If you haven’t noticed, Western culture has gotten more sexualized with every passing year. It started with high divorce and adultery rates in the 50’s and 60’s, and then that morphed into “free love” and hookup culture, and then the pride movement, and now we live in a world where erotic fiction is its own genre. I’ve even seen “booktok” girls make videos about how they’ll only read books with smut in them, or they’d at least prefer to read smutty books.

Obviously, this wasn’t how God created the world to be.

He created men and women to be beautiful, sinless, perfect beings in His image, and for sex to be contained within a marriage between one man and one woman (who would be married for life, seeing as death didn’t come into play until after the Fall). And even after the Fall, that design for marriage and sexuality didn’t change — we’re the ones who rebelled with our “liberated” view of how our sexuality should be defined and lived out.

I saw this clip the other day kind of talking about this same subject, so I’ll put the subtitles below so everyone can read it (full credit to C.Ristovao for this great clip)

“Sex is supposed to be the closest you’ll get to someone’s soul, and y’all turned into a … hobby. Seriously, when did something so sacred become so swipe right casual? We went from ‘I wanna know and feel your heart’ to a ‘you up?’ text at 2 in the… morning. No connection, no intimacy… and you wanna know the wildest part, that half of you are … wondering why your relationships don’t work out and why you feel so … empty after every hookup. Bro maybe it’s because you’re sharing your soul with someone who will never see you for who you are, and never give a … about you, giving your body to someone who can’t even hold a conversation five minutes past ‘you up?’

But now let’s not talk about that. Let’s not talk about how we numb ourselves to real love and we numb how to feel that. We wanna call it “being protected”. Or let’s not talk about how this hookup culture keeps feeding us detachment and we call it being free or liberated… And you’re not free, you’re just emotionally disassociated. But I guess that’s not a conversation y’all are ready for.

I think we’ve all heard about how hookup culture leaves people feeling lonely and used, and it’s not hard to see why. But what you might not have noticed is the connection between our 21st century hypersexualization and the skyrocketing rates of insecurity and comparison, which are also getting higher every year.

Just think about it with me. If our culture didn’t pressure girls to show off and flaunt almost every inch of their skin, maybe they wouldn’t be so insecure about their stretch marks. If the culture didn’t praise certain body types over others (not to mention the fact that those trends change almost every decade), maybe so many girls wouldn’t have eating disorders and body dysmorphia.

And it’s not just the girls — the guys are included here too.

The stereotypical “hot guy” changes almost every decade, just like the stereotypes for women’s body shapes (as if the culture gods get to determine whether or not you’re attractive enough this decade, and the next decade you’re reevaluated). Just look at the winners of People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive “contest” (or whatever the heck it’s called).

Matt Damon in 2007; Channing Tatum in 2012; Chris Hemsworth in 2014; Michael B. Jordan in 2020; Chris Evans in 2022. Every year the standard changes — every year the culture’s “expectations” change.

I don’t care where you live,how old you are, what you believe about God, or whether you’re male or female — no one should live like this. We weren’t created to live like this.

The culture at large shouldn’t get to decide whether you’re attractive or not — especially not a culture that’s so fickle and fluctuating. If you live your life depending on other people’s validation of your beauty and worth, you’ll not only be left confused, but you’ll never feel complete — in the words of Alana Lintao:

“There will always be a standard that you are not meeting and guess what, it’s not your job to meet those standards because you’re a human being. You’re not a product or a trend.. This system was built to make you question yourself… No one is enough for an industry built on making you feel like you’re lacking.”

Contrary to what our sexualized culture promotes (and going back to the clip I cited a few minute ago), sex was never designed to be a performance that you’re “rated on” or a sport that you have to practice. And don’t get me started on how worthless your “sex appeal” is — last I checked, no one should be concerned with anything to do with your sexuality unless they’re married to you.

Your value, your beauty, and your confidence comes from your identity as a child and creation of God, not from how shredded you are (speaking to the guys), and not from how wide your hips are (talking to the girls). You’re a unique individual who has similarities and differences to everyone else around you, and there’s no reason why you should feel insecure or ashamed because of that. God never looks down at you and thinks He made a mistake, or wishes He’d see someone else.

“We are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.” (Psalm 100:3) That’s what really matters.