Kimi Harris, nonconformist

Is this what it means to be an adult?

When I was attending a local community college before I was married, most of my classes did not deal with any sort of compromising material ( I was a music major, and did pottery and speech on the side). But being on the college campus, one can't help but hear and see what "adults" are supposed to be able to see and hear. For example, when you walk into the college library, they would post some of the best student photography on the wall in the walkway. I had noticed that often some of the these pictures would have girls pretty much just wearing their lacy underwear. I was always annoyed and disgusted. But it was nothing like my surprise of walking in one day and noticing they had a shot of a entirely nude lady standing in a burned out house. I didn't think that it was artistic.

I went to *one* writing class. I was getting really excited about the class as the teacher talked about what we would be going through, and then ended the class with a read a long. This, we were told, would commonly happen in our class time. I was not expecting that many or any of the literature we would be going over would have a world view that I would agree with. But I wasn't prepared for reading a trashy novel out loud together. It was one thing to know that a couple in the story was having an affair, it was quite another thing to have it graphically described. I never went back to that class. I could tell that other people were not comfortable reading the story out loud (especially the ones that had to read the graphic parts), but I don't think that anyone else would have complained or left the class.

I was also in the speech club, where, in competition, I often got to hear dramatic stories of watching the woman across the street through her window undressing, or hear a graphic story of someone getting raped. And these are supposed to be helpful to us how? As part of the speech club, at one point, I narrowly escaped having to refuse to do an interp about ladies being raped and abused. I wouldn't mind doing a speech about crime and how to cut down on rape cases, but I didn't think it would be helpful to hear a woman describing all the gory details.

You see, we are all "adults" now so we should be able to hear and read and see all that I have described above. We are "mature" enough now to see nudity, read graphic material, and discuss these issues in an open manner. If you bring up the fact that you don't want to see or hear such things, you are treated as if you didn't want to "grow up". It's "childish" to be pure. So not only do have to stand alone in your pursuit of purity of mind, but you are treated as an imbecile for wanting to be.

When one of my piano students wanted to take a college class as a younger teen (I think 15 or 16) she had to get permission from the teacher to enter because of her age. She was refused in one class because of the "adult material".
You see this in some of the controversies about movies and younger teens. Many are arguing that younger teens should be allowed to see movies containing nudity and other graphic material without their parents because "they already see that sort of thing in real life."

The problem here is not that young teens should be allowed to see "adult" material", but that our definition of adulthood and maturity should be differently defined. It's not a step up in growing up to see such movies or doing such things yourself, it's a step down.

I feel that as Christian adults, we need to be wise in setting a different standard for the younger generations of what it means to be an adult. I think that as a young person, you need courage to be different and willing to be pure even if you are reviled because of it.

posted by Kimi Harris @ 12:04 PM