Tuesday 14 May 2013

Can modelling be a Christian job?


So during this busy exam season, the main motivation for many is the final job. Work hard at school, maybe go off to uni and then at some point most students want to be earning a decent salary to have a good lifestyle. But for Christians, does this job matter? Are Christians called to some form of vocation to live in a Christian way, not just in church, but in our daily lives? 

At 19, Kylie Busetti beat 10,000 other young women to win Victoria’s Secret Model Search back in 2009. She travelled the world, modelling lingerie as a Victoria’s Secret Angel - an absolute dream job for many. Even she said, "I thought the models I saw defined beauty, and beauty meant you were important"

A year ago, she gave up the job for good.

Why? In an interview she said:

“My body should only be for my husband and it’s just a sacred thing. I didn’t really want to be that kind of role model for younger girls because I had a lot of younger Christian girls that were looking up to me and then thinking that it was okay for them to walk around and show their bodies in lingerie to guys.”

She has recently been back in the news after Victoria's Secret have claimed that the stories in her book, "I'm No Angel: From Victoria's Secret Model to Role Model", are not true. They claim that despite them asking her repeatedly she did not do as much modelling as she claimed.

However the industry is notoriously tough on its models and it is well believable that as her Christian husband was not a celebrity she was encouraged to tell people she was single. 

Her final decision came at an FHM magazine shoot when a photographer instructed her to pull up her top and "hold up the covers like you don't have any panties on". This was the moment for her when she fully realised that she was being paid to strip down and pose provocatively to titillate men. She said, "It wasn't about modelling clothes anymore; I felt like a piece of meat."

In an interview with LifeTeen she said, "The Lord graciously opened my eyes and heart to the fact that I was not honoring him with my body and I was not being a Godly role model to other young women. The Lord showed me that it was not respectful to model lingerie for other men to see me in and that my body should be for my husband. I had a desire to have a Christ centered, Godly marriage and I was not living out that desire by modeling in lingerie."

Watch a 2min clip of her story here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3m-J8enM3A


Read full interview with LifeTeen <here>
Read news articles <here> and <here> 

What do you think about Kylie's decision? How do you think her family reacted? Is this a classic case of the dream not matching the reality? Do you think young women should read Kylie's story to make them think about their career choice? Are there 'more' and 'less' Christian jobs? Does a Christian's job matter? Lots to think about with this...

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