Oh, John Piper! Why do you insist upon having such a limited, perverse view of men?
I can only assume that you must, because you are objecting to women having any influence over men in a position where you and other men are aware of our femininity.
I’m married to a man; I have two brothers and a sister who were all raised alongside me by a man and a woman together. Until his death I had a treasured grandpa who let me sit with him on the tractor, who let me stand beside him while he slopped his hogs and who greeted me with such effusive hugs that he insisted he’d “squeeze [me] till [my] tongue stuck out.” I have dear uncles who practice medicine, healing the bodies of the sick–both male and female bodies. Those uncles see a lot of naked women in the course of their work.
None of the men I know are rapists or sex-mad fiends who are unable to control their sexual impulses in the presence of women. None of the men I’ve befriended over the last few years as a writer have sent me emails overflowing with their inability to continue speaking to me unless I sexed them up.
I wonder why it is that you think men are so very unable to control their sexual urges. Why is it that you think I need to stick to writing, to sitting behind a desk, to lurking in the shadows. Are my breasts that ripe and wonderful? Is the mere suggestion of my vagina, lurking down there somewhere under my panties and blue jeans and Disneyworld T-Shirt, so completely enthralling? Surely not. If you’ve met me you know I inspire more thoughts of things like pie and thick novels about dragons than I do sex.
But even so, how is a man’s inability to control himself my problem, John Piper? Let me explain.
I love cheese. When I see cheese it makes me want to bury my face in the joyousness that is fermented milk and rennet. Yet I have never once in my life called up the manager of Kroger and said “please make sure that you drape black cloth over all the cheese displays. I’m coming to market today and that cheese better not be visible or I will steal some. It’s your fault if I put cheese in my purse without paying, your fault if I have a frenzied meltdown in the deli and down and entire tub of cinnamon goat cheese in an instant.” No. You see, Mr. Piper, I have learned that if I want the cheese I pay for it. I take it home and eat it politely. The cheese I don’t choose gets to live free and unmolested. If I steal cheese, that’s MY fault. If I have a cheese-centered meltdown, that’s either my fault or a fault I share with my ineffective psychiatrist. Not that I have a psychiatrist, but if I were 43 years old and unable to shop for cheese without a frenzy I should think I would have crossed paths with a psychiatrist eventually.
Your problem is not with women, Mr. Piper. Your problem is that you have a far lower opinion of men than pretty much anybody else.
Just Another Pretty Farce 