De-Sexualise Yourselves

A Chapter by JoshLDN

In political and moral discussions, those who consider themselves to be of a 'Liberal' inclination will often indulge in indiscriminate 'religion bashing'. They will criticise the burkha and the hijab as symbols of female oppression; they will argue that 'no sex before marriage' is an anachronistic, and almost sadistic demand; any attempt to maintain standards and solid sexual boundaries through the implementation of a clear rule is dismissed as an offence to modernity and progress.

Shame.

The hijab and the burkha, the Jewish woman's sheitel, the unrevealing and long-sleeved clothes worn by those who pursue a more traditional form of any of the main Abrahamic faiths... these are not oppressive and restrictive, but rather liberating. In developing such frameworks, these communities have created a method whereby, through their own culture, they can entrench these religious values, and in doing so protect females from the stifling, demeaning, and often heartbreaking phenomenon of constant sexualisation- something which has become almost all-encompassing in parts of the West.

Negative liberty is to eliminate anything which will act as a restraint on the individual; sexualisation and objectification is clearly a restraint, placing the individual either within the narrow conformity corridor of acceptability, or outside it where they must languish in their state of utter rejection and irrelevance. Similarly, positive liberty is to empower the individual with the willingness and ability to exert themselves and fulfil their own potential- and so these rules and boundaries which are provided by religion are tools of empowerment which can allow the individual to escape from the suffocating expectations of a sexualised society.

Although appearance-based prejudice, of the type inevitably thrust upon the women of Western society, is one of the most prominent and obvious issues of social sexualisation this is not to say that it is purely an issue for difference-feminists. It is one which can affect and cause detriment to a surprising proportion of the male gender. A sexualised society is one which acts like a constant, overbearing mountain of peer pressure on the adolescent boy or man. To turn away from the mission of gaining sexual pleasure ("getting laid") is to dive into a sea of social isolation.

By this I mean that any kind of behaviour which does not exude either pure masculinity or appear to be geared towards grabbing the attention of the opposite sex, is mocked- often dismissed as 'homosexual' (which is, incidentally, often viewed falsely by heterosexual men as the antithesis to masculinity and sexualism). This can range from dressing in clothes chosen more for cheapness or comfort than for appearance, to gaining pleasure from any kind of intellectual or academic activity, or 'hanging out' more often with male companions than female (or, incidentally, with girls who do not fall into the aforementioned boundaries created by a sexualised society, and so are dismissed as 'ugly', or perhaps even as 'lesbians'). Making such a mistake in the early days of secondary school at age 11, I felt tainted with the stigma of having fallen from acceptable standards almost up until I left at age 18.