Nobody looks at The David and thinks: “I should buy that and take it home to be mine.” The David belongs to Florence and makes no sense outside of Florence. At least I hope nobody sees The David and thinks it should stand in front of their split level in Texas.
Some beautiful things are not for me. I can enjoy their beauty, but it is not my beauty. I can never claim the ownership or any power over that goodness.
This is particularly true of human things. You have a right to your ideas. I cannot steal your ideas and claim they are my own. One of the few unpardonable sins left in academia (thank God) is plagiarism. One problem with torture (and there are many) is that it breaks the choice of the person. God created a garden and let humankind choose to disobey. We paid the price for our choice, but it was a choice we were allowed to make.
This is important because a very good friend just wrote a devastating Facebook post about what she faces daily. Young boys turn her into an object and make crude comments about her physical appearance. They take beauty from her and try to make it their own. This is so wrong that I wish to stop and say nothing else except: this is wrong.
The more women a man knows as friends, the more he knows the evil of the unwelcome gaze.
It is not wrong because beautiful women have any duty to hide their beauty. The King was right who said “shame be to he who thinks evil of it” when he bent to pick up a woman’s garter at a dance. No woman anywhere is responsible for my evil thoughts. Beauty is hers and God’s own beauty.
My Dad taught me as a young man to keep me eyes and thoughts to myself. This was not because women or beauty were evil, but because a woman’s body was God’s and God gave her to herself. I had no right to “stare” and my thoughts needed discipline. Let’s be blunt: this was very hard, but so are many good things. I must treat any beauty as beauty, recognize it, and not claim it like a thief as my own.
When I do less, I am a bounder and a cad. The man who “wolf whistles” when it is not desired (and he had better be sure!) or is crude is no gentleman and no Christian in his behavior. We must repent when we behave badly and begin again.
My wife may choose to give me her beauty. God help me, she has chosen to let me love her. Without permission, no other human should pillage another human’s beauty with his eyes. I must learn boundaries and how to handle beauty that is not for me and this is good for me. The ability to love what is lovable when it should be loved is the mark of a gentleman.
When I was a little boy, I was taught this was true, but then secularism came and said we were not “sex positive.” We were sex positive, just moral. Now feminism rightly is saying that the old verities were true and I applaud this return to morality. My gaze, my words, my thoughts are my problem and a gentleman can learn to do better.
Let me be clear: even in marriage a man approaches his wife seeking consent. He pours out his life for her and dares not demand what God has given only to her. Her body is her own and she may gift me with a kiss or not. I can never demand love or claim a right to anything her own. She endows me with what she chooses to give.
The result of discipline is love. I love a person when I say: “you are a person and I have no right to what you do not give.” I value a person when I see beauty, thank God for it, and then do not claim “it is mine.” God give me the grace that you gave to Eve and to Adam in the garden. May we allow each person to choose and may we always choose love and liberty.
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