WHY SEX SELLS

COPIED! I honestly have never paid much attention to her, but suddenly when I read that ‘someone’ in Nigeria – don’t worry it wasn’t Dare – paid $500,000 ( that is over N80 million Naira if you didn’t know) as appearance fee to have Kim Kardarshian make the briefest appearance in the history of Nigerian showbiz, I got interested in her, very interested. I was not as interested in the fee as I became interested in what a woman who could attract such a fee does and what she represents. What female personality will draw that kind of sensational attention from our garbage consuming Nigerian public? Kim – to any seasoned image manager – is the obvious choice! The real question then is, Who is Kim? Wiki describes her as an American socialite and TV personality who came to light in the event of winning a court case where she got awarded a $5,000,000 over the issue of a sex tape. Kim’s fame has grown on the followership she has garnered on her family reality show – Keeping up with the Kardarshians. Kim and her sisters also co-own a fashion line called D-A-S-H. In 2011, Kim got married to a basketballer and then sensationally got a divorce 72 days after. She is also in an ongoing relationship with Kanye West and expecting his baby. I am not going to bore you with stuff you already know about her, but Kim’s life does not read like one of an ideal role model. Yet Kim represents all that is trendy, entertaining and is considered the good life to us today – She is Sexy, and she represents Sensuality. Permit me take a quick detour to the real issue at this point. It has become weird what we term ‘fashion’, what we call trendy, and what is in vogue today – the things that ‘trip‘ us. It’s a wonder the phrase ‘common sense’ still exists especially as our sense of what is important, really has flown out of the window. Trends seem to havereplaced our common sense. This lack of common sense is most evident in our lifestyle, fashion, entertainment and moral culture. The sad thing is we really don’t realize that this is a war we are losing – The war to keep our sanity and our souls and those of coming generations. Let me take fashion first. Today it seems so normal that people consider ‘nakedness’ a fashion statement. Everywhere we go now, we see boobs and laps flapping around like flags in the wind. Ladies with cleavages as open as bedroom windows and clothes so tight, even their skin can’t catch a breath. Most of what we call fashion today 15 -20 years ago would have been referred to as outfits only fit for harlots. Men today are wearing skinny jeans that were called leggings back in the day, outfits only fit for faggots, boys sagging jeans and looking like touts out of American correctional facilities. We live with these things everyday, and it is no longer an anomaly. What am I saying that is new anyway? However, what it is doing to our minds is where the real problem is. Our minds have dulled beyond recognition, warped beyond conscious awareness. It seems we now think we live in a virtual reality, where what we do, does not affect our lives. We push the bounds of choice, daring to do anything in order to enjoy ourselves, get noticed, using the liberty and freedom we have to break all laws of moral restraint, and yet somehow we think we can evade the inevitable consequences of our choice? The biggest lie we tell ourselves is that it really doesn’t matter. Recently, I stood at the entrance waiting to catch an 18-year-old cousin of mine that I found out would sneak out of school to go celebrate her birthday party at a night club. As I stood there and watched the Lagos night life unfold, I saw several young girls of her age coming out of cabs in the most outrageous outfits. Skimpies, shorties, and slickies, clothes with more holes and see-through, that any rag would have seemed less torn. Young pretty girls between the ages of 16 – 21 entered the club in droves and, I wondered how so many fathers would be asleep thinking their daughters are in bed, while the girls are out at night selling sex. Did I hear you say ahan! Are they all having sex in nightclubs? No that is definitely not what I am saying but the clothes and lifestyle is one that sells sex, saying ‘Hey, I am old enough, I can have sex and I am available’. Again most nightclubs are filled with harlots waiting to pick up men for commercial sex. How then do we tell a harlot from a regular girl? Our fashion and clothes that we wear today leave no way for us to tell. No wonder the term lady and bitch can be used in one sentence these days. In entertainment, musicians seem to have nothing else to sing about. I bought an 18 track album released by Iyanya recently and all I heard was omoge oloson gbewa o!, ’your waist…your waist all I want is your waist’, Kukere kukere, I getti money o!, Sex mama oya kajo mama, her yansh dey make me maga. At the Africa Magic Viewers Choice awards AMVCA awards Ike, the presenter of the big brother Africa competition said he wondered what people liked about Iyanya’s music, especially as it seemed to have no evident message other than sex. In fairness to Iyanya, I once heard he said when he was making proper music, we the public, didn’t buy his tapes. His accusation means that we sub-consciously­ prefer obscenities in our music these days to sensible music. Today he dishes us crap and we lap it up greedily and he is not the only one. Is it Wizkid or the Ice prince or D’banj that has anything else to say? They all just sell sex, money, fame and sex again. Our movies are no better. The Tonto Dikehs, Ini Edos Uche Jombos and Mercy Johnsons seem to be trying harder and harder to reveal more and more. It is said that these things are a reflection of our society…a society constantly trying to copy and consume western culture without counting the cost. Our moral culture which really is what we call ‘common sense’- is a sense of right and wrong which we all commonly agree to. Did we all agree that nakedness and lewd dressing are the next level of sociocultural advancement? At what point in time did we all come to a consensus that sex and sexuality are the most important things to us in life? This uncontrolled consumption of sex and sexuality is the reason for the indigestion of social sicknesses we see in our environment. Rape, homosexuality, prostitution, child molestation, divorce, STD’s, broken homes, infidelity, to mention only a few are the order of the day. Today I woke to find trending, a video of another set of boys gang-raping a girl who was begging and wailing as the boys recorded their wicked lasciviousness.­ As usual the public outcry and the man-hunt for the perpetrators begin again until a few weeks from now when the public’s conscience settles down, we all forget and go back to minding our businesses until the next event that goes public happens again. We do nothing but bleat like sheep as the evil continues. Have we ever stopped to ask why these evils don’t go away? No, it is not only the devil that is at fault. We all are part of this vicious circle of evil. How are we complicit you may ask? Simple, because every man has refused to take up his communal responsibilitie­s and decided to mind only his own business. For instance, you may ask, what is my business with a road-side seller who has decided to pitch his tent at my junction to sell pornographic videos? Well, who do you think is going to buy those videos? Your friends, your sons, your house boys, your neighbours sons, your mechanic, your guard, your laundryman. Who do you think they are going to want to test it out on? Your daughters, your sisters, your girlfriends, or even your wife and possibly every lady you know. The truth is, every sexual vice we permit in the name of liberalism, sophistication and social tolerance will rear its ugly head in a place too close for comfort. The sexual perversion and subtle hints we permit in our movies, music, fashion and wave aside as no big deal, have their manifestations in the sexual vice in the environments we live in. The boys we see in the molestation videos today are a product of several hours and days on end, spent watching all the different forms of pornography, boys who feel the pent-up pressure of the social perversion we permit and now seek release in acts of rape and violence. I fear that sociopaths and psychopaths are soon to manifest in our society, a malaise that plagues the western world that we are so quick to emulate. What can we then do? We may ask how did our demon-believing­ ancestors keep the devil and his cohorts at bay in the dark ages. Why does it seem that our morals were better in the age of darkness than in the age of enlightenment? I will tell you why. When the villages were ravaged by diseases and death, the people would repent and together they would go and swear before their gods that they will not commit offences real or perceived anymore, and the people would hold themselves responsible by ensuring that whosoever grieved the gods were pushed or cast out or killed. This culture however barbaric and archaic, had its social benefit. This cultural mien is today called Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). All of us must understand that the solution starts with us all, realizing that we have a responsibility to be our brothers and sisters keepers, understanding that what afflicts one afflicts all. So if your neighbour’s daughter is behaving in an unbecoming manner, it is your responsibility to speak to her and where appropriate, reports to her parents may be required. We still have a lot to learn from the past, and if we were to ask what God’s opinion is about all this… this article will not end. Not all of our cultural heritage is bad, and God’s ways still seem most relevant, let’s not lose it all in the name of selling modern sensuality. My opinion, what is yours? Enjoy

MY LIFE, MY STORY… in 2012 (MY BIRTHDAY MESSAGE)

Funny how life can be, I have been living with this grief and sorrow for over many months and I have decided to hold them back pretending and hoping everything will be fine. I know I am not the first nor I am going to be the last to experience failure, but belief me not, I have experienced some massive failure and draw backs in my life in 2012. My heart confronts me not to write these thoughts of mine down not even to post them to my friends and readers to have a pip into the life I am living and sorrow I have been going through. Actually, it is time to break that silence and cry out those tears stored in my tear bank until I have no reason to cry no more. I have been broken by my failures and I have fallen by my faults, really I need to pick myself up and mend my broken wings, pathetic how most times I see myself as a walking copse, because I see myself failing in most things I get myself involved in, whether; academically, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually and what have you. I choose to speak up because so many youths my age are facing similar psychological masturbation and depression and decide to keep it to their hearts and commit vicious act, but I don’t want my story to end that way. Sadly, how I was broken to the point to think that God is interested in punishing me and He careless about me. I am always also confronted by the fear of the future even after believing that I have a bright future set in place to assist my peers and helpless youths and children in the world, I still question my existence and His’ as well. Most times I am being frustrated into cursing the country and putting all blames of my shortcomings as the fault of the government. Every day, I erode my mind with thoughts of becoming successful, I develop the zeal of doing great things but most times I am pushed by my failures into thinking that God is not in support of making me successful either because of my sins or my fathers. This is not the way I want to live my life, sitting on the fence and folding my hands without moving things or making things happen I can beat my chest to repeatedly say. I am now seen as a laughing stock, mockery and tagged as a failure by my peers, friends and foes at school and at home. I have visited so many counselling centres in Lagos and Ibadan, I get the same rather pathetic advice and saying “keep doing what you do, it is just the experience and the storm you are supposed to face, you will end well to be successful in whatever you do…” And I still can’t figure out where the problem is coming from aside from the fact that something is wrong with me. I have heard and read about it, “nothing good comes easy” or “all success stories come with a prize or some challenges”; maybe you all don’t know when I have been on the street hustling or where I am coming from. My family and background is another kind of a rueful story, as we go through some ‘life painful experiences’. Talking about my dad( I will avoid talking about his academic qualification and background because it doesn’t flow with what he is going through today), all I can say is that, he usually sit on a chair located in one of the two rooms in our ‘face me and face me’ apartment, my dad sits there thinking and feeling pathetic about how life is treating him, he even gets frustrated to the point of accusing my mom as a witch responsible for his failure and shortcoming in life, what a gross depression he must be going through(intellectual masturbation I call it, despite his degree of education). He stopped fending for the family and stop paying his children school fees all with the excuse that he invested money in a business that flopped and he has to keep paying debts for the rest of his life, what a pathetic life you may say. Lets stop for now about my dad and begin talks about my mom, she is out there feeding four children of hers, I didn’t say five because one of us who is a lady after me have decided to feed herself and leave the house since she was fifteen(15), don’t ask me what kind of job she is involved in because I am not going to answer, but every day I pray in my mind that God touches her and bring her back into the family(maybe to continue suffering with us) so that my mom can be happy. Back to my mom, she is always stressed out and share in the frustration of my dad’s, even though she pretends to be fine so as not to make us feel sad, I can see them(frustration and unhappiness) in her face as she starts developing a black face with stress on it when things left frying pan to fire in the family. She earns around seventy thousand naira per months from her place of work and she has two kids who are in the university struggling to get a good grade and she have one who recently secure admission into a private college where he can study Education Management, while lastly she has her last kid in a private missionary primary school, I wonder how she can survive. Well, God has being providing and helping her in many ways to be able to get money to finance all her expenses and that of her children. Many a time she console my dad by telling him not to think of money as a problem but should be thankful and happy about the fact that the family has good health, i was almost in doubt of her claim or consoling words when myself and my elder brother had to go through a life and death illness. I can’t say what really happened or caused it but I can say it was God who rescued us and made us alive, my little sister (the last born) is not left out of this ill-fated sickness that has come to rob my mom and the family the last of our happiness and hope. Consequently, before now I use to read books and hear talks that opines that your background shouldn’t stop you from achieving your dreams and living your ideas, but apparently, those sayings seems to be false to me as even after ignoring my background and gathering resources for myself and decided to work on my ideas and my dreams I encountered the biggest failure of my life, ignoring my background and living by the words of some of these sweet talkers. ‘My life!’, I usually exclaim for every little thing that happens, it is very pitiable when I recall all the money, time and academic sacrifice I have put in the line to become successful in the publishing industry, only to lose all of them to challenges that I can’t pinpoint. But I am grateful today that I am alive, hale and healthy coupled with the fact that life has thought me lessons that I cannot forget. Conclusively, this is not a grief message or write-up but an essay filled with hope and great aspirations that the future will be bright for me as I undergo the process of learning life teachings. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME AS I CLOCK 24YEARS OF AGE TODAY MARCH 15 2013.