Everywhere I've gone this Christmas, the liquor stores have had a poster up showing a bottle of wine in silhouette, the label not visible, with the words "Enjoy Responsibly" printed below.
So I got this "clever" notion that an imaginary condom company might hire the same advertising agency as the liquor stores. You can imagine it, can't you, a picture of a woman in silhouette, obviously naked but no specifics visible, with the tag line "Enjoy Responsibly". I thought, "That would nicely highlight just how much we trivialize sex."
And then I wondered if the idea had occurred to anyone else. And it has for I Googled it. But the other people it occurred to saw no irony in the situation. They clearly thought, "What a great way to promote safe sex."
And it suddenly struck me that—contrary to what I'd imagined when I was thinking I was being clever—that the troublesome part is not the "enjoy". Husbands and wives should enjoy one another. Proverbs advises men to enjoy their wives' breasts. Heck, we should enjoy the beautiful people around us as we go about our day.
It's the "responsibly" part that is troublesome. It's the notion of enjoying someone "responsibly" that demeans them. For any time at all we decide to relate to someone sexually (whether or not we actually have sex with them) there are tremendous risks. The trivialization of sex comes when we reduce those risks to disease or unwanted pregnancies.
Not unrelated. A breathtakingly sexy young woman sat beside me on the bus this morning. Designer ski-jacket, jeans, Dolce and Gabbanna sun glasses. She had her ear buds in and the volume cranked so loud I could hear the music sitting next to her. And not once on the trip did she seem to even notice me. She just sat their texting madly. It's something you see all the time so it didn't occur to me that there was any emotion connected to her texting beyond the desperate need some young women have to be in touch all the time.
When it was time for me to get up and step around her, though, she turned and smiled wanly and said, "Sorry". And then I realized she was apologizing because she'd been sobbing the entire time she'd sat next to me. I hadn't heard a sound over her iPod but when she turned towards he I could see the tears pouring out from under her sunglasses. Her face, chin and collar were soaked. She'd been crying very hard for a long time.
I have no idea what her story is and I hope you (and she should she land here and recognize herself) will forgive me for assuming it was a sexual relationship that had her crying. Maybe her mother died (although that too is a sexual relationship if we think about it). But this young woman's whole persona was that of a sexual being—a persona she clearly puts a lot of time and effort into developing and maintaining to wonderful effect. In a sense if there was anyone on the face of the earth it might theoretically been possible to enjoy responsibly it ought to have been her.
No matter who, when, why or how, there is something irresponsible about sex.
So I got this "clever" notion that an imaginary condom company might hire the same advertising agency as the liquor stores. You can imagine it, can't you, a picture of a woman in silhouette, obviously naked but no specifics visible, with the tag line "Enjoy Responsibly". I thought, "That would nicely highlight just how much we trivialize sex."
And then I wondered if the idea had occurred to anyone else. And it has for I Googled it. But the other people it occurred to saw no irony in the situation. They clearly thought, "What a great way to promote safe sex."
And it suddenly struck me that—contrary to what I'd imagined when I was thinking I was being clever—that the troublesome part is not the "enjoy". Husbands and wives should enjoy one another. Proverbs advises men to enjoy their wives' breasts. Heck, we should enjoy the beautiful people around us as we go about our day.
It's the "responsibly" part that is troublesome. It's the notion of enjoying someone "responsibly" that demeans them. For any time at all we decide to relate to someone sexually (whether or not we actually have sex with them) there are tremendous risks. The trivialization of sex comes when we reduce those risks to disease or unwanted pregnancies.
Not unrelated. A breathtakingly sexy young woman sat beside me on the bus this morning. Designer ski-jacket, jeans, Dolce and Gabbanna sun glasses. She had her ear buds in and the volume cranked so loud I could hear the music sitting next to her. And not once on the trip did she seem to even notice me. She just sat their texting madly. It's something you see all the time so it didn't occur to me that there was any emotion connected to her texting beyond the desperate need some young women have to be in touch all the time.
When it was time for me to get up and step around her, though, she turned and smiled wanly and said, "Sorry". And then I realized she was apologizing because she'd been sobbing the entire time she'd sat next to me. I hadn't heard a sound over her iPod but when she turned towards he I could see the tears pouring out from under her sunglasses. Her face, chin and collar were soaked. She'd been crying very hard for a long time.
I have no idea what her story is and I hope you (and she should she land here and recognize herself) will forgive me for assuming it was a sexual relationship that had her crying. Maybe her mother died (although that too is a sexual relationship if we think about it). But this young woman's whole persona was that of a sexual being—a persona she clearly puts a lot of time and effort into developing and maintaining to wonderful effect. In a sense if there was anyone on the face of the earth it might theoretically been possible to enjoy responsibly it ought to have been her.
No matter who, when, why or how, there is something irresponsible about sex.
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