The Real Saint Nick

By Dr. Warren Throckmorton

Given the decision-making power of Santa Claus on the matter of gifts, my children make sure they leave Mr. Claus some seriously good cookies on Christmas Eve. However, most children don’t know that there is much more to the real Saint Nick than toys and cookies. In addition to being generous, the jolly fellow could easily be considered the patron saint of purity.

Recently looking into the legend of Saint Nick, I learned that Saint Nicholas lived early in the fourth century in what is now Turkey. Orphaned as a young boy, he was left with substantial financial means by his parents. He used this inheritance to benefit others, especially children. Deeply religious, Nicholas became the Bishop of Myra in Turkey and played an important leadership role in the church. Called the Wonderworker, he was well known for his generosity to children, hence his association with the legend of Santa Claus. The story of a benevolent soul giving gifts to children is a part of many cultures with many names. Saint Nick as another name for Santa Claus persists to this day.

I also discovered that Saint Nicholas is a patron saint of virgins. In the Catholic tradition, a patron saint is one who prays to God on behalf of a petitioner. So, if one wants to remain chaste, one may pray to Saint Nicholas who will then lift up the petitioner in spiritual prayer to God. As an aside, his patronage may explain at least one of the criteria for being in either the naughty or nice category when Saint Nick checks and rechecks his list. But I digress. There is more to this story.

Legend has it that Saint Nicholas became aware of a desperately poor parishioner having three daughters with no dowry to recommend them for marriage. The father had planned to sell them into prostitution to provide some means of support. By night, Saint Nicholas secretly brought bags of gold on three separate occasions to the man’s home. These generous visitations allowed the three daughters to have sufficient means to avoid whoredom and later strike a marriage covenant. On the third visit to deliver the gift, Nicholas was caught in the act of generosity by the grateful father.

Many make the Santa Claus-like association of this story to Saint Nicholas the gift giver. I see an additional angle. For reasons that often involve money, women today have few benefactors, few Saint Nicks. Bob Dylan sang truly two decades ago that today’s culture seems to promote “old men turning young daughters into whores.” A look at any magazine rack will tell you that there is a market for flesh and the demographic is predominantly male, ages 12 and up. Research company Visiongain estimated that the pornography market was a 70 billion industry in 2006. That is a lot of gold being used to degrade women rather than enhance their virtue.

Blending traditional gender roles has been little help here. Women today are not, nor should they be, as helpless as those three girls aided by Saint Nicholas. However, girls gone wild with sexual freedom most often leads to exploitation by men. I doubt we would see as much skin if there were no gawking male purchasers, eager to buy and sell innocence as commerce.
Harmful to both men and women, graphic sexuality, even the somewhat scaled down prime time variety, contributes to the overall commoditization of sex. Viewed through the eyes of a pornographer, sex is commerce and sexual purity is restraint of trade.

We need Saint Nicholas today. We need the gifts of chastity and modesty. We need more respecters of purity and fewer of those who would sell young people into the brothel of commercialism.

We need you today Saint Nicholas, the Wonderworker. Our sons and daughters need the good gifts of those who truly value their health and purity.

Warren Throckmorton, PhD is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Fellow for Psychology and Public Policy in the Center for Vision and Values at Grove City (PA) College. Dr. Throckmorton is past-president of the American Mental Health Counselors Association and is the producer of the documentary, "I Do Exist" about sexual identity. His columns have been published by over 100 newspapers nationwide and can be contacted through his blog at www.wthrockmorton.com.

How you can help to fight porn

“The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”- Edmund Burke

One of the reasons why the problem of pornography is so widespread today, is because we have done nothing about it. We talk about it, sometimes, and we disapprove of obscene images on the internet or on TV, but we don’t do anything about it. By not doing anything and remaining silent about it, we are actually showing approval about it.

We are either part of the problem or part of the solution. What then can we do to change from being part of the problem to being part of the solution? Here are some ways. Feel free to add more.

1. When you see a blog with objectionable material, be it text or images, highlight it to the blog administrators. In Blogger and Xanga, you can ‘flag it’. In Wordpress, you can ‘report it as mature’. I am sure every blog provider has something similar.
Don’t worry, you’re not being a prude. You are helping to fight the problem of pornography.

2. When people pass around pornographic images, whether by email or mobile phone, make your disapproval heard and your disgust known. Again, don’t worry about being a prude. You’re being a trend-setter.

3. Talk about it openly with friends. There are three kinds of people whose lives involve porn. The first are those who see nothing wrong with it. They can talk openly about it, and for it. The second are those who indulge in porn and feel guilty about it. They don’t talk openly about it. The third are those who no longer indulge in porn. They too can talk openly about it, and against it. Be the third kind, who are inspirational to the others.

4. If you are a parent, do not ignore or brush aside the matter when your children bring it up. Take pains to explore the matter with your children and help them come to realise what’s wrong and evil about porn. Of course this means that you must first know what’s wrong and evil about it yourself. Keep the channel of communication open with your children, who must feel confident about approaching you about the matter.

5. Report porn spam to internet service providers. Provide them with the IP address and sample of the spam. Internet spam clogs up ISPs. ISPs will be more than happy to help get rid of them. Complain to your ISP, and the sender’s ISP.

6. If you see VCD or DVD vendors selling or renting porn material complain. You may discourage these vendors

7. If you see or hear objectionable material being broadcast on television or radio, complain to the FCC and station managment. Federal Communications Commission. We have prodived the link to file a complaint.

8. If you see indecent, but not obscene material, broadcast on television, complain to advertisers who buy air time for commercials on those programs. Advertisers are very sensitive to complaints. Complaints means that people may be rejecting their products, which means that the huge amounts of money they spend on advertising might be going to waste.