The following was posted to the PreachersResources Email List. It is written by the moderator/list owner, John Gaines. I think brother Gaines makes a STRONG point here.

Listers,         

In light of the discussion about dancing, I wonder if you saw the 20/20 piece about co-ed high school wrestling recently on ABC-TV.           

Due to equal opportunity requirements, schools are having to make sports available for girls/women if they offer them for boys/men.  In some places girls have demanded the opportunity to participate in team wrestling.  If enough girls are not interested to form a girls' team or if there are no other girls teams in the area with which they can compete, girls have been wrestling with boys.  The report detailed the intimate body touching associated with wrestling.  

The kids interviewed disavowed having any sexual thoughts while wrestling, but the girls also stated that their fathers were against them participating in wrestling because of the way they would be touched by boys. Apparently these concerned fathers were not able to stop their daughters from joining the wrestling team.  In itself, that is a sad commentary on the state of parental authority in their families.          

I'd hope that most Christians would see a problem with co-ed wrestling.  However, the differences between boys and girls wrestling together and boys and girls dancing together are only matters of degree.   In many respects, dancing is worse.  The atmosphere is more conducive to sexual thoughts on the dance floor than the gym floor in a wrestling competition.  When dancing, the kids are dressed up and wearing cologne to make them smell good.  When wrestling, they are hot and sweaty.   Music adds to the romantic atmosphere of dancing.  While dancing, thoughts are encouraged to turn in a romantic/sexual direction while in the wrestling match, the main focus is probably on winning the competition.  I imagine that a teenage boy's fear of being beaten by a GIRL might be strong enough to inhibit even his libido for a while.          

Thus, while I would strongly oppose co-ed wrestling,  I can't honestly say that it is worse than boys and girls intimately touching one another on the dance floor.    

Perhaps this comparison might help someone see more clearly the dangers associated with what many have come to view as an innocent pastime.

John Gaines
Leonard Street Church of Christ
2730 W. Leonard Street
Pensacola, FL  32505
(850) 432-3727

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