“Hi everyone!” [Pause]
“It is the way our society (and not just
this generation but also the previous) is reacting to and dealing with matters of
sex that I have decided to deliver this speech. I know I may come out to be too
loud, but I beg that you tolerate the noise because it is necessary. I feel
that it is of great importance to talk about sex to normal people who live
today, most of whom are the invisible yous’
that read this blog – because they are these normal people, these normal
youth like me, to whom sex has become the paradox we love pushing under or
pretentiously erasing…
“I may be a leader in one capacity, but
that is not necessarily what drives me to talk about sex today. No. This
inspiration came from what I have been seeing happen all around me from the day
I was a child. It is about what the young people like me think about the topic
of sex, what arises when there are conflicts between us and our parents (read,
the elderly) concerning sex and why we think sex is (or is not) important to us
before and/or after marriage. I am not writing to imply that I am not [the
least] tempted to have sex, or that I have already overcome the urge to have it
at this phase of my life, but that I am here to advocate for what is right (and
what is right is absolute), which even
if I myself may fail in doing it –
because life gives us a place of falling and rising all the time – I (and we)
can become better even in the worst that keeps coming my/our way, and I/we can achieve
better standards on the same because I/we have potential, and that the best can
never be achieved (when you compare man with God) until man believes that it
can be achieved no matter what…
“My background has a story of a typical
African family: one where parents never directly address matters of sex with
their children, and especially, their teenage children on a head-on platform, forcing
them to learn about sex in their only HARD WAY. My sisters and I had to learn
about it that way – and each one of us in our own different ways…
“I remember when I was young, times of my
sisters’ relationship mysteries. I remember of how they had to struggle with
the torment their boyfriends put them in (and they had many of them – and I
don’t mean that they were promiscuous, but what could teenagers their age have
done to gain the attention from the opposite sex unless they attracted and
accepted the proposals of as many boyfriends as possible in order to generate
competition and feel accepted?). Whenever I accompanied them to visit their
boyfriends, I could see just how much tempted they were by being nagged and
forced into having sex. It was a predictable occurrence where you would know
beforehand what will happen to such a boyfriend. Because sex was the driving
force behind the boys having a relationship with them, while they (my sisters) seemed
to be less interested, those relationships never lasted long enough for me to
even know the names of those so-called ‘in-laws’ of mine.
“I would see boyfriends being changed every
season – one for every holiday. It is and it was the truth of the matter; and
written all over their faces was the statement, “Men are so uncertain, they
only love you for your body…!” They got used to it anyway – the bother for sex
and the changing of boyfriends - and that my friends, according to me, was
dangerous. It meant that before they ever had a stable relationship, many frogs had to be kissed, playing ‘hard to
get’ would be the norm of the day and pretending to be ‘the tough lady’ would have
to be the driving power…And as many of us know, kissing frogs and doing all
those things means a lot of things to the girl-child…
“So because our parents never really taught
us that much about sex (of which I urge today’s parents to beat that record), we
grew up with a wrong picture of sex - in relation to my sisters as the girl-child. I don’t thank God that they (my
parents) didn’t teach me more about sex, but I thank Him that He has taught me a
lot about sex along the way. Although to say the truth, my father is such a
free guy who can talk to you about almost anything, sex was not [and has not
been] a topic he has ventured into very freely. Over time, he has showed he
cares for my mom, which is a good thing to emulate, but has never directly talked
to me (or any of my sisters as far as I know) about sex. We have never learnt
much about sex from our mom either. The misunderstood aspect of sex fed to my
sisters (they are only three above me anyway, so don’t imagine numbers) was
given to them by themselves (if that makes sense) – by how they figured out
themselves, men and sex whenever they broke up with one or another. Sex was
never taught them by someone elderly or by our parents. That I guess, is what forced
them into frailed spirituality when they were teenagers, because there was
always a fight between the values Christianity taught them, what mama taught
them, and the cruel truth of raging emotions and need for affection… making
them to partially curve in and pave way for the powerful desire of gratifying
what their bodies desired most – boys and attention…
“But I don’t blame them. And to set the
record right, I don’t blame the girl-child [today] for anything. I won’t even call
women weak. I don’t call women weak. I don’t call men strong either. My view is
that, when sex is involved, weakness becomes relative, and anything relative
can happen anytime to anyone… even to the so-called
strong…It is only that what happened then made them grow up knowing that men are somehow some mysterious ‘animals’ whose sole desire is never majorly
love, care and affection towards the woman, but lust (and that to me is a misinterpretation
of what a man should be or is) and thereafter an endless crave to satisfy their
sexual desires. [And by the way, I defend the knowledge I have that my sisters
never engaged in sex with their boyfriends – as far as I know...] It was the
pressure from those unworking ‘relationships’
that led to poor school results, a weird view of the male-child and a changed
attitude towards our father…whom they never hated, but became mute towards for
no good reason…
“Just to address the current, and as a by
the way, I should let you know that if you have ever been in such a situation,
or are still in such a situation, where you face pressure from within and
without to engage in sex, know that I have dedicated this day to pray – just
for you…
“Apart from my sisters’ story, here is my
story: when I was young, I had a younger cousin of mine (an age mate), a guy I
know wherever he is, is not interested in reading blogs… So when we were of the
age of knowing “we are boys, and they are
girls,” he taught me some few things with girls; things I guess I was too
dump to get and understand. He was the active
type (you know) , and because I was his friend, you know that there is no
way I could not accompany him in his ‘mild errands’… With him, we did all
things young boys of between the ages of 8yearsando 15years do – chasing after
girls, ‘falling in love’, just basically doing what this generation calls running the town…But lucky as I was, I
still felt that sex was out of topic (yet the Jesus I know today still had a
decade or so from then until I met Him…). He was notorious, and I was not. I
don’t know why, but sleeping with a girl was not something I valued. I valued
nothing of these things they call ‘relationships’. I didn’t value relationships with girls then
because I was shy to break the rules my
parents esteemed and kept but had never brought out to me to instruct me on…I
don’t call myself good, because that may be the only sin I never committed
until I met Jesus. [And I am very sure of that.]
“It is true that birds of the same feather flock together, but allow me to say that
values and principles in a person help them shape their lives in a way that
makes abstinence easier than their
level of spirituality, because I know of some ‘very spiritual’ people who
freely engage in sex without turning their heads around…And I don’t mean to say
that you are ‘unforgivable’ or ‘weird’ if you have engaged in sex before
marriage; I just mean to say that to some of us, weak points are elsewhere –
and those may make us even worse before God as compared to the dude/dudette
that has engaged in sex… Sometimes, one
unsaved/unreligious person can manage dealing with the pressure of sex more
than the spiritual/pious one. But that does not imply that the less religious
young man or lady faces less temptation or inclination towards pre-marital sex
as compared to the Christian ones, no. It only means that the wiser you have become [Christian] as
pertaining right and wrong, the more grieving the likeliness of your fall is
when you are face to face with it… So, maybe my values helped me just a
little when I was young not to do what my younger cousin knew was normal to do…
“My younger cousin had all the cause to
destruct me; and I had all the power to direct my self to be lured by him. I have all the power to be lured into sex
even today… Maybe God just wanted it that way… Yeah, maybe He also just wants
it that way…it is a world of ‘maybe this’
or ‘maybe that’…I don’t know what
held me then, and I don’t know what holds me now [but I am sure I know
something about that], and I know that God is faithful to the end, if I mean to
entirely depend on Him…
“We all have the freedom to choose what we
want with our lives – and I had [and still have] that freedom – to engage in
sex or not, to have a mpango wa kando or
not... I have the freedom to choose what I wanna
do with myself. That freedom neither belongs to my parent(s) nor to my
friend(s). It belongs to me. Yeah, that freedom to choose what I wanna do with my life, with my body,
when pressure to engage in sex comes up on me belongs to me…Only I am capable of controlling me…
“No matter how much crooked the world we live
in has become, or how distorted its value system(s) have become, or how
desperate people are for sex, or how all around us teenagers and young
unmarried people are having sex, uncontrollably or not, each individual, each
one of us, [pause], has the freedom
to choose whether to obey or disobey the correct values passed on to them
either by their parents, by society, by own self, or by God.
“The people who lived in the past faced the
same challenges that we are facing today. Even the Bible says that nothing is new
under the sun. Nothing. Nothing is new. Those people struggled with impure
thoughts, with becoming holy as God is, with maintaining one spouse or partner,
with sex and ideas of illicit sex,... They struggled with peer pressure, with
lust and misdirected affections, with falling in love… They struggled with
being faithful, with honesty, with sincerity… but those were their struggles,
which should help us figure out how to fight our own… They struggled with not
finding the right ones, with passions
and with doubt…their struggles with matters of sex are innumerable… just as we have
our own fight that requires enough bravery…
“We Christians love giving the example of
Joseph from the Bible and how he flew
from Potiphar’s wife, because it is easier to say, “Flee from youthful passions…”
just as Joseph did (quoting Paul writing to Timothy), but it is another thing
to address the issue at hand – these raging desires that conflict the way of
the Spirit in us, and how to actually flee
when need be…
“The fight against such an ungodly passion
(where a young person desires/wants to engage in sex before marriage), requires
a solution which is composed of the person’s desire to move away from such a
passion, the action to disengage themselves from activities that make them
vulnerable, some good company of friends and the help of God. Otherwise, we may
as well just be fighting the air…All becomes vanity – chasing after the wind…
“If
our generation has portrayed to us sex as being the use and misuse of another person’s body in order to gratify our own
selfish needs, we are in the danger of allowing ourselves to be carried
away in such a storm of a world-view. You see, most of us have grown sex-frenzy
due to exposure to information (whatsoever) that has threatened our standing
and polluted out thinking, thus making sex an issue of great concern to Christian
circles.
“Some of the factors that have made the
struggle harder today are;
- The emergence
of Soap Operas during family TV-viewing time with messages of love,
betrayals, manipulation and sex (Soaps are okay, but soaps are hoof-hay)
- The emergence and
exposure to modern sexting technology;
- The increase/overload
in the number of pornographic websites, innumerable nude music videos and availability
of free sex movies;
- Early
introduction of children to sex by peers, parents or guardians;
- Sexual abuse,
harassment and rape
- Commercial sex
due to poverty or sex-addiction;
- Lowered life
standards and values;
- Peer pressure
or group influence
- Insecurity
(when a girl/boy gives her body to the boy so that she may feel
appreciated by him)
- Sugar mommies
and daddies – lack of money and low self esteem being the underlying
issues
- The problem of
highly engaging in masturbation
- Seeking for attention
and recognition by peers – trying to outdo or outshine others
- Indecency in
dressing (both guys and ladies)
- Norms and
outdated traditions about sex
- Impure
thoughts and conceptions with images of sex
“These factors have made the fight against
illicit sex a nightmare in today’s living. Most minds have been polluted and
misinformed. Sex is no longer preserved for marriage but for the greater whole. No-one feels exempted
anymore…
“But I will ask, as my parting shot,
“Is this the generation we want? One
without good value systems and reverence for God?
“One which has made sex a tool more than it
is a pleasure for bonding by the married?
“Is this the understanding of sex that we want
to pass on to the next generation? To our children?
“Do you still believe that abstinence is
the better option?
“Do you still believe that purity is
important in a generation in every way?
“Do you still advocate for the fact the
God-fearing is inclusive of ‘no-sex-until-marriage’ policy?
“Redeem your answer now, and join me in the
fight wherever you are - pray for someone, tell someone what you think about
sex, correct someone on matters of sex, talk about sex my friend – talk about
it… and that will just be a beginning for a better tomorrow… for our children
and the next generation… for boys to come who will value the girl-child as
their sisters and not as a sex tool… for the girl-child that will rise up in
confidence to say no to intimidation through sex…
“It will be the beginning of a generation
full of God-values and not own-good-values…!
“Go out there and make a change!”
“Thank you people, and may God bless you
all…”
*[Handing over microphone and walking back to the audience...]*
Morris.
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