Acceptance and Love
Danielle


They say loving someone means we must accept them for who they are. I agree. Acceptance is a very important part of any relationship. If I love you, then I should accept all your quirks, strengths, weakness, past mistakes, future responsibilities etc.

But I do wonder if acceptance means to never disagree.

If I knew what you are doing or choosing is bad for you, impedes your growth, potential and goodness as a person, then am I suppose to just accept what you do? Is that what loving you means?

I think we have somewhat become confused. We have concluded (rather ignorantly, I must say) that to accept someone means to agree and accept all the decisions he/she makes without any questions

Although acceptance is an important aspect of love, a greater challenge in love, greater than acceptance is the challenge to consciously decide to ALWAYS choose what is good for the person we love. We are not saying that we will make the decisions for the person, we are saying that whatever that is under our decision making territory, we will ensure those decisions bring good for the person we love, EVEN if it strains the relationship itself.

To choose to do something that is not good for the person we love, but is good for our relationship is actually quite selfish. The desire to preserve a relationship above choosing what is good for the other, just because it involves our own selves, or just because straining that relationship may lead to many heartaches and discomfort is a rather selfish decision.

It is like saying that, although I know that this particular decision you’re making (let’s say) is fatal, I will allow you to make it, because I accept you and all your decisions, and because I don’t want to lose our friendship. Although it may seem as if the latter action is stemmed from goodness, in actual fact it is selfish in nature.

Truly loving someone means to not only accept them as who they are, it also means to always make choices that are good for the person involved.

Should a mother, accept her child’s choice to consume poison just because it was the child’s choice and she should respect that choice? Respect for the freedom of choice ma! Sounds ridiculous, isn’t it? Of course the mother should express her disapproval on the choice the child has made, educate the child on the dangers of poison, and coax the child to not consume poison.

I hope we agree atleast on that.

Keeping that in mind, let us apply this to a different picture.

Should I just accept that some women or men just choose to be sex workers? That to some of them, it is just a way of earning an income? Is accepting them as individuals and respecting their freedom of choice mean that I should accept that to some of them, sex work is a form of career?

I can’t. Not because sex work is morally wrong, neither because it is ‘desecration of sex’. I am against sex work and legalisation of sex work because these decisions do not bring good for the person involved. Yes, perhaps, they can earn a living and that’s a good thing, right? Yes, they can earn a living, but they do so by giving away the most delicate and intimate part of themselves, to mere strangers. Their customers take something from these persons something that never belonged to them (customers) in the first place. And whether we are willing to acknowledge it or not, sexual relations with mere strangers have its psychological, emotional and spiritual effects on the sex workers.

The act of sexual intercourse is not merely a physical action, with biological implications (though some of us want so badly to believe that to be true). Sexual intercourse has the potential to give life. That itself can tell us so much about the act. Can an act that is capable of giving life, be nothing more than a physical act? Can life be formed without any spiritual participation? If we say ‘Yes, life can be formed simply by physical action, with no spiritual engagement’, then does that mean life is nothing but a biological process? Are we saying that we do not possess a soul or a spirit? Are we saying that we are nothing but multi-celled organisms that undergo processes for survival? Are we going to deny something that is known to be true simply because we cannot see it? Don’t we believe in the galaxies though we have not seen them? Aren’t thoughts a proven element though we can never see them? Then, why is it so difficult to believe that each of us possess a soul, a spirit? If we do believe that each of us possess a soul, then why do we think that the act of sexual intercourse is a merely physical act with no spiritual implications? Then, why do we think, that conception, a life-forming phenomenon wouldn’t include the gift of a soul as well to complement that life?


Because the act of sexual intercourse is not only a physical union between the two persons involved, because it is an act that involves union also at the spiritual level (because it is a life-giving act), and hence can you imagine the kind of fragmentation that occurs to a sex worker who unites in soul and body with different persons on a daily basis and then go on to separate from that union in a very short period of time? How can we then, say that such an act will not have any destructive effects on the sex worker’s physical, emotional and spiritual state?

Liberalism is good but it can bring about negative implications if used in extreme manners, without putting proper thoughts into it.

We may think that we are fighting for equal rights for sex workers. However, are we fighting for something that is good for them or are we fighting for something that is destructive for them? We care for the sex workers, but do we love them? Are we choosing to do what is good for them? Or are we choosing only to look at the first layer and ignore the rest of the layers of implications that come with that action?

A mother can be misunderstood by the child, when she chooses what is good for the child. Because what is good for child may not necessarily make the child happy at that point in time but a mother will still choose it, because to the mother, it does not matter if the child is upset or does not like the mother anymore. To the mother, what matter most is what is good for the child, above what is good for the mother, above what is good for the relationship.

I am not here to judge sex workers. Really. There must be a reason why they chose sex work. There must be something that has made them forget their own great value. I am sure they are beautiful amazing people. I have no doubt on that. There must be a reason they have made the choice they’ve made.

But that doesn’t mean I won’t tell them that they were created for so much more, with great value. That doesn’t mean that I won’t express disagreement if I know that the choices they are making for themselves is not good for them, rather it is destructive. I cannot decide for them, I cannot impose on them but I must, I must atleast do whatever that is in my power to help them make the right choice. I cannot champion sex work as a career option (under the false pretence of fighting for their rights) because it is not what is good for them.

If your own child came up to you and said that she would like to choose pornography or sex work as a career option, will you be instinctively supportive of it, simply because it is her freedom of choice or would you try to stop her and help her see the implications of her choice, hoping that she will learn to choose what is good for her?

Why can’t we treat sex workers with the same care we would have for our own children, for our own family members?



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