WOMEN, MOVIES AND SEX

Movies and television are steeped in the mythology that a woman is only as good as the man she captures, and what captures that man is sex.(a woman is as good as the d*ck she gets)

 Messed up as that is, it’s become a cultural touchstone that’s shaped everything about what young women believe they’re supposed to have and supposed to want.

 For example:

• other than Frozen, name a Disney animated feature with a female protagonist that doesn’t end with her either getting married or catching a guy (usually a prince) who will obviously become her husband.

 From Snow White and Sleeping Beauty to Tangled and The Princess and the Frog, we’ll bet you can’t do it. That’s three generations of impressionable young girls who’ve grown up believing that their highest, best purpose was to marry a prince and . . . then what? What happens after happily ever after?

• Movies we label “chick flicks” are usually romantic comedies, right?

By definition, those almost always end with one or more couples pairing off and sometimes walking down the aisle. Take your pick, from My Best Friend’s wedding to Love, Actually and even to Jumping the Broom. They’re all about the female fantasy of finding and falling in love with the perfect man.

Could you see the typical “guy movie” ending the same way, with Vin Diesel or the Rock walking down the aisle with their leading lady while stuff explodes in the background? Neither could we.

• Do you remember the “you complete me” line from Jerry Maguire? True, Tom Cruise’s character says the line in the movie, but the idea—that we need a soul mate to complete us and make us whole—is troubling. Because the reality most women face is very different.

Then why do most women believe the truest form of happiness can only be achieved once they find Mr. Right?

It’s because while God created you as a complete being unto yourself, He also created man to be your partner, the one who brings out the very best of you.

That’s not the same as needing a man to complete you.

God intends for us to bring out the best versions of each other. Your husband is your partner in purpose. He’s the person God put on your team, and the two of you are supposed to hold each other accountable, hold up a mirror to each other, be each other’s cheerleader, and help each other accomplish your individual and collective purposes.

The thing is, you can’t just go out and find that man.

He also has to find you, and that won’t happen until you’re ready.

So you should work on becoming a whole, fully realized woman before you even think about committing to being any man’s wife.

You don’t necessarily need a man to be your best self; it’s quite possible that God will allow you to achieve your full potential and fulfill your part in His plan without a man in your life first.

 If a man does come into your life, he ought to inspire you to achieve even greater fulfillment. A woman might live her entire life without a man and be completely fulfilled, empowered, and complete. We’ve known a few who have.

As a woman, it’s your responsibility to work on developing the fullness of who God created you to be before you give yourself to your husband. Until you do that, you won’t be ready to find and keep that perfect partner.

The trouble is, many women can’t accept that they can be complete without a man. Despite all the incredible gains that women have made in our society—running huge corporations, filling high positions in government —we still live in an era that defines women largely according to their sexuality and appearance.

When a woman believes she has to compete with another woman for a man, that woman can become consumed with thinking about how to get or keep the man.

The odds are the woman will become whatever the man wants in order to keep him, even if it costs her true identity. That’s a time bomb, because no one can live like that forever.

Eventually she’ll resent him for making her be someone she’s not, and the relationship will explode.

The great irony of all this is that women really aren’t competing with other women. You’re only competing with yourself.

If you’re having sex outside committed relationships, you will have to stop.

Why? Because past a certain age, casual sex is like recreational heroin—it doesn’t stay recreational for long.

That’s due in part to this thing called oxytocin—a bonding hormone that is released when a woman a) nurses her baby and b) has an orgasm—that will totally mess up your casual-sex game.

It’s why we’ll move on so quickly over some lame D*ck but find it hard moving over a guy who gave us the whole zoo in the stomach-orgasms-Oxycontin. That’s it.

 It’s why you can be [hooking up] with some dude who isn’t even all that

Great and the next thing you know, you’re totally strung out on him.

And you have no idea how it happened.

Oxytocin, that’s how it happened.

What’s going on here? Besides the power of hormones, the force that typically drives women into the arms of guy after guy, even if most of those so-called relationships end in screaming matches or devastating infidelity, is fear.

Scratch the surface of a lot of unmarried young women and you’ll find a layer of fear just below the surface.

Fear of being alone.

 Fear of not having children.

Fear of being judged and found wanting.

Fear of being less of a woman.

Fear of being inadequate, insufficient, not good enough.

Fear of not being all you were called to be by the time you think it should happen.

There’s a belief among some women that if they aren’t proactive they won’t end up with anyone.

The question is, why do you want to be with someone?

 If your reason is, “Another man might not come along,” you’re in a bad place. You’re acting purely out of fear, and that means you don’t trust God.

When you frantically chase after something, like a dog chasing a car, it actually becomes harder and harder for you to catch. You start making compromises and forgetting who you are, and before long you’ve become someone else. You’ve lost the very qualities that made it possible for you to catch what you were chasing. That’s true for love, career, wealth, you name it.

The process of finding your husband isn’t really about finding your husband (love) but about finding yourself as a woman. One vital thing to remember, though:

Who you think you should end up with is rarely who you do end up with.

 It makes sense. If you’re engaged in a process of change and

Self-discovery, you’re becoming a different woman each day. There’s no telling what kind of man will be your perfect partner when the process is complete.

 You have to be open and on the lookout for people God might be putting in your path. One of the components to this is to be open to love in whatever package God wants to bring it to you.

What if your God-ordained husband comes in a package you aren’t expecting, such as a different race, a shorter stature, or a look that differs from your physical ideal? Will you give him a chance or reject him?