Opinion
Sexualisation Of Our Body Parts
Dr jalarth Uche Opara
At creation, the beauty of God’s creative ingenuity was never in doubt. He looked upon His creation through the lens of Divinity and declared, without prejudice or self-bias, that it was good.
Nothing He created from human beings to animals, from plants to the firmament was considered deficient. Everything was created with the features and capacities necessary for its existence and function. There was an inherent completeness in the divine design.
But with the advent of technological innovation, humanity gradually began to look at God’s creation through a different lens. What God created began to appear inadequate when compared with what technology could manufacture, modify or enhance.
Today, this has reached another level with the emergence of Artificial Intelligence. AI can generate images of human beings with seemingly flawless faces, bodies and physical features, sometimes producing people who appear more “perfect” than real human beings. What this is doing to our perception of beauty and our acceptance of ourselves is, however, a discussion for another day.
What concerns me here is the increasing obsession with modifying and sexualising our natural body parts.
A few days ago, I came across the sad story of someone who reportedly lost his life while attempting to enlarge his penis. Sadly, this is not an isolated incident. There have been cases of people suffering serious complications, permanent injuries and even death while attempting to alter or enhance parts of their bodies.
The question is: When did what God created become insufficient in our eyes?When God created us, He did not make a mistake. The body you received was not an accident. Every part of you has a biological purpose within the complexity of human existence.
This does not mean that every medical procedure is wrong. Reconstructive surgery, treatment of abnormalities, correction of congenital conditions and medically necessary interventions are entirely different matters. The concern is the growing culture that tells people that they are not good enough unless their bodies conform to an artificial standard of beauty or sexual attractiveness.
A person begins to look at his penis and concludes that it is too small. Another looks at her breasts and concludes that they are inadequate. Someone else becomes dissatisfied with the size or shape of their buttocks. Before long, dissatisfaction becomes an industry, and insecurity becomes a market.
We are increasingly being taught to hate what we naturally possess.There is something profoundly troubling about that. You are good the way God created you. Whatever physical features you possess should not become a source of shame simply because society, pornography, social media, celebrity culture or commercial interests have created artificial standards against which you are expected to measure yourself.
Changing one’s body does not necessarily mean rejecting God. But when dissatisfaction with one’s natural body becomes an obsession, when one’s worth becomes attached to the size or shape of a sexual body part, and when a person is willing to risk life and health merely to satisfy an artificial standard, we must ask whether we have lost something deeper than our physical appearance.
Perhaps we have lost contentment with creation.Perhaps we have begun to confuse enhancement with worth.Perhaps we have turned our bodies from gifts to objects of competition.
The sexualisation of the human body—whether through the obsession with penis enlargement, breast augmentation, buttock enlargement or other unnecessary modifications,deserves serious conversation. It is not merely about appearance. It is about self-image, dignity, insecurity, commercial exploitation and our understanding of what it means to be wonderfully made.
The body should not become an altar upon which we sacrifice our health because society has convinced us that we are not enough.
Before you alter yourself to satisfy an artificial standard, pause and ask:Who told you that what God gave you was not enough?And before you risk your life trying to become someone else, remember:You were not created as a defective version of somebody else.
You are God’s creation. And there is dignity in accepting the person He made you to be. Many out of delusion try to become a replica of the AI image of themselves. You are best the way God created you, fearfully and wonderfully made. Stop trying to creating a new version of you which may be unrecognisable by God, because it is different from the original features he gave you.
Jarlath Uche Opara
jarlathuche@gmail.com