Anakin Niceguy and Tom Snark have both been discussing ambient porn and the complete saturation of sexual imagery that men run into everyday. While they both have been doing stand up work addressing that side of the coin, I began to ponder if there is another piece to the puzzle that is our modern world. A piece that generates an emotional if not physiological response in women (and feminized men for that matter).
What kind of a motivator gets transmitted to women daily through the movies/TV, politics, and news? It has to be fear. Swine Flu, Global Warming, Health Care, the economy, HPV, HIV/AIDS, Rape, Domestic Violence. How often in the crime dramas are the victims women? What are the top stories on the evening news? Sexual Predators, children in danger, and human interest. Very little of it is actually news, ah, but the fear mongering, that’s tasty.
My three year old relation has a fever for almost two weeks. What’s the first thing his mother and her friends talk about? Leukemia. Forget about it being cold and flu season. Or that he’s been playing with all kinds of kids recently. Nope, they’ve got to be afraid of blood cancer.
Over the weekend the teachers in my state were canvassing neighborhoods and holding signs on busy street corners. All in support of a couple of special election ballot measures to raise taxes in the middle of a recession. Now, from a rational point of view these new taxes aren’t going to make one whit of difference in the budget shortfall this state is facing. The new taxes won’t collect as much as advertised, and the budget gap looks to be much larger than these two taxes could ever possibly fill.
What was the message from the teachers? Vote Yes…for the children. See, the teacher’s union knows that when push comes to shove, women will vote for something if their told it’ll help the children. The emotional argument wins every time over the logical one.
Fear sells. It gets votes, it keeps the proles in line, It keeps the masses subdued. For a time.
