Doug Wilson Says ‘Small-Breasted Biddies,’ ‘The B**bs of a Wet Nurse,’ ‘Jiggling Your B**bs,’ ‘Attractive Bimbo Queens,’ ‘A Couple of Big B**bs,’ ‘Make Her T*ts Bigger,’ ‘As Stacked as Dolly Parton After Her New Implants,’ ‘Pert French Breasts’

“I have offended the feminists (along with not a few Christians cowed by the feminists)…What am I doing here?…in the society we actually have…our arbiters of approved speech insist that they be the only ones allowed to shock, and that we be the ones to be dutifully shocked. In response to this proposed arrangement, I cheerfully refuse. I refuse to accept their authority in any of this, and I fully intend to make sure that they get an opportunity to eat their own cooking.”¹ — Doug Wilson

Here are some examples of Doug’s use of demeaning, objectifying and insulting language toward women:

None of these are redacted in Doug’s original writings [emphasis added].

“So feminism — smash the patriarchy feminism — wants us to be ruled by harridans, termagants, harpies and crones. That sets the tone, and the pestering is then made complete by small-breasted biddies who want to make sure nobody is using too much hot water in the shower, and that we are all getting plenty of fiber. And if anyone reads these words and believes that I am attacking all women by them, that would provide great example of why we should not entrust our cultural future to people who can’t read.”²

“Next time you are in a grocery store check out line check out (no, I don’t mean check out) the partially dressed female on the cover of the nearest women’s magazine, the kind my kids call a day-old doughnut. Right, the one with the fake bake tan, the abs of a sixteen-year-old boy, the b**bs of a wet nurse, and the knock-your-eye out bottle blondisity.”³

“It would be fair to say that there were many incidents of déclassé décolletage — unattractive feminist scientists flaunting what they thought was sexuality, attractive bimbo queens taking the opportunity, natch, aging beauties reliving the glory days, and all of them over the top, so to speak….My point is that jiggling your b**bs for a YouTube clip is a response to an ignorant Muslim that works equally well as a response to the apostle Peter, which is to say, not at all.”⁴

“Minimize the seriousness of it so that you can walk away from a couple of big b**bs without feeling like you have just fought a cosmic battle with principalities and powers in the heavenly places, for crying out loud. Or, if you like, in another strategy of seeing things rightly, you could nickname these breasts of other woman [sic] as the ‘principalities and powers.’”⁵

“My customer thinks my first draft was okay, but he came back in because he wants me to ‘make her t*ts bigger.’ That’s what draws most of their clientele, he explains.”⁶

“People brazen it out because brazening it out works. And this is why I intend to bring up the stacked nature of the PCA committee every chance I get, for as long as I can remember to do so. Not only will I do this, but I intend to memorialize it with as many metaphors as I can manage to come up with. That committee was as stacked as a double order of buttermilks, as stacked as some blonde in a tight dress, and as stacked as a brick house. The PCA, she’s mighty, mighty.”⁷

“The problem with this second option is seen in the manifest injustice of how the national leaders of the PCA stacked the study committee — as stacked as Dolly Parton after her new implants.”⁸

“When it came to pensive reflections of man and his existential condition (as mirrored in the experiences of Robert P.), foreign film reviews that were allowed to make as little sense as the films themselves, extended discussions of how the pert French breasts in those films could not really be deconstructed, Derrida or no Derrida, and long, protracted discussions of how people — particularly food service personnel — misunderstood him, Robert was a machine.”⁹

“​​An insecure girl can get a breast job, and when all is said and done, you have insecurity on heels with b**bs— a bad combination, incidentally.”¹⁰

OPINION: It should be self-evident to any Christian that such language is not becoming of a man who claims to be a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ (and these aren’t the only times Doug has used inappropriate language). This crass and objectifying language not only demeans the value of women—who are created in the image of God—but also insults their Creator. Doug ignores the clear instruction of the Holy Spirit: “You must let no unwholesome word come out of your mouth, but only what is beneficial for the building up of the one in need, that it may give grace to those who hear” (Ephesians 4:29, NET). Pastors are called to “…be kind toward all” (2 Timothy 2:24). And when it comes to how a pastor is to treat women, God instructs them specifically to relate to “older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity” (1 Timothy 5:2, ESV). Let’s repeat that last part: “in all purity.”

Doug seeks to justify himself by arguing that “our new overlords are radical hypocrites”¹¹ because they are offended when a sportscaster says “b**bs” on the air, but then also celebrate pornographic books and films like Fifty Shades of Grey.¹² He therefore sees his own crass language as justified, since our culture condemns an offhand mention of women’s bodies while simultaneously embracing far more explicit content in mainstream media. He feels no need to obey their arbitrary “speech codes”; instead, he deliberately employs blunt and crass language to expose what he sees as hypocrisy—a double standard—in order to force them to reckon with the coarsened culture they themselves created.¹³

However, a careful reader should notice that Doug makes no formal appeal to Scripture in his defense.¹⁴ Instead of engaging with biblical principles, he resorts to insulting his detractors—labeling those offended by his words as “feminists” or “Christians cowed by the feminists.”¹⁵ The weakness of Doug’s argument is made clear by the way he resorts to insults—apparently believing that calling someone a “feminist”¹⁶ is the ultimate condemnation—instead of engaging with those who are rightly pointing out his sin on the authority of the very Word of God.¹⁷ His motive appears less about the gospel and more about winning a cultural battle. Unlike Paul, who sought common ground for the gospel in Athens (Acts 17:22–31), Doug employs crass language to expose what he sees as the world’s hypocrisy. Ultimately, this approach only reveals his own hypocrisy (Matthew 23:23–26) and creates a stumbling block to the gospel. Scripture warns, “Woe to the world because of stumbling blocks! It is necessary that stumbling blocks come, but woe to the person through whom they come” (Matthew 18:7, NET).

Doug’s argument should fall flat for anyone seeking to follow Jesus. Just because the world can be hypocritical at times, it does not give us license to sin, even if the end goal is for supposed good.¹⁸ The end does not justify the means (Romans 12:21). God’s Word does not give any room for Christians to use crass and demeaning language toward women just because the culture around us is inconsistent. Our aim should be to please Christ (2 Corinthians 5:9) and bring the gospel to a dying world (Matthew 28:18–20; 2 Timothy 4:1–5), not employ sinful tactics to win some supposed culture war (Doug advocates for this elsewhere). We are not to be “…conformed to this present world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test and approve what is the will of God—what is good and well-pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12:2, NET).

My prayer is that Doug will repent of his crass and demeaning language toward women—who bear God’s image—and that he will seek, above all, to please Christ rather than try to win some “cultural war” by insulting those for whom Jesus died.

Want More Context?

Here are some links to other blogs dealing with this and other issues in more depth:

Denny Berk’s excellent review of Doug’s Book defending his use of crass and offensive language

Profanity Is Worse Than You Think

The Untameable Tongue

Talk, Edification, the Holy Spirit, and the Glory of God

Footnotes