Monday, January 26, 2015

In A Word......

I've had the day off today and I was so tired from work that for one day I just sat here playing on the computer and watching a few shows on tv that I like.  While watching these shows of course there are commericals and it was while being bombarded with the commericals that it really hit me.

 Oh, it had hit me before, I will admit, but as of late, I have tried to keep myself from the world by regulating what I watch and listen to so such things don't come to mind.    But today as I listened, listened to what America, the world was hearing, I once again became saddened in my heart and even angry with what has become acceptable, and wished I had done a better job of being and example to my children and teaching them properly.  I wish I had not only taught them but sheilded them from the word..... Let me explain.....

The first commerical I saw talked about sexy hair, the next was for jeans and how sexy they made the young woman feel.  After that it was feeling sexy again for the older woman, slimming down to sexiness for the overweight woman, and the final blow, teenagers feeling sexy with makeup and perfume.  I wondered as I heard each of these advertisments if people, especially teenagers, really know what the word sexy means or from whence it is originated, thus I went on a search, and here is what I found. 

I visited several sights where teenagers ask questions and write answers.  I found pages of teens asking what the word "sexy" really means and to my horror but not my surprise I found that 90% of the definitions were  "very attractive, pleasing to the eye, a girl who is stunning, gorgeous, cute, someone who speaks to your soul, beautiful, pretty," and so the list goes.

Actually, what they should know is that the word sexy came from the original word sexful which began to appear about 1905 the definition: engrossed in sex. From there it grew and became sexy and by the 1920's meanings of the word included: concerned predominantly or excessively with sex, sexually interesting or exciting; radiating sexuality, feeling sexual interest; aroused. None of which have anything to do with beautiful, pretty, or cute, and most importanty nothing to do with something that speaks to your soul.   

I fear as the world degrades and worsens so do the lives of our children, and they are forced into lives of living to be sexy not knowing what it really is, what it really means, only knowing what they are taught and what they see.  As I look back I can see how this one little word, did so much damage in my own life and I can also see how it damaged the lives of my children because I was deaf to realness, and trapped in an abyss of politcally correctness that degrades and despises the family, that suffocates true humanity.......

Yes I sound poetic in a sense and even dramatic but the simple fact reamains that the word sexy comes from the word sex, and we all know what sex is; so, do we really want our daughters, and sons,  granddaughters and grandsons; do you really want those of whom we love and chereish to be sexy, to strive to be sexy, to be flooded with the sexiness of the world.  NO I DO NOT!  

Thus my soapbox today is this, we must overcome the seixiness of the world.  Let us ask ourselves when listening to music, picking movies and books, buying clothes and make up for our dear ones, is this something we want for our children, is this something we are willing to teach them because everything we buy for them and allow them to do and hear teaches them.  Remember this, images and words are not easily erased from the mind if ever at all. Think about it......

 But now let us go even a step further, regardless or our age, and ask is this what we want for ourselves?  Do we as adults want the pain of the world upon our sholders, or are we willing to see the light and keep sexy in its proper place, that we too may have peace.  Are we setting the example that will teach our children real beauty and love?  Are we teaching ourselves real beauty and love?  Or do our Facebook posts, TV shows, books, movies, music, dress and the like speak volumes that will in the long run, cause harm and pain.  When we teach ourselves, our children, to strive to be sexy with our choices we set them up, we set ourselves up for pain and heartache. 

I quote from What Does It Mean To Be Sexy? by Raju Peddada 2009

 " US women spend about $7 billion a year, nearly $100 a month, on cosmetics; if saved and invested for five years, it would pay for a full year of tuition and fees at a public college. YWCA-USA chief executive, Dr. Lorraine Cole says: "We believe that the obsession with idealized beauty and body image is a lifelong burden that takes a terrible toll on all young girls and women in this country." Imagine what kind of intellectual fulfillment through travel and learning this money could garner our kids, if it wasn't wasted on something that is utterly ephemeral. While this "investment" on the exterior is consummated, the divested and beautiful mind withers away in feckless platitudes and banality. As a society we have been consumed in the deflowering of our children, the veritable buds of life, by rote exposure to laser hair removal, reality TV and celebrity makeovers, and allowing lipstick and lip gloss for 5 to 8-year-old girls. Forty-four percent of the girls aged 6-9 use lipstick; 36% use hair-care products, and 13% abuse other cosmetics; still these girls feel worse about themselves, as they grow up to become objects of desire instead of being projects for progress..."

(and I believe this now to be as much for boys and men as for girls and women)

I know what your thinking God has given us free agency, kids will make their own choices regardless of what we do.  But let me say to that yes, our children will make there own choices reagardless of what we teach them;  but we, by being the example and choosing the right can give them options for those choices, we give them the chance to choose and understand the good, rather than fall into the ways of the world and hurt.  

I have lived a past life of hurt and pain caused by the word sexy, I know that my children have also lived that past life, I know that my parents lived that life and I see how it has the power to come down through the generations and carry on and on....it is my personal goal to stop it, to stop it now. 

Let us make those choices as we raise our children so that they will have the opportunity to be free of the word sexy, to be free from its side effects.  Let us be an example to others while working and being in the world, so that maybe our choice might help to influence someone for a more excellent way.  And let us not feel quilty about the past but let us make the right choices now for our homes that when our grown children and grandchildren come it will be a safe haven away from the world.

It would be a great and honorable gesture for us all don't you think?  

Thank you for reading my soapbox :)

Love from Dixie!