It’s a funny story that’s turned into a sad realisation.
The funny story: a few months ago I first get into The Wire, the greatest TV series — possibly of all time. I borrow season 1 from a friend and am so eager to watch I bring it to work, to see it during lunch. I plug it in and during the first 5 minutes there’s suddenly a sex scene. My stomach levitates to my throat and I experience major time dilation whereby I fumble for the minimise button for what’s probably 2 secs but seems like 10-15. I look behind but luckily the 2 who sit there have stepped out for lunch. I’m OK. I eject the DVD like a hot potato, thinking “note to self: idiot, didn’t you realise The Wire wasn’t safe for work?”
The sad realisation: The Wire is a realistic look at the Baltimore’s drug trade. It has a lot of violence (some of it graphic) but only 1-2 sex scenes in the entire 5 seasons. I realised — of course I wouldn’t have my stomach go to my throat if the DVD switched to one of the many scenes of violence — unless it was extremely explicit. There’s a cliche I’ve heard and agreed with many times before: “you can show someone putting a gun into a person’s mouth and blowing them away and that’s fine, but if you show someone putting their genitalia into a person’s mouth and both having a great time that’s BA-A-AD”. But this is the first time I’ve seen it firsthand. I think this would have been a fairly average reaction. The only reasonable explanation is that social norms still condition people to still see sex as something dirty, otherly, bad (will post more later on other examples but the first one that springs to mind is the fact that people use “innocence” to describe someone free from wrongdoing AND someone who’s chaste or a virgin — even in progressive subcultures). And even though I don’t subscribe to any standard-morality-bullshit either (or I believe I don’t) in this case the subconscious influence just got to me. I’ve been had! And that makes me a sad panda…
Or maybe I’m just too uptight in the workplace?
15 comments ↓
“Or I believe I don’t”
Yes. Very interesting.
Well, I hear of other workplaces where it’s a little too common to share pornography among the employees…
jess – so think I *have* been brainwashed?
joel – maybe but i’d still say most people would be uncomfortable of passing porn in public.
the alternate explanation is that people are uncomfortable because they know society does not approve but this doesn’t necessarily mean they themselves have been conditioned to think sex is evil…
Heh – McNulty + alcohol + car crash + waitress = inevitable sex scene.
As the “friend” referred to in the funny story, I feel obligated to point out that the scene in question occurred in the 2nd season, not the 1st (which we watched together in its entirety). It was episode 8, I believe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_and_Cover_%28The_Wire_episode%29).
Not sure I completely agree with your “only reasonable explanation”. If we were conditioned so strongly to equate sex with badness or dirtiness, I don’t think we’d see as much sex in popular culture as we do. Might be that social norms condition us to see sex as something private, rather than something bad or dirty? Or might just be a reflection of the accepted norms within your workplace.
What kind of jokes or email forwards are considered to be inappropriate in your workplace? I imagine there are some workplaces where email forwards involving sex are considered to be wildly inappropriate and email forwards involving violence are considered to be fine, while there are other workplaces where the opposite is true.
Michael, you need to take that DVD back to work and watch it without self-consciousness. If someone comments, you say, “Yeah, this TV show certainly doesn’t shy away from showing life the way it really is. This is a network show I’m watching. Boy, you should see the violence in this thing!”
American society, with its evangelical Christian fundamentalism riding hand in had with its carefree murderous gun culture should be warning enough not to let this particular band wagon carry you along.
the above equation still holds even without the car crash (or even the waitress)!
will i seem like i’m trying to be outrageous if i say we DON’T see much sex in pop culture? we see lots of talk and tiptoeing but quite little actual sex (and by actual sex i obviously mean more than porn)
maybe you’re right — but then again jokes are quite different to a “serious” scene
alan — coming right up! i’ll make sure to remove headphones and turn the sound on full blast too so everyone hears the “real talk” of the baltimore folk
Well, we don’t really see very much ‘actual’ violence either – it’s usually only implied. Would be great if actors embraced the use of real violence in the same way that some actors have embraced the use of real sex (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mainstream_films_with_unsimulated_sex – and for an interesting experience, I have to recommend this one in particular – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortbus).
I suspect we’d see far fewer horror movies and cop shows!
interesting list — but the loosest interpretation of “mainstream” i’ve ever seen!
btw alan, if i’m watching the dvd at work, you’re going back on your roadtrip into that motel and opening that link your friend sent you !
Not the same at all!
“If we were conditioned so strongly to equate sex with badness or dirtiness, I don’t think we’d see as much sex in popular culture as we do. Might be that social norms condition us to see sex as something private, rather than something bad or dirty? ” – Simon
But Simon – aren’t humans just OBSESSED with whatever we are told is bad or dirty or wrong? If The Man wants to stop it so much, well by George, it must be AWESOME right?
alan — i was being facetious (is that how you spell it?) but i think there’s a point there. and so i might challenge you to describe exactly how it’s different.
Jess – I think humans would want to have sex irrespective of what The Man told us. And I don’t think The Man tells us not to have sex. But even in societies and cultures where The Man tells people not to have sex, invariably they still will.
Reminds me of Michael’s earlier post about celibacy – “[Celibacy] doesn’t really exist. What do you think really happens when a large number of “celibates” of the same gender live in close communities? It’s been quite well documented in places like pre-Chinese-invasion Tibet: it was a very, very common occurrence for male monks to have sex with each other. Of course they tried to avoid breaking the vows too explicitly by engaging in “alternate” methods (like intercourse with another monk’s armpit).”
If humans were so obsessed with what we were told was bad or dirty or wrong, I think ’subversive’ sexual subcultures would be much larger than they are. Also, I think garbage would be more highly sought after than it is!
but in the case of tibet the man WAS telling them not to have sex — very literally too! and of course in our culture we’re not told not to have sex — the message isn’t that extreme — but there’s still an undertone of the forbidden.
what do you mean by subversive cultures? some evidence people might be obsessed with a taboo is the fact that such a high percentage of internet searches are for sex-related topics or even the simple search query [sex]
obviously there’s a very strong biological drive but people’s behaviour is very different in a society where they are told not to have sex as opposed to one where they are (not that there are places that are at such extremes)
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