believe nudity and sex go together). But I figure I will address some of the statements/points anyway, at least for the Biblical worth:
1. Priests' undergarments in Exodus 28:42 had no guaranteed literal worthwhileness to them. Priests were also told they had to wear various other items, and many of these were meant to be symbolic, and certainly had no bearing on the dress code of the rest of Israel.
2. Leviticus 18:6-18 has a direct counterpart/sister passage in Leviticus 20. It is clear by checking out Lev. 20 as well that the "uncovering the nakedness of" is referring to sexual intercourse, not simple nudity.
3. Habakkuk 2:15- getting someone else drunk to take advantage of them in any way is sinful. Doing to see them naked was probably just a lot more common of a use for that situation back then. Today Habakkuk may have mentioned getting ladies drunk to have sex with them. Nudity isn't the issue. And if people today were married in this situation, sex wouldn't even be the issue, it would have been the taking advantage of someone.
I'd also like to point out that God never gave a command that specifically forbid public/social nudity.
Too expensive clothing and too little clothing aren't opposites. God didn't come up with the idea of clothing for man, man clothed themselves first. And God also never said that Adam and Eve couldn't take their clothes off after he did that prophetic sign. The only thing the Bible does in that situation is tell the story of what happened in regards to nudity. It doesn't tell the Why. Too expensive clothing can happen because a person is insecure and wants self-value, or it could happen because they don't realize how badly someone else needs the money that they spend on clothing. Too little clothing doesn't necessary have a negative issue to it, as more money could be spent on others. But too little clothing could matter in issues of sunburn, in attempting to purposely try to get the sexual attention of others (but this can happen in "modest" clothing as well, with women purposely acting in a seductive way), in issues of purposely trying to hurt others to get revenge because they did something you didn't like, etc. But a good example and side commentary to this is that- I can go eat food to get myself fat, or I can go eat food to stay healthy. It isn't the food that is sinful, it is my choices that make something sinful. We all agree nudity (itself) isn't sinful, and many would agree that doctor's office visits that require nudity aren't sinful, nor is baby and possibly even toddlers being nude sinful. We differ in how much nudity we are willing to accept as acceptable. I simply choose to believe that God really is that big, and that he is calling us back to a level of holiness that we are entirely capable of living in, but that many are afraid to research into.
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As to pixy, imo, the amount of lusting people do is significantly influenced by the culture they grow up in. If you live in a society where women are treated as sex objects, it doesn't matter how conservatively they are dressed, the men will see the outline of a woman's body and lust anyway. Social nudity is partially about getting correctly re-adjusted concerning this and realizing that women's and men's bodies weren't created by God to be lusted after as sex objects, and that they weren't inherently designed to be so, nor do they naturally instill lust in a person. If the latter were the case, you could have no male doctor work on female patient when seeing certain body parts were involved, because they might try to rape them. But we know that this isn't the case. It isn't a special anointing God gives doctors, because some people are doctors only because they want the money. The reason doctors do fine is because they aren't in a sexual context as far as the nudity goes, and that same principle is what social nudity is about. If you talk to male doctors that deal with working in delivery (birthin babies), the vast majority will probably tell you they have days where the last thing they want to see when they go home is a woman's private parts. Why? Because it's such a non-sexual context, and they have to deal with helping women so much, that they would like to be able to deal with the rest of their life that doesn't relate to work while on off-hours. And many of those same doctors would probably tell you that seeing a woman's private parts doesn't phase them when it comes to the sexual department and getting aroused. Why? Because they are so used it. It doesn't mean their wives or girlfriends can't get them aroused; it's that their wives and girlfriends arouse them by giving them a seductive look or action, or simply saying "I'm in the mood." And this is the way it should be, because otherwise people would be living in a constant state of semi-arousal. And in a minor way, this is part of the "lust" issue that so many Christian guys deal with. They equate women's bodies (even clothed) with sexuality to a degree, and so they get aroused when around women that should only be getting regarded as artistically beautiful to begin with.
As well, your future hubby has seen a lot of clothed women. It doesn't mean he will find you less beautiful because he has seen other women's faces. In fact, the fact that he chose you after seeing so many faces seems to imply that he would be more likely to stick around, because he chose you out of all of them.
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And again, I want to make clear that I'm glad all of you are on the planet. While we may have some beliefs that are different, there is so much good we can accomplish together in the places that our beliefs do agree. Too many Christians cut off a person or entire groups of people from every possible act of good that could be accomplished simply because they don't agree with one or two beliefs about a person, and what they don't realize is that God has provided abilities in each person that are to be used for the good of all, even if the person doesn't live up in other areas. The fact that most of the people running society- automechanics, grocery store workers, etc- aren't Christians and yet bless us every day is a testament to who Christians should be working with to see the Kingdom of God come in all its various ways. And I'm glad to have brothers and sisters on this forum who are out there loving on people and making the world a better place.
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And one final note- I would have to say that even if I do occasionally get emotionally aroused a bit (as compared to physically aroused), this is a product of the culture that conditioned me to react that way when I see that kind of sight. But the only way out of it is to uncondition the lies they put in me, and this means that some arousal on occasion may be unavoidable in the process of having my mind re-trained to the proper balance. This same kind of training happens with people who are afraid of particular kinds of animals- they have to eventually come into contact with the animals (let's say, dogs) in order to realize that not all animals of that type are going to hurt them. This same kind of training could also apply to people who have been in abusive relationships in the past- in the end, they have to eventually get in a relationship and allow themselves to trust someone again in order to re-establish that good relationships can happen. The issue with nudity is that because the false sexual additions to it are so common in our society, people assume it's just a given truth. Kind of like how people often assume competition is a good thing (which it's not), but that is a different story (and please don't start a discussion on that here, feel free to message me if you want. I'll be happy to talk with you about it).
First off, I want to say that my belief in the acceptability of social nudity is not held above my walk with God. I'm active in reaching out and trying to bless people's lives, and if I have a friend who isn't comfortable with me being nude, I keep clothes on. Paul did eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols when he was around other believers who also knew that idols weren't real gods at all, because the meat belonged to God in reality and was still good for food. That said, nudists and those who enjoy clothes-free outings make up a large number of people in the world, and they need God just like everyone else. I didn't become a clothing-optionalist to witness to them, but I can impact them for God now when other Christians wouldn't really be able to reach them. I'm not saying I would do drugs to reach druggies, because that's immoral and has negative effects on one's body; but exposure to simple nudity (no intentional sexual reason for it happening; in person) hasn't been shown to have negative effects on people. (Note that most Christians here seem to assume that two people naturally open to physical attraction to one another are the ones that are getting nude around each other; but just like people wouldn't date just anyone, so also nudists and clothing-optionalists won't date or get involved with just anyone. There are a decent amount of Christians who have gone too far physically with someone else, but that typically starts with clothes on, which shows that it's a people issue, not a nudity issue). Being around someone of the opposite sex who is nude, even if one's body does become a little sexually aroused, can actually help, because when the person doesn't show any sexual or romantic interest back, it helps to reveal to a person that sexuality isn't seated in nudity, it's seated in a person's soul, and this allows a person to detach nudity from sexuality even more.
Imo, Jesus may not have done it because he wanted to reach as many people as he could, and clothes were simply a more efficient way of doing that, because people would be more willing to come up to him if he was wearing clothing. Second, who wouldn't want to wear clothes in winter? Clothes just make sense when it's cold. But I don't have Jesus' first problem, because there are a TON of people who are or would be okay with nudity, and some (like nudists) who may be only able to be reached by it. And Jesus didn't walk around in his glory all the time either, though he could have. So therefore Christ's choice of what he looked like was intentional.
Sexual arousal from stimulating the chest is irrelevant. Kissing a woman's neck can often be a huge turn on too, but it doesn't mean the neck is a sex organ that needs to be covered. Also, babies feed from their mother's chest. Are you saying that the female chest is naturally sexually aroused by all stimulation, and therefore babies are making their mothers hot and heavy when they feed?
Imo, I'm helping many more than I am being a stumbling block to. When guys realize that the female body isn't inherently as sexual as society has played it up as, it makes their friendships with females that much easier to deal with and safer. I don't advocate sitting around and enjoying porn, or going to strip joints for a show. I hope both those latter things get destroyed, because women shouldn't be treated like objects. Nudity isn't inherently sexual though; Americans have just seen too much nudity mixed with sexuality, and so they have become conditioned to think of the two as part of each other. And one could say that even the Bible is a stumbling block to some people, because they read a particular passage at the wrong time in their lives and they take it way out of hand and do something stupid because of what they read. Does it mean we should get rid of the Bible? No. People can stumble over just about everything; it doesn't mean we get rid of the truth because some people misinterpret it.
And I'm doing the Body of Christ a service. They are hypersexualized by American society, and they need to be brought back in line with what's true. Their hypersexualized minds are actually part of what cause so many issues with "lust" just because guys see a little cleavage or underwear. Not being able to stand near a female just because she has a little cleavage isn't natural, and it is hindering their ability to bless other people. Not to mention a female's chest has no inherent sexual function at all, it was designed to feed babies.
