Free Me from the Stereotypes!

Who uses the hoe?

I am not a supporter of immorality at any level but I trust it’s safe for me to say I dislike the stereotypes based on sexuality. In all honesty, before one does the deed, they are blank as a slate. Some high school teenagers take part in sexual activity with limited information on the why’s and the how’s; the do’s and the don’t’s. Obviously the main reason is that society isn’t open about it, and also because once people start talking, the honesty is at a zero.

My mind races sometimes with the stereotypes I carry with me wherever I go. Sometimes positive, and at other times very negative. What is the problem with the existence of women who are open about their relational behaviours and confident in their positions? Why are men celebrated in their abrasive, condescending sexual brutality over women while a woman can’t walk into a new marriage 6 months after a divorce? Why do Christ-proclaiming brothers raise above all else their own perfection in carefully calculated actions and orchestrated characters while they shun ladies who make mistakes? How can one, so soon after declaring love, desecrate your identity using past encounters which they were never even a part of? How is it possible that less is said of men who ‘over-answer’ nature’s call while a woman’s slight curving of her neck makes the Sunday papers in utter disrepute? Can we all get a breather!

While millions of people are living and breathing everyday under the grant of sexual liberation, others are dying horses in the oppressive trap of stereotypes every single minute. While it is only fair to be concerned about the outcomes of one’s behaviour in relationships, some kinds of concern have pulled many people into guilt traps of actions that did not even last five minutes. And more often than not, women are at the sharper end of the sword.

It is sheer brutality to desert, disregard, slander and again disregard an individual who by any means does not have the same ideals of relationship as you do; or who has by any chance, done things in their past which appear immoral, to the society and especially to them.

Where is the forgiveness, saints? The love? We come to Christ at different times; sometimes it’s after a three day coma after overdosing on crack, after six abortions, countless drunken stupors, two problematic marriages, murder, after raping and attempting to rape, lists of sexual partners which could fill a two quire counter book or several children out of wedlock. Sometimes, we come again after we’ve left, packed away from the house of God and gotten lost, bruised and broken, but come back still. People should not be defined by their mistakes. Neither should they be constantly held accountable for actions which occurred when they didn’t know better. Many are knocking at deacons’ houses across the world, seeking to be baptised in the waters but are judged through stereotypes which Christ Himself never took to account. Some are being held back from full spiritual growth because of the things which were never meant to be hindrances in the journey of faith anyway.

It could amount to something, if everyone could take some time to think that the immorality of women (thus the immorality of society) may be perpetuated by the stereotypes they are attacked with. While negative stereotypes like being sl**s and whores is a problematic, positive ones like being princesses and good girls and perfect girls poses challenges too. It is a bucket full of work to live according to moulds which stifle your true self. Like I said before, I am in no way a supporter of immorality of any kind. But one thing that’s certain is that love is the answer to every problem. It shouldn’t be wrong or hard to let the past slide and see the good in someone else. Also, may men put aside the double standards and hypocrisy, may they put aside the will to make women second-class citizens in a world where such segregation was never intended in the first place. If you didn’t know, Oscar Wilde once said “Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.”

The hoe don’t use itself.