“Daddy, what’s a ‘stroker’?”
Depravity on display at the local Wal-Mart
While on an errand at Wally World to purchase a skin care product for my young daughter, I was mortified as I turned down the aisle and saw on the shelves opposite the Dr. Scholl’s a display of personal gratification items. We live in a world where people generally do not wish to deny themselves anything, and where instant gratification rules the day. I get that. There however is, or at least used to be, a certain level of propriety that was maintained in public. Some things were, at one time, considered inappropriate to be stocked on the shelves of department stores. These were relegated to mail-order operations offering delivery in discreet packaging. Otherwise, they were purchased at stores with blacked-out windows, or specialty establishments, often on the seedier side of town, displaying mannequins scantily-clad in sultry lingerie. Such items were not the wares of big box stores.
Imagine walking through the store with your eight- or nine-year-old child and hearing, “daddy? What is backside play?” “Ummmm…..Errrrr….Uhhhhh….it’s finishing the last nine holes on a golf course, honey. The first nine holes are called the ‘front side,’ and the tenth through the eighteenth holes are the ‘backside.’ <thinking: whew! dodged that bullet>”
This is not normal. I know - people don’t like the use of the words “normal”, “weird”, or “abnormal” anymore. Well, too bad. This is not normal. These items do not belong on a shelf in a regular aisle in plain view. Parents should not need to be concerned about what their kids will see when walking through Wal-Mart. Of course, many parents and other adults themselves no longer seem to understand the difference between right and wrong, or to what children should or should not be exposed. We live in a time when purple-haired, sexually confused, immature degenerates (they are not adults, as they should be), often sporting the latest gear from Field & Stream in their faces, are “teaching” (I use that word very loosely) children in public schools. We live in a place where many parents think it is ok to take their children to view sexual entertainment because it is termed “family-friendly” (tip: prefacing “drag show” with the phrase “family-friendly” does not make it so, nor does it make it any less a form of adult, sexual entertainment). Children are confused enough with life; they don’t need the people who are supposed to guide and protect them to create more confusion by telling them boys can be girls (they can’t), girls can be boys (they can’t), nor to talk to them about (or demonstrate for them) sexual activity at an inappropriately young age.
Call me a Chad (well, it is my name), or a prude, or a homophobe (such a meaningless term), or a transphobe (again, meaningless). I’ll take any aspersions you care to cast. It won’t change what I say, and what I say is not hateful - it is simply the truth, and sometimes the truth hurts. None of this is normal. No one should be exposing children to these things. Anyone who does should be (and at one time would have been) brought up on criminal charges.
People are going to do what people are going to do. You want these toys? That’s your business. Just don’t put them on display where kids will see them. Wal-Mart is in business to make money, and perhaps these make money for the chain. Fine. Put them behind the counter at the pharmacy. These belong on shelves where kids can see them as much as an uncovered Penthouse magazine belongs on the magazine rack at the checkout. No parent should have to worry about having to explain what a “ribbed massager” or “self-play cream for men” is to their child when the child accompanies the parent on an errand to the store.
At times I believe I understand how Lot felt, tormented day by day because of the sin all around him. It is a wonder that angels don’t show up to warn that God is about to rain fire on America and destroy all its inhabitants. It would not come as a surprise. America is in a moral death spiral. Debauchery is not only tolerated, it is celebrated. The depravity isn’t just on display at Wal-Mart - it’s all around us, and it’s getting worse.
The is an excellent article! It reminded me of a story told by Corrie Ten Boom on the subject of sex:
So the line had stuck in my head. “Sex,” I was pretty sure, meant whether you were a boy or girl, and “sin” made (Aunt) Tante Jans very angry, but what the two together meant I could not imagine. And so, seated next to Father in the train compartment, I suddenly asked, “Father, what is sexsin?” He turned to look at me, as he always did when answering a question, but to my surprise he said nothing. At last, he stood up, lifted his traveling case from the rack over our heads, and set it on the floor.
“Will you carry it off the train, Corrie?” he said.
I stood up and tugged at it. It was crammed with the watches and spare parts he had purchased that morning.
“It’s too heavy,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “And it would be a pretty poor father who would ask his little girl to carry such a load. It’s the same way, Corrie, with knowledge. Some knowledge is too heavy for children. When you are older and stronger you can bear it. For now, you must trust me to carry it for you.” - from The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom.
There are some countries that consider the US as prudish where the subject of sex/sexuality is concerned. I see it as that those countries are loose with their morals/morality. I remember having ASPECTS of the "talk" about the 'birds and the bees' when I was 7 or 8. BUT those conversations were limited in the DEPTH of the subject. There elements that my mother understood were TOO MUCH for a child that age to learn about.
It seems that children are losing their innocence at a much younger age now. They are given phones and iPads to keep them entertained. Left unsupervised with these devices that the adult(s) (I don't call them parents because they are as immature as the child a lot of the time) giving them the device didn't take the time to set up parental guidance safeguards on, the kids find websites that are TOTALLY inappropriate for their age. And even the so-called safeguards that are put up by the website are easy enough for even a 5 year old to get past.
I always say when talking about my own personal life lessons and being taught those lessons that I am INCREDIBLY blessed to have the mom that I do. I was raised by a single mother but she did NOT let the fact of our situation get in the way of me learning what I needed for life when it was APPROPRIATE to learn those lessons. A HUGE part of those lessons that was ALWAYS an element of them was to treat these things with the MATURITY that they deserve and to the level that I am being intrusted with the information. Can I make crude and twisted jokes about a subject? ABSOLUTELY, But only in the appropriate setting. (I was taught NOT to make those kinds of comments in a group like Bible study on Wednesday night).
I totally agree that these product should not be so easily accessible to children. There are many "adult book stores" that require you to be 21 to enter. Even at 18 you are still considered too young (in some states/counties) for these products. I can see cities like Los Angeles or NYC or San Francisco being totally loose with their morals and putting stuff like this in the storefront window to sell. But I never would have expected this sort of thing in a store in the southern states.
Do we really need more evidence that we MUST take back the reigns of our government and
reinstall the morals that this country was founded on?