Nothing concerns me more than the state of moral values in our country.

It seems our collective decency is on the run, and it is important that we ask ourselves why and, more importantly, what we can do about it.

I’m no idiot. Sex sells.

Big businesses have no problem abusing that fact as long as they are profiting from it.

Consumers seem to have no problem with it either, considering they are the ones who keep buying into it.

We should have turned a blind eye like previous generations and stopped shopping at stores or purchasing products that use excessive sexuality as a marketing tool.

Instead, we have completely caved in and allowed the influence of idolized sexuality to smother us.

Fifty years ago, people used to be more conscious of the things they were buying and who they were buying them from.

People supported businesses considered to be whole, well-rounded and American. Wal Mart changed all that by making cost consumers’ primary concern. Nothing matters now, as long as purchases are cheap.

I fear we have become a country of mindless consumers who buy, buy, buy, never once considering what kind of people, ethics or businesses we are supporting.

Businesses take advantage of the reality that people aren’t judging business principles when shopping anymore.

Companies have been preying on the easily-influenced American mind for years now, but things have gone overboard recently.

I could talk for days about outsourcing or not paying Americans enough money while CEO’s make millions, but what I am most concerned about is sexuality in business.

Take Victoria’s Secret, for example. Victoria’s Secret was created in the 1970s by a man who felt uncomfortable buying lingerie for his wife. It was supposed to be a welcoming environment for men, built with large wooden walls so no one could see inside.

It was, essentially, a sex shop.

Now, as the biggest lingerie store in America, it sells clothing to women of all ages. Unfortunately, the clothes haven’t changed that much.

Victoria’s Secret, along with pop icons like Britney Spears and crude rap videos, popularized the thong among women, especially young women.

But before the thong was sold in sex shops or to Britney, it was worn by strippers and prostitutes — and it wasn’t to hide their panty lines.

Who and what are influencing our clothes and ads? The sex industry.

Now the thong is a popular female underwear product, and Abercrombie & Fitch has produced a line of them for 10-year-olds.

We need to think about what this means for us, for our children and for society.

People might say, “times are changing.”

Yes, times are changing — for the worse.

Divorce, corruption, younger people having sex, general unhappiness, depression, suicide: these things are just as prevalent as they ever have been, and they may be increasing. This is because we as a culture are submitting to a shallow, sex-focused lifestyle.

Look at what else is increasing: The porn industry is thriving, making $10 billion a year in the U.S. alone. Pornography addiction is exponentially increasing and taking marriages out with it. Porn Web sites are constantly viewed on the Internet.

We need to realize that what we are doing by submitting to changing times is allowing the pornography industry, surely the most loathed industry in the world, to take over.

You can’t walk 10 feet in a commercial area without being bombarded by an advertisement that uses sex to sell. Women’s clothing advertisements in particular are ludicrous nowadays.

The newest Guitar Hero commercial has nothing but Heidi Klum playing the game in her underwear.

Fifty years ago, these kinds of ads or clothes would have been banned, not because they were illegal, but because people simply didn’t approve of them, and spent their money accordingly.

Now they flood our eyesight.

Is it any wonder 15-year-olds are posting nude pictures of themselves on the Internet, 12-year-olds are having sex, and 7-year-olds are wearing thongs?

This is what we are teaching them is appropriate.

Everyone should take a step back and pay attention to the ads they watch and they things they buy.

Think about whether you approve of companies’ means of advertising or the content of television shows.

If not, try to resist giving those companies your money.

We can change society if we want to. We just have to think about what we are buying.

Jordan Rogers is an industrial engineering junior. His column appears every other Wednesday.