I didn’t jump on the #metoo bandwagon not because I have not been sexually harassed. By God’s grace, I have never been assaulted or raped and it is only His grace that I give credit, because there have been times I sensed very real danger, but got out of it quickly. Yes, most women in the military have experienced some kind of inappropriate remark or sexism and the cases of sexual assault/rape are astonishingly high, including for men. Some of the stupid comments were a part of being the only woman on a watch team with ten men. Sometimes the men forgot I was there, by the way, and I forgave their oversight. I sat in a separate area with a curtain across it because of the nature of my mission.

My actual experience of sexual harassment was when I left the military and became a civilian. I felt deeply violated and sick to my stomach when it happened and for quite a while afterwards. It was disgusting what this pervert said to me. My work blamed me because it was a customer and profits came first, but I was too poor to do anything about it. I left my employment shortly afterwards because I was too sickened to look at my boss any longer who swept it under the carpet and blamed me for it. I ended up having to deal with the creep who harassed me again because there’s nothing like re-victimization when it’s covered up. The problem here is a mix of greed and objectification, by the way. Not to mention, the majority of my friends in early adulthood had either been raped or sexually abused as a child. One of the friends I helped who was in a dangerous relationship, threw me under the bus for a promotion when all of this happened to me.

My issue here is not that there is not a serious issue, there is, but I once again disagree because of the lack of balance. There is a never-ending war on men. Yes, there are perverts, predators, and creeps out there who should go to prison and don’t. The objectification of women is a rampant problem, but we forget that we also objectify men and we allow ourselves to be objectified in the name of freedom. The hook up culture is the objectification of both the sexes. Our culture objectifies people as a whole. Since utilitarianism is a prevalent philosophy (the idea that we can use people for our own pleasure/happiness and discard them) in our culture we use and abuse one another and then blame the other.

Women, I’m sorry. We don’t get to do whatever we want and constantly blame men for our choices. We have obligations towards our brothers in Christ in charity. If we decide to run down the street in a sports bra and booty shorts, then we are looking for attention. I am a runner. I do not need to run in what amounts to a bathing suit to get the job done. I run when it’s 85-90 degrees in a tank top and shorts just fine. That is a choice and we need to start being honest with ourselves that we are intentionally seeking attention. I workout and while I’m not the fittest woman out there, I have my ridiculous struggles with vanity too. A little self-reflection and honesty is warranted. We aren’t dressing in a provocative manner for some kind of freedom, we do so for our own pride and attention. Freedom is not wearing next to nothing in public. No, I’m not talking about wearing burlap sacks. A woman can be beautiful without showing every inch of her body to the world. Yes, men need to work on custody of the eyes, keep their hands to themselves, and keep their terrible remarks to themselves, but we need to stop pretending that men are not visual by nature and that this isn’t a deeply difficult struggle for those who are trying to learn to control it. As Jesus said, cast the first stone if you’re without sin.

We need to stop allowing ourselves to be objectified. Stop buying Cosmo or whatever other trash we are being sold. Stop going to movies and watching TV shows that objectify women and men. I saw Catholics justifying the pornographic 50 Shades of Grey because it’s not in pictures. Come on! Porn is porn! Let’s teach our sons and daughters how to respect the dignity of one another. They are seeing pornography–which is the ultimate in objectification–at a young age. I was in grade school when my neighbor showed me his father’s collection of Playboy. With the Internet, it’s shockingly young.

Yes, women have been harassed, assaulted, and raped wearing burkas. My point is that we need to stop pretending that we aren’t adding to our own objectification and consider our own culpability in–not the evils done to us those are not the victim’s fault–but the objectification of women as a whole in our culture. Consider how shows like Sex in the City taught an entire generation to objectify women AND men. And we need to stop pitting the sexes against one another. That is how we figure out a way to heal this horrific rift that grips our culture when so many men and women have been harassed, assaulted, or raped. Yes, even men have been raped, by both men and women (yes, women can rape men through drugs and alcohol as well).

When I was in the Navy, we had to warn men not to allow their drinks to go unattended in Baltimore because men were spiking other men’s drinks and raping them. We live in a culture that thinks we should use and abuse other people no matter what. Like I said with the mass shootings, when are we going to examine our own hearts to see where we are failing? Once we see that failure, what are we going to do about it?

When I found out so many of my friends had been raped or abused, I volunteered as a rape counselor for my entire Naval service. I designed and taught training courses on this topic, as well as sexual harassment, at multiple duty stations and I listened to many stories from real victims and tried to help them however I could. I’ve helped women out of abusive relationships and tried to find resources for them to heal. I’ve fought alongside women who had to go against the Chief culture in the Navy because higher ranking people still think they can rape or assault lower ranking sailors with no consequences.

What are we, what are you, *doing* about the problem? My problem with social media initiatives is they are largely empty words or hashtags. It’s easy to type #metoo #unitedwiththiscountry #vegasstrong etc. What are we doing to fix this brokenness and evil in our culture? I’m sick of social media initiatives that are largely empty words. Let’s be people of action. Let’s stop objectifying one another each day. Yes, it is more of a struggle for men, but let’s stop looking at them as our enemy and start looking at them as fellow Fallen human beings trying to overcome sin. if they aren’t trying, then let’s teach them why chastity matters; the same goes for women. Real predators should go to prison, but stop yelling at the guy holding the door for you! Let’s find a way to make it easier for women and men to report this type of vile and evil activity to the authorities without them being blamed for their own victimhood by becoming lawyers, police officers, and judges of character and virtue. Let’s teach men how to be men and embrace authentic masculinity AND femininity. This all begins in the home with our own children. We need to get rid of the filth in our own homes first.

Suffering is an opportunity to do something good in the face of pain. I’ve suffered plenty. We can either wallow in sorrow or we can heal with the right help and then do something about it. It isn’t easy, but revealing such wounds in the culture should allow us to bring healing out of it. I don’t see an empty social media campaign doing that. It’s a cliche, but actions speak louder than words. It’s easy to feel like only posting in social media is doing something, but it isn’t. Change doesn’t come from a virtual, largely distant posting. I’m a writer because God gave me this gift, but I do not pretend that it is enough. Change comes from reaching out to others in our communities in person.

Now that we know this is a problem (we’ve known this is a problem for quite some time), what are we going to do about it? Starting in our own communities is the place to begin. We have to walk alongside our neighbor and we need to be honest enough to confront the darkness in our own hearts. I do that by helping women at Planned Parenthood, many of whom are there for abortions to cover-up their rape or sexual abuse. Think about THAT. Now, there’s a cover-up!  And it’s all in the name of an evil understanding of freedom…