Can Fifty Shades Help Your Marriage?

Uh, no. It won't spice up your marriage. It won't give you a fresh outlook on physical pleasure.

Any more than going to a peep show at an adult bookstore will.

Fifty Shades Of Grey is not about empowering women. It's about using explicit sex to make money, and to create a demand for more of the same.

Fifty Shades Of Grey is pornography. It puts simulated sex acts - abusive ones - on the screen for the titillation of the audience. That's pornography.

Well, what's wrong with that? After all, it's becoming kind of mainstream, and young people are accepting it as OK. Almost seventy percent of young men, and 49% of young women, polled recently, found that watching pornography was acceptable.

No offense to them, but these people are delusional idiots. And I'm not jumping up and down waving a Bible here...I could, but I don't have to.

It goes far beyond my personal religious beliefs. this stuff is just plain wrong. This book and film should offend Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, New Agers, agnostics, and atheists. It should offend anyone with a heart and a brain.

To begin with, pornography is the main gateway for human trafficking all over the world. Women and children are bought and sold, and coerced into making pornographic products. they're threatened with violence, drugged, and psychologically abused to the point where they feel they can't escape.

They feel like trash, and the user of pornography, participating in a 100 billion dollar business, made them that way.

Put it another way - do you think slavery's OK? Should we pull African-Americans off the streets, and send them back into the cotton and tobacco fields?

Then why is it OK to force women into prostitution? Why is that acceptable?

Because it's based on a widely-read book that you can buy in Barnes and Noble?

A lot of people read Mein Kampf. Feel better?

Pornography isn't self-perpetuating; it's self accelerating. Crossing one line of use makes the next line of depravity easier to cross, and more attractive.

Pornography affects the chemistry of the brain. For real. See Fifty Shades, and in a short while you'll find yourself wanting something a bit...more. And them more after that. What excited yesterday will not excite you tomorrow.

So the temptation will be to move from the high-paid stars of this film to the sex slaves of the adult film business, because they are the ones who will supply the more.

Can your marriage be made better by victimizing people you've never met?

Second, Fifty Shades depicts an abusive relationship - with intimidation, isolation, and stalking.- as being attractive.

The female protagonist's consent is circumvented by the use of alcohol, and she shows classic signs shown by abused women, including a sense constant perceived threat and an altered identity.

This is called sexual violence.

Hey, don't blame me for this assessment. These standards come from the Centers for Disease Control. The same folks who are keeping us safe from Ebola.

Will your marriage be helped by introducing CDC-defined elements of sexual violence and emotional abuse?

Third, what you do during the day defines your legacy. Do you want your legacy, the things your kids and community remember, to include a tolerance for human trafficking and abusive, sexually violent relationships?

Will watching torture-for-pleasure bring you closer to your husband or wife?

Fifty Shades enshrines the "BDSM Lifestyle"; the S stands for sadism.

Yes, right, hurting someone else for one's own sexual pleasure.

Most Americans disapproved of the use of torture to extract information from terrorists, yet they'll support a film that depicts the 'empowering' of this 'lifestyle'.

No one wants to be intolerant, after all.

(And please hold the thought of "mutual consent"; the M stands for masochism. I know a lot about experiencing pain; I live with it every day.

Anyone who gets sexual satisfaction from experiencing pain needs counseling; masochism is crazy.

Will seeing this film be something you'll be proud of having as a part of what you leave behind?

So what can you do, beside not buying the book, and not seeing the film? It feels a bit like spitting into the ocean, when the book outsold the entire Harry Potter series in England.

There is a bit more you can do. At West Point, there's something called the Code of Honour.

A cadet will not lie, cheat, or steal, and will not tolerate those who do.

If you believe that human trafficking is wrong, that perverted sexual relationships should not be glamourized, and that your behaviour leaves a legacy...the path would seem to be clear.

Be intolerant. Be reactionary. Do not take the attitude of "to each his own", when faced with a friend, acquaintance...or family member...who sees nothing wrong with seeing the film, or buying the book.

Speak out. Speak harshly, and make it clear that because of the destruction this garbage causes...you won't show respect for their choice. Show them that you've got limits, and that you have principles.

Take the high ground, and hold it. You may lose a friend...or more than one...but you'll be standing up against evil.

You may not reverse the tidal wave, but you can start the undertow...of shame. And who knows how strong that may become?

We're linking to Inspire Me Monday.

If you have a moment, please visit me at my other blog, "Starting The Day With Grace".

This post is linked to Wedded Wednesday, a compendium of really cool posts on marriage. If you click on the logo below, you'll be taken to www.messymarriage.com, which is the springboard to a wealth of information. It's run by Beth Steffaniak, who has a heart for marriage and a soul for God!