This blog stems from and is a reflection of one of many late night conversations with Emily Zimmerman and Natalie Miles:
I think that it would be safe to say that the area that I reside in in Ho Chi Minh City could be considered the “Red Light” District. Prostitution is a reality. Necklines are low and skirt lines are high.
On Tuesday night I stood on my balcony looking out over our street. What I saw when I looked down onto the street, made me want to use lots of “cuss” words. Let’s be real here, I actually did use a few “cuss” words. I felt PO’d with a capital F.
As I looked down I saw a “drunken lonely white” man approach a Vietnamese woman and use hand gestures to describe to the woman what he wanted. He was being very expressive with his actions; as it was clear to me exactly what he desired from 2 floors up. She took his hand and motioned up the street. He stopped her and motioned toward the hotel behind him, she again motioned him up the street and together they went off.
In that moment I was filled with disgust and anger. My heart burned with passion as I prayed for loneliness, lust, and entitlement to be stripped off that man. After this incidence, I prayed for my heart to stay soft towards men. I have found that when you witness prostitution as a norm, you want to be angry and distrustful of all men.
We live in a world that sells sex. It's a fact, everyone from young girls to old women strive to look and feel sexy, be attractive, or catch the eye of a man.
We live in a world that has created a culture around sex. With that comes a hunger and thirst for gratification. Many men struggle with lust, loneliness, insecurities and self worth. With that they often fill their voids with some form of sex, something that really only provides temporal fulfillment.
There is a demand for sex in the world in which we live. As long as there is a demand there will be a supply. There will be prostitution, sex trafficking, and pornography. We can save woman after woman from the bondage they are in, we can create jobs and provide houses of hope, but until the demand has been shut off no woman is truly free. There is always another woman, another girl, and another child. It’s a sick and twisted reality. Something that I have struggled with this month in Vietnam: Are my prayers really enough? Can I really partner with God in breaking down the chains of lust and entitlement? Can the demand disappear?
