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Christian Man Reflects on #YesAllWomen, Male Sexual Entitlement

In response to the recent California shooting last month, when 22-year-old Elliot Rodger killed six people before taking his own life, and the subsequent #YesAllWomen Twitter discussion exposing the prevalence of misogyny, one male Christian writer wants to debunk the belief that women exist for male pleasure.

Ryan Hoselton, a graduate of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, admitted on  The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood website that "all men have in some fashion entertained or acted upon the idea that women exist for their pleasure."

"Believing it has only given men dissatisfaction and misery, and it has provoked objectification, hatred, and even violence toward women," he wrote earlier this week. "Because Elliot Rodger believed that women exist for his pleasure, he went on a killing spree in Santa Barbara. Christians should not miss this opportunity to declare loudly that this belief about women is damaging and evil."

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The mass murder on May 23 left seven people dead and over a dozen injured, prompting a national dialogue on the role of men and women in society. Rodger left several Youtube videos of himself and a manifesto where he describes his loneliness and blames his frustrations on his lack of success with women.

"I will destroy all women because I can never have them. I will make them all suffer for rejecting me," he wrote in his manifesto.

The shooting sparked the #YesAllWomen twitter discussion, where thousands of posts detailed many experiences of threats and abuse women face each day.

Jordan Maney wrote in The Daily Texan that "men like Elliot Rodger are not owed anyone or anything."

"On May 23, Elliot Rodger, a Santa Barbara City College student, sped through Isla Vista, Calif., intent on retribution. For what? Being denied his right to sex with 'hot' women," Maney wrote. "At only 22 years old, Rodger had cultivated a belief that he was owed access to someone else's body, because in his own words, he was an intelligent, attractive gentleman. Those characteristics were the keys to unlock a woman's thighs. But he and the others like him are not owed anyone or anything. Women are not possessions. We're human beings."

Hoselton, who is a member of Third Avenue Baptist Church and writes on church history and pop culture, shared that after he became a Christian, his view of women "changed dramatically."

"God summoned me to die to my former ways of thinking and to submit my mind to his will and goodness. Paul tells the Christians in Romans 12:2: 'Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.' Christian men most of all should take seriously how God wants them to treat women who bear God's image. He calls us to abandon damaging beliefs about women that are grounded in the idea that they exist to please men," he wrote.

"God gave Eve to Adam as gift to be cherished and loved," he highlighted. "God established equality between the male and female by creating each in his image, and he commanded them to represent his love and righteousness in their relationship and in their dominion over creation."

Women, Hoselton stressed, do not exist for men to stare at; they do not exist for male "game" and they do not exist to boost male self-esteem.

"Every man will face rejection from a female in his lifetime. If this makes you feel lonely, worthless, or angry, you have a wrong view of women," he wrote.

Hoselton advised that the renewing of thoughts and actions about the other gender should begin in the home and the church.

"The church should especially be a place where women feel respected and safe, and the conduct of the men has an enormous impact making in this possible," he underscored.

"If you are a Christian, the Bible says that you are no longer a slave to your former foolish and sinful desires. Don't enslave women to those former desires either."

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