I reject the idea that this was a harmless prank, and hope you do to

Facebook's infinite scroll led me last night to a video of a woman being unclothed in public by her boyfriend. But it was all very funny and just a harmless prank … wasn't it? The scene is a beach and the boyfriend provides helpful commentary as he films his girlfriend on his phone. He has swapped her new bikini for one that dissolves on contact with water. She doesn't know it, but after he encourages her to go for a swim she soon finds out … as do the other people swimming around her, and the 25 million or more people who have watched the video.

Now I can imagine that in a respectful romantic relationship, dissolving swimwear could be quite fun. In private, even if one party were tricked into wearing that swimming costume, it may be playfully intimate and nourishing for both players. Could become a cherished shared memory in that relationship.

But what is depicted in this video is something quite different.

Not only has the boyfriend tricked the woman into wearing the swim suit and cajoled her into the water, he has done so in public with the explicit aim of embarrassing her. There may be some women who love such attention. It is even possible that she was an accomplice rather than the victim of his prank. The whole thing could have been staged. But that is not how the video is presented.

If we take the video at face value, then she gave no consent. No consent to being unclothed in public. No consent for the scene being recorded. One wonders whether she gave any consent for the video being broadcast publicly.

I can imagine the boyfriend defending himself "But she was OK with it. She smiled at the end. She knows I am a bit of a prankster. Just a bit of fun." I'd like to know whether they have the sort of relationship in which she could honestly say "I did not like that" without risking his anger or dismissive rejection. Where is her voice in this video? Deliberately muted. What she thinks is unimportant. Just as long as she is gorgeous and smiles for the camera.

Does the boyfriend have any idea of the abusiveness of this "prank"? Does he realise that every time the video is watched the woman's embarrassment is repeated? Does he realise that this video will now be stored in thousands of voyeurs' private collections for them to show their friends and wank over for ever? If the couple break up, will he re-issue a revenge porn edition with more abusive voiceover? How many other people will edit new versions of the video with more lewd narratives? How many other "boyfriends" will be inspired to repeat the abuse against their own partners, under the delusion that this is just normal? How many times will that woman be approached on the street by people who have seen the video and ask if she'll strip off for them too?

Like millions of others, I too watched it … or most of it anyway. I am a male who has been taught to desire that particular body type and I hoped, with the naivety that comes from sexual desire, that it would be rewarding to watch. But I am also a researcher in the field of human trafficking. In that sad social space, men often coerce and abuse women for their own enjoyment and financial gain.

The boyfriend filming this bikini prank would most likely to be horrified to be compared to sex traffickers, but the underlying assumption is the same -- that women are objects for his pleasure and personal gain. I'm not sure if he earns any money from this video, but he certainly gains status among others who make that same assumption. On "blokey" websites he is lauded as a clever dude, able to trick gorgeous girls to get naked at will.

This video exemplifies one of the deep problems with today's masculinity: the assumption that women exist for our amusement.

The issue is not, however, simply gender-based. I would not be surprised if the person who produced this video would just as easily distribute recordings of embarrassing pranks with male victims. Coercing others for amusement may well be a common mode of operating for him, reflecting a posture of disrespect. I don't know him, and can't make any informed judgement about this particular case. But I can see a common pattern of unkindness in our world, one that takes advantage of current communication technologies to spread unkindness to larger audiences than were ever possible before. At its core this is a refusal to view each person we meet with dignity, and a rejection of the Golden Rule about treating others as we would have them treat us.

Undermining the patriarchy

Three of the Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) record Jesus' witty phrase that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. In each case the listeners are amazed but Jesus refuses to water it down. One can surmise that the hearers assumed that the rich and powerful always get priority. But are they amazed that Jesus turns the priorities upside down? Or amazed that he would speak so subversively in public?

Who knows?

But whatever the reason, Peter recognises the great reversal implied by Jesus and says to him "We have left everything to follow you!"

Now the next bit is a fascinating example of the importance of what is not said. Jesus' reply to Peter is recounted in most detail by Mark, who writes:

‘Truly I tell you,’ Jesus replied, ‘no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields – along with persecutions – and in the age to come eternal life. (Mark 10:29-30)

The core message here is that throwing your lot in with Jesus will disrupt the normal family alliances, but will replace them with a new community in which there is abundant safety and resources, and above all, company. Oh, and hardships.

But Gerhard Lohfink highlights something I have never seen before. Of all the things you might leave behind there is one missing from the list of things you might gain. There are no fathers in the new community! The patriarchy is left behind!

It is a subtle reminder of the Jesus' earlier observation about rich people: don’t assume that if you are rich, powerful and male then there will be a seat of honour for you in God's kingdom. You might not get in at all. If you do get in there will be no place for your male, controlling, dominating, privileged status.

Of course, I'm not like that … well, not much :(

At the risk of watering this point down, but in order to be thorough, there is something else to add about fathers. The omission of fathers from the new community of course does not mean that fathers are excluded, just that they will need to leave their fatherhood at the door. Jesus says that more explicitly elsewhere: "Do not call anyone on earth 'father', for you have one Father, and he is in heaven" (Matthew 23:9). That must never be assumed to mean that there is one dominate alpha male father in heaven and as a consequence no-one else should dare compete for the role of "father". As I have written elsewhere, Jesus has a very different idea of how the title "father" should be applied to God.

(This post is inspired by Gerhard Lohfink's observation in Jesus of Nazareth, p. 237.)

The image of God in the re-unification of gender

In The Journey of Desire, John Eldredge paints a very noble picture of gender differences and sexuality (Chapter 8, The Grand Affair).

From Gen 1:27 he infers that gender is the means by which God's image is born by us.

God wanted to show the world something of his [sic] strength. Is he not a great warrior? Has he not perfromed the daring rescue of his beloved? And this is why he gave us the sculpture that is man. Men bear the image of God in the dangerous yet inviting strength. Women, too, bear the image of God, but in a much different way. Is not God a being of great mystery and beauty? Is there not something tender and alluring about the essence of the Divine? And this is why he gave us the sculpture that is woman. [p. 136]

I totally agree that these aspects of masculinity and femininity find their source in God and are intertwinned in the character of God. It may be that God needed to create two genders because the richness of all those characteristics could never be expressed by a single creature.

Eldredge quotes Peter Kreeft as saying "This spiritual intercourse with God is the ecstasy hinted at in all earthly intercourse, physical or spiritual." [p. 135] Seeing sexual intercourse as a metaphor for our union with God is key to what makes sex sacred. This has made me think about a further implication: if God had to separate aspects of God's nature to express them in two genders because they could not be contained within a single gender, then the re-unification of those genders through phsyical and psychological intimacy is an even deeper indication of what God is like. The mutual knowing of each other in sex (in ideal holistic sex anyway) – the intertwining of daring and strength and beauty and allure and mystery – is even closer to the image of God than what any of us contain within our single-gendered self.

My problem with the Eldredege quote above, however, is that any attempt to classify the difference between male and female inevitably over-generalises to the detriment of both portraits. Although there are significant differences in the psychology of being male and female and consequently in the ontological categories of masculinity and femininity, defining those differences always seems to me to be unhelpfully stereotypical. Why should daring rescues not be feminine? Why can't being alluring be masculine?

And why does Eldredge continue to use pronouns that imply that the source of these rich gender differences is male? That undermines the key point he seems to be making.

God didn't tell Eve not to eat the fruit!

Greg Carey writes on the Sojourner's website:

God does not prohibit Eve from eating the fruit. God fills the garden of Eden with trees that bear fruit. Yet God sets apart one tree as forbidden. “You may freely eat of every tree in the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat” (2:16-17, NRSV). God provides this instruction to Adam but not to Eve. She hadn’t yet been created. Eve apparently hears this news from Adam (3:2-3).

How could I have missed that???????

Eve does *not* disobey anything God told her by eating that fruit, though it is clear from her response to the serpant (3:2-3) that Adam had passed on God's words to her.

Carey also observes that at least part of Eve's reason for eating the fruit was that she sought wisdom. And if the personalification of wisdom as feminine in other parts of the Bible (e.g. Proverbs 8) is any indication, that was an admirable outcome!