The debate over boys and girls in contact sports continues. With ears open, I hear good sense and hope for civilization in the comments of both men and women. Here, as I promised, are some of those comments —
- As a former high school wrestling coach, I see it this way. If we are teaching young men to be pure until marriage, then wrestling a teenage girl (woman) is not appropriate or helpful. Many wrestling holds require close contact with the opponent’s crotch or hips close together. Tight holds across the chest or laying chest to chest are common. If done in a high school hallway, it is considered groping, even if consensual. If done without consent, it is sexual assault. Putting on a pair of wrestling shoes doesn’t eradicate the moral overtones of the situation.
- I know a girl wrestler who is well-endowed. The boys enjoyed wrestling her. She admitted that she liked the attention and ended up sleeping with a few of the boys. In the name of equality, the system actually “used her” and made her more vulnerable.
- My experience as an athletic trainer brings me to this: Outsiders looking in can say, “Boys! Turn off your hormones,” or “You just don’t want to get beat by a girl!” But, the fact is, boys are put in a very uncomfortable position when matched in a contact sport with a girl. Also, girls are led to think they’re better than they really (physically) are because when a boy wrestles a girl he doesn’t wrestle the way he would against another boy.
- Why do people think that boys and girls need to do the same things? Or, if they do the same things, why do they need to do them together or in a competitive way? Do parents really think that a boy wrestling a girl has no influence on his (or her) thinking?
- Boys learn lessons from sports that help them later in life professionally in business and in working relationships with other men. They learn what it means to work as a team. Women participating with men in contact sports mess with that camaraderie.
- I was a tomboy, but I know there are some things we females should and shouldn’t do. I’m disappointed when I witness situations where people are so absorbed in today’s “accepted” societal practices, but disregard simple things like respect, consideration for others, self-discipline, servitude and so on. We are caught up in a “I deserve what I want, when I want it” mentality.
- A reporter commented that Joel Northrup, the Iowa wrestler, was in need of “counseling” because he forfeited a match to a girl. In reality, young Joel was exhibiting qualities of decency, integrity, and leadership.
- Whether a person is a Christian or not, nature itself is not in favor of boy-girl wrestling. The entire purpose of aggressive male sports is defeated when females participate. Male sports with girls become games. Games are fine for social events, but not for wrestling (or the military, for that matter).
- Freedom requires that good men and women will stand up for what is right. What is right? It is found in God’s Word. There is maturity in choosing right over winning worldly recognition.
- I am reminded of a story. A man opened the door for a woman behind him. The woman snarled, “I suppose you are doing this because I am a lady!” He replied, “No ma’am. I’m doing this because I am a gentleman.”
- There is nothing more liberating, right, and helpful to society than identifying and honoring the male and female differences created by God.
There is good sense… on the mat — and with all issues of life. It comes when we begin to trust the Creator of male and female.
Ezerwoman's Blog 
An Agnostic Responds (Hope Abounds!)
Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Commentaries of others, Culture Shifts, Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, tagged biology, Christianity, decadence, decency, evil, evolution, hope, morality, purity, society, wrestling on March 3, 2011| Leave a Comment »
It’s important that you hear from this gentleman, not only because he agrees that “equal” does not mean “the same,” or that he encourages me to continue mentoring Biblical manhood and womanhood, but because he proves that Christians help build bridges for the benefit of the human race when we ask questions that help people think. When we enter into dialogue on moral and ethical issues. When we appeal to what was once called “common sense.”
This gentleman wrote, “I am an arrant agnostic — a self-styled poet-philosopher-canary-priest-with my spiritual roots in nature. But I could not agree more vigorously with your objections to the decadence — as in Roman — of allowing (or more accurately) of forcing boys to wrestle girls. I have been following this issue for at least ten years.”
It was obvious that Bill had carefully studied the most physically intimate of all contact sports. He offered many sane and sensible reasons why boy/girl wrestling is a terrible idea. He is concerned that civilization is wounded by such foolishness. He wrote, “I believe in self-sacrifice for others, in kindness, in consideration for others before myself. I remember the mantra of our YMCA boys’ camp: God first, others second, me third. Today, as we watch boys and girls in violent combat on wrestling mats, that mantra seems to have become ‘Me first, me second, me first.'”
Then, he really caught my attention. “The values you mention in your blogs are simply ignored in our modern culture,” wrote Bill. “Even as an agnostic biologist, I think your Christian values are essential to any civilization that wants to live above the animal level of material-sensual gratification.”
I thanked Bill for taking the time to write me. He responded with a second e-mail, explaining that he had become a writer after leaving the scientific community. But, after some time passed, he wanted to get back in touch with biologists. For a few months, he subscribed to the blog of an evolutionist. Bill found the site “instructional in professional matters,” but disappointing in its Christian bashing. “Christianity was dismissed as sheer stupidity without any redeeming value.” Bill explained to me that he felt “uncomfortable in this steady current of arrogant meanness,” so he unsubscribed. He didn’t agree with such hatred being poured upon an institution (Christianity) “that embraced all of life, from birth to death, from reason to faith, from beauty and goodness to ugliness and evil.”
Then, wrote Bill, “this wrestling incident occurred, and because the young man cited his Christian faith, it catapulted the small, cloistered world of wrestling into the national spotlight and presented to view the grotesque, distorted values that have evolved there. It seems like a microcosm of society at large and the moral decadence we have enshrined as moral good. And against all this, the best aspects of Christianity began to emerge from the smoke — the dignity, the calm, the pure, measured decency of 2000 years of Christian ‘evolution’ (can’t help myself!). Anyhow, just wanted to express this to you.”
Thank you, Bill. You remind me that Christianity is needed in this hurting world as much today as yesterday. I’m so sorry that we Christians do such a poor job of following Jesus Christ and are more easily influenced by false teachings.
But, I am encouraged to stay the course by a secular biologist who sees that good and evil, right and wrong, morality and decadence really do exist. Each rises from a core belief. Each has a consequence.
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