The #Philippines: A highly-sexualized society

Unfortunately the Philippines is a sexualized society, meaning that the only thing that matters is lust. Ika nga "sex sells" and it's very sad that Filipino society is indeed sexualized. From noontime shows to simple conversations, sex is the number one topic. I'm not saying sex is bad. It's actually a basic human need. But it has not to be perverted or making it an obsession. Sexualization reduces a person into a sex object meaning he or she is only worthy if she's oozing with sex appeal. Her intelligence and inner character become useless. The American Psychological Association defines sexualization as follows:"individuals are regarded as sex objects and evaluated in terms of their physical characteristics and sexiness" and unfortunately, this is what defines modern Philippine society thanks to Hollywood and moreover to prudish Christianity especially the Catholic Church.

You can say Christians are prudes and repress sexuality, but actually the more sexually repressed a society is, the more sexually perverted people become. Why? Because when we deprive ourselves from any basic human need (food, water, air, shelter, sex), we struggle more to have it because we cannot live without them. Try to hold your breath until you struggle to breathe. When you can't hold your breath, you quickly grasp for air. The same goes with food. When you do dieting, you make yourself more 'sabik' to eat again. The same goes for sex. If you always repress your sexual urges, it will retract back and you'll become a pervert instead, obsessively thinking about sex all day.

To further illustrate this, let's compare two opposite societies: Scandinavia and the Middle East. People say Scandinavia is too liberated, even for Americans. Sex education is widespread, porn is legal (i think, but i do not really know if it is as well as porstitution), birth control is accessible, and its okay for them to go to nude beaches, yet they are not too malicious or don't bother too much when it comes to sex itself, plus sex-related crimes are easily put into justice. Unlike in the Middle East where sex is a dirty word. As much as possible women are covered from head to toe to avoid sexual attraction, sex-segragation is prevalent, porn is illegal and immoral, as well as birth control and sex education, yet rape is very rampant, making it legal to marital rape, yet when a single woman is raped, she is killed instead of the rapist because it's the woman's fault because she exposed herself. And also Middle Easterners who flee to the West are usually more sexually active and have more STDs than the Westerners. Why is this so? Because Middle East is sexually repressive and people there become totally sabik to express their sexuality making them prone to sexual perversion. Scandinavians on the other hand, give importance to sexuality, hence they have healthy outlook to sexuality without malice.

But you may think that Scandinavia as well as the rest of Europe is sexualized. Yes that's because they used to be sexually repressive thanks to Christianity and Hollywood, but still they're miles away from the sexual behaviour in the Middle East.

Now in PH, thanks to repressive Catholic Church and the Spaniards' and Americans' macho image, plus Hollywood and sexual revolution, poof, a perfect precipitation for sexualization in the Philippines. You cannot blame our culture and religion for our sexualization. The sad part is that we will become more and more sexualized as people here are saturated with sexual mesages that the motto now here is 'sex sells.' The measure of beauty here is sexiness and not inner beauty. The bad thing here is that it influences innocent little girls that being sexy is more important than their character, and for boys, being virile or having a lot of sexual partners is the most important, therefore damaging the innocence of youth and damaging the very good intention of human sexuality which means both procreation and expression of love/oneself, which is already a dilemma in the Western World and is becoming apparent here in PH. That's why sex scandals and videos are popular and guesting sexy dancers in daytime events in front of children, destroying youth innocence and human sexuality itself, thereby perverting it.

There is another reason for sexuality. It's the men themselves. Oftentimes, too macho men who's obsessed with their manhood are too sexually perverted that they really want hundreds of sexual partners. But these are also the men who only want virgins as wives 'ika nga para di maunahan' so that they prove themselves to be 'man enough.' Unfortunately, most men are like that especially in macho, violent societies like the Middle East, Mediterranean, Latin America, USA, and the Philippines, that's why most Filipino men especially politicians love to marry virgins and flirt with mistresses. This is a perfect recipe for broken families and broken families mean broken society.

Again, there is nothing wrong with sex and sexuality, but by perverting it, it becomes lewd and bad. And I think a sexualized culture is a decayed culture because it dehumanizes people into just sex objects whose function only is to provide sex and nothing else.

I admit that before I wanted to look sexualized, a sex symbol, so that I'll be more attractive, but I felt more disrespected, that's why I now shun sexualization and now referring the K-pop or elegant look, making me more respectable to men.

Sexuality is human, dignified, and good. Sexualization is animalistic, perverted, and bad, and makes one person dumb.

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http://getrealphilippines.com/blog/2015/10/get-lewd-philippines/#comment-1352457