I attended a men's retreat (pre-Samson Society involvement) back in February of 2014 outside of Jackson, and my big takeaway from that particularly grueling 48 hours was being dubbed "flamboyant" by the retreat leader. And he adjudicated this label to me immediately following me pouring out my heart (telling my story) for 20 minutes in front of everyone in attendance (+/-30 men). It truly was the most derogatory insult I've experienced in recent memory, doled out by a respected local Christian counselor.
Growing up in the '80s, the role models for homosexual men were flamboyant. And for me personally, this included my high school science teacher. All of this played a significant role in me understanding that I had no place within that community. Flamboyant, in my mind, equated to one being completely at the mercy of their emotions.
Today, I still see a lot of this flamboyance, and it positions me to be that much further resolved in never, ever embracing / honoring the homosexual lifestyle.
Why?
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I'm definitely a sexist. It's impossible to be a complementarian Christian and not be.
Also, living with four women has made me that much more of one.
Now to return to my question of worthwhileness from my last post.
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For women, emotional responses are absolutely worthwhile. It's in and through their emotions that they experience so much of life. And this complements their husbands who typically do not put nearly as much stock in feelings as they do.
Within our western culture, men and women are equal. It's all 50/50. He can do everything equally as well as she can and vice versa. I hear this from my teenage daughters who're just as eat up with culture as any.
The Bible runs counter to this and so does logic, but logic is often ridiculed within our culture and the Bible discounted.
One of the most sizable weaknesses women wrestle with is the relationship they have with their emotions.
Let me repeat that statement.
One of the most sizable weaknesses women wrestle with is the relationship they have with their emotions.
To be more specific, women can be easily manipulated in and through their feelings. And, of course, feelings are just that. Feelings. They come and go. Rise and fall. Intense. Diminished. And on and on.
And this is why women should depend on their man as it relates to this particular attribute / character trait.
But what if her man is a dumbass? Or simply isn't where he needs to be to lead in this regard? What if she's "been there, done that" and only ended up getting screwed by her man (whose taken advantage of her emotionally)?
Those are valid questions, but we're going to have to assume here that she has a solid, reliable husband, pastor, brother, friend next to her who's looking out for her best interests.
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I watched my mother, whilst growing up, disregard her emotional beauty completely due to my father being quite inept as her man. It wasn't that he wasn't a great looking guy with an optimistic outlook. That he was. What was missing was that steadiness that most all young wives crave. In its place, my dad was an overgrown boy (at 18) who really had no business, at that time, being dubbed a husband - to anyone.
So, she became that steadiness herself within our threesome. And she'd seen this stopgap solution lived out within her own family as she grew up in the Mississippi Delta.
This attribute of steadiness is the polar opposite of flamboyant, and it's what I gravitate towards relative to the true joy of being a man. And as weird as it sounds, I learned it from my extremely feminine, strikingly beautiful mother. Therefore, it's due to her that I'm not / never will identifying myself as a gay man living a gay lifestyle with a pro-gay outlook.
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In closing, social media and cable TV are designed first and foremost to incite an emotional response from everyone who consumes it. And it pits all of us against each other whilst doing so. Otherwise, no one would devote the countless wasted time glued to all forms of it.
Because women bank their emotions as worthwhile (remember Part One of this post), these two (social media / cable TV) are optimized to the nth degree for the female consumer. And along those same lines, it's a fact that men and women consume social media very differently due to their wiring.
Mark Zuckerberg is leading the technological charge in exploiting the attributes of both sexes and our now cultural norms (men and women are 50/50). Brilliant guy, he is.
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Where to go to shore up ourselves as men, on behalf of our wives / daughters and otherwise (who need us to be their steadiness)?
Samson Society, of course. It's as simple as that.
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