Helps for Marriage

Why Men Look At Other Women                                            Kim A Goodin

One really warm day while camping with the family at Hammocks Beach State Park, I was photographing wildlife using my long telephoto lens. As I was looking through the view finder at some birds near a marshy  area, I couldn’t help but to notice several attractive young women pulling a pontoon boat onto shore. They stripped down to their birthday suits and put out blankets to do some nude sunbathing.      

Instantly my eyes locked on them. Adrenaline raced through my body. I realized how close the women looked as I was still looking through the telephoto lens. In that moment my mind flashed back to the many times Cindy and I had enjoyed sunbathing together. So why was I looking at these ladies when I had my own gorgeous wife, two daughters only slightly younger than these ladies and I honestly was trying to remain true to my Christian beliefs  . . . and I wondered, What am I doing?

After gazing at them for a few seconds, I pried myself away from the camera lens and looked away. Okay, it might have been more than a few seconds. But it wasn’t a minute . . . definitely not a minute. Okay actually Cindy jumped in front of my camera and said if I wanted to look at a good looking woman than I could look at her. I was a bit embarrassed yet Cindy and I had a really good laugh about it and I did switch my attention to Cindy.  Anyway, as I turned away I felt intoxicated by the spectacular beauty of those young ladies. And I couldn’t help but wonder why the form of a nude female would affect me that way.

Since that experience, I’ve spoken to many men both Christian and non-Christian.  Every man was in agreement that they have their own personal battle with lust. Those who disclaim such a battle are either in denial or lying. I guess they could also be dying and just too sick to think about sex. But even dying men may have sex on their mind. My father-in-law was talking about sex and hitting on the nurses just hours before dying of cancer in the hospital.

The point is, if you’re a man you’re wired to enjoy the beauty of a woman, and that enjoyment can take your mind and body to some sinful places with severe consequences. And I suspect you’re reading this devotional because you’re trapped in a sinful place and want out or you want a map to keep you from going there. So lets talk about the question raised that day when I saw those au naturel beauties. Namely: why do naked women look so good?

I’ve learned that a lot of Christian men, maybe even you, think it’s sinful to enjoy looking at a beautiful woman. Such thinking is reinforced by writers and Christian experts who, in an attempt to call men to sexual purity, decry not only adultery and pornography-fueled masturbation, but the act of drawing pleasure from a woman’s beauty as well.

I’ve read “Every Man’s Battle”, a popular book written to help Christian men live sexually pure lives. While the book provides helpful insights and practical suggestions, the author gives the impression that whenever a man derives pleasure from looking at a woman — he seemed to mean any woman in any situation — other than his wife, he has committed adultery, or at least foreplay, in his heart. In essence, he seems to insist that the magnetism a man feels for a beautiful woman who is not his wife is always fueled by and feeds sexual lust. So the author coaches the men to never look at a woman except his wife. With such super-spiritual and utterly impossible standards, is it any wonder so many Christian men live under a load of failure and guilt?

I’m convinced that a man’s ability to enjoy the beauty of a woman is a gift from God. That doesn’t mean God would approve of your feasting your eyes on Internet porn or those skimpily dressed girls around any public pool or beach. Nor is it okay for you to check out the lingerie ads in the morning paper or that swimsuit issue. But I don’t buy into the idea that if you’re walking through a park and an attractive woman happens to walk by that it’s wrong for you to notice her beauty and enjoy it. Would it be okay for you to ogle her? Or to follow her so you could continue to “enjoy” her beauty?

Umm . . . do you need me to answer that question? Come on . . . you know the difference between glancing at an attractive young lady and locking in your visual video recorder and capturing her every move for future reference. The key issue is for you to enjoy a woman’s beauty without compromising your character and using her excellence to feed your lust. “Okay,” you may be asking, “how do I accomplish that?” I’m convinced the first step down the path of sexual purity involves understanding why naked women look so good. Once we understand the sacred gift God has given us, we’ll realize why we should cherish it and keep it pure.

The Mystery of a Woman’s Beauty

When I saw my wife’s body for the first time, I beheld something heavenly. Nothing in all of creation compared with the beauty of her nakedness.  I simply couldn’t get enough of her unexcelled naked beauty. I remember feeling as though I shouldn’t stare. But I wanted to stare.

Evolutionists strip the mystery from a woman’s beauty. They tell us men are attracted to women (especially nude or skimpily dressed women) because of natural selection. They reason that if men didn’t find women attractive, they wouldn’t be inclined to reproduce. While that makes sense, it also reduces sexual magnetism to a purely bio-logical, animalistic experience. It isn’t. God created men with sexual appetites. He wired us to be attracted to women. There’s more here than some sort of accidental evolutionary programming.

The book of Proverbs addresses the magnetism between a man and a woman. Agur, son of Jakeh, described four things too amazing for him to understand. One of them was how a man loves a woman (Proverbs 30:19). That ancient sage couldn’t decipher the mystery of the magnetism between a he and a she. So why do naked women look so good? God created that special buzz men get when they look at a beautiful woman as something wonderful that defies understanding.

So to sum all of this up in a neat little package I could say that God wants us all to enjoy the beauty of His creation including the beauty of other people. It is natural and even intoxicating when we see the many wondrous and beautiful sights of God’s creation as we travel along the many roads in life. One example is how my daughter, who just got back from Niagara Falls, can’t stop talking about the beauty of the falls. She even put one of her photos of the falls as her computer's screen saver. 

So the good news is when we only notice the beauty of some one other than our spouse it is natural and NOT sinful as long as we don’t dwell on that beauty to the point of lust. We can’t help but to notice; like the speaker at a conference who placed a large sign on stage that read, “Don’t Read This Sign”, how many people in the audience do you think read the sign? When the speaker asked for a show of hands, every one admitted to reading the sign.

Yes we as Christians are held to a higher standard but we can’t be ashamed of our natural desire to look at God’s beautiful creation even when it is in the form of a good looking member of the opposite sex. That higher standard is what allows us to notice that beauty for what it is and keeps us from moving on to the next level of lust or wrongful thoughts about that person. We don't need to feel ashamed for noticing and even enjoying the beauty in God's creation.