{"id":392,"date":"2012-08-22T16:05:09","date_gmt":"2012-08-22T20:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetdavis\/?p=392"},"modified":"2012-08-22T16:05:09","modified_gmt":"2012-08-22T20:05:09","slug":"sex-lies-and-simplistic-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetdavis\/2012\/08\/sex-lies-and-simplistic-thinking\/","title":{"rendered":"Sex, lies, and simplistic thinking"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u201clife doesn\u2019t follow the rules and when it doesn\u2019t, we scramble to make sense of it\u2026\u00a0 \u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n

Unwanted pregnancy resulting from rape is an impossibly complex reality and even more painful than it is complex.\u00a0 How could something so precious and innocent and wonderful as a new baby come from an act of violence so horrific?\u00a0 It seems to deny the very laws of nature that we rely on every day:<\/p>\n

By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?<\/em> Matthew 7:16<\/p>\n

How can rape produce a precious baby?\u00a0 We may not understand it, but it happens.<\/p>\n

Sometimes life doesn\u2019t follow the rules and when it doesn\u2019t, we scramble to make sense of it\u2026 sometimes valuing our simplistic solutions over truth so that we become caught in another layer of tragedy by telling lies and blaming victims.<\/p>\n

I became really, really angry this week at the careless remarks of Rep. Todd Akin<\/a>. In case you haven\u2019t heard:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe controversy erupted after Akin told a television interview Sunday that a woman\u2019s body is capable of preventing pregnancy in cases of \u201clegitimate rape.\u201d He later apologized, explaining he meant to say \u201cforcible rape\u201d and acknowledged that women \u201cdo become pregnant\u201d during such instances.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such ignorance makes me want to go crying into the streets with Like Lady wisdom:<\/p>\n

\u201cHow long will you who are simple love your simple ways?<\/strong>
\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0How long will mockers delight in mockery<\/strong>
\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0and fools hate knowledge?\u201d Proverbs 1<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rep. Akin\u2019s remarks were ignorant and mistaken and simple minded. They implied that there is something called \u201clegitimate\u201d and thus also \u201cillegitimate\u201d rape.\u00a0 They suggest that if a woman becomes pregnant, somehow her rape was really not a rape? \u00a0On some biological level somehow she consented? Such is the foolishness of the simple minded, the stance of those who cannot hold the pain and complexity of such a tragedy and are looking for a way out.\u00a0 The easiest and most cowardly resolution of such cognitive dissonance is to blame the victim.<\/p>\n

It makes me think of Tamar\u2019s story<\/a>. If you remember, two of Tamar\u2019s husbands, brothers, had been killed by God (what?) for being evil and so their father, Judah, blamed Tamar. Here\u2019s how I write about it in My Own Worst Enemy<\/a>:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Blaming the Victim<\/strong><\/p>\n

Judah then said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, \u201cLive as a widow in your father\u2019s household until my son Shelah grows up.\u201d For he thought, \u201cHe may die too, just like his brothers.\u201d (Genesis 38:11)<\/em><\/p>\n

As is true of many women who suffer injustice, the victim ends up being blamed for the sin of another. I spoke with a woman the other day who was being told that her husband\u2019s alcohol addiction was her fault. And another whose husband yelled at her<\/em> when she caught him secretly studying a Victoria\u2019s Secret catalogue (and not for purposes of ordering her lingerie). He told her she shouldn\u2019t have left it in the kitchen trash where he would be tempted; that it was her responsibility to take it all the way out to the outside garbage. What?!<\/p>\n

Women are often all too quick to accept the blame for the wrongdoing of others. Though it seems counterintuitive, we actually prefer <\/em>to be to blame. Think about it: when we are at fault, we are still in control. We would love<\/em> to believe that we can whip ourselves into shape and therefore guarantee that this kind of disappointment, pain, and betrayal will never happen again. Sadly, our strategy simply doesn\u2019t work. In fact, our acceptance of blame can sabotage or forestall real repentance and change on the part of another, continuing the cycle of sin or abuse. Sometimes we, like Tamar, are truly victims. That, my friends, is a hard but true truth.<\/p>\n

Tragically, Judah did not seem to question the behavior of his evil sons at all; he had decided that the problem was Tamar. On top of such an unjust conclusion, he was also not forthright about his plan to protect his third, only remaining, son. Perhaps he knew his position was indefensible.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Tamar fought back with some trickery of her own and, interestingly, is one of four women mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The events of this week have left me wishing for a shrewd Tamar to expose the harm of simplistic thinking.<\/p>\n

Maybe this time it\u2019s up to us all.\u00a0 Let your voice be heard before the new stories shift to the next juicy sound bite.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201clife doesn\u2019t follow the rules and when it doesn\u2019t, we scramble to make sense of it\u2026\u00a0 \u201c Unwanted pregnancy resulting from rape is an impossibly complex reality and even more painful than it is complex.\u00a0 How could something so precious and innocent and wonderful as a new baby come from an act of violence so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1089,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[88,56,5],"tags":[91,177,90,89,176,178,164],"class_list":["post-392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tamar","category-wisdom","category-women","tag-blame","tag-lies","tag-rape","tag-rep-akin","tag-sex","tag-tamar","tag-wisdom"],"yoast_head":"\nSex, lies, and simplistic thinking<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\""life doesn\u2019t follow the rules and when it doesn\u2019t, we scramble to make sense of 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