The High Cost of Twerking<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Confession: I\u2019m a middle age white guy.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know a Twerk from Tweak.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t watch Miley Cyrus\u2019 performance on the Video Music Awards nor did I go\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/timwright\/2013\/09\/the-high-cost-of-twerking\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The High Cost of Twerking\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Confession: I\u2019m a middle age white guy.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know a Twerk from Tweak.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t watch Miley Cyrus\u2019 performance on the Video Music Awards nor did I go\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/timwright\/2013\/09\/the-high-cost-of-twerking\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Tim Wright Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-09-03T15:13:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/827\/2016\/07\/images.jpeg.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"290\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"174\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tim Wright\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Tim Wright\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/timwright\/2013\/09\/the-high-cost-of-twerking\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/timwright\/2013\/09\/the-high-cost-of-twerking\/\",\"name\":\"The High Cost of Twerking\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/timwright\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-09-03T15:13:27+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-09-03T15:13:27+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/timwright\/#\/schema\/person\/d376e49ac40fe61bef02b93f41269340\"},\"description\":\"Confession: I\u2019m a middle age white guy.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know a Twerk from Tweak.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t watch Miley Cyrus\u2019 performance on the Video Music Awards nor did I go\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/timwright\/2013\/09\/the-high-cost-of-twerking\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/timwright\/2013\/09\/the-high-cost-of-twerking\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/timwright\/2013\/09\/the-high-cost-of-twerking\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/timwright\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The High Cost of Twerking\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/timwright\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/timwright\/\",\"name\":\"The Tim Wright Blog\",\"description\":\"Musings on God\u2019s bold, reckless grace\u2026and life in the middle\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/timwright\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/timwright\/#\/schema\/person\/d376e49ac40fe61bef02b93f41269340\",\"name\":\"Tim Wright\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/timwright\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/12d5559111c8a68f11425c607bcfe664?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/12d5559111c8a68f11425c607bcfe664?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Tim Wright\"},\"description\":\"I've been a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America since 1984, currently serving as the founding pastor of Community of Grace in Peoria, AZ. 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{"id":1273,"date":"2013-09-03T08:13:27","date_gmt":"2013-09-03T15:13:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/searchingfortomsawyer\/?p=38"},"modified":"2013-09-03T08:13:27","modified_gmt":"2013-09-03T15:13:27","slug":"the-high-cost-of-twerking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/timwright\/2013\/09\/the-high-cost-of-twerking\/","title":{"rendered":"The High Cost of Twerking"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Confession<\/em>: I\u2019m a middle age white guy.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know a Twerk from Tweak.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t watch Miley Cyrus\u2019 performance on the Video Music Awards nor did I go to youtube to see what all the commotion was about (nor did I want to).\u00a0 (My big entertainment excitement comes when Barry Manilow appears live at the White House 4^{th<\/sup> of July special on PBS!)\u00a0 But all the buzz about Miley\u2019s Twerk serves as a provocative metaphor for the continued sexualization of our daughters and the high cost to them\u2026and to our boys\u2026and to our culture.<\/p>\n}

$\"\"$ <\/a>Our girls are growing up in a schizophrenic world.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

On the one hand\u2014for over 40 years great-grandmas, grandmas, and moms, along with their great-grandpas, grandpas, and dads, have worked hard to ensure that their girls grow up to live out their full potential\u2014in the language of the church\u2013as the Image of God female.\u00a0 To live out their purpose.\u00a0 To be whatever they believed God was calling them to be.<\/p>\n

My wife is an inheritor of that movement.\u00a0 From the time she was a little girl she wanted to be a nurse.\u00a0 That calling shaped her school years and shortly before we married, she was \u201cpinned\u201d as an RN.\u00a0 She worked in the nursing home field for a few years when a new calling grabbed her\u2014the calling to be a full time mom.\u00a0 Once our kids were in their early teens, she joined the worship team at our congregation and worked full time for years in the church.\u00a0 Now, she\u2019s living out a new call\u2014being a grandma!<\/p>\n

My daughter is an inheritor of that movement.\u00a0 Since she was a little girl she wanted to change the world.\u00a0 At first she thought she could do that through Marine Biology.\u00a0 Then she wanted to change the world by working in the area of human rights, particularly focusing on the rights of women.\u00a0 She went to college in London, England, and was mentored by a teacher who poured his passion for human rights into her.\u00a0 She went on to get a Masters in human rights law and eventually a law degree from the University of Minnesota in human rights.\u00a0 (It wasn\u2019t that long ago that men made up the majority of lawyers.\u00a0 Today\u2014women are the majority of law students.).\u00a0 She got the law degree to give her the street cred she needed to carry out her passion of bringing hope to those without hope.\u00a0 One of her current projects is working with at risk youth in a local neighborhood (along with raising her son along with her husband).<\/p>\n

Women like Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, Marissa Mayer (Yahoo) and Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook) model the hopes and dreams we have for our girls\u2014to chase their passions and dreams and positively impact the world.<\/p>\n

On the other hand\u2014there\u2019s Miley\u2026who represents the growing sexualization of our girls, a sexualization that comes at a high price.<\/p>\n

It comes at a high price for our daughters<\/em>: Sexualization always enslaves our girls to their appearance, their bodies, cultural approval, crassness, and ultimately immaturity.\u00a0 It demeans and devalues them and forces them to live on the surface of life rather than in the meaningful depths of life.\u00a0 Twerking (my metaphor for the sexualization of girls) makes girls into objects rather than women.\u00a0 Sexualized girls\/women can never live with confidence.\u00a0 They always live in fear\u2014fear of the moment when their \u201ctwerking\u201d will no longer make them attractive to others.\u00a0 They may momentarily \u201cgain the world,\u201d but in the end they risk losing their souls.<\/p>\n

It comes at a high price for our boys.<\/em>\u00a0 We\u2019re trying to teach our boys to treat girls with dignity and respect.\u00a0 To treat them as equals.\u00a0 But when the girls they are supposed to respect flaunt their twerks, dress like underage prostitutes and act like trashy teases, boys don\u2019t know what to do.\u00a0 No wonder so many young men are turning their backs on human relationships and turning to virtual ones.\u00a0 At least with virtual relationships the rules and boundaries are constant.<\/p>\n

And twerking comes at a high cost to society<\/em>.\u00a0 It is society that largely sexualizes our daughters.\u00a0 And that sexualization seems to be sending confusing, and damning messages.<\/p>\n

Joanne Bamberger, in her USA editorial, The Verdict on Hannah and the Montana Judge,<\/em><\/a> <\/em>sees a link between the over-sexualization of our girls and some of the appalling verdicts handed down in cases of rape against minors, where the minors were judged to be \u201cin control of the situation.\u201d\u00a0 You can decide for yourself is she makes her case or not.\u00a0 Regardless, a society that demeans its girls by turning them into sexual objects, and that encourages girls to sexualize themselves as a way to experience empowered womanhood, is a society that will implode on itself.<\/p>\n

Miley\u2019s twerk brought an outpouring of disgust and anger from a lot of people.\u00a0 It also provoked deep sadness in many of us who care deeply about our girls and our boys.\u00a0 While Miley is responsible for her actions, she is also a product of her business and her culture.\u00a0 So perhaps her twerking can serve as not just another moment of outrage at what we are doing to our girls, our boys, and our culture, but as a moment that launches a movement to reclaim our daughters and sons with a vision for good, healthy, gracious manhood and womanhood.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"