In a world where rape is the norm and a man kills because of rejection, what are we supposed to do?

If you are unaware of the “nice guy” phenomenon, I will break it down easily for you. The internet finds nothing wrong with people being nice, but they abhor those who think it entitles them to something. These people believe that because they were friendly or nice, they should have dates and attention. If you say no, they will think poorly of you because you “owed it to them.” It is good to be nice, but you are not truly doing so if you expect something from it.

The Santa Barbara City College shooter (in attempt to not popularize his name) has been labeled as one of these people. He killed his roommates and then shot multiple people around the school campus. He mostly targeted women because he believed they needed punishment for never giving him any attention. At what point do some men stop taking no for an answer and start believing that what they’re doing is correct?

Although I do not have a definite answer as to why such a behavior develops, we can understand that this might be an overwhelming problem (just look at the brutally honest and horrifying twitter hashtag). We can also understand that this is a problem that must be discussed and fixed within our churches. We must be aware of how members think and behave within the congregation, as well as the youth group. Does your youth group contribute to rape culture? You can find a blog post about that very subject here.

So who’s to blame?

We do not know much about the SBCC shooter and his life, but we do know that his actions were fueled by an intense form of hatred and revenge. Was it guns? video games? music? pornography? We have already learned that porn can mess with your head and change the way your brain works, so are we taking its repercussions seriously?

The infamous serial killer Ted Bundy had once said this: “My experience with pornography … is once you become addicted to it, (and I look at this as a kind of addiction like other kinds of addiction), I would keep looking for more potent, more explicit, more graphic kinds of material. Like an addiction, you keep craving something that is harder, something which gives you a greater sense of excitement. Until you reach a point where the pornography only goes so far, you reach that jumping off point where you begin to wonder if maybe actually doing it would give you that which is beyond just reading or looking at it…The most damaging kinds of pornography are those that involve violence and sexual violence. Because the wedding of those two forces, as I know only too well, brings out the hatred that is just, just too terrible to describe.”

A long list on the NetNanny shows that Ted Bundy was not the only killer impacted by pornography.

Let’s look at some facts about how widespread this “disease” can be:

• 1 in 5 mobile searches are for porn
• The average age of being exposed to porn is 11 years old
• The porn industry generates 13 billion dollars a year in the US
• 88% of scenes have physical aggression
• 49% of scenes have verbal abuse
• 1 in 3 adult site visitors are women
• 50% of christian men are addicted to porn
• 20% of christian women are addicted to porn

We can blame the internet, television, laws, pornstars, or even sex traffickers, but the root of the problem will still be found in the hearts of men and women. Pornography has been around for centuries, and will continue to be around for as long as people will watch it. As a church, are we dealing with this the way we should?

What should we be doing?

• Informing people
  • about the “nice guy” thought process and how it’s wrong
  • about the prolonged effects of pornography
  • about the everyday difficulties women face
• Teaching people
  • how to truly be nice without expecting anything in return
  • how to resist temptation and lead a pure life
  • how to promote equality and respect
• Showing people
  • that humility is worth it
  • that porn is not
  • that Jesus is greater

Above all of these, we should be praying and looking out for each other, and trying to be like Christ. If we are going to change the way people think and behave in this world, we must be one with Christ.

This is the most important.