I’m still trying to wrap my mind around, why someone would prioritize quick fixes, sacrificing a promising future for immediate gratifications.
We always decide on indecent acts because they answer our immediate needs and settle our bills, only to constitute bigger and more complicated problems in our futures.
Do the right things now so you don’t have to worry about trying to undo your past life – all is good that ends well.
WHAT readily comes to mind at the mention of indecency would be erotic speech, skimpy dressing, and or sexual misadventures. Of course, it is! But much more, the thoughts of your heart, your utterances, and all the manner of evil that warm into our mind and we follow through with aiding their manifestation. That is indecency.
It speaks so loud and overtly bloated. The streets scream about it, the marketplaces are rife, with the advertising industry buying into it big time to sell their products.
Indecency isn’t a people worry about anymore, at least, seemingly so, except if the tides change sometimes in the future. For now, we cannot think differently.
Gradually, humankind is fast losing touch with those things we used to dearly, those things that defined our value system. The ones we regarded with so much respect, and saw as divine, sacred before God and before men because they were available for only a certain class of people, couples. They were strictly reserved to be consummated on the wedding night and they were limited to doing it with their partners (spouses) only.
Anyone who would dare to desire it outside that institution or absent of their partners, would sneak or steal away to take a peek, those who were morally decadent, bolder, and lacking shame and self-respect found their ways to brothels to satisfy their curiosity, which often blesses those escapades with all manner of STDs.
Moreover, brothels weren’t too easy to find but wherever there was one, you would find all kinds of dirty girls – they were ugly and irritating sights parading around almost naked and bold about their trade. You can never believe they will ever see a customer but they had, perhaps too many of them. Because if no people were patronizing them, they would have run out of business and maybe left but were thronging around those shady and dark alleys.
Today, there are but a few brothels there are more such places, or possibly they have upgraded and given it a new name. Immorality has skyrocketed at an alarming rate.
It is sold everywhere on the streets, on billboards in their skimpy costumes., They sell it on the print media, social media, in the music and film industries, auto sales. Everywhere you go, sex calls up to you. The names have evolved over the years, it’s no longer prostitution – practitioners said it’s too harsh a word to address them. So, it was upgraded to commercial sex workers, it has translated again to hookers. But the truth is that it was still prostitution – the consequences are the same. They don’t assemble in brothels anymore, from the comfort of their homes, they have access to their variety of customers – young, beautiful girls. Funny enough, they could go so far, begging you to take a peek and if you’re interested, and hold the Benjamins, they have a good deal. And it is a thriving business now, unlike a few decades ago, only a few poor people indulge in such acts. Today, it is big business!
What is the issue?
The immorality could be termed as part of the failure in parenting. Who are these people who indulge in such acts? Back in the day, most of those who would do that were struggling women, those who probably had kids or parents to cater to but had no jobs or a means of livelihood. And or those who just chose to be hardheaded, and just wanted to have their way.
Only big girls do hookups, today and with the big boys who have so much to spend on them because it is no longer cheap like it used to be – it’s big business, and a thriving industry or so to say, all thanks to shameless and useless politicians.
Cardinal considerations, these two words are rife in my mind as I reminisce on the subject of indecency: I also want to draw your attention to them: lasciviousness and lewdness.
These two words are almost the same in meaning but with a little difference. The first word has to do with action, as in body language in a dance or appearance, while, the latter is concerned with speech, vulgarity, dirty, sensual, and erotically suggestive.
It might be hard to think or say what others might say on the subject matter, those skimpy dresses and dances don’t appear offensive to the morally decadent, because it seems no body part is revealed, yet. the sight from a distance and the erotic moves are already suggestive. Besides, what is revealing to those people who are at close range? How far can they see and what is already running in their minds? For us on this other side of the camera, we can only imagine the moves in the display. Also, because of the distance of focus from the camera. Already, the moves are alluring and suggestive. If you’d ask me from what I see, I would say with grave confidence that this or such girls are easy prey to rapists where they’re found in any lonely dark alley or could be slammed with the law of seduction and blasphemy if they were somewhere in the core Northern part of Nigeria.
If a mannequin in a clothing shop (boutique) could attract accusations against the shop owner, and calling for the closure of the shop or face a court summons, with charges of seduction because he left a naked mannequin (undressed or unclad) outside his shop. What would be said about such erotically suggestive moves?
I don’t know anyone, but as for one and my household, we cannot and will not allow any of our daughters, sisters, sons, or anyone close to us to engage in such dance or acts. People may think or say differently, that we have made our choice as to what is of priority to every one of us. And it is sad to think that for some of these girls, it’s their parents that push them into doing such.
We could also say, that these girls are adults, they have the right to their decisions and or choices. They already know what they want out of their lives, they know right from wrong, good and bad. So, most of them chose this path. They have decided whatever they deem fit for their lives and so they’re busy living it. Well, that might be true but as for me and my family, we have decided for God, honor, chastity, self-control, respect for womanhood, love for self and others.
Also, I respect people’s opinions, choices, and decisions on all matters. I wish we could share the same thoughts, and views about everything but that isn’t possible, because isn’t that simple. We have a variety of desires and perceptions about life. For life is, everyone to his ways, and would be held responsible (answerable) for their own choices and decisions – whether we choose right or wrong, it is up to us.
One thing is important, as a single man desiring to marry someday, my intuitions would never lead me along the path of such a loose or free woman. Not even the men she twerks for or before, none would decide for their kind whenever they’re ready to take up a wife because, in their mind, this woman has shared this thing with almost everyone she danced to, who knows how many men could have warmed her bed all manner of thoughts.
You will agree with me that such men go down to the village to pick for themselves a woman who is ignorant, innocent, young, and chaste, they always prefer someone on the quiet, reserved, and preserved – I stand corrected, though.
The Need For Chastity:
Teaching morality isn’t enough to keep people away from bad habits. People can be morally good, yet, internally, devilish in their thoughts and deeds. Chastity does not take away evil thoughts and deeds from men but Godliness. The fear and love of God, we understand as the beginning of all wisdom.
Chastity is only but a virtue, a willed and ongoing pattern of morally good behavior. It is a sub-virtue of the cardinal virtue of temperance. As it were, temperance is the virtue that moderates the attraction of pleasure and provides balance in the use of created goods.
When temperance is exercised concerning human sexuality, we are speaking about chastity. But what does chastity mean in practice? Most people would probably say, “Being pure,” or “No sex before marriage,” or “Not having sex, period!” Although there is a measure of truth in each of these answers, they are inadequate.
Chastity is “the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being. What does this mean? Chastity is not a denial of one’s sexuality or one’s sexual feelings, but the virtue by which sexuality becomes personal and interpersonal – becomes truly and fully human.
Stated differently, chastity is the virtue by which our sexuality becomes integrated into the whole person, body, and soul, and this integration disposes us to value and respect the dignity of both ourselves and others. Chastity thus leads to a more fully human sexuality, one that is lived as a gift to oneself and others. Sexuality can only attain its full human stature when it is lived as an expression of our intimately united body and soul.
Because of our fallen human nature, however, the integrity of the gift of sexuality is never assured. According to Scripture, the first man and woman chose to act in a way that was at odds with – that sinned against – the truth of who they were: creatures who share in God’s creative activity through, among other things, the ability to procreate. With this choice, they began a history of sexuality all too often marked by impersonalism, selfishness, and a lack of integration; in other words, by lust.
A Catholic priest, Pope Benedict XVI captured well the dynamic of lust in his encyclical God Is Love: Eros, reduced to pure “sex” which has become a commodity.
This is hardly man’s great “yes” to the body. on the contrary, he now considers his body and his sexuality as the purely material part of himself, to be used and exploited at will. Nor does he see it as an arena for the exercise of his freedom, but as a mere object that attempts, as he pleases, to make both enjoyable and harmless. We are dealing with the basement of the human body: no longer is it integrated into our overall existential freedom; no longer is it a vital expression of our whole being, but it is more or less relegated to the purely biological sphere.
The “matter” of human sexuality, as the pope says, is not simply biological. Rather, this “matter” is the reality of the human person the unity of the body and soul in relationship with God, self, and others. To maintain otherwise by excessively spiritualizing the body as some Christians have done – would be to void the body of its moral meaning. Similarly, viewing the body as simply a physical object – as society tends to do – reduces the person to the level of a beast. The body is as integral to our human nature as our capacity to reason. To regard the body as a commodity or as a meaningless physical structure would be to act not only against the body itself but also against reason’s apprehension of the body’s special character and the integral place it occupies in human nature.
Growing In Purity:
Chastity is unattainable outside the purity of purpose, outside a desire for right. The desire to be clean, and maintain good reports is not just for one to think or have a notion, “I am clean, and you’re unclean (sinful or dirty) or I am pure and you’re impure.”
The concept of growing in purity is about seeing more of God, which is the instrument of growth in purity. It’s also the fruit of growing in purity. As Jesus declares. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” – Matthew 5:8. We behold God to pursue purity, and we pursue purity to behold more of God. More than anything, our eyes must be opened to him.
It is amazing what’s happening today, nobody says, sex should be prohibited, but sex cannot be the center of every conversation or display. Browse through social media, screen media, or print media, everything speaks loud, suggestive of sex and sensuality.
Purity is not popular. Think about it, when did you last hear that word used in a sentence? Unless you work as a jeweler, it probably has been quite a while. And when we do talk about purity, most people only think it pertains to sexuality. A closer look reveals that purity’s power affects every part of your life – and the lives of others – both now and in eternity.
Simplistically, purity can guide the way we think and do everything, it helps with moderation. And tames our appetite for evil.
What Is Purity?
Just as clean essentially means “not dirty,” you could define purity as “freedom from contamination.” But this description is not very helpful for picturing what a pure life looks like. Instead, look at it this way: Purity describes who you are and what you do. It applies both to your character and your conduct, especially when you are alone.
So, what should be your true situation as you pursue purity?
This question is very pertinent for you to know, retract your steps, and find the right direction for your life. Below, are some of the reasons to pursue purity:
- The Desire to Please God: You desire to please God in your life by fearing Him, worshiping Him, obeying Him, cherishing Him, and loving Him. Real purity comes as a result of believing that the Lord Jesus died in your place to ransom you from impurity. Pure living increases as you work together with the Holy Spirit to live as a redeemed child of God. Purity describes who you are and what you do. And someone asked, what if at the end of time, we realize there is no God, Heaven, or Hell? What would have lost being a good person and enjoying good reports, admiration, and praises of men compared to the curses and insults of men?
- The Desire to Live Transparently: Your concern for the truth leads you to demonstrate your integrity with honesty and transparency. As a pure person, you desire a clean and whole life free from corruption and compromise. Your desire for purity leads you to avoid and resist temptations that would pollute or weaken your character.
- Actions that Affirm Goodness: Your decisions agree with what you know is appropriate and excellent. You value beauty and modesty in style and appearance. You honor your body and the Lord who redeemed it, demonstrating uprightness and self-control in your conduct. Fighting for purity helps you strive for a blameless reputation before God and others, as displayed in your words and actions. You have a sincere singleness of mind as you honor what is sacred to God and decent in the sight of others.
- Love For Others and Staying Humble: You value peace with others, serving them selflessly and sacrificially in love, and respecting them as individuals made in God’s image—not as objects to be used for your pleasure. Your purity should not make you proud or lead you to look down on others who have made different choices.
It is very key that we rid ourselves of all forms of indecency, and cultivate and make our hearts and minds ready to receive the grace and mercy to walk in the way of life and truth.
Imagine that sex and all other indecency acts are allowed public manifestations, what kind of society would we have? I’d like you to ponder upon this.
Folks, live and let live!
insidetimsmind 
Leave a comment