I am seriously guilty of objectifying my spouse (and I mean lustfully thinking about my husband, yes) but I've gotten more convicted about it lately because really, there's nothing beautiful or loving about it. Christian culture just sort of trains us up to think it's okay to lust after your wife/husband. Lusting for your spouse is sometimes presented to couples as a potential relief from the temptations out there. As long as you're married, right? Anything you want to think about or do to your spouse is fine. Please understand, I am not suggesting there be a laundry list of things that are okay to do/think and things that are not okay to do/think. What's objectifying in one marriage may not be objectifying in another. But there MUST be a standard of beauty in our one flesh union. Is the sexual attention building something that life giving, or is it a consumption of the flesh? (Of course, this dovetails nicely into my very strong opinions about why I am pretty much morally opposed to birth control, but I won't go there. That's not what I feel is laying heavy on my heart tonight.)
I bring all this up because there is, I think, another detrimental and less known outcome of objectifying and lusting for one's spouse. I've talked with lots of women about this and there's always a general sense that a wife's duty is to visually please her husband. And while that's all well and good (who doesn't want a beautiful wife?) I think there is a silent, but very dark and cunning evil to this line of thinking. If there is no standard for the sexual attention we give our spouse, then there is very likely no standard for what ought to be visually pleasing to a spouse.
I've heard the sadness in women's voices when they talk about what their men desire them to look like and how if they could just change ------ about themselves, their husbands would find them attractive... The trouble here is, of course, the intention behind becoming desirable to a spouse. It is admirable to try to be beautiful. But, trying to achieve an image of beauty that lends itself to easy lust is ugly. And, sadly, women don't see the urgency in helping direct and shape and guide a man's standard of beauty. If what a man or woman desires is in a spouse is physically unattainable, it is a false idea of beauty and therefore consuming and dumb. If what is desired does not embody the wholeness of a spouse in the eyes of Christ, then it is a false idea of beauty, an impotent standard that must be altered. We owe it to our spouses to help shape their standards. The consequences of objectifying one's spouse are detrimental, not to mention what this communicates to children.
Some may say that people just have different taste in things, which is true, to a certain extent, but there are standards. We live by these standards in many ways. An eight year old will eat chicken nuggets every day if he could. Someone has to show the child that there are better, more helpful and important things to eat. It's easy to like nuggets; it takes effort and education like spinach salad. We must train and educate those we love to raise their standards for a greater good. We should discipline ourselves, even in in our standards of beauty. Just because it is easy to lust after a certain version of our spouse does not make it a good or accurate standard for beauty. If one's tastes or preferences err far away from the true standard of beauty, surely it is our responsibility to help shape his or her thinking!
Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder. Admiring a person's wholeness and their sexuality in the eyes of Christ does not consume. Consumption leads to death. Not objectifying, but rather building up our spouse is what we are called to do.
Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder. Admiring a person's wholeness and their sexuality in the eyes of Christ does not consume. Consumption leads to death. Not objectifying, but rather building up our spouse is what we are called to do.
