I spent some time at our neighbors party today. They are part of a group with special needs kids, and they get together all the time. My daughter joins them often. While I was there, one of the moms talked about how they took a girl to a male strip club for her 18th birthday last night. They pulled out their smart phones to show photos. It took a bit of time for me to get over the shock, after all, this is a group of people who would call themselves Christians.
Awhile later I visited with my neighbor across the street. She shared that while her college-aged daughter was studying at the local library in one of the glassed-in rooms with a male friend, this big ol’ dude came up to them outside the window, pulled his thing out, and started jacking off. Right there. In the public library. She wisely hung up with another friend with whom she was talking on the phone, called 911, and the dude was arrested.
I told the group of women at the party that I don’t go for any of that porn … that I’ve seen first hand the total devastation of that stuff, and I want no part in it. They quickly put their smart phones away. One of the women shared how another friend lost her husband to porn, and it was as if she was putting male strip club for women and men that watch porn on the internet together for the first time … that one is as the other. And then the conversation changed.
If I were the library director, I can imagine myself busting his chops: “This is a PUBLIC library, not a PUBIC library!”
That said, it is a mother of a shocker that a Christian family would take a child–on any occasion–to a strip club.
This is a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment.
i have heard several conversations about women going to strip clubs over the years (not a lot, but some) … and they were ALL from church-going women who professed to be christians. still, my shock was evident … and effective.
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i don’t think the library director is male – we use this library all the time. ironically, it is next door to one of the police stations; i imagine there was an officer there fairly quickly. my friend said that most in the library did not know what was going on – it is a large library. freaked me out, though, and i doubt i’ll let my kids run in and get their books by themselves anymore!
The computers at our local public libraries have filters.
I visited some strip clubs when I was younger and a lot more foolish. And yes, I had become a Christian by then, although at the time I was drifting away. I look back upon that time with regret.
Quite frankly, what I recall from those days aren’t the mental images of the women stripping. Instead, it’s the sad stories I heard from some of the women who worked at these places. All too often their fathers were either absent, drunk, beating them up or abusing them in some way. Some of them even called me “Daddy” even though I wasn’t that much older than they were. I’m convinced many of these women were looking for what they didn’t get at home, albeit looking in the wrong places.
I have two friends (BF and LF) who were in the youth group not long after I left the church in L-ville.
They had a terrible home life: mom and stepdad were each alcoholics. Her mom was terrible; dad was pretty much shut out.
Compounding matters, neither had direction in the youth group.
After I left, the succeeding youth minister was a very new believer who had no clue how to handle the Scriptures.
After he left, his replacement was even worse: he not only knew nothing from Scripture, his lifestyle was not even remotely Christian. Compounding matters, his wife had been a member of the same church in her younger days, and had very loose morals. Let’s just say that none of her opinions on the matter changed considerably.
Well, BF and LF would drop out of school. BF would go on to become a dancer at a prominent strip club. During that time she started using various drugs, particularly crack and meth. She had three kids with three different men. In two of the cases, she doesn’t even know definitively who the father is. She had had several round-trips in our prison system.
LF would also have two kids with two different men. She would hook up with a meth dealer. As a result, she has done considerable time in prison.
The drugs have taken a toll on both BF and LF. LF is the same age as MrsLarijani, but looks older than me. Ditto for BF, the former strip dancer.
Did the Church cause their problems? I dunno. I’d say the lion’s share of this falls on their home life and their own personal decisions.
Still, the Church didn’t help in their cases.
it gets complex. i think we’ll all be surprised at how God handles this kind of stuff in heaven. there is so much in the bible that states who is responsible, but it also states we are responsible, too. i just think it will be interesting when we find out how God really sees things.
as a church – those who believe in Jesus Christ and the Bible, the best thing we can give people is Jesus, Himself, and teach them to read, rely upon, and ingest the bible. programs are nice, people are nice, but programs and people fail. the Word of God, alone, lives forever, and God, alone, will never fail or leave us.
i think when people walk into a biblical church, the one thing they should always take with them is a dependence upon God, learning about Him through His Holy Word. we have the power of God in our hands with the bible, and to read it is to pour that power of God into our very souls and beings.
singleman … when i was in my sexual abuse recovery group and therapy, it was noted that most all of the women who sell themselves on any level have been horribly sexually abused themselves. it is so very sad, indeed.
I have also visited a few strip clubs. Without exception, they were sleazy and depressing places. I could justify going into one out of curiosity and “seeing the world”. But never to have an enjoyable night out with friends. Certainly not place I would go with a family member. Maybe if I needed to hire hit man and didn’t want to use Craig’s List.
I didn’t know that’s where the hit men hung out. I always thought you had to go to Soldier of Fortune to find them.
No. But after you found one in Soldier of Fortune, you could arrange to meet him in a strip club… If his moral standards would go that low.
i had not thought of it before … i would guess that males involved in porn – strippers, pimps, etc – also have abused pasts?
I don’t know of any reason why that would be true. There is some connection between homosexuality and abuse but not porn.
The fact is that so much of what used to be “pornographic” is now part of popular culture so it is inescapable. Almost everyone is now involved in it as consumers (maybe a few Amish people not in it).