For a class presentation in college another student showed a clip out of a video about a woman who wished she were male. One of the concepts in the class was that the roles and functions of gender are something we invent and impose on people (which, like a lot of modern criticisms, is partly true but greatly overapplied). I believe gender dissatisfaction is a spiritual, not to say psychological, illness, so I don’t carry a great heartache over affirming, justifying, and supporting gender choice.

In this portion of the movie the young woman, acting as a man, had become buddies with some other men. At some point they discovered her biological sex and, outraged at the deception, they decided to put her in her place by raping her. This was the clip the student chose to show.

It is to this day the most horrible, sickening piece of film I have ever sat through. I don’t know that I should have. But I will readily acknowledge that it bore witness to a true vein of human nature. These man raped this woman not primarily from lust, nor even from brute violence, but for justice and for sport; for the maintenance of social order.

Afterward they counseled her that they were her friends and her best buddies and were watching out for her best interest.

And so men do many such things for justice and social order; for the common good and, indeed, your own best interest, rightly considered. And I do not believe that spiritual and phsychological illness is best corrected through the imposition of social order.

In the same spirit, here is an examplary training video on how to evangelize. You may not be able to watch the whole thing; I don’t know that you should. There’s a whole series of them. The unseen assailant is just trying to save these souls from eternal damnation; he doesn’t want anything bad to happen to them. It’s for their own good.