True Manhood

A wag in Florida reacting the testicular tanning craze wrote: “We could designate part of our beaches as NUT (Natural Unrestricted Tanning) Zones”.¹ When we lived in Belgrade there was an island in the Danube River called Ada Ciganlia. There was a family friendly beach, and then if you wandered too far you reached the “Naturist” beach ,where the nudists sunbathed.  The nudists tended to be fat, old men.  Maybe their testicular tanning caused Serbs to have a higher testosterone level.  Maybe it led to their tendency to start wars.

Of all the silly ideas about how to bring “real manhood” back, this has to be the most silly.  Of course the sillier idea is that the level of a man’s testosterone level determines whether he is a real man.  The very same video, which announced this miraculous solution, featured “shirtless men throwing around weights, wielding axes, doing pushups and wrestling each other.” Sounds like one of Putin’s birthday videos. How long will we persist in thinking that masculinity has to do with a testosterone level? This means that any man older than 60 is not a man.  

The biblical view of manhood has little to do with the American worship of action heroes. What matters in the Bible is not whether a man is “virile”, but whether he follows God with all his heart. A true man submits first to God and then to anyone else, name your favorite politician. A true man’s behavior is measured by the fruit of the Holy Spirit in his life: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control. Gal 5:22 A real man’s relationship to his wife is defined by the Apostle Paul’s admonition: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her”. Eph. 5:24 Don’t confuse this with Bruno Mars singing “I’d fall on a grenade for ya.” A woman doesn’t need a man to promise stupid things that he’d never need to do. A woman needs and wants a man who honors her and puts her above himself, just as Christ put the church above himself when he died for her.  Doing chores to help your wife would be more useful than these “masculine” rituals (unless you still heat your house with a wood burning fire).  A real man is not worried about being seen as “submissive” to his wife.  Before the specific verses  of instructions to individuals Paul says, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Eph. 5:20 Those who are quick to assert “male headship” are slow to see how these verses, which follow, define such “headship”. A real man, a true man’s man, should love his wife, be faithful to her and kind to her. He should seek her good above his own.  

If one’s testosterone level and sex is all marriage is about, it has no point past the prime of youth and the propagating of the race. Just as we are humans not merely because we have two eyes, two ears, a nose and mouth, so we are not men merely because our testosterone level is high.  Perhaps the fire has to burn lower for reason to win the battle between stupidity and wisdom.

A man’s true masculinity can be seen also in his relationship to his children. “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” Eph. 6:4 Fathers who are real men do not choose career over their children.  They do not exasperate their children by putting them last of all their priorities.  I truly believe that the reason many people do not accept Christ or that they leave the church is because of the poor example set by their fathers, whether absence in attending church or in abandoning their families/getting divorced and giving in to their desires. A true man’s “virility” is not seen in his conquests, but in his devotion to his family.

So now, besides taking Viagra, we are encouraged to tan our testicles.  What a ridiculous idea! Why not take hormone supplements? Probably because this device to tan the testicles costs $1,649.00.  How much did the host get for his percentage?  The article we began with also said that the video promoting testicular tanning has “a scene of a naked man tanning his groin in front of an infrared panel of lights as a soaring orchestral rendition of ‘Thus Spake Zarathustra’ plays in the background.” Ah ha, the Blond Beast! I knew Nietzsche was in there somewhere. The Superman! The man who makes the law and doesn’t submit to anyone else’s law. I wonder if Nietzsche tanned his testicles?