AWRIGHT DEN: Soft porn

Last week was indeed an interesting one, especially for those who frequent social media. There were two stories which dominated group and personal threads and generated many comments: TAXeisha and the Banks Calendar Girl competition.
Today we will talk about the Banks Calendar Girl competition.
I have never understood the reason for the competition and maybe it’s because I don’t see the link between a half-naked woman on a poster and the sale of beer. Nonetheless, the competition has been going for many years and quite a few people look forward to it as well as getting their hands on one of the posters.
Pornography has been a challenge for millions of men around the world. It has significantly destroyed their lives as well as their families. As a result, one of God’s greatest gifts to man, who is to be respected, honoured and protected, has been degraded to an object of lust, sensuality and sex.
As a child, I can remember going to the neighbourhood shop and just staring at the girls on the posters, as it was the closest thing to a porn magazine I could get. Over time this escalated to me watching “blue movies” and looking for porn on the Internet. Luckily for me, that addiction lasted a very short time but there are many who have been addicted for decades.
Focus On The Family teaches that there are five stages of pornography:
1. Early exposure – most porn addicts are exposed as children and once those seeds are sown, it begins the regressive process;
2. Addiction – due to the exposure and the enticing images, you tend to look at more and more images to the point where you can’t do without them and it becomes part of your life;
3. Escalation – what may have started as posters of half-naked women escalates to magazines, then to movies and may even go as far as child pornography and bestiality;
4. Desensitization – after a while you become numb to the regular images and you desire something more and you become desperate to find that thrill and feeling again; and
5. Acting out sexually – due to the numbness from the images, you start to act out sexually what you have been feeling and this can often lead to rape, adultery, incest and molestation.
Some doctors have argued that porn addiction can be more difficult to break than drug addiction and a porn addict can be a very dangerous person.
Behind every attitude and behaviour there is a story. Porn addiction has a starting point and there is a possibility it can start from posters of women who advertise their bodies in a sexual way to entice both men and women. This type of display is called soft porn and is often the start that leads to hard porn.
Some of the swimsuits, which were publicly worn during the competition, were fit for behind closed-door activity. For a woman to walk in public in a costume that only covers the nipple and the lower section of the vulva in order to win $10 000 and the opportunity to advertise a beverage, clearly shows she doesn’t understand that her body is a temple to be honoured and protected.
Legally, these women have not broken the law since the law stipulates that in order for there to be an offence committed, the nipples and [a certain area] of the vagina must be shown. Well, I want to ask for an amendment to this law since it allows women to freely walk around naked as well as expose their privates.
We as adults must be mindful of the examples we set since the youth are carefully watching us. All things may be expedient but all things aren’t beneficial. We were all born social activists; let us seek to promote and fight for what is decent, righteous, positive and honourable.
• Corey Worrell is a former Commonwealth Youth Ambassador.