Falling Into Darkness

August 10, 2010 by Sal Termini.

Lady Gaga, the newest symbol of sexual freedom, poses nude for Vanity Fair magazine. I guess the title says it all, “Vanity.” The dictionary defines vanity as conceit, narcissism, self-love, self-admiration, self-absorption, self-regard, egotism; pride, arrogance, boastfulness, cockiness, and swagger. We live with eyes wide open but see so little. The very title of the magazine is open for all to see and understand. What draws us to vanity?

Vanity is foolishness dressed up as wisdom and meaningless as importance.

Lady Gaga’s shameless self promotion mocks us all into believing there is value in her over-the-top antics. Her pictures and videos are filled with nudity. It seems talent is not enough — we need the masses gawking at us with prurient interest. The natural tendency of people is to look at the naked body when it is unclothed. The exploitation of this fact is in itself a meaningless act. Anybody can do it but too many crave the spotlight.

The unclothed body was designed by God to illicit sexual desire. The immediate visceral response is desire. Desire is the foundation of modern advertising. What we desire is sex, money, power and pleasure, all without a value system. What we get is destruction and pain. Yet we advertise by pulling on the basest human emotions. Like lemmings we fall off the cliff over and over again. The multitude of people parading around nude for attention has now reached the status of serious mental illness for our culture, obsessed with such icons. The desire for sexual freedom from repressive religious belief has now turned into a unhealthy obsession.

God is not anti-pleasure. God created pleasure. He puts pleasure in a context where it brings value to the human soul. The problem is sexual desire left unchecked becomes perversion. The more outrageous a person’s behavior, the more interest seems to be created in that person. The same old tactics are used over and over again: nudity, attraction and perversion equals wealth.

The man who created Girls Gone Wild is nothing more than a video voyeur. The same vanity, need for attention and pleasure without value lures us like moths to a flame. It is meant to draw out of us perverted prurient desires for the purpose of fame and profit. Its damage to society and people are ignored, overlooked, or rejected. Madonna, who perverted a generation of young people, is now trying to protect her child from the corruption that media produces in the younger generation. The glaring hypocrisy is missed by her hordes of adoring fans.

We tempt with evil desires to create success. The price and the cost is, we all become diminished, dehumanized, humiliated, and lessened by coarse ideals. The problem is, we are pleasure driven so we struggle to condemn many things that are evil. We like evil. We want to participate in it. In doing this we justify it, and ourselves, as normal or innocent. Standards are lowered and society is self-destructing. We keep falling for the same old thing over and over again. Nothing new, good, or creative will ever come out of seeking to elicit the lowest and basest part of our being. Who will have the courage to ignore or reject those who exploit us for their own ends. We make them rich and famous while we remain poor in spirit, character and moral truth.

Posted in Good News Journal | No Comments »