Shedding a light on unhealthy relationships, lies, manipulation, rape and grooming

It’s the time of year when we celebrate International Women’s Day. Is it just me who doesn’t feel celebratory? Recently, womanhood has me feeling pretty heavy; raising a young lady of my own might have something to do with it. Today, in the car on the drive to her orthodontist appointment, I listened intently to the radio as the presenters heatedly discussed the controversy of the rape grooming gangs sweeping over the UK. 

“Do you know what a grooming gang is?” I asked my daughter. 

“Yes.”

“Ok, what is it, then?”

“I don’t know. I don’t really care.”

“Well, you should care.”

“Why?”

“Because it has to do with tens of thousands of girls your exact age.”

And so, I did my best as a Christian mother in 2025 to shed light for my precious daughter on unhealthy relationships, lies, manipulation, rape and grooming.

A skewed vision

It’s safe to say the world in which our teenage girls live is giving them a skewed vision of sex and womanhood. I myself as a teenager made one decision after another that was diametrically opposed to God’s wisdom, but that was back before the internet and social media offered the ability to permanently torpedo my personal history with the swipe of a screen. 

This wasn’t the only uncomfortable conversation I’ve had with my daughter recently. A few months ago, I watched an interview with renowned American pediatrician and psychologist, Dr Leonard Sax. When discussing social media and mobile phone use for teens, he relayed the heartbreaking story of a school girl who made the mistake of sending her boyfriend photos of herself, undressed, through Snapchat. Though Snapchat deletes the photos in five seconds, alerting the sender if they are saved on the phone of the recipient, her boyfriend had an easily attainable app that overrode this feature. Through an unfortunate series of events, the photos quickly made it from his phone to the phone of another boy at a party, then on to the phones of other boys around the school and eventually onto the internet. Ridiculed by classmates, ostracised by her friendship group and shamed by parents, the twelve-year-old was referred for psychological counselling, resorted to self-harm and was prescribed medication for depression. All because of a split-second irresponsible decision, now immortalised for the world on the internet, years later. 

When relaying this story to my own daughter on the way to swim club, her response wasn’t: “Oh, Mom, that’s so horrible,” or “I promise you I will never do that!” It was: “Why didn’t she take the photos from the neck down?” This echoes the world in which our teenagers live. Try as we might to shelter and shepherd (my children are home schooled and don’t have mobile phones) they remain part of their chosen generation, vulnerable to the spirit of the world. 

The world in which our teenage girls live is giving them a skewed vision of sex and womanhood

You may be familiar with a tragically popular story shared last winter, including by Woman Alive, highlighting Only Fans model, Lily Phillips. Her claim to fame? Bedding 101 men in 24 hours. The infamous video of the ‘girl next door’ beauty leaving the room in tears as she debriefs on camera after completing a day of continuous sex acts was followed by her reported desire to up the ante next time to 1,000 men. Forgive me if I’ve had enough of the celebrations and bold declarations espousing the power of womanhood; this is the true state of the world in which women in 2025 live; floundering, in bondage, in desperate need of a saviour. Internationally, women are spiritually hungry for good news.

The best news for women

The wisdom of God teaches not to awaken love before its time, to remain pure and abstain from sex outside of marriage, not because God is a harsh taskmaster, but because of the specific purpose for which women were designed. Created to be accompanied and appreciated, he knows how easily this can turn to idolatry and misuse. On the surface, the Bible might bring to mind puritanical ideas of harsh sexual standards. More accurately, I think, the word of God considers the unkind world women actually live in, again and again offering the broken (and that’s all of us) acknowledgment, hope and restoration. 

God’s will as set forth in the Bible declares why above all other religions and secular atheism, Christianity is the best news for women. In scripture, God refocuses society’s view of women. Rahab, though repeatedly identified as a prostitute in the Old and New Testaments, is celebrated for her bravery and mentioned in the hall of faith in Hebrews 11. Bathsheba, whose beauty drew her to be party to an adulterous affair with King David, and whom some would argue was a rape victim, pleaded on behalf of and won her son, Solomon, his rightful place as the future king of Israel (1 Kings 1). Tamar resorted to the low of disguising herself as a prostitute, having sex with her father-in-law, Judah, in order to earn the legacy wrongfully denied her (Genesis 38). Of all the possible women making up all the relationships through 42 generations contributing to the blood line of Jesus, why does the Bible honour these three, specifically complicated, unarguably broken examples, by name? They didn’t have the ‘right’ professions or relationships in the eyes of the law or the culture, but God didn’t overlook them because of it. He blessed them in spite of their back stories and transformed their narratives; something he still does today. 

The gospel is good news for all involved in the UK rape gang scandal. There is healing and redemption by the God who straightens crooked paths and makes streams in the desert. There is grace and mercy for the nation should we humble ourselves, turn from our wicked ways and seek his face. He will heal our land (2 Chronicles 7:14). The Holy Spirit can fill each participant in Lily Phillips’ story. As a mother raising a teenage girl in a world where ‘grooming gangs’ and ‘porn culture’ are newsworthy buzzwords, I hope to show her the best place for a woman this International Women’s Day is in the house of the Lord.