Skin Deep Part II

Another part of the problem that I have with outward attraction as the sole determinating factor of beauty is that I believe that it's wrong to objectify people. Period.

There are a lot of ways to objectify people. One is to view them only looking at their body, and thinking only of what kind of pleasure it can provide for you. This is obviously very common. A less common way, I believe, is to have imagined relationships with people. You know, where you're thinking through a conversation in your mind - how you would want it to go, and you're there supplying all the things that you would want the other person to say, making them do in your mind what you wish they would do in person. I believe this is just as harmful as every other way you could objectify a person.

Simply stated, I believe that people are made in the image of God, and as such, they deserve a certain level of respect and dignity. Furthermore, when you objectify someone, you dehumanize them. It's no longer possible to have a relationship with them, not really.

Think about your property, something you own - the relationship that you have with that object is one of dominance or ownership. You can do whatever you want with it. You can keep it, throw it away, give it to someone else, destroy it - whatever. It's yours, and you alone control it.

I think the same mentality enters into my relationships when I objectify another person. I somehow begin to think that I am in control, that I get to choose how this relationship will go. Maybe I start to think that the relationship is all about me - so when that object is meeting my needs, then I'll be happy with it, maybe even treat it nicely, take good care of it. But when that object no longer fulfills whatever need it was meeting, then I can simply throw it away. I can walk away, or trade it in for a new model.

But this is not the way to have true relationships with people. Objectifying another person truly becomes a barrier to knowing the other person, and having any kind of intimacy with that person. I don't believe that that's how God intended for us to live. I believe that in order to have the kind of intimacy and unity that God desires for us, his children, his church, we must learn to interact with one another as persons made in the image of God.