Post about ‘sexual temptation’ triggers furious online backlash

Singapore — A Singaporean female pastor’s post about “fighting against sexual temptation” sparked furious rebuttals from netizens.

The original Instagram post was by Thir.st, a Christian youth-oriented website for “Honest conversations about faith, relationships, work, culture, studies – and everything else life tries to throw at us”.

The post was published on Sunday (Feb 21) by youth pastor Joanne Chow, who shared “how to fight against sexual temptation”. In the post, she highlighted how females should “help our brothers by not dressing up in a revealing or provocative way“.

The statement provoked a backlash from netizens, many arguing that the suggestion was wrong. Some asked the group to “‘Please strive to put the focus on righting the wrong, rather than washing down the need for self-discipline and responsibility”.

Thir.st returned with a “correction” to the post, but that also led to an angry reaction. They responded that “[they] felt there was a need to offer practical advice on how Christians can avoid falling into sexual temptation”. The post was made in response to a Christian leader being accused of sexual misconduct.

Netizens are heatedly arguing against the post and the response for “victim blaming”. Victim blaming is blaming the victim of a crime or a wrongful act for his or her misfortune.

“This is extremely disrespectful to victims of sexual crimes,” one user commented on the Instagram post. Many felt that the post took the wrong approach to the issue of sexual temptation.

Users are drawing parallels to other forms of temptation. There were comments like “So I can’t own a phone or anything of value because I might get robbed. Got it thanks!!”

The post currently has over 1200 comments, many arguing against the pastor.

Denise Teh is an intern at The Independent SG. /TISG