The way sex is being marketed in movies, books or if you stumble upon colleagues discussing it, one would be tempted to think that sex is all about pleasure.
And that there are no misfortunes associated with sex. It is now a challenge, even for churches, to tell young people that sex before marriage is a sin because no-one is listening to that. Sex is being marketed everywhere, mostly as a feel-good experience.
Parents and school authorities face the same dilemma as children no longer want to listen to them if they give advice about sex. Those promoting sex seem to have a louder voice, a bigger budget and have since gained the human ear.
So when you try to teach about abstinence, sex after marriage or that sex at every corner is a sin, you automatically become an enemy of the people.
The accepted norm today is to create a sex scandal, if one wants to become a celebrity overnight. Young people have to know the truth about sex before they indulge in sex: sex is not that all.
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Don’t we have calamities and misfortunes that come as a result of having sex? How many people are poor right now just because they had sex before they had careers? How many people are married to people they don’t love just because they had sex so they ended up being forced to be husband and wife?
How many people have we lost just because of sexual diseases? How many students have failed school just because of sex? How many marriages have been broken just because of sex?
Don’t we have children that were abandoned or terminated before birth just because sex was done untimely? Don’t we have people that committed suicide just because of sex? Don’t we have people that are in jail right now just because of sex?
When people talk about sex they want to give us a picture of pleasure but isn’t sex destroying lives? How many times have we seen a three-minute act destroying someone’s entire career?
Let’s get this straight: each time a sexual act is done, there are a number of possibilities:
- One gets pregnant, prepared or not
- There is a possibility of acquiring sexually transmitted infections, among them HIV.
- One has to live with the consequences succeeding from the sexual act.
Those marketing sex want people to focus on the “pleasure part” but say nothing about the bad side of sex. They want to make young people feel like they are missing out if they are not indulging in sex.
Their motto is ” just do it, don’t over think, you are missing out”. Many people get to regret their acts only after the act. That is when they sit down and start thinking “but what did I do?”
Unfortunately for many people, they don’t even get to the “pleasure part” as they just get to find out about being a father/mother when they least expected it.
We have to get the voice to younger people so that they make informed decisions. They have to know about the consequences of their actions. Poverty, calamities and sexual disasters can be avoided if young people make the right decisions and if they really know about the consequences of their actions.
Many people allow sex to steal their opportunities, to steal their future and they allow sex to sink them into poverty as it removes them from learning institutions thereby forcing them to be parents before they acquire the skills of life.
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If sex is done untimely it has the power to destroy lives and dreams.
Brian Matsaira is a love and relationships coach and can be reached on [email protected]