Vulgarity - the Lankan mind's pet obsession

By Afreeha Jawad

Never has the Lankan mind been obsessed with vulgarity as of recent times. The more than mediocre utterances, the very ordinary, vain expressions, the very third rate jokes - all a reflection of whatever is shallow and bad breeding does not augur well at all considering future social growth. Try dropping a magazine of nude women's pictures - they couldn't have had it any better. Just one guy's attention would suffice to draw a host of other menials with those shooo...s, shaaa...s and what not to stick their tongues out at such smut.

Every less than a second's fraction emanate jokes of a bawdy nature. Many women are even recipients of such slur and notably is the increase in sluts among women themselves today who unhesitantly would join those very men into such lowly buffoonery.

Its mind boggling - I mean this kind of behaviour that takes to perverting the female body while venerating goddesses Kali and Pattini. At the time of writing one girl, turning red lashed out, "Don't they have mothers? Didn't they make their entry into the world through the vagina? (Caesarean exceptions of course), didn't their mothers have sexual intercourse? Don't they have sisters?"

Besides, what struck this writer most was such mediocrity not being able to comprehend and withhold the fact of the human anatomy being a natural presentation. In its biological assets are the functioning of whatever is natural. Take for instance bladder waste and bowel discharge biological outlets.

What would we have done without such. Whose milk would we have drunk if not for mother's breasts. Of course in modern times, the spray dried milk coming off the cow's udder is replete though not an ideal substitute in infancy's initial stages. So what's most baffling is the vulgarising of such biological entities. Why? oh Why? should these anatomical preserves evoke laughter unless of course the viewer is a first class pervert suffering from some kind of mind disorder.

Yet perversion has come to stay and afflicts very many people not to rule out even women themselves that collaborate with men in such impoverished incantations.

Other side

The coin's other side is that women themselves invite such perversion by their marked display of anatomical objects in those tightly tailored outfit. There is also the seemingly modestly dressed woman who will cash in on smutty jokes and with her Haw Haw Haaaw... laughter which others are expected to applaud. If only wasted gums could be applauded - there it is.

Just in case you wonder why this rather nauseating topic on a Sunday morning - its meant for two things. Firstly, its profound significance in a sociological context and secondly its placement in future social well-being - a historical perspective.

Let's take the first. When social interaction is at such low ebb significantly there appears on the socio/political/econ/cultural scene a social gamut which cannot think anything beyond vulgarity. In such instance people deny themselves of a higher purpose and even procreate a progeny of sub standard genes that do not image wholesome personalities.

Just have one look around you would see a growth stunted generation stepping in. So what they will know as what was parental knowledge is vulgarity and vulgarity only. They will certainly not be men and women of a high intellectual order directing their thoughts towards elegant and enriched thinking. Though it may sound crude, let me put it this way. Just keep a pig in front of you and keep your thoughts on it 24 hours of the day for a life time. In time of pro-creation you will definitely bring fourth a carbon copy of you know what not to forget your own personality disjoint. So that speaks volumes for those into constant mind abuse by way of vulgarity and ill bred jokes.

Would we ever produce a Mark Twain, Tom Paine, Voltaire or Rousseau. While France's intellectual cafes are still around - a reflection of its intelligentsia all intact we in Sri Lanka repeatedly are into booze cafes and a smut filled citizenry particularly in the urbanized, half educated rising new rich.

By the way yesteryear's jokes - always a reflection of light heartedness (nevertheless in depth personalities), centred only around some laughable incident. Let alone perversion these jokes never ever were at some other's expense.

If it was something really distasteful it was even neatly avoided after noting the presence of females and was shared among men only when not a single woman was around. "Those were the days of gentlemen," said a friend when I asked him why this departure from old time ethics.

"But then," said some other, those were the days when women invited respect. Could you expect anything better judging from what women wear today - the type of outfit that highlight her personal domain?"

"True" but that's her right to wear what she wants," said a reputed sociologist.

"But then if her right to do so extends to the point of rousing male inclinations, that's a man's right as well," shot back another.

Wedged in between that verbal crossfire which certainly brought on a kind of balance to my hot topic, the relative state I felt could never have been ever so close with a newtonian sneeze.

But wait... Jokes apart the topic itself is not to be treated lightly. While bad breading triggers off unpalatable jokes, system operators themselves must be into a concerted effort of projecting for public consumption a qualitative media output.

The continued existence of the present status quo foretells a system collapse. Whipping up the god in man instead of the beast in him should be the concern of those handling the media and big time mudalalis importing substandard films and literature bearing in mind that not all humans have the emotional stability and strength to reject what is a moral shortfall.

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