VIRGINITY IS A MYTH
Growing up as a teenager – especially as a relatively popular one, it is not unusual to have a group of friends in your circle. These friends sometimes come with an invincible but extremely vociferous companion called PEER PRESSURE.
Ever been a teenager? Then you’d know peer + pressure is a friend you shouldn’t listen to. Still it’s difficult to ignore the coaxing whispers – it’s always there, lingering in the corners of your mind, steadily buzzing like a swarm of bees.
Back when I was a teenager, secrets like being a virgin were safely tucked away from certain friends – these friends must not learn that a member of the clique is still a virgin, otherwise they won’t be by the weekend.
For boys being a V is a taboo at a certain age, and when a boy is still a virgin at 16, his peers with their invincible pal pressure would be there to whisper to said boy…
come on man! you can’t still be a V at sixteen.
They’d stare at him like an alien from a distant planet and then make it their duty to find him a girl. And that’s it for his virginity – gone with the wind, poof.
I hear it’s more rife now, young adults are ashamed of being virgins in high school.
Now the term virginity has become so unpopular – a friend actually called it a myth for the Z Generation. Even though I do not think that to be true.
Personally, I just wish young people would stop yeilding to their peer’s pressure.
Truth is whether you are a virgin in high school, or throughout the phase of adolescence, it doesn’t really matter to me or anyone for that matter.
What truly matters is that you do you at your own time. External whispers have only led many astray and in some cases to the waiting arms of their maker.
CHOOSE YE YOUR MASTER
Loads of young adult are serving life sentences today because they listened to that friend with his tag along buddy pressure. Some are dead today because they followed that friend/his chum – pressure.
Others live in constant regret because they allowed themselves be coerced into doing something they never would have done if they were thinking for themselves.
So many people today choose to make wealth the wrong way because of the level of duress their more privilege peers put on them, both on the gram/real life. They are everywhere, the…
It’s either we make it or die trying group.
Please do yourself a favor, never ever think like that. Thinking like that is like putting a timeline on your life.
Truth is some folks do not even need a lot of pressure – their peers don’t even need to do shit, their greed already done it.
Take note, when young people have no inside guidance, from a parent/guardian they become even more dysfunctional. Some follow the wrong crowd not because they want to but because no one cares enough to see them, listen to to them and call them back.
Others do not feel LOVED at home so they follow the first person that shows them a fraction of that human affection and sometimes when family fail to their peers readily step in.
Many teenagers spend their lives in and out of rehab today because they chose to listen to pressure’s human assistant – peer. Remember the word CHOSE, then remember this…
YOU are a master of your own mind. No one has the power to influence your decisions/thoughts except you give ears to them.
It is either you choose to be the master of your life or you let someone else control you and enslave your mind.
Choose the master of your life today – YOU OR YOUR PEERS.
AMARA AND PEER PRESSURE
My sister Amara lives in regret today because she wanted to be like that friend whom she looks up to – Izzy. The same one who kept whispering in her ear – damn girl you have to sleep with him, give this thing up already…you are not gonna get a medal for keeping it.
The friend with the opium goes – you have to try this stuff, it’s crazy…its gonna get you fucking high, and take you to a whole new level.
Honey, the only level you are getting to is the secluded floor of a lunatic assylum…
That is the truth no one told Amara.
Honestly, sometimes these friends do not know any better, they are oblivious to the superior underling they bring with them.
That’s why they think using illegal drugs is rad at first – youthful exuberance and shit. Until they scratching like lunatics and craving the next fix. Some survive the onslaught of these illegal drugs but others die with its pangs in them.
Illicit drug use is one of greatest killers of young adults.
This data from the National Center for Health Statistics talks extensively on drug related deaths in America ALONE. The number of drug-related deaths spiked from 2012 – 2018 in the Country.
The accuracy of the data presented in this article is proof that as the world advanced technologically at the speed of light, drug use became even more rampant. That’s my take on it, what’s yours?
Amara was screaming for help while Isreal ripped her clothes and spread her naked legs apart. That whispering friend and peer pressure’s agent could not be found anywhere – even though they had coerced her into visiting Isreal’s house, alone.
They did not come to her rescue when he beat her to submission and forced himself on her.
Yet when Amara told Izzy that Isreal had assaulted her, Izzy’s characteristical reply was – Don’t be a baby, these things are normal.
Now Amara thinks rape is normal.
In time Amara became used to stiffling abuse and the term LOVE became foreign to her. She’d always say to me – no man can truly love you, except your father, and that’s if he is sober enough.
Izzy and her collaborator were quick to advise Amara to get an abortion when Amara got pregnant from the rape. Izzy whispered things like – your parents will kill you…and your church? You shall be a scorn, I will take you somewhere to get rid of that thing growing inside you.
But she did not go into the quack doctor’s shack with Amara where they poked and probed her body with all kinds of ominous tools to take out the life growing inside of her, neither was she there to hold Amara’s hands while she cried herself to sleep that night for killing her child.
Even though Amara survived the scabs of peer pressure Izzy did not, she wasn’t so lucky and ended up overdosing on the same drugs she and Isreal had hooked Amara on.
For Amara it remains a struggle, but she fights still, tooth and claw just to break out of the compulsive shackle of the illicit drugs that has messed up her mind and left her in a mental asylum.
Now the boisterous voices in Amara’s head are growing quite, and she is hoping they quite down forever, soon.
Amara did not realize that drugs is peer pressure embodied and when put into the human system, it becomes ones worst nightmare.
Like a pandemic it slowly destroyed her self control and impeded on her ability to resist it’s urges. Then finally it rendered her powerless and unable to think for herself or breakaway. Yet she fights, desperately to rid herself of its torments.
Up until this day Amara lives with the nagging regret of listening to peer pressure in the body of a friend and falling in love with illicit narcotics only after one blind date.
Escape!
This may sound very platitudinous but I still have to say it…
Many young people today are Amara, they listen to those friends who whisper things into their ears.
You need to know this, they are not your real friends, please know this (this does not mean cancelling all form of advice it simply means separating the good from bad).
A true friend will always look out for you, they would never put you in harms way even if they already in harms way themself.
Peer pressure is a great evil represented by some of our friends, and their tongues – never ever listen to that wagging tongue.
Do not listen to your peers especially when you know they’re up to no good. Remember you have a choice, ALWAYS.
Choose to say no when you know what they ask of you is bad. Choose to shun their chivvy voices when they try to tear you down for not following their lead – they do not own you…
Only you own you…remember that.
Realistically speaking, friends who try to make others into delinquents like them are very unhappy, they are not pleased with their lives and they want someone to take down with them – misery loves company.
Do not be the scapegoat, be the cat, use your nine lives – escape everytime!
Somehow I am talking especially to the younger generation, especially because I can deeply relate with you, I have seen first hand the consequences of listening to terrible advices from peers.
Young people need to stop giving peer pressure a voice. Subdue it’s voice, do not let it speak through you. Do not be an agent for the destruction of your peer.
Truth is life in it’s entirety is pressure. So such unhealthy pressures will always be there lurking in the corners, most times it will come into your life in the body of a friend, and like a malady it will slowly infest your mind until it contaminates it entirely –use one of your nine lives. Escape!
To put it more plainly, everyone is susceptible to peer pressure…
Even our grown ass parents still suffer from it’s vices.
But I believe the younger generation are more prone to its wiles.
This article from springer.com proves the viability of my earlier deduction.
Like I said in my short story Finding Humanity - we are all zombies looking for the next person to rip apart and tear down with our words.
Note – not every friend has a bad motive/intentions; hurt people hurt people and there are so many hurt people in the world today.
Can I beat peer pressure.
My fourteen year old niece (Amara’s daughter) asked me this question some months ago. Her question kinda prompted the writing of this article.
My answer to her was…YEAH OF COURSE! You can do anything you put your mind to.
First choose who you listen to – filter out the garbage from the ton of whispers around you, and sieve out the hate these whisperers would throw at you for kicking out the debris they mumble in your ear.
Shun peer bullying and listen to only you. Because you alone know what’s best for you.
The only way anyone can bring you down or cause you to stray is with words – never ever listen to words. Sometimes they are laced with bile and its aim is to destroy your mind/life. Do not give anyone such power over you.
Always bear in mind that you can be the boss of anything even dirty gritty, little peer pressure.
Today I am giving peer pressure a body, I am making you see it as human so you know you can kick it’s ass.
Truth is we are all potent to the words of the people around us – so your best bet is to build…erect those barricades, build those walls around your ears and heart. And carefully sieve through the things you listen to and the words you give thought to.
Consolidate your mind. If you can control your mind then you can control all of your senses. Your mind is your greatest weapon.
Learn to wield it!
In conclusion, Parents/Guardians need to be better role models, children/young adults need constant guidance. Some need adult guidance more than others, and if they are not properly guided and taught at an early age to make their own decisions they become confused adults and just follow the herd…
A blind man cannot lead a man…
DO NOT LEAVE YOUR CHILDREN/WARDS BLIND.
Please feel free to share your thoughts and opinions on the topic.
#youngadult#sex#drugs#peerpressure#life#addiction#mentalhealth#growth#development#
Fire Cracker 
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