Are We In An Era of Sexual Immorality?

In his book titled ‘At the Altar of Sexual Idolatry’, Steve Gallagher writes and I quote: “Unless you are at least 50-years-old you probably do not know what it is to live in a culture that isn’t obsessed with sex. Prior to the late 60’s, illicit sex was only confined to the seedy underworld or simply non-existent.

“It was rare for a man watching TV to come across anything racier than a couple kissing or a vague suggesting comment. Pornography addiction amounted to nothing more than a playboy magazine hidden under the bed.”

Steve wrote this with reference to the American society. However, if we are to apply this in the Malawi setting, we may say “at the beginning the second millennium” instead of “prior to the late 60’s” because issues of sex and pornography rocked Malawian societies first during the period.

Now, it appears we are living in the deep recesses of a dangerously sexualized society; a society that has put sex as the overriding passion of human survival. It is a society that has completely lost its values. Human wisdom has been utterly poisoned and those who advocate for a return to our roots lack all conviction.

You will be shocked to the core should you ‘accidentally’ bump into someone’s office without knocking. You will find them busy minimizing or simply cancelling a number of pornographic sites on their computer.

Instead of workers utilizing the internet to maximize the effectiveness of their respective jobs, most of them hunch over their computers staring at nude pictures of members of the opposite sex. One wonders what sort of citizens they are to be when they leave their workplaces and infiltrate different societies.

In regards to morality, our humble nation, is heading towards a horrible ‘head-on collision’ unless change is effected immediately.

Now there are social cites which connect people from different parts of the world and they have become a place where youths think they can express their sexual desires and meet people whom they can interact with sexually.

Steve Gallagher continues to explain: “For many, the powerful human drive for sex becomes the overriding passion of life. Kept in its proper place, sex is a marvelous means for a married couple to express their love to each other. However, when a person begins to indulge in some form of illicit sex, this passion can quickly get out of control.”

This is vindicated by different pornographic scandals that have taken place right here in Malawi. There are many examples of pornographic scandals that should obviously have caught the eye of stakeholders that advocate for high levels of morality only to be left underlying.

In most cases of pornography, men are the ones who mostly appear to ‘institute’ everything due to the Malawian tradition that a woman can rarely propose to a man. This is argued against the background of the fact that women are mostly the ones who entice and lure men. Coupled with the nude pictures of women which addicted men may view on their ‘screens’ is the skinny dressing of most contemporary women.

While a man will go out during hot weather putting on a short and a vest, a girl will find an opportunity of exposing herself by putting on ‘classy’ clothes like low-cut blouses which, as if the fact that they are low-cut is not enough harm already, do not even cover up the navel. They will also put on skimpy jeans or miniskirts that barely cover their thighs.

Nowadays, most young girls simply understand that if they have to be noticed (by men, of course) they have to be scantily dressed. Now, a man who might have spent a lot of time thinking of how to act out his lust will immediately ‘pounce’ on the scantily dressed girl who will rarely ‘protest’.

To another extent, it appears sexual captivity has undoubtedly affected different socio-economic and ethnic groups in Malawi. The idea of a person engaging in illicit sex being an immoral human being is fast fading into oblivion. In fact, the very same people who are sexualizing our culture are accorded so much respect because they are seen to be ‘men or women enough’.

The duty of laws appears to be non-existent. The fact that there are no direct laws to govern issues of internet pornography also contributes towards the sexualizing of our culture.

The only clear laws that are there govern the distribution of pornographic materials not the ‘shooting’, hence it appears there are no defined punishments to mete on pornographic actors. This is the government’s worst undoing.

The obvious reason for the absence of the laws is that government never thought incidents of pornography would have Malawians themselves directly involved. And they had to wait at least for things to get out of hand, which is indeed happening now.