Page 28 - BIKC - Eng

10 BRAHMACARYA IN KÅÑËA CONSCIOUSNESS

SEX FASCINATION—THE DISEASE OF
THE MODERN AGE

Sex is the overwhelming obsession of modern society. Sexual
promiscuity is so unrelentingly stressed that anyone who does not
appear to be highly interested in it is generally considered to be a
crank. Social pressure induces people to try to maintain juvenile
lustiness long after the sensual high of youth has subsided. Thus
millions of people remain emotionally immature all their lives. It
is a sick world.
Ignorant of their relationship with Kåñëa, and unsure of their
status in rapidly changing societies with no fixed values, people
desperately desire an identity—an image of themselves which they
feel good with and which others respect. The essence of image, as
inculcated by the mass media, is sexual attractiveness. The power
of the media to mold people’s attitudes and behavior is a pathetic
but documented fact. Even if the average person’s mind would not
have been always absorbed in sexual thoughts, the media makes
sure it is.
The advertising industry in particular churns out unending
pictures of dressed-up or undressed women—in magazines, on
billboards, on television—always and everywhere. Despite grossly
exploiting the bodies of women and the basest impulses of men,
solely for the sake of making some already over-rich people even
richer, their activities continue for the most part unquestioned.
The general public absorb their propaganda and remain ever
steeped in lust, having no knowledge of the necessity to resist.
Thus advertisements oozing with sexual overtones allure the
willingly gullible public to mindlessly purchase everything from
back-scrubbers to brandy. And the consumer society rolls on, its
members forever sexually jacked-up.
Constant titillation of the senses, however, increasingly dulls
the spirit. Thus despite all the celluloid promises, people find
themselves cheated of real happiness. In adolescence, when the
senses appear to have unlimited power to invoke euphoric
delights, happiness through sense enjoyment seems not only to be