The Write Place

Maybe you have seen what has been roaring across social media of late. In a Tiktok video, women were asked if they preferred to encounter a bear or a man in the woods. Most said the bear, but it’s about far more than that (as youtuber Sargon of Akkad noted).

Let’s examine the question the scenario is simple (too simple). A bear and a man. Which would you rather encounter in the woods?

Had the question been “Which do you fear most, being killed or raped?” the dynamic changes. Rape can be a more terrifying thing. It can be more violating, and life altering in horrific ways. I have my doubts if a woman experienced a bear attack or considered it for what is, they would choose it over anything a man could do. Regardless that was not the question.

The question was basic. A man or a bear. No detail on what kind of man. No detail on what he looked like. Nothing on his behavior.

Worse, women in the comments and in many other comments sections turned the cry into a chorus. Men who objected were told they deny rape, that men leave women without children, that they don’t believe women suffer. These were injected into the conversation as if all men do these things. The assertion was made as if the only two options were women were right or men were wrong.

Granted the men who understood the insult responded with chicanery of memes centered around women dating the bear. Satire yes, one that also made the women dig int their heals as all they could see was the sexual threat stuck in their minds.

All they are seeing is everything the man can do wrong, not the things he can do right. As if there were no things men do right.

He could be a good man in this scenario but we’ve left the cultural moment where there is any assumption those men exist.

The reality is plain and simple, every bear is dangerous. Most men are not.

The men who do want to get something from women, will often stroke their egos and say what women want to hear to get what they want. Even if that means agreeing with them that bears are safer than men.

Beware of someone who only tells you exactly what you want to hear.

The issue however goes beyond what is being talked about.

What is being missed in all of this provides a key deathblow to our culture’s lasciviousness. These women are protective of their sexual purity by instinct, even beyond their life. Yet our culture has taught them to flaunt their bodies. Men who seek their actual good are made to appear as oppressors for having and demanding responsibility. Enslavement to sin has been made as freedom, meaning women reward wickedness in men.

With this and a resulting distrust of men, their nature remains. Even in the manipulative and irrational responses, women are still looking for both men to protect them and to defend their sexual purity. The importance of which is attested to in scripture in interesting ways.

¹³ And he shall take a wife in her virginity.^[a] 14 A widow, or a divorced woman, or a woman who has been defiled, or a prostitute, these he shall not marry. But he shall take as his wife a virgin^[b] of his own people, ¹⁵ that he may not profane his offspring among his people, for I am the Lord who sanctifies him.”

Leviticus 12:13-15, the marital requirements for a priest

Sex is deeply personal, intended to be stewarded, and not to be treated casually. This culture that pretends to do just that can’t avoid that by nature we are deeply private. Sex is a deeply intimate thing. This is why when presented with this scenario, so many women immediately went to the question of danger, and which danger is worse, death or rape. So many have chosen the latter. The bible details an entire section defending the woman’s claim of virginity, and dealing with cases of rape because there is a particular importance to virginity especially for women (Deuteronomy 22:13-29). Sex is deeply personal, and sexual sin is a category all of it’s own.

Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a man can commit is outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.

1 Corinthians 6:18

Hidden underneath this misandrist spasm, is an incredibly natural Christian view of the female body. There is even a decidedly Christian view of how a man is meant to defend woman.

Who would they call on to defend them but men? Like we saw with the Kavanaugh fiasco, they stop being sexists and misandrists and begin to call on men. We do see that now as we see women call out to men to agree with them, all the while they call all men worse than a wild animal.

Every good man recoils at the thought of a woman in peril and here we have women choosing grave danger over them. How are they going to react?

You can see the frankly demonic play here. The very attribute that makes women feel safe has been painted in a Kafka trap as proof that men can’t be trusted. Statistically women are more likely to be hurt in a bear encounter than they are in the millions of encounters with males of their species they have in a lifetime, encounters they must naturally have.

Simply put their complaint about men being offended was

“All these men not wanting women to be eaten by the bear are why we choose the bear.”

I hope you can see the strawman, and the Ad Hominem. The man who doesn’t want the woman mauled did not deny men sin against women. But the woman who chose the bear brings it in as a character assassination. This is DARVO (Deny, attack, reverse victim and offender). If a man points out the statistical or logical absurdity, he is caricatured and credited as having made an argument he did not make, namely that men do no wrong to women. This is baseless and bears no response beyond pointing out the manipulation behind it.

And all those horrible beliefs about men come from the assumption that masculinity is toxic, the meaning of which is that maleness is toxic in itself. Maybe we should focus on how we make good men, we exist after all, for a God given reason.

That practice of harmony between the two involves women setting the boundaries in relationships demanding sex wait till marriage. That demands women take responsibility and demand men do the same. That means men need fathers who demand the same from them. We cannot live in a society that does not demand women guard their purity while expecting men to respect it. Women cannot have the sexual revolution without it’s consequences, expecting men to pick up the bill any more than men can expect the same for themselves. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. The demands must be on both men and women, or the responsibility will be respected by neither.

It all requires we honor God’s law and keep it, therein lies the crux of the matter. We do not want God, but God established creation with all it’s order. The laws of nature therefore fall apart without him.

No society split like this can possibly survive.

It is sadly fitting that as God’s people have left him, the sex designed to represent them so rapaciously view the sex designed to model Christ as a threat Ladies, would you like to encounter the self-sacrificing man of Ephesians 5:22-28? That man is a model of Christ, the woman a model of a faithful church. You can see why our culture is having problems it has forsaken its savior and its role as his people. Scripture predicts this, and predicts this early.

¹⁶ To the woman he said,

“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
    in pain you shall bring forth children.
Your desire shall be contrary to^[f] your husband,
    but he shall rule over you.”

Genesis 3:16

The war between the sexes is a result of the fall. Eve’s desire will be against her husband, seeking his position but instead she shall be subject to his tyranny. The strength he had that was meant for her good is now used against her. In this fallen world, women want to be the tyrant, but men will be. With that perception of men, and now natural enmity with them you can understand an absurd internet poll.

Truly both are sexes failing, and we are the attestation of a society collapsing in an anecdote whose answer is obvious. The question is will we repent and believe the Gospel, and that in all of life.