Somewhere along the way, intimacy stopped being sacred and became entertainment. The real conflict is not between men and women… but between the higher self that seeks meaning and the selfish self that endlessly seeks stimulation.
MAN MEETS WOMAN… AND DOES IT?
Are you tired of all this yet?
Movies, television, streaming shows, novels, advertisements, magazines, and entertainment increasingly revolve around lust, violence, shock value, and indulgence. Human beings are constantly presented in their lowest forms while being told this is somehow liberation, sophistication, or modern progress.
But is it?
Herein lies the true conflict:
the higher self versus the selfish self.
One requires very little.
The other can never seem to get enough.
TODAY’S CINEMA
Everywhere you look someone is killing someone, lusting after someone, robbing someone, betraying someone, or indulging themselves without restraint.
Fantasy, darkness, violence, greed, excess, magic powers, lust, and destruction dominate much of modern storytelling.
And one has to ask…
What happened to meaningful stories?
What happened to restraint?
What happened to mystery?
What happened to moral purpose?
MAKE THE POINT… BUT DON’T DROWN US IN IT
I enjoy a good story.
I do not mind difficult themes or human struggles being explored thoughtfully and responsibly. Human nature contains both light and darkness and storytelling should reflect that reality.
But somewhere along the way, subtlety disappeared.
Now everything must be graphic, excessive, loud, explicit, shocking, or emotionally manipulative.
Whatever happened to storytelling that trusted the audience enough not to show everything?
I WAS READY TO WALK OUT
I watched a movie recently where two characters suddenly entered into explicit intimacy without restraint or purpose beyond stimulation.
And I wondered…
Why?
If that scene had been advertised honestly beforehand, I likely would not have attended the film at all.
Interestingly enough, Hollywood once operated under moral restraint codes during earlier cinema eras. Filmmakers learned how to imply rather than expose. They mastered suggestion without exploitation.
And surprisingly…
many of those older films carried more emotional depth, romance, and imagination than what floods the screen today.
DID THEY DO IT?
I remember watching an older black-and-white film with my wife where two characters clearly cared for each other deeply.
The camera faded.
The door closed.
The next scene arrived.
I leaned over and quietly asked:
“Did they do it?”
That mystery itself carried elegance.
You were not supposed to know every detail.
The audience was trusted to imagine rather than consume.
WHAT IS THE WAY?
Today it often feels inevitable that if two attractive characters meet on screen, explicit intimacy will follow shortly afterward.
But why has that become the expectation?
Why does entertainment insist that physical gratification must immediately precede emotional connection?
Perhaps the healthier direction is the opposite:
conversation first,
respect first,
friendship first,
love first.
The physical side of humanity is real and important — but when disconnected from meaning, reverence, commitment, or emotional intimacy, something valuable quietly gets lost.
CLOSE THE DOOR BEHIND YOU PLEASE
If intimacy belongs somewhere sacred and private…
then perhaps privacy itself still has value.
There was once dignity attached to leaving certain things behind closed doors rather than placing everything on public display for mass consumption.
Not everything meaningful needs to become spectacle.
I AM NOT A PRUDE
Human nature absolutely deserves honest discussion.
History, relationships, temptation, failure, redemption, love, heartbreak, and desire are all part of the human experience and worthy of thoughtful storytelling.
But turning excess, voyeurism, lust, and indulgence into mainstream worship and entertainment creates confusion about what intimacy was meant to be.
Love is not merely appetite.
People are not merely bodies.
And intimacy without depth eventually leaves emptiness behind.
THE REAL QUESTION
Perhaps the real issue is not whether man meets woman…
but whether the meeting lifts both upward or merely pulls both downward.
Love deepens.
Lust consumes.
One nourishes the soul.
The other endlessly demands more.
And human beings spend their lives deciding which direction they truly wish to travel.
— Richie
Pearls for the Soul
when you feed the soul, you feed everything.
https://pearlsforthesoul.com
Been expecting you