I would like to start with a quote from Propoganda’s popular spoken word piece, ‘The Gospel’. In that piece he said, ‘there is not a religion in the world that doesn’t agree that there is something wrong with us’. And it is very true, the evil we see all around us, was first conceived in the heart before it became a reality. Hence, to win the war against evil, we need to deal with it at the source – the heart. It’s like uprooting the weeds that are sprouting out of the soil in your garden. That is the most sure way of getting rid of them and not the fruitless act of tearing their leaves.
I had a rude awakening concerning this particular topic a few weeks ago. I chanced upon a retweet on my timeline and followed up to a lady’s timeline on twitter. Oh boy! I spent two hours that morning, on my ride to work, just soaking in every single story told on her timeline. I believe the conversation began because of her reaction to another person’s tweet which suggested that women who wear skimpy dresses invite rape to themselves. For some reasons I would like to withhold the lady’s twitter handle. She went on to ask the ladies on her timeline, who had been sexually abused before, to tweet how it happened and what they wore on that day. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Most of them were almost dressed like nuns when it happened. What laid a heavier weight on my heart that day was the fact that some of them began by saying ‘well, the first time was …’ meaning they had been raped more than once in their lifetime. That, I couldn’t handle. There was one who had been raped just a few weeks before the said conversation on twitter. Now, this is not a post that will promote indecent dressing in women – totally far from that. This post is meant to extend the issue of sexual abuse to an area where most people have turned a blind eye on. I just want to draw our attention to the fact that there is a force within us, that is stronger than any external factor that one may attribute to the cause of rape. The bible calls it the ‘flesh’. Not literally the human flesh, (the meat and the blood). No, it refers more emphatically to our emotions, our thoughts, our desires, and many other things that bring us joy in our physical beings.
In recent times, one of my favorite gospel rap songs has been ‘Temptations’ BY 116 CLIQUE. Particularly because I can really relate with the theme of the song. And my favorite verse in that song was that of Derek Minor. He starts by saying this :
‘Lord, can I be real with you? /
They say that women want attention, and that’s the real issue /
And if they only wore dresses just a little bit longer/
Then the FLESH that I’ve been feeding, wouldn’t burn like a sauna/
WAIT!! Is that the reason why your brain isn’t changed, and you are home by yourself in front of Computer screens? /
Or, is that the REASON WHY SICK MEN PREY ON /
LITTLE GIRLS, WHO ARE IN SCHOOL STILL PLAYING WITH CRAYONS?’
Now this totally captures what I have been trying to communicate with this present post and the previous one. You can’t blame your addiction to pornography on the way women dress. Neither can you blame the fact that some fathers molest their own babies because they saw a woman in town wear a skimpy dress. Maybe, and just maybe, it could be that those men were attracted by the baby’s diapers. Whatever the case is, I don’t know. But I doubt the cause is the mini-skirt they saw barely clothing a woman in town. You see, what an indecently dressed woman does to a man is, she whets his appetite for sex that very instant. And if the man isn’t one who has self-control, then he is left with the options of either convincing the woman in question or applying force. If you would permit me to use the food analogy again, I would say the hunger for sex can be likened to hunger for food and indecently dressed women could be likened to a very tempting food advertisement. If someone breaks into a restaurant and steals food and his only justification is that, the advertisement on the billboard was too tempting, will you deem it a wise reason? I believe the most sensible advice worth giving to such a person, is that he needs to tame his hungers. Same applies to sexuality in men. You should know, that you cannot have the food because it is displayed on the billboard *if you know what I mean*. You should deal with the hunger inside you and don’t think by uprooting those billboards, you have dealt with the issue at hand. Deal with what’s inside you, when that is well dealt with, you will realize it becomes rather difficult to notice those enticing and tempting features of women who proudly expose it.
To the ladies, dress like you want to be addressed. You don’t judge a book by its cover alright, but the cover of a book sure tells a lot about its content. When I pick a book and see a math equation written on it, it is wrong to assume that the book is based only on that equation. What is even more wrong and absurd is to assume that the book is a history book. To the brothers, I feel your pain, but take pains in putting the flesh under subjection. The bible says walk in the spirit so that you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. So please, go on your knees and pray for strength, read about Jesus, fast etc. It is worth it.