As I walked into the Dazhi City library, a poster caught my eyes with a beautiful, smiling girl holding a No-Smoking sign attached to the glass entrance door of the library. At the first glance, what I noticed was not the anti-smoking sign the girl holds but the sweatshirt she wears revealing her lower body and naval. For me as a man, to be honest, the poster more or less aroused my sexual imagination instead of discouraging me from smoking in public places. But ironically, sex appeal has become the common strategy in Taiwan’s society to grab much greater attention from the public.

If you have a chance to visit annual Computex or book fairs in the exhibition hall in Taipei, you will definitely encounter scantily-clad show girls holding placards, roaming around from aisle to aisle from booth to booth, promoting and selling their merchandise.  “The show-girl phenomenon” originates from some companies that desire to stir up consumer consumption and now it has been applied by various government agencies to uphold their policies. The anti-smoking sign is another form of “show girl” strategy to draw public attention. Sexual desire has increasingly become the focus, replacing the central message of a certain product or propaganda.

Witnessing the wicked practices the people of Israel had done in Judah and Jerusalem, Ezekiel pronounced God’s judgment upon the land and its people. One of the evil acts God’s people conducted was to “disclose their fathers’ nakedness” (Ezekiel 22:10). It is apparent that the revealing of nakedness is a sinful act in God’s eyes. Back to the book of Genesis Ham saw his father (Noah) lying on his bed in his nakedness in the heat of the day. He did not cover his father with a blanket. Instead he went out and told his brothers about his father’s nudity. The consequence Ham endured was a curse from his father or to be precise, cursed by God.  Ham and his descendants would become servants to his brothers.

What was considered wrong in the past could be considered right nowadays.  As humans we can twist wrong into right to suit our needs. But there is an absolute standard in the sight of God, and it never changes.