Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 714 ｜ The Balenciaga Story Is Even Worse than You Think

00:00:00.000 Balenciaga used children to promote sexually explicit products.

00:00:04.440 They're taking some serious heat.

00:00:06.720 Kim Kardashian speaking out about it, but I am not satisfied with these responses, and

00:00:12.660 I will tell you why.

00:00:14.220 Also, actress and professing Christian Tia Mowry said she's ending her 14-year marriage

00:00:20.100 for self-love.

00:00:22.900 As you can guess, I have a lot to say about that.

00:00:26.420 This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.

00:00:29.140 Go to GoodRanchers.com slash Allie.

00:00:31.380 That's GoodRanchers.com slash Allie.

00:00:42.860 Happy Monday.

00:00:44.680 I am so glad to be back with you guys.

00:00:47.100 It has been a long time.

00:00:49.120 Thanksgiving.

00:00:50.020 Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

00:00:51.880 We had a great Thanksgiving.

00:00:53.380 We spent it with my husband's family this year.

00:00:55.480 Lots of cousins, lots of aunts and uncles, lots of food.

00:01:00.240 It was wonderful.

00:01:01.260 It was restful.

00:01:02.240 And I hope that yours was too.

00:01:04.600 But then the week before, I also had to take a little break because I had the stomach bug,

00:01:11.720 which is one of the worst things that you can ever have.

00:01:16.200 Somehow, and thankfully, graciously, my husband avoided it.

00:01:19.280 But my kids and I, we both had it.

00:01:22.340 It was terrible.

00:01:23.020 I actually think I had it the worst of my kids.

00:01:26.320 I mean, it really, it lasted a really long, like an inordinate amount of time.

00:01:31.600 Thankfully, by the mercy of God, I had my appetite back just in time for the pecan cobbler.

00:01:39.520 Yes, pecan cobbler that we had on Thanksgiving.

00:01:42.640 But it was really terrible.

00:01:44.100 But thank you to all of you who prayed for me, prayed for our family during that time.

00:01:49.620 I'm sorry that I had to take a little break right before Thanksgiving.

00:01:54.020 If you haven't listened, though, to last week's pre-recorded episodes,

00:01:57.840 we pre-recorded them before we took the break on the week of Thanksgiving,

00:02:02.480 go back and listen to those.

00:02:03.800 Because on Monday, we talked about the recent climate meeting between all of the global elites,

00:02:09.280 if you will, what was suggested there, what the strategy is for the future,

00:02:13.920 according to these global leaders.

00:02:15.860 And then we also did a Q&A on Tuesday.

00:02:18.100 And then, or I think that was Wednesday.

00:02:20.220 I can't remember.

00:02:21.020 But then we also did an episode with Naomi Riley,

00:02:23.880 one of my favorite episodes maybe that we've ever done,

00:02:26.720 because it's such a fascinating subject that so few people talk about.

00:02:31.320 And that is what is really going on on Native American reservations.

00:02:36.600 We hear, especially this time of year, we need our land back.

00:02:41.100 You're living on stolen land. 0.77

00:02:43.160 The white man has oppressed Native Americans.

00:02:46.000 But what is actually oppressing the Native American population to the point to where they have

00:02:51.220 such disproportionate rates of sexual assault and violent crime and murder and poverty and homelessness?

00:02:58.780 Why is the education system on these reservations so terrible?

00:03:01.800 And so we dig into exactly why that is on that episode.

00:03:06.740 So go listen to that last week.

00:03:08.500 Lots of good stuff.

00:03:09.700 But if you guys have been following me on Instagram,

00:03:12.180 you know that for the past 10 days or so,

00:03:14.560 it's been very difficult for me not to have a show to talk to you about the drama

00:03:21.180 that we are talking about today, namely Balenciaga.

00:03:26.180 I talked about it on my Instagram stories.

00:03:28.740 I'm like that meme of that kid sitting in the classroom who looks like he's about to burst

00:03:36.920 if he doesn't say something or yell something or get something out.

00:03:40.900 That's how I am when I don't have a show, an outlet to talk about the things that I need to talk about.

00:03:46.940 But thankfully, I mean, or not thankfully, the Balenciaga story has carried over to today.

00:03:52.820 So I have new information to talk about.

00:03:55.200 It's not just going back a week to when this was relevant.

00:03:58.800 This is still a very relevant conversation and discussion.

00:04:03.220 So I'm going to break it all down and tell you what I think about this in just a second.

00:04:07.860 I do want to tell you before we get into that,

00:04:10.220 that we have amazing merch that is for sale right now on our merch site.

00:04:17.260 And I will link it in the description of this episode,

00:04:20.060 both on YouTube and on the listening side.

00:04:22.420 I mean, the designers here at Blaze TV did such a good job.

00:04:27.340 I love all of them.

00:04:28.420 We've got two sweatshirts and we've got a little funny sticker.

00:04:31.400 But I love the sweatshirt so much, but especially the Thrill of Hope one.

00:04:37.740 You can see we've got it up on YouTube.

00:04:39.820 On the back of the crew neck sweatshirt, comes in green, comes in white, has a depiction.

00:04:45.460 It has a drawing of Mary with Jesus in her womb.

00:04:50.280 And it says a thrill of hope alongside it.

00:04:53.000 And I just love that.

00:04:54.160 I had like this rough idea of what I wanted it to be, but I'm not artistic.

00:04:57.580 So I couldn't articulate it.

00:04:59.160 And Blaze TV designers took my jumbled thoughts and then made something really beautiful.

00:05:04.120 And then one of you suggested on Instagram,

00:05:06.600 when I asked for some inspiration for Christmas merch, raise a joyful ruckus.

00:05:13.120 And so we've got that in blue and in green in a crew neck sweatshirt.

00:05:17.920 That's a play on our raise a respectful ruckus that we always say.

00:05:22.500 That's one of the things that I think we're called to do as Christians is to raise a respectful

00:05:26.540 ruckus about the things that matter.

00:05:28.100 But we also raise a joyful ruckus.

00:05:30.580 The joy of the Lord is our strength.

00:05:32.040 And this is a joyful time of year.

00:05:34.820 So raise a joyful ruckus.

00:05:37.140 We've got that and then we've got our controversial sticker and that is Mr. Pitbull.

00:05:44.140 And it says, you better watch out.

00:05:46.960 You better watch out for Pitbull danger.

00:05:49.680 I know I'm going to get even just from this one piece of commentary,

00:05:54.840 I'm going to get messages and emails from those of you telling me how wrong and how awful I am

00:06:00.060 for talking about the danger that I think Pitbulls represent.

00:06:05.680 And our Pitbull has a cigar in his mouth.

00:06:07.780 I don't know why, but I just thought that it added to his rough and tough look.

00:06:12.920 So I'm just leaning in to the anti-Pitbull brand that I have donned.

00:06:17.180 All right.

00:06:17.620 That's our Christmas merch.

00:06:19.560 Definitely snag it.

00:06:21.040 I'm super excited.

00:06:22.160 I hope mine, I haven't even gotten mine.

00:06:24.140 Some of you have already gotten yours.

00:06:25.280 I hope mine came in so I can wear it and I can post it on Instagram.

00:06:28.780 All right.

00:06:29.120 I think that's all of the housekeeping announcement stuff that I have.

00:06:33.260 Now let's actually get into the story about Balenciaga.

00:06:47.360 Okay.

00:06:48.040 Let's talk about Balenciaga.

00:06:49.720 I don't, I didn't know very much about Balenciaga at all.

00:06:53.780 Your girl is not really a designer fashion type person.

00:06:59.160 And I'm also not really in that much to celebrity culture.

00:07:02.960 I mean, I feel like I just kind of know things that are going on just by being on social media,

00:07:08.280 but I'm really not into that.

00:07:10.000 The only thing I know about Balenciaga is that Cardi B, who I also don't really listen to,

00:07:14.940 but somehow I have like, I have her lyrics in the reserves of my mind.

00:07:20.200 And she has that one lyric in some song from a few years ago that says like,

00:07:25.000 I like those Balenciagas, the one that looks like socks.

00:07:28.420 So I guess Balenciaga sells shoes that look like socks.

00:07:32.120 I don't know, Cardi B.

00:07:33.140 I don't know.

00:07:33.960 But that's not what we're talking about today.

00:07:35.640 We are talking about Balenciaga getting in hot water because of a disgusting advertising campaign,

00:07:42.180 a holiday campaign that they posted on their website involving young children.

00:07:47.220 We're talking three or four-year-olds, and they are surrounded by items,

00:07:52.340 including the item that they are holding that have to do with bondage sex.

00:07:58.020 Now, it is difficult for me to even say that.

00:08:01.620 And I am going to allow you, if you don't know what I mean by that,

00:08:06.240 to just kind of piece together what that is.

00:08:09.460 And if you've seen the pictures, you can probably deduce what I'm talking about.

00:08:13.240 It's BDSM. 0.85

00:08:14.440 It's a type of sexual activity, often pornography, 0.73

00:08:17.700 that has to do with very often pain and humiliation.

00:08:21.620 And we will leave it at that.

00:08:23.540 And there are different types of outfits and tools, I guess, that are used.

00:08:29.060 They often look like leather and just painful and gothic and just strange.

00:08:33.960 And they decided that, oh, this would be like a good pairing with children to put on our website.

00:08:40.800 They sell these plush teddy bear backpacks that look perhaps like a children's toy.

00:08:48.100 And if you're watching on YouTube, we'll put some of the stuff up.

00:08:51.400 We're going to blur out the kids' faces because the last thing that I want to do

00:08:54.640 is to aid in the exploitation of these children.

00:08:58.600 But I do want you to see what I'm talking about so you know I'm not just making this up.

00:09:02.680 They look like children's toys, but they are wearing these leather straps and the choker and the spikes.

00:09:09.760 And some people were saying, well, maybe it's just gothic.

00:09:13.380 Maybe it's not bondage.

00:09:15.780 But as we will talk about in just a second, Balenciaga apologized for this.

00:09:19.980 And some of the celebrities involved with Balenciaga actually apologized and said they're re-evaluating their relationship.

00:09:26.420 And so Balenciaga never said, oh, no, it has nothing to do with bondage.

00:09:31.200 Balenciaga never said, oh, no, no, no, you're wrong.

00:09:33.920 It's just emo.

00:09:35.080 It's just gothic.

00:09:36.440 No, when people said, why are children being paired with bondage, BDSM stuff?

00:09:42.120 They never denied that this is what happened.

00:09:44.500 So let's back up a little bit and just give you kind of a recap.

00:09:49.160 And so as you can see in this picture with the child's face blurred out, she is holding this little bear in the bondage outfit.

00:09:59.760 And then some of the items that you can see, this child, one of the children, they're standing on a bed.

00:10:05.380 They've got like chains and chokers around them.

00:10:09.980 Very strange.

00:10:11.240 The combination of childlike items and clearly adult sexual items I think is very strange.

00:10:18.460 I mean, they've got dog collars, really weird.

00:10:21.200 There's one picture as well where the child is laying down on the couch on his or her stomach.

00:10:27.540 You can't tell.

00:10:28.180 I think the androgynous nature also of the children's appearance and outfits is probably intentional there.

00:10:38.320 The child even kind of looks drugged.

00:10:40.100 And in the picture where the child is laying down on his or her stomach, there are like wine glasses and alcohol glasses all around.

00:10:48.500 So very odd.

00:10:50.460 There's another picture that they put up of a child standing in his bedroom with this plush bondage toy over in the corner.

00:11:00.960 Again, just very strange.

00:11:03.280 And so I originally saw all of this from a from a tweet from a person who goes by shoe on head.

00:11:10.940 And she's a very popular YouTuber.

00:11:13.880 She's not conservative.

00:11:15.880 She's not liberal.

00:11:17.020 But she does talk about a lot of things, including child exploitation.

00:11:21.300 And so she posted about this.

00:11:23.840 This tweet went viral.

00:11:25.320 And then people started digging into the rest of the or the other advertisements that Balenciaga posts, some of the other photos that they had been publishing.

00:11:35.480 And one of the photos, this is was on their website.

00:11:40.320 And it's a collaboration with Adidas.

00:11:43.020 And there is a purse that's on a table.

00:11:46.480 And underneath the purse is a bunch of papers.

00:11:50.000 In one of the papers, you can actually see the text.

00:11:53.680 Some Internet sleuths figured out that this case that is shown is a Supreme Court case, United States v. Michael Williams from 2008.

00:12:05.460 It has to do with child sex abuse material, child pornography.

00:12:10.420 And the little bit that is shown is actually part of a case called Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition.

00:12:22.180 Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 2002 Supreme Court case that struck down two overbroad, what they considered overbroad provisions of the Child Pornography Prevention Act.

00:12:35.460 of 1996, because they abridged the freedom to engage in a substantial amount of lawful speech.

00:12:43.120 This part is according to Wikipedia.

00:12:45.220 The case was brought against the government by the Free Speech Coalition, a California trade association for the adult entertainment industry, along with Bold Type Inc., a publisher of a book advocating the nudist lifestyle.

00:12:56.120 These are people who wanted to paint and to post erotic images.

00:13:03.180 But under the Child Pornography Prevention Act, some of the things that they wanted to publish were illegal.

00:13:12.140 And so this Free Speech Coalition, they challenged the illegality of this kind of artistry and went to the Supreme Court.

00:13:20.400 And the Supreme Court said that, you know what, you're right.

00:13:23.060 The Child Pornography Prevention Act is too overbroad, and you should be able to depict some of the things that these type of artists want to publish.

00:13:35.780 It should be covered under the First Amendment.

00:13:37.800 Now, that doesn't mean, obviously, that all forms of child sex abuse material are covered under the First Amendment.

00:13:43.640 But this particular Supreme Court case said that the Child Pornography Prevention Act just went too far.

00:13:50.540 Tell me why Balenciaga would choose, of all Supreme Court cases, because it's pretty common for these kinds of campaigns to use Supreme Court cases as documents because they are available to the public.

00:14:06.320 They don't have to worry about copyright and things like that.

00:14:09.180 And that's that's pretty common.

00:14:11.700 But why, out of all of the Supreme Court cases that they could have chosen, why did they choose this one?

00:14:17.440 Why did they choose this one to put on display?

00:14:20.080 It wasn't even hidden that well.

00:14:21.920 It's almost like they wanted people to see that they chose this particular Supreme Court case.

00:14:27.360 So this has a lot of people, understandably, scratching their heads.

00:14:32.120 Now, Balenciaga has been pushing the limits of fashion for a while.

00:14:36.700 And I don't think most people even really pay attention to that.

00:14:40.620 If you look at their 2023 line, a spring collection, which is what they are now advertising, that includes the bondage, the teddy bear backpack things.

00:14:53.760 Most of the most of the attire that we're seeing, and we'll put some up on YouTube, is bondage related.

00:15:01.920 Like it's a lot of leather, a lot of chains, a lot of things that look painful, not comfortable.

00:15:09.400 You also have some of their models looking like they've just gotten beaten up.

00:15:15.380 That's a little strange, right?

00:15:18.180 Like you are condoning, you are glorifying, glamorizing sexual abuse.

00:15:25.320 You'll see that there is this one, again, I think androgynous looking model wearing Balenciaga, I guess, had just walked the runway. 0.98

00:15:33.900 Who has like a fake bloody nose, a fake almost like broken nose, a fake black eye, and is holding up this plush teddy bear with its bondage gear on.

00:15:44.820 The same plush teddy bear that is being held by children in their advertising campaign. 0.93

00:15:51.500 So, Balenciaga, are you trying to condone, glamorize, normalize, mainstream, not just sex with children, which is rape, but also violent sexual abuse of children? 0.87

00:16:04.240 Is that what you're trying to normalize? 0.94

00:16:06.340 Is that what you're trying to hint to?

00:16:08.520 That that is the road that you want to go down, that you are glamorizing, and that you are now mainlining, mainstreaming the violent rape of children using BDSM?

00:16:19.900 Is that what you're doing, Balenciaga?

00:16:23.400 Now, Balenciaga, after they started receiving this backlash, and they saw that people were understandably very upset about this, they did release a statement, a couple statements, which I find entirely insufficient, and I'll tell you why.

00:16:39.200 So they posted this first on their Instagram story.

00:16:41.580 We sincerely apologize for any offense our holiday campaign may have caused.

00:16:45.920 Any offense.

00:16:46.720 They're not sorry that they did it in this original apology.

00:16:50.180 They're sorry that you were offended by it, you rubes. 1.00

00:16:53.860 Our plush bear bags should not have been featured with children in this campaign.

00:16:58.200 We have immediately removed the campaign from all platforms.

00:17:03.800 And then they go on.

00:17:05.620 Okay.

00:17:06.100 So I think that they realized pretty quickly that that original apology, we apologize that you were offended, wasn't really going to cut it.

00:17:14.340 So then they posted this on their story.

00:17:15.720 We apologize for displaying unsettling documents in our campaign.

00:17:19.760 Unsettling?

00:17:20.440 Hmm.

00:17:20.980 We take this matter very seriously and are taking legal action against the parties responsible for creating the set and including unapproved items for our spring 23 campaign photo shoot.

00:17:31.100 We strongly condemn abusive children in any form.

00:17:33.940 We stand for children's safety and well-being.

00:17:37.660 Do you?

00:17:38.700 Do you?

00:17:39.880 I'm not so sure about that.

00:17:41.300 Like you're telling me that you still can't take responsibility for this?

00:17:46.760 Like you're still blaming it on someone else?

00:17:49.840 Like this is not advertising campaigns for companies that are this major, that are this elite, that are this big.

00:17:56.780 They don't just pass through like one set of hands or one set of eyes.

00:18:00.900 I mean, you are talking about dozens, at least dozens of adults who had to approve each and every step of this advertising campaign, of these photographs.

00:18:15.680 This isn't something that was just thrown together one day in, oops, we accidentally ignored that detail.

00:18:24.100 Oh, we didn't realize that this child who is four is a four-year-old child holding bondage gear.

00:18:29.880 Oh, that just, that totally surprised us.

00:18:32.620 Come on. 1.00

00:18:33.620 They're playing dumb. 1.00

00:18:34.780 The only reason they're saying anything is because people got upset. 0.99

00:18:38.820 They're not actually sorry for what they did.

00:18:41.460 And here's my question, by the way.

00:18:43.780 Even if you did, if you were just completely naive and you gave them the total benefit of the doubt,

00:18:49.300 and you said, oh, somehow this just passed through all of these adults and they just didn't catch how this could be problematic.

00:18:55.900 Why are you creating a teddy bear that has bondage gear on in the first place?

00:19:04.940 Even if you didn't include children, even if it were just adults holding this teddy bear with bondage gear on,

00:19:11.540 with a bondage collar and all of that, with BDSM stuff on, that would still be freaking weird.

00:19:17.120 You're still infantilizing BDSM. 0.87

00:19:21.720 Like, you are still bringing a child-likeness into violent sexual activity.

00:19:28.720 That is weird in itself.

00:19:30.880 So don't just apologize that you put the Supreme Court case there, which was, they're saying, a coincidence.

00:19:39.360 Don't just apologize that you used minors in this campaign to promote your BDSM stuff.

00:19:44.580 Apologize that you're making this stuff in the first place.

00:19:48.100 I mean, it would be bad enough to create this stuff for adults.

00:19:51.720 But you're creating stuff that you know looks like a child's toy.

00:19:56.580 And you're putting it in a set that looks like their room.

00:20:00.020 You're putting it in a set that looks like their bed, that looks like their couch.

00:20:04.760 Do not tell me that was accidental.

00:20:07.560 Because it's not just the photos.

00:20:09.440 It's the product itself that looks like a child's toy and yet is wearing sexual gear. 1.00

00:20:16.340 You freaking sickos. 0.99

00:20:17.960 So, no, I do not take this apology at all. 0.99

00:20:22.560 I saw a lot of conservatives applauding when they apologized.

00:20:26.220 And I get it.

00:20:26.820 Like, okay, we're happy that for once conservatives, which it was mostly conservatives, it's not as much anymore.

00:20:33.800 It was, though, seemingly kind of partisan in the beginning.

00:20:37.360 But then I would say that it has grown to be kind of like nonpartisan, bipartisan for the most part.

00:20:42.400 There's still a lot of people like mainstream outlets on the left who are really just reporting about the reaction to it rather than the problematic nature of the campaign itself.

00:20:51.280 But I will say that this has become like a nonpartisan, bipartisan concern campaign.

00:20:58.800 And so I but I understand why there are conservatives who were applauding their apology, who are saying this is great.

00:21:04.240 Like our voices matter.

00:21:06.160 No, I will be applauding when there are trials.

00:21:09.160 I will be applauding when there is an investigation by the DOJ into Balenciaga.

00:21:15.420 I will say, okay, we did something.

00:21:19.220 We made an impact when there is some kind of legal accountability or at least investigation, some kind of process looking into how this company is exploiting children.

00:21:30.640 That's when I will maybe say, you know what, I am, I'm feeling positive about how this is turning out.

00:21:38.520 This is just lip service because they're afraid of losing money.

00:21:44.680 That's all.

00:21:45.360 That's all it is.

00:21:46.200 All right.

00:21:57.500 So the photographer told CNN, his name is Gabriel Gallimberti.

00:22:02.440 He told CNN that the direction and shooting of the campaign were totally out of his hands.

00:22:07.560 He has he's done other campaigns.

00:22:11.180 I'm not going to say that they were ever sexual in nature, but he did do a campaign for several years showing kids and their favorite toys.

00:22:20.540 And he would go into their homes and do a photo shoot of children with their favorite toys.

00:22:25.860 I'm not saying that he had any malintent when it came to that.

00:22:30.600 But I do think some people looked back on that and said, that's weird.

00:22:33.620 So you seem to have you have history taking picture of kids and now you decided to take a picture of kids holding BDSM stuff.

00:22:43.020 And he said, you know, it's out of my hands.

00:22:45.300 As he says, as a photographer, I was only and solely registered to lit the given scene.

00:22:51.080 I think it meant light the given scene and take the shots according to my signature style.

00:22:55.220 As usual, the direction of the campaign and of the shooting are not in the hands of the photographer.

00:22:59.380 OK, that's true.

00:23:00.640 You didn't have to do it.

00:23:02.040 You didn't have to do it.

00:23:03.000 Like when you showed up and you saw that, OK, this kid is laying on the couch with this weird sexually suggestive bear surrounded by wine glasses and champagne glasses and chokers and collars like, oh, that's probably not something that I want to put my name on.

00:23:20.240 You could have said that.

00:23:21.200 Let's not act like you couldn't have.

00:23:22.940 You could have said, no, I don't do anything sexually suggestive at all with kids.

00:23:28.360 This is not a campaign that should include children.

00:23:30.920 I'm sorry I'm not doing that.

00:23:32.100 So while it may not have been your idea to do this, you could have said, no, you could have just not done it.

00:23:40.060 That is always an option.

00:23:42.480 And then the father of one of the child models actually defended allowing his child to be a part of this, because that's a lot of people's question.

00:23:51.800 A lot of people's question is, where were the parents?

00:23:54.980 Why would parents allow this?

00:23:57.100 Well, because it makes money.

00:23:59.700 And some parents, I think, are taken with a brand name like Balenciaga and they think, wow, like this is my child's big break.

00:24:08.680 This is paying us a good amount of money.

00:24:10.540 Maybe this is literally paying our bills this week.

00:24:13.060 And so the father said, according to Daily Mail, that he was present at the shoot, which was a, quote, enjoyable day out and said that the bizarre pictures had been taken totally out of context.

00:24:26.780 Hmm.

00:24:27.420 Interesting.

00:24:28.380 He said no parent would actively encourage the child to take part in something which was pornographic.

00:24:31.880 And I think the publicity surrounding what has what happened has been blown out of proportion.

00:24:37.360 I don't think so, actually.

00:24:39.300 I don't think so at all.

00:24:40.760 I think that you just didn't have discernment as a parent, that maybe you were just blinded by the lights and the importance of it all.

00:24:50.300 And you thought that this is no big deal.

00:24:52.220 I mean, you could say that maybe you honestly did not know that that's what the bear was.

00:24:57.100 Like, maybe you were misinformed or you were uninformed about that.

00:25:00.520 All right.

00:25:01.340 But that would be the statement that she would make as a parent after.

00:25:04.500 Like, oh, I didn't know that this was a part of a BDSM line by Balenciaga.

00:25:10.180 Like, I did not know that this was pornographic in nature.

00:25:13.440 And again, we know that it is because Balenciaga has never denied it.

00:25:17.260 They never said, oh, that's not what these bears are.

00:25:20.940 That's not what these items were surrounding the children.

00:25:23.940 They said, oh, we should not have done that.

00:25:25.700 Because if it wasn't supposed to be sexual in nature, they would have said, you weirdos, why are you thinking this way?

00:25:31.260 This has nothing to do with sexuality whatsoever.

00:25:34.120 So, I mean, we understand what it was supposed to be.

00:25:37.480 And now they're just backtracking.

00:25:38.720 And this dad, I guess, doesn't care.

00:25:40.660 That just goes to show, like, when we talk about crazy things like Drag Queen Story Hour or parents putting their kids on puberty blockers or allowing their kids to be introduced to sexual content in schools and having no problem with it or taking their kids to these family-friendly drag shows.

00:25:57.520 It's because there are parents who just don't see the protection of their child's innocence as important.

00:26:05.820 That's not a value that they have.

00:26:08.220 I'm not saying that they don't, in their own convoluted way, think that they love their children.

00:26:14.100 But their definition of love, their definition of seeking their child's best interest is so fundamentally flawed and so different than, you know, yours and mine that it's almost like we're speaking a different language.

00:26:26.100 It is very difficult to comprehend.

00:26:28.580 It's very difficult to comprehend how a parent could actually love their child and put their child in a situation in which they will be sexualized and exposed to sexuality.

00:26:38.180 I mean, it's just really so sad.

00:26:42.440 Balenciaga, again, they're saying that this is not on us.

00:26:46.640 They have now filed a $25 million lawsuit against the producers of the ad campaign.

00:26:52.940 Balenciaga, this is according to New York Post, brought the suit on Friday, November 25th, against production company North 6 Inc.

00:26:59.720 and set designer Nicolas Desjardins and his company for the inclusion in one of the ads of legal documents related to Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition.

00:27:12.460 Balenciaga is bringing the case to secret dress for extensive damages defendants caused in connection with an advertising campaign Balenciaga hired them to produce, according to the Manhattan Supreme Court summons.

00:27:23.340 Again, okay, get your money.

00:27:26.260 I get it.

00:27:27.320 Like, you're trying to get money, but don't act like this is not your responsibility.

00:27:31.720 This goes all the way up to the CEO, okay?

00:27:35.540 Everyone has to sign off on this.

00:27:37.540 Everyone in charge has to sign off on this.

00:27:40.000 Am I wrong on that?

00:27:41.360 Is it interns signing off on this?

00:27:43.320 Is this something that happens independently of the approval of the people in charge?

00:27:48.100 I have a really hard time believing that.

00:27:49.840 The people in leadership at Balenciaga knew that this was happening.

00:27:54.080 They approved of what was happening.

00:27:55.820 They helped select the images.

00:27:57.260 They approved the images.

00:27:58.920 They signed off on the creation of a plush teddy bear backpack with BDSM gear on.

00:28:05.900 So don't act like, oh, your hands are clean of this.

00:28:10.420 Just like Pilot.

00:28:11.800 They are not.

00:28:12.840 They are not.

00:28:14.400 And then there were some other strange developments.

00:28:17.960 Some other conclusions to more online sleuths, particularly on Instagram and TikTok.

00:28:26.220 They were looking into some of the other pictures that Balenciaga has posted.

00:28:31.220 And they found some things that I think are just worth asking questions about.

00:28:36.120 Again, I would have probably said, well, this is just a conspiracy.

00:28:40.440 If it were just the background stuff, I would have thought, you know what?

00:28:43.160 People are looking too far into this.

00:28:44.960 They're jumping to conclusions.

00:28:46.160 I am not someone who looks for symbolism in everything in Hollywood or everything that

00:28:53.660 a brand puts out or everything that a celebrity wears.

00:28:57.120 Like there are people who put stock into like the color combinations that celebrities wear

00:29:02.280 or different things like that.

00:29:04.800 I just think in general, that's kind of a waste of time.

00:29:07.780 It induces unnecessary anxiety about things.

00:29:13.340 And yet there is some symbolism or there are some things present in these kinds of campaigns 0.67

00:29:19.420 and photos that are so obvious and the connections are so blatant that you would be dumb not to 0.61

00:29:26.160 investigate them.

00:29:27.280 And when a company is so overt as to put the child and the BDSM gear together, like I think

00:29:32.840 that it is just common sense or logical to say, OK, what else have they been kind of sneaking

00:29:38.440 into their campaigns before they became this overt?

00:29:42.340 So some people are looking at one of one photo or one set of photos that featured

00:29:51.120 that featured a book in the background about the Belgian painter Michael Bormans.

00:29:58.620 And we can put up that picture.

00:30:01.120 Bormans art.

00:30:02.120 I don't suggest looking it up.

00:30:03.740 I didn't look it up.

00:30:04.600 I saw this Instagram post where they had looked it up on Google Images, like what the artwork

00:30:10.480 of Michael Bormans is.

00:30:11.720 Again, one of his books in the background of one of Balenciaga's photos, and they are very

00:30:17.520 disturbing and very often violent and nude depictions, paintings of children.

00:30:23.580 There is a picture of a little girl making herself throw up after eating.

00:30:27.000 There are pictures.

00:30:27.620 I'm sorry, this is disturbing of naked children playing in what looks like the blood from one

00:30:33.380 of another child's detached limbs.

00:30:36.900 There is another Balenciaga photo that has a framed certificate in the background that

00:30:42.280 seems to say College Month Honorarium with the name John Philip Fisher underneath it.

00:30:47.640 Now, this is very difficult to verify, but some people are saying that this is a strange selection

00:30:57.220 of a name because there was a man by the name of John Philip Fisher.

00:31:03.660 He, in 2018, was charged and convicted of molesting his granddaughter from the age of four years

00:31:11.180 old to the age of 16.

00:31:14.320 So there is no proof that they chose the name John Philip Fisher to be on a certificate in

00:31:22.000 the background of one of their photos because of this guy who was convicted of molestation

00:31:26.180 in 2018.

00:31:27.400 But I will say that's a very specific name.

00:31:29.660 All three names in the same order of all the names that you could select to put on a certificate

00:31:39.140 in the back of your photo?

00:31:40.980 That's the one you chose?

00:31:42.320 I don't know.

00:31:43.700 I don't know.

00:31:45.180 Also, there's an Instagram account called Mama Bear of Facts.

00:31:48.720 She posted a series of pictures alleged to have previously been posted by a Balenciaga stylist

00:31:55.200 by the name of Lada Valkava, and her Instagram is now private.

00:32:00.080 And so we can't go into her Instagram and see these pictures for ourselves, but there

00:32:05.180 are screenshots that people have been sharing of this Balenciaga stylist.

00:32:11.460 She, I don't believe, was the stylist of this particular ad campaign, but she has styled

00:32:15.720 for Balenciaga before.

00:32:17.000 Again, we see a lot of violent depictions of children and a lot of satanic depictions.

00:32:23.320 She has pictures of, it looks like Satan. 0.95

00:32:28.620 I'm so sorry to even say this, but sexually assaulting a woman. 0.94

00:32:32.940 There are pictures of children tied up.

00:32:35.380 So this is apparently a Balenciaga stylist named Lada Valkava.

00:32:40.740 So there are a lot of parts of this company that I think are very disturbing, or at least,

00:32:47.720 I mean, we know that there are some parts that are objectively disturbing, and then there

00:32:51.500 are some other questions that people have that take us down a very disturbing path.

00:32:57.240 And man, I have spoken out against the conspiracies that are Q and QAnon, because I think that going 1.00

00:33:04.220 down those conspiracy rabbit holes can really ruin people's lives and take you away from that

00:33:08.860 which is actually true, and that which we can see, and that which we know, it's kind of

00:33:12.360 a form of Gnosticism.

00:33:15.460 But man, when you see things like this, and you just ask yourself the question, like, how

00:33:22.200 deep does this go?

00:33:24.360 Like, how insidious is this problem of the sexualization of the violence against children?

00:33:31.800 The problem with the QAnon conspiracy was not that it problematized child sex abuse, or that 0.65

00:33:38.460 it talked about sex trafficking, all of those are real problems.

00:33:41.720 The problem with QAnon was that it saw Donald Trump as the savior, and Q as the secret person,

00:33:48.000 leaving clues, and all of that.

00:33:49.380 All of that was nonsense.

00:33:51.160 All of that was nonsense.

00:33:52.720 Q, actually, the whole QAnon conspiracy theory, because it very often went down rabbit holes that

00:34:01.320 just were not true, and were actually crazy, it missed what is really going on underneath

00:34:09.420 our noses.

00:34:10.500 And that is that these real companies happening in real time are sexualizing children, and they're

00:34:17.420 not even trying to hide it.

00:34:18.720 And it has nothing to do with Donald Trump.

00:34:21.040 It probably doesn't even have to do with the secret global cabal.

00:34:24.400 It just has to do with evil, and with malice, and with wickedness that is insidious, and

00:34:30.980 that is pervasive in all different forms of society.

00:34:36.120 And you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to see that, or to know that, or to care about

00:34:41.540 that.

00:34:42.000 I think one really big damaging effect of the whole QAnon thing, or maybe the media emphasis

00:34:48.160 on it, is that it conflated concern with child sexualization, and with child sex abuse

00:34:55.500 material, and sex trafficking with conspiracy theorists and QAnon.

00:34:58.980 And that made it partisan.

00:35:00.800 And that meant that one side really didn't want to talk about it, and the other side didn't.

00:35:05.020 And that is a problem.

00:35:07.440 That is a really damaging effect of not just conspiracy theories, but also the media thinking

00:35:13.020 that everything that the right cares about is a conspiracy theory.

00:35:15.580 This should not be a partisan issue, especially when you have Balenciaga, just like every other

00:35:22.520 company, virtue signaling about words that are said, and not actually caring about the

00:35:29.760 corruption, the deadliness, and just the darkness that is at the core of their mission.

00:35:35.220 They recently cut ties with Kanye West after he made a series of anti-Semitic remarks, and

00:35:42.120 yet they are allowing this kind of thing to happen, again, with their approval, no matter

00:35:48.020 what they say.

00:35:49.460 Someone had to approve of this stuff.

00:35:52.800 Celebrities like Nicole Kidman, Bella Hadid, Haley Bieber, they, at least from what I've seen

00:36:00.280 as of right now, have not said anything.

00:36:02.300 They have not condemned the ads, and these are the kind of people, of course, that would

00:36:09.740 if Balenciaga said something that was distasteful about, like, black people or about immigrants,

00:36:14.980 of course, they would be the first people, or trans people, the first people to speak

00:36:19.060 out.

00:36:19.820 Why is this subject something that people are so reticent to say anything about?

00:36:25.580 It's very strange.

00:36:26.500 It should be the first thing that you have a concern about.

00:36:29.460 So now, Kim Kardashian, I don't even know if I want to say to her credit, I'll just

00:36:35.100 say, but I guess it is to her credit, and I'm glad that she said something.

00:36:39.720 She put out a tweet thread about this because people have been tagging her, people have been

00:36:44.300 saying, hey, Kim, you need to say something about this, you need to speak up about this.

00:36:49.080 She put out a tweet thread yesterday and said, I have been quiet for the past few days, not

00:36:53.660 because I haven't been disgusted and outraged by the recent Balenciaga campaigns, but because

00:36:57.840 I wanted an opportunity to speak to their team to understand for myself how this could

00:37:02.760 have happened.

00:37:03.480 As a mother of four, I have been shaken by the disturbing images.

00:37:06.840 The safety of children must be held with the highest regard, and any attempts to normalize

00:37:11.100 child abuse of any kind should have no place in our society, period.

00:37:14.260 I appreciate Balenciaga's removal of the campaigns and apology.

00:37:17.540 And speaking with them, I believe they understand the seriousness of the issue and will take the

00:37:21.020 necessary measures for this to never happen again.

00:37:23.940 That I don't believe.

00:37:26.160 Then she goes on to say, as for my future with Balenciaga, I am currently reevaluing my

00:37:29.960 relationship with the brand based off their willingness to accept accountability for something

00:37:33.300 that should never have happened to begin with and the actions I am expecting them to

00:37:37.560 take to protect children.

00:37:39.240 I can almost guarantee she is not going to sever ties with Balenciaga, reevaluating.

00:37:44.020 It's just, I just don't believe it's going to happen.

00:37:46.400 If they had said something that was politically incorrect, according to the left, then she probably

00:37:51.920 would have severed ties with them, I guess, depending on the money involved there.

00:37:57.300 But again, I say, why is this subject, the sexual exploitation as children regarded by anyone

00:38:03.500 as partisan?

00:38:04.760 Why should the story be that the right pounces or the conservatives pounce?

00:38:09.140 But again, I guess I'm not all that surprised because a lot of the people who think that child

00:38:13.960 sexual exploitation is a conspiracy theory would take their child to see a grown man in fake cleavage 0.97

00:38:24.120 and fishnets dance for money and who think that it's totally normal for a teacher to talk to their

00:38:34.180 child about changing their genitalia when they're six years old.

00:38:38.280 So I guess, again, this is just not a value that everyone has, but it should be.

00:38:43.800 What do we always say?

00:38:45.360 On this podcast, children are always the unconsenting subjects of progressive social experiments.

00:38:54.220 And the religious right, really, like we did not even have enough foresight.

00:39:01.780 People called us slippery slopers for saying that opening up sexuality and normalizing different

00:39:10.680 kinds of sexual activity outside of the marriage between a man and a woman is going to lead to

00:39:16.720 the normalization of other kinds of sexual perversion.

00:39:20.380 Of course, we were called conspiracy theories then, but actually, we didn't see far enough

00:39:25.720 ahead.

00:39:26.140 We didn't think it would get this bad.

00:39:28.820 And it will only get worse.

00:39:30.960 It will only get worse.

00:39:32.240 Children, of course, they're the group of people.

00:39:34.200 They don't have political capital.

00:39:35.680 They don't have a voice.

00:39:36.740 They don't have any power.

00:39:38.600 Their safety, their protection is entirely dependent upon adults seeking their best interest.

00:39:45.740 And look, that has been the role of the church, by the way, for thousands of years.

00:39:49.580 I've given this spiel before, but Christianity revolutionized how the world saw children.

00:39:55.640 Go back to pagan Greece and pagan Rome in the ancient days. 0.95

00:40:00.020 And when the church burst on the scene, it revolutionized how society regarded children and regarded women, regarded slaves, regarded the sick, regarded the elderly, all people who were pushed to the margins because of their lack of productivity and their political power and capital.

00:40:17.040 Christianity, universalizing the idea that people are made in the image of God, and then doubling 0.95

00:40:24.060 down on that idea, emphasizing that idea even more by saying we are all equally dead without

00:40:28.900 Christ or equally alive in Christ.

00:40:31.740 It changed the game for how human beings are regarded, that we're not just valuable based

00:40:40.740 on what we bring to the table, but we are inherently valuable because we have souls, because we were

00:40:46.080 made by God.

00:40:48.420 And we have a responsibility to care for the vulnerable.

00:40:51.480 We have a responsibility to speak up for the voiceless.

00:40:55.520 That was not true in ancient times.

00:40:57.680 It will not be true in a post-Christian world, by the way. 0.96

00:41:00.720 It is not true currently in countries in which Christianity has not been the historical basis.

00:41:07.480 The entire idea of human rights, but especially children's rights and the protection of children

00:41:12.520 is based on a Christian idea and ideal that human beings are made in the image of God and

00:41:18.400 that children are not products for exploitation, but are rather vulnerable people to be protected,

00:41:26.080 but are actually gifts to parents, to society.

00:41:30.900 That is a distinctly Christian view.

00:41:34.080 And people don't realize that when you pull Christianity out of the foundation of a society, 0.89

00:41:40.340 that things get really ugly really fast.

00:41:44.020 The things that America thinks are just obvious.

00:41:48.580 Human rights, dignity, equality, laws against murder and theft.

00:41:54.000 That's just common sense.

00:41:55.840 That's just natural law.

00:41:57.380 That's just obvious.

00:41:58.840 That's just objectively right and wrong.

00:42:02.040 You don't realize how much you're taking that for granted, that those things actually

00:42:05.740 have a biblical foundation.

00:42:07.040 And when you take the foundation away, again, things get really ugly really fast.

00:42:12.060 I mean, look at what's happening in Canada with the whole assisted suicide movement.

00:42:15.920 That's what happens when you take away the idea that human beings have any value and are

00:42:21.300 made in the image of God.

00:42:22.660 We really are just clumps of cells.

00:42:24.480 Who cares what happens to the sick?

00:42:26.740 What happens to the disabled? 0.99

00:42:28.200 What happens to the baby in the womb?

00:42:29.880 What happens to the child?

00:42:32.640 And so here we are.

00:42:34.920 Here we are.

00:42:35.540 As I said a couple of weeks ago, I used to think, what is the society that progressives want?

00:42:41.260 What will it actually look like?

00:42:42.540 How will we know when we are actually there?

00:42:45.900 Here we are.

00:42:47.240 Here we are.

00:42:48.200 We don't have to wait.

00:42:49.380 Like we are actually already seeing the consequences of when progressivism says,

00:42:53.480 let's just tear down everything.

00:42:56.300 Let's tear down the safeguards.

00:42:58.000 Let's tear down the foundation.

00:42:59.900 Let's tear down all of the constructions that were put up for the sake of order and safety

00:43:05.720 and security and well-being.

00:43:07.840 Let's take those down and see what happens when things just run wild.

00:43:11.720 When everyone decides for themselves what's good and what's right.

00:43:15.180 Here we are.

00:43:16.440 Do we like it?

00:43:17.880 Are we happier?

00:43:19.320 Are we safer?

00:43:20.560 Are we better off?

00:43:21.880 Are we more purposeful?

00:43:23.580 Or are we lonelier?

00:43:25.280 Are we in more danger?

00:43:27.360 Are we more purposeless?

00:43:28.800 I think we know the answer to that.

00:43:30.340 Okay, I wanted to talk quickly about this Tia Mowry story about divorce and her interview

00:43:51.280 with Black Entertainment TV and how she said it's just basically about self-love and self-care.

00:43:59.120 And this makes me sad for multiple reasons.

00:44:01.920 I'll get into why she's so wrong.

00:44:05.180 But Tia Mowry, she bills herself. 1.00

00:44:08.880 I think she and her sister both, Tia and Tamara.

00:44:11.280 I mean, you guys know probably Sister Sister.

00:44:13.620 I grew up watching that.

00:44:15.220 Great show.

00:44:16.360 Tia and Tamowry bill themselves as Christians.

00:44:18.460 And it's hard to find Christians in Hollywood that you want to look up to who have marriages

00:44:23.320 and relationships that can be esteemed.

00:44:27.300 And they seemed like a good example of that.

00:44:31.540 And now Tia Mowry's comments really make me question, honestly, the authenticity of her

00:44:43.140 faith.

00:44:43.920 I'm not judging her salvation.

00:44:46.180 I don't know if she saved or not.

00:44:48.280 I pray to God that she is and that she repents of this horrible theology that she has in

00:44:53.660 regards to a divorce and how we think about relationships and love and commitment and

00:44:59.060 also ourselves.

00:45:01.080 But I think that we can judge a tree by its fruit and say, based on her comments here,

00:45:07.920 this is rotten fruit that is being produced.

00:45:10.120 And I worry about the fruit that it will produce in others as well.

00:45:14.400 So here's the headline.

00:45:15.780 Tia Mowry reveals why she followed for divorce, plus why she considers her 14-year marriage 0.99

00:45:20.400 with Corey Hardrick a success.

00:45:23.620 Mowry said she knew it was time to move on from her marriage by saying this.

00:45:27.380 I knew when I really started to focus on my happiness.

00:45:30.680 I feel like women.

00:45:31.780 We tend to focus on everybody else's happiness, making sure that everybody else is OK, meaning

00:45:36.480 our children, our friends, our family.

00:45:37.880 But at the end of the day, it's about self-love.

00:45:42.320 That's demonic.

00:45:44.560 When you start to really work on yourself, love yourself, know your value and know your

00:45:49.860 worth, then all of a sudden there's this awakening and it's not easy.

00:45:53.780 It's a hard journey.

00:45:54.700 But at the end of the day, I feel like it is so, so worth it.

00:45:57.720 I would not be shocked at all if she got this from Glennon Doyle.

00:46:02.140 She probably read Untamed by Glennon Doyle and was like, yes, I need to follow along in

00:46:07.620 this person's footsteps and liberate myself from the covenant that I made with my husband

00:46:13.880 before God, the commitment that I've made to this marriage, the commitment that I made

00:46:17.420 to my children.

00:46:19.440 And for the sake of my own feelings, for the sake of my own self-affirmation, my own self-worship,

00:46:24.820 my own self-adoration, I am going to disintegrate this marriage, this covenant that God has brought

00:46:32.080 together at the expense, not only of that commitment, but also at the expense of the

00:46:36.880 health and the well-being and the security and stability of my children.

00:46:41.780 It is wrong when people say, it's just false, just based on data, based on any common sense

00:46:47.880 that children just need their parents to be happy.

00:46:52.020 Yes, I do think that ideally, ideally, children are in a home with two parents who are happy,

00:46:59.580 who are happily in love, who show affection to one another, who get along, who are happy

00:47:05.660 and fulfilled as spouses, as parents, in the mission and causes that God has called them

00:47:13.500 to.

00:47:14.280 Yes, I think that is the ideal.

00:47:17.660 But children do not need their parents to be happy-go-lucky all the time.

00:47:24.520 They do not need their parents to always be smiling.

00:47:27.840 They do not need their parents to feel good about themselves all the time.

00:47:33.980 Ideally, they have happy, healthy parents consistently, but children need their parents to be together.

00:47:42.800 Now, there are exceptions to that.

00:47:44.480 Absolutely.

00:47:45.260 I am not condoning tolerating abuse.

00:47:48.200 I'm not.

00:47:49.180 I am saying, though, that there are better things, there are deeper things, there are

00:47:56.140 more important things to life and to marriage and to child raising than your own feelings

00:48:02.280 of happiness and self-fulfillment.

00:48:06.640 And what she is teaching her children in this is that my feelings matter more than yours.

00:48:12.660 And not only is she saying that my feelings matter more than my children's feelings, she's

00:48:17.240 saying that my feelings matter more than your stability and security and well-being.

00:48:22.520 She may have deluded herself into thinking that, oh, my children will be better off if

00:48:26.480 I'm just happy, if I feel myself, if I'm feeling good about my self-esteem, if I'm liberated

00:48:32.880 from the bonds of marriage because I have tricked myself into thinking that that's what freedom

00:48:37.780 and fulfillment looks like, but they're not.

00:48:40.300 She has put her children on rocky ground.

00:48:42.660 Katie Faust often says she is an adult asking her children to do hard things for her rather

00:48:49.180 than how it should be adults doing hard things for their children.

00:48:53.760 And that might mean working through a marriage that is not in that very moment giving you

00:48:58.760 all of the butterflies and feelings that you want it to.

00:49:03.000 Yes, marriage is about love, but it's also about another four-letter word, and that is work.

00:49:07.760 That is what relationships look like.

00:49:09.700 Children benefit from seeing the sacrifice and from seeing sometimes the hardship and sometimes

00:49:16.340 the difficulty that is inherent in any committed relationship.

00:49:22.400 And that is you offering a firm foundation for your children.

00:49:27.940 There is a reason why scripture says that God hates divorce.

00:49:31.860 That doesn't mean there's not forgiveness and redemption and grace there, but you are taking

00:49:36.900 apart what God has brought together.

00:49:39.900 This is what Jesus says in Matthew 19 that really goes against this whole idea that, oh,

00:49:47.660 well, all that matters is that we're just happy and that we feel good about ourselves

00:49:52.000 in the moment.

00:49:53.440 The Pharisees in verse 3, Matthew 19, 3, Pharisees came to him and tested him by asking,

00:49:58.300 is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?

00:50:01.000 And Jesus said, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them

00:50:06.820 male and female and said, therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold

00:50:11.400 fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.

00:50:15.340 So they are no longer two, but one flesh.

00:50:18.620 What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.

00:50:24.320 And I actually think the next couple of verses are important too.

00:50:27.080 They said to him, why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to

00:50:32.200 send her away? 1.00

00:50:33.420 Jesus said to them, because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your

00:50:39.160 wives, but from the beginning, it was not so. 1.00

00:50:42.460 And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality and marries another 1.00

00:50:47.460 commits adultery.

00:50:49.360 And then you can read the whole thing about the passage.

00:50:52.500 So basically saying, yes, God did allow for laws in ancient Israel that permitted divorce

00:51:00.360 in particular cases.

00:51:02.640 But that is not because that was God's desire.

00:51:05.060 It was not supposed to be like that from the beginning.

00:51:07.540 It is because of man's wickedness that sometimes God allowed for there to be the legality of

00:51:16.000 divorce.

00:51:16.780 But Jesus is saying that is not how it's supposed to be.

00:51:20.080 God has joined you together.

00:51:21.460 And sometimes it's going to be hard.

00:51:23.920 And it is not about your self-love.

00:51:28.440 Let me read you what the Bible says about self-love.

00:51:32.040 A reminder, I wrote a book on this.

00:51:34.000 I don't think you can see it in this shot.

00:51:36.060 Yeah, there it is in the wide shot.

00:51:37.460 You're not enough and that's okay.

00:51:38.680 Escaping the toxic culture of self-love.

00:51:42.680 As I have mentioned many times as I argue in my book, because as I have argued here, I do

00:51:48.020 not encourage self-loathing or self-deprecation.

00:51:53.420 That is simply another form of self-obsession.

00:51:57.220 I do encourage a self-forgetfulness.

00:51:59.920 And I do tell you that the Bible does not command us to love ourselves.

00:52:04.700 That how we feel about ourselves is a really bad indicator of how much we're worth and how

00:52:11.640 valuable we are, what we think about ourselves, what we see when we look in the mirror, our

00:52:17.640 feelings about our aptitude, our insecurity.

00:52:21.740 They are not good indicators of our value.

00:52:24.920 You know what is God's unchanging love for us?

00:52:29.600 Self-love is entirely dependent on our mood, on what other people think of us, what other

00:52:36.980 people say about us, about our accolades, about our success or lack thereof.

00:52:42.100 Therefore, it is changing moment by moment.

00:52:45.380 Can you imagine if you made all your decisions based on how you feel about yourself on any given

00:52:51.500 day or in any given season, but instead we view ourselves through the prism of God's

00:52:58.560 love, which does not change because for the Christian, it is dependent upon Christ, what 0.71

00:53:03.540 he has done for us and who he says that we are.

00:53:07.520 And that Jesus, Hebrews 13, 8 says, is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

00:53:15.600 So that's good news that we do not make decisions based on how we feel about ourselves, that we

00:53:21.140 do not pursue self-love.

00:53:22.620 We pursue God's love.

00:53:25.140 We do not love other people based on how much we love ourselves.

00:53:29.100 I know that a lot of people say you can't love your neighbor until you love yourself because

00:53:32.460 Jesus says, love your neighbor as yourself.

00:53:34.880 That's not what Jesus is saying.

00:53:37.040 He's saying that you already naturally love yourself.

00:53:40.360 You already are born loving yourself.

00:53:43.000 That doesn't mean that you like yourself all the time.

00:53:44.780 That does mean that you are always seeking your best interest.

00:53:47.780 We naturally are seeking to quench our thirst.

00:53:49.700 We naturally are seeking to satiate our hunger.

00:53:52.680 We naturally are seeking shelter.

00:53:54.260 We're naturally seeking protection.

00:53:55.980 We are naturally seeking, in a lot of ways, alleviation from pain.

00:53:59.720 We are seeking things that are good for ourselves.

00:54:03.360 Even people pleasers are seeking the affirmation that comes from pleasing other people.

00:54:07.260 Even people who tragically die by suicide are seeking alleviation from their misery.

00:54:12.500 We are born loving ourselves.

00:54:14.480 Our society, Tia Mowry, is not suffering from a deficit of self-love.

00:54:19.420 We already love ourselves way too much.

00:54:22.320 That is actually the cause of most of our problems.

00:54:25.240 We are being fed a lie that you don't love yourself enough.

00:54:28.040 Society doesn't love themselves enough.

00:54:29.940 Teenage girls don't love themselves enough. 1.00

00:54:32.060 That's the problem.

00:54:32.840 That's why they're sad.

00:54:33.660 That's why they're depressed.

00:54:34.600 That's why they're lonely.

00:54:35.700 And so we just have to preach self-love over and over again.

00:54:38.460 Then people will be happy and fulfilled.

00:54:40.080 If that was the problem, we would be doing a lot better than we are.

00:54:44.340 But actually, we've been preaching self-love and self-focus and self-fulfillment for decades,

00:54:50.880 especially over the past 10 to 15 years.

00:54:53.120 Where are we?

00:54:54.420 Where are our rates of depression?

00:54:56.440 Our rates of anxiety?

00:54:58.160 Our rates of loneliness?

00:54:59.820 Are they higher or lower than they were 20 to 30 years ago?

00:55:04.280 That's a rhetorical question.

00:55:05.760 I think that you know the answer.

00:55:07.320 Our problem is actually that we are focusing on ourselves too much.

00:55:10.700 The problem, Tia Mowry, is not that you are focused too much on the happiness of other

00:55:15.880 people, but that you are now focused too much on the happiness of yourself.

00:55:20.020 I'm not saying that we shouldn't be happy, but our happiness, thank God, as Christians

00:55:25.120 is not derived from how we feel about ourselves, but is derived from who God is and what he has

00:55:30.060 done for us.

00:55:30.840 And that does not change.

00:55:32.800 That means the joy that we have is unshakable even when we are sad, even when life is hard,

00:55:38.160 even when things are inconvenienced, even when we are asked more than we asked of, even

00:55:44.460 when things are asked of us that we think that we cannot give, God's love gives us the

00:55:49.820 reserves, the resources to be able to pour out love for other people, no matter how we

00:55:54.660 feel about ourselves.

00:55:55.820 That is the good news.

00:55:58.000 That's why the culture of self-love is toxic, because it's superficial, because it's unreliable.

00:56:03.400 And that's why the road to self-discovery and to self-liberation and self-fulfillment is

00:56:09.700 actually just a hamster wheel.

00:56:11.180 It leads nowhere.

00:56:12.260 You're just exhausting yourself.

00:56:14.420 Allow the Lord to care for you.

00:56:17.560 Allow him to be the source of your joy and your fulfillment and your commitment.

00:56:23.400 Allow him to be the solid ground that you are looking for.

00:56:28.700 The self can't be both the problem and the solution, Tia Mowry.

00:56:33.600 If inside yourself you are finding these very real feelings of insecurity and doubt and brokenness

00:56:41.420 and depression and anxiety, you are not going to find the solution to those things in the

00:56:45.100 same place where you are finding your problems.

00:56:48.200 The only way to find solutions to the problems that we have inside of ourselves is to look outside

00:56:53.580 of ourselves, namely to the God who created us, who tells us who we are, how much we're worth,

00:56:58.120 why we matter, why we're here, what our job is here on earth.

00:57:02.940 And one of those jobs is not to find out ways to love ourselves more.

00:57:07.520 I promise it's not.

00:57:09.180 It's not.

00:57:10.200 There's a lot of freedom and self-forgetfulness.

00:57:12.380 Again, that's not self-loathing.

00:57:13.880 It's not self-deprecation.

00:57:15.580 It's not hating yourselves.

00:57:16.700 That is stewarding the body and the time and the life that you have.

00:57:21.840 And that can include a lot of restful things, a lot of leisurely things, a lot of joy and

00:57:26.800 happiness inducing things.

00:57:28.200 That is not living a life of like morose sadness.

00:57:32.140 That is not, you know, again, being hateful to yourself.

00:57:35.980 That is just finding your joy in something that is everlasting and unchanging.

00:57:40.040 And we see now what the pursuit of self-love and self-fulfillment gets you, and it gets

00:57:49.100 you broken relationships, gets you divorce.

00:57:52.500 It gets you a delusion that makes you think that exchanging your child's, your children's

00:57:58.320 well-being for your own superficial feelings of self-esteem is a worthy exchange.

00:58:04.720 Here's what 2 Timothy 3 says about self-love.

00:58:08.680 This is really the only time that we see in the Bible God even talking about self-love,

00:58:15.360 and here's how he describes it.

00:58:19.140 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty, for people

00:58:24.280 will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their

00:58:30.160 parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, 0.67

00:58:34.840 brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of self-love.

00:58:38.680 Rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power, avoid such

00:58:47.420 people.

00:58:48.280 Here we go.

00:58:49.560 For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins

00:58:56.500 and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth,

00:59:03.180 Brene Brown and Glennon Doyle.

00:59:05.400 That's what it is.

00:59:06.940 It's a superficial self-love theology that is just going to put you on a hamster wheel that

00:59:12.360 will lead to disappointment and destruction.

00:59:15.520 Repent and follow Christ.

00:59:16.820 And he is the only one that will ever truly satisfy you.

00:59:22.820 Tia Mowry.

00:59:24.180 That's my prayer for her.

00:59:26.000 It's very sad.

00:59:27.600 She also goes on to say that my marriage is, that her marriage is a success.

00:59:32.800 This is sad.

00:59:33.620 I look at it as a curriculum when you're in college or high school.

00:59:36.460 You're learning, you're growing, you're evolving, you're creating.

00:59:38.540 And I was able to create with Corey some beautiful, amazing children.

00:59:41.300 At the end of the curriculum, there's a graduation.

00:59:43.340 There's a celebration.

00:59:45.020 Whew.

00:59:45.940 So lost.

00:59:46.800 It's not curriculum.

00:59:47.880 It's a covenant.

00:59:50.500 And to break it, it's not a small thing.

01:00:04.220 Believe it or not, I didn't even get to everything that I wanted to get to, 0.77

01:00:08.160 today, I wanted to talk about Tampax's dumb tweet and the NHL going trans. 0.99

01:00:15.040 Oh, man. 1.00

01:00:16.460 What a crazy world.

01:00:17.680 What a crazy world we live in.

01:00:19.820 But we will talk about that stuff tomorrow.

01:00:22.500 I just have a lot of pent-up commentary, as you can tell.

01:00:26.100 Also, if you're watching on YouTube, I hope you like our pretty Christmas decorations.

01:00:30.180 Aren't they beautiful?

01:00:31.800 Okay.

01:00:32.480 All right.

01:00:32.940 That's all I got to say today.

01:00:35.060 We will be back here tomorrow.

01:00:36.740 See you guys then.

01:00:38.160 Bye.

01:00:38.660 Bye-bye.

01:00:39.160 Bye-bye.

01:00:41.380 Bye-bye.

01:00:43.560 Bye-bye.

01:00:43.980 Bye-bye.

01:00:44.960 Bye-bye.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - November 28, 2022

Ep 714 ｜ The Balenciaga Story Is Even Worse than You Think

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