By Steve Aborisade
One key factor that must be taken into consideration in the current debate about rape in our society is the massive and strong influence of popular culture and mobile phones in the hands of minors on the scope, manifestation and trends of rape in our society.
Our music, the videos, comedy skits etc. are all too romped in sex and, tends to subjugate women. The ambassadors of these acts have also redefined values once held sacrosanct. There is a growing embrace of what I called alternative spirituality – young men and women are now embracing and recreating their own brand of metaphysical reality, mainly tilted towards forms of voodoism. These include rituals that we may term devilish, with doses of wild sex and other practices we may find difficult to comprehend. But then, your pastors are too fixated on tithes and offerings to think of attending to the contemporary needs of young people.
How did we react when high school ‘Marlians’ confessed there are days of the week they don’t wear pants to school? These are young teen girls and boys. Then is the influence of uncontrolled access to social media which we placed in the hands of our children through mobile phones. This grants young people unchecked access to materials beyond their reckoning. All of these combined and we now have an ‘acceptable’ culture that makes it so cool for girls and boys, both young and old, virtually stripping nude to loud cheers on Instagram live and other such Apps where they gather in multitudes on a daily basis.
Even some so called celebrities are not left out of these practices. Nude pictures of our children are flying right, left and centre, without control, while sex has taken on a new wild definition altogether. Binge drinking is the vogue, coupled with uncontrolled appetite for hard drugs. More young women are getting stoned more than ever, while ‘groupy’, ‘threesomes’ are other sexual fantasies been brought to reality through staged sex parties. Speak to the average teen non judgementally and see the much he or she will reveal.
The sad thing is that most parents are oblivious of what their kids do behind closed doors. To be sure, some of what your children do involved some of what I just mentioned above. Our children are having sex openly in our presence! They do it with the data you buy for them, in the comfort of their rooms while you remain in the living room glued to CNN and Trump. Some prefer it while in church, perhaps that’s when they are freer. Don’t be alarmed, but then, this is real. To the untamed, how has he or she interpreted all these about the access he/she can have to another’s body?
On Youtube, one of the most popular skitters today is Mr. Macaroni, who primarily flew into prominence with objectifying women and their bodies as men’s menu! Of course, we all love to laugh at that! Listening to the lyrics of Naira Marley and the likes, which we all love to dance to, can we then rethink how we all help to entrench the rape culture, going forward?