A song by the wonderfully talented Tiffany Eckhardt tells me to shine today, something I’m sure Auntie Gertrude would agree with, my lack of illumination not withstanding, yet I am sorely troubled by two things that have surfaced on my screen in recent times.
The first one I want to share is a job ad. I won’t bore you with all of it, just the summary should suffice.
“Are you passionate about changing people’s understanding and attitudes toward death and dying? Do you want to contribute to social change…”
Now I don’t know about you (I mean really I don’t, drop me a line sometime and tell me) but being passionate about death and dying? Okay there is the bit about attitudes and understanding as well as social change but is this really the right tact? If I think about people who are passionate about their interests artists and musicians come to mind, and accountants… actually no, sorry accountants don’t have an entry in their system for passion but I digress. This idea that one can be passionate about death and dying or changing people’s attitudes to it is intriguing. The only other people I can quickly think of who want to change social attitudes towards the end of our days usually come knocking on my door nicely dressed in suits and or dresses clutching copies of the Watchtower and offering to shine a bit of light into the dark corners of my troubled soul.
That is not to say that social attitudes to death and dying couldn’t do with a nudge but given the constraints of a part time position for ten hours a week just how much change could we expect to see? Society is a big scene and one person for ten hours a week hardly seems like social changing event but maybe I’m just cynical. On the other hand it might just be a cover for some kind of evangelical organisation that’s busy recruiting passionate people to spread the word that it’s okay to die because our suffering and death leads to a better world.
The other thing that crossed my screen this morning that deserves some reflection is (warning…adult material) this. News from the Expo is slowly making its way into the mainstream press which I guess just goes to show how easy it is to get publicity if you smile sweetly. But something about this easy adoption of the sex industry by the traditional conservative mainstream media is worrying me a little and it coincides with the avalanche of publicity over eReaders that has swamped the tubes recently.
Volumes have been written about the sex industry and my opinion is covered somewhere by someone so I’ll skip most of it. What I do find interesting about the “industry” is its implication for relationships between the sexes. Douglas Hines illustrates the point perfectly. A middle aged man sitting next to a piece of plastic that he can have sex with. Sure sex dolls are nothing new but people like Douglas are making money out of selling dolls to other men presumably because they can’t have a normal sexual relationship with another human being. It’s hardly surprising that women simply go and buy an unobtrusive vibrating thing that neatly fits in the drawer next to their bed but men have to buy a “recreational innovation” that can talk but still ”has a full C cup and is ready for action” for a quiet little $7000.
That the sex industry is primarily directed towards fulfilling heterosexual male fantasies is pretty much beyond question but what does it say about our societies? Like the 3D experience that Lance Johnson and his muse Breanne Benson are selling (and a virtual reality scenario putting it all together can surely be just around the corner) I am inclined to ask, is this the pointy end of the capitalist system as applied to our fundamental desires? It certainly seems like it. Create an environment where sex is commodified, regulate supply through various social agencies which increase the demand and then sell a solution. That would simply be business 101.
Am I passionate about death and dying…is selling sex ok? It’s worth thinking about, death as something we end up doing alone and sex as something infinitely more meaningful when it’s done with someone else.
