What do you mean ‘porn’? I am not watching porn.
Let’s get the most depressing news out of the way first.
All of us would like to think we are more than mere bit players in life. Most all of us would like to be fairytale princes and princesses (or the relevant or socio-politically correct equivalent thereof.)
That doesn’t mean all of us would have wanted to be born with a silver spoon in our baby gobs but at least we’d like to think that Heaven and its constellations smiled on our births – and we could have done without the following bit of statistics:
One in 10 Europeans is allegedly conceived in an Ikea bed.
I’m not trying to badmouth Ikea here, of course – well, okay, I am… That whole bloody brand implies the kind of life style that comes with garden gnomes and long, flannel underwear instead of drinking champagne from the belly fluff free belly buttons of beautiful Russian spies.
Talking about depressing life styles,
A Pentagon decision to allow the sale of Playboy and Penthouse magazines on military bases has appalled US religious groups, which insist it is illegal.
After dozens of anti-pornography groups complained to Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, over the sale of magazines and videos, a Pentagon board reviewed the contents of Penthouse and Playboy and decided that they were not sexually explicit.
The board decided that because the majority of each title’s contents dealt with advertising and non-pornographic material, then “based on the totality of each magazine’s content, they were not sexually explicit”.
It ain’t porn, ’cause there’s ads. So, that’s solved then. From now on, the networks can do ‘Debby does Dallas’ during prime time on a Saturday night, as long as they play their usual amount of ads in between. Nothing explicit here, y’all hear? Gang bang? I didn’t see no fucking gang bang!
Just think ‘totality of content’ and all is cool.
By the way, if you think the Pentagon board may have erred on the side of insensitivity here, think again. Compared to the old editors of the Boy’s Own Paper they’re paragons of Oprah-approved, political correctness and depressingly liberal virtue:
One regular feature of the Boy’s Own Paper, which emerged without fanfare on page 160 of the first volume, was headed simply Answers to Correspondents, and over the first 20 years of its publication, it provided a panorama of all the things that puzzled boys (and occasionally girls) about life in the late Victorian world.
Sometimes answers were of such breathtaking callousness that it is difficult to see how the Religious Tract Society, dedicated as it was to Christian ideals, could be comfortable at their inclusion.
The editor was reprimanded for allowing one of Dr Gordon Stables’s answers to exceed the boundaries of good taste. To a boy who wrote, probably with great difficulty and some courage, of his “bad habits”, Stables replied:
“Coffins are cheap and boys like you are not of much use in the world.”
Yes, those were the good old days, when you could publicly wish the pox on anyone you didn’t like and get away with it, mostly – and if you didn’t, well, a duel in the morning is vastly to be preferred over the annoying alarums and protestations of those who pray in the P.C. pews.
Still, we can’t live in the past, however nicely unhygienic it was, in body and soul. We’re stuck in the non too perfect present tense, with all its confusing and often enraging demands of etiquette.
As Ariel Leve muses in one of her columns:
I’m all for free speech but if there are rules against yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theatre, there should be rules against whispering “I love you” in bed.
Of course, there are varying degrees of criminality. It’s one thing to say, “Let’s spend the weekend together.” It’s another thing to say, “Let’s spend the rest of our lives together.” If it were a punishable offence, one is jaywalking; the other, armed robbery and attempted murder.
And you have to know your audience. For me, a suggestion of spending the weekend together is worse. I’d prefer to hear a man say he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me because I’d know he didn’t mean it. Whereas a weekend? I’d be planning what to pack before he finished the sentence.
Then again I’ve always believed there’s an unspoken understanding that once you’re naked, nothing that’s said can be taken too seriously. Until he notices something unusual. When a man says, “I think you should get that spot checked” that’s different. Not only does it show he’s observant, but even if it turns out he doesn’t care, I end up with an early diagnosis. Where’s the down side?
Yes, it’s not always easy to know what to say and when to say it, be it in bed, over breakfast or simply over the phone. Though in that latter case, just one bit of advice, Don’t try this at home…:
35-year-old Brian Poulin of Hebron was arrested Sunday after police said he called 911 several times and asked them to bring him beer.
Hebron was charged with disorderly conduct.
Police said he called 911 numerous times and told the dispatcher he was out of beer and asked them to pick up more for him.
Ah well, modern life is a bugger, isn’t it? Sometimes we could indeed wish we lived in more uncomplicated times – or simply that we could do what the octopus does, when confronted with something upsetting or just plainly annoying:
When faced with danger, the octopus can wrap six of its legs around its head to disguise itself as a fallen coconut shell and escape by walking backwards on the other two legs, scientists discovered.
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