*HAZARDS OF HOOKUP*
The act of hookup is a subtle indirect way of paying for sex without the direct approach of prostitution. The era of hanging around in the streets and clubs frequently is gradually fizzling away as technology has made harlotry easy. One can be in his hotel room and order for a “cheap girl” online and she appears for sexual gratifications in exchange for cash. Hookupians are the new urban prostitutes. Looking at them you would not know that they are into the sexing business. Some of them appear so responsible, religious and decent.
In Nigeria, hookup is a gateway to a coded industry for sex. The hookup culture is so bad that even walking class ladies are involved. It is no longer caused by idleness or lack of job. Now, you will find a 9-5 worker dressed officially, walking like one who is rushing to catch up an official appointment or interview, but in actual sense, she is speeding up to meet a fellow hookupian.
It is worrisome that we have come to a time when prostitution has been packaged and rebranded to look like a kind of job. Women are no longer ashamed to trade their bodies. It sounds like fun “hook-up”. To some ladies, hookup is an easy way of making quick money to solve immediate needs, pending when their salaries come. To some other ladies, hookup is the best way to make quick money. Of course it can’t be an option to a score of responsible ladies when there are skills to acquire, utilize and eke a living from. A lot of girls found themselves in the act out of desperation to solve one family or personal issue, then could not stop thereafter.
The hookup culture has destroyed the fabrics of romantic relationship and dented the purity of love. Women involved in hookups find love funny and unrealistic. When these women eventually marry, they find it very easy to cheat and jettison the sanity of matrimony because to them, having multiple sex partners is a normal way of life.
Many hazards are associated with hookup, the lack of commitment and emotional intimacy, psychological injury, sexual violence, the toil it takes on the hookupians mentally, the risk of STDs and unintended pregnancies are some of its harm.
Women are always at receiving ends. It is easier for a man to get physical with a woman without emotional attachment than it is for a woman. A woman may protect herself physically but fail to protect herself emotionally. She may hookup with a married man and start nursing feelings for him, then seeks to destroy his home so as to have him. She may succeed in breaking the home, thereby contributing to the negatives done to the society by broken homes.
Hookup can make a lady to leave her location, go to an entirely new place to see a client and may in the process get raped, abused, violated, injured or even killed. Many girls have met their deaths, ran mad, been used for ritual practices while in the hookup act. One can imagine the depth of risks some ladies take even in the midst of insecurity bedeviling Nigeria, meeting strange men in unfamiliar locations just to sell their bodies.
It is not in the culture and way of life of the African women to condescend to the demeaning art of exchanging their physical endowments for whatever price. No price is equivalent to the body of a woman. Lack of value and self worth is the reason for hookup and not poverty or bad economy. When you accept and appreciate yourself, you can handle every situation with class, dignity and respect.
We emphasize dignity and respect, been aware the collosal gains. Dignity always prevails. Without dignity your identity is erased. No wonder Laura Hillenbrand often argued that “Dignity is as essential to human life as water, food, and oxygen. The stubborn retention of it, even in the face of extreme physical hardship, can hold a man’s soul in his body long past the point at which the body should have surrendered it.”
Young lady, you are worthy of love and respect. You deserve more than a night’s stand. You deserve to be treated well with respect and dignity. You deserve to be cherished and adored. You are worthy of an intimate and fulfilling relationship. You are not created to gratify the body. You are not on earth to quench an urge. You are created for a meaningful purpose. You are a queen adorned with great assets. Do not limit yourself to a man’s sex toy. Do not relegate yourself to the background. Stop exposing yourself to ridicule, insults and shame. If you must give your body, do it honourably not for a price. Your body is priceless.
