Reflection on July 30, 1980

https://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/jp2tb32.htm

As one of the parties seeks the other as an object, the result becomes that they become an object to the other in the process. Thus, both spiral together away from the place they were meant to be, in seeing each other in authentic subjectivity. But JPII says that this objectifying is felt more by the woman. I think we can see that very clearly in the world. Although we have male models and the like, the vast majority of sexual objectifying in the world is done to woman. Look at a Hardee’s commercial or a Victoria Secret commercial, any type of frat boy movie or Maxim magazine, and you will see women thrown out there to entice men, not as humans, but as objects. And what you see is not real, I posted a link earlier about a photo shopped person and what is done behind the scenes and what we see. What we see distorts and destroys reality and develops in both men and women the idea that the female body is only an object of desire to be used when wanted and discarded when no longer needed. The way we treat, view, use, and destroy women in this country and is Western culture is destructive and completely opposed to what Christ commanded. What is more puzzling is that much of this treatment is promoted and brought about by a women’s liberation movement that made its platform a longing for women to be treated fairly. Almost everything they accomplished has pushed women into a position to be further objectified, not viewed more humanly.

Because the woman is more affected by objectifying, it appears to be the responsibility of the man to strive to get back to the “true balance” of fully receiving and giving the full gift of self. This is not what men are being taught outside the Church, but it is something that I have found stressed in the Church very bluntly. I think it is often taken for granted that in a marriage, the man no longer has to fear this objectification because it is his wife. Because of this, a husband is even more vulnerable. I think it took me a while, and I still battle with it, that my wife is not an object for my pleasure, but a gift given by God to be received as a gift, fully received, and to fully give myself as a gift. We are so immersed in a world of objects that it is hard to pull ourselves out of that to view the relationship in with a different lens. But it is only in striving to do reach that point that we will begin to experience the happiness God intended for this union and to begin to understand our own meaning through that experience.

From the fall, the battle begins between the law of the body and the law of the mind. We must be on constant guard against this law of the body and the desires it wants. But, in the end, the mind is in control, the heart is what determines the actions of the body. That is what Christ was going after. The body acts only after the heart has made a determination. He wants us to understand that if you sin in your heart, you are already on the path to sinning with the body. When you sin in your heart that is when you must already seek repentance and get back to God.