Shotgun Lesson -- Marketing:
? -- How do you Sell something that doesn't need to be Sold -- ?
This question relates to a lot that is going on right now -- so it is a timely answer to seek. The nearly-imponderable question phrased above suggests the following subsidiary questions, which may prove more approachable:
s -- What is our role as Marketers of a product the demand for which awakens in every human being -- like clockwork -- in early life, and persists till death thereafter -- ?
b -- Is there a model somewhere for the optimal co-integration and balance of the Sex we have with other People and the Sexual Gratification we enjoy by ourselves, within the Sexuality of an Individual -- ? -- if so, what is it -- ?
n -- At a point in the life of every adolescent, his or her psychological orientation breaks away from the Parent Objects -- descends into a Tunnel of Private Passage for several years -- and emerges out the other side, determinedly fixed on lovers and spouses. The role of parents in shaping the Sexual Individuality of their children is undisputed, and it is an accepted truth in virtually all cultures of the world that the damage done to a child by a sexually transgressive parent is profound, irreparable, and disabling. Yet, why is there so little scrutiny and understanding (by the average parent) of the actual mechanics via which parents create their children sexually -- ? -- why is there so little effort given to, so little ability for, so much paralysis in the face of so important and vulnerable a phase in the development of a young human being -- ? A failure of parenting at this time could completely nullify the parenting investment made in the child to that point. Arguably, EVERYTHING for the child is in jeopardy -- but why do our parents always avert their eyes when we begin to sexualize -- ? ? at the very same moment we first seek a deeper, more alone place in ourselves (a place never before discovered or visited) -- ? -- Is this as it should be -- ? -- is this in our nature as Humans -- ? ?or, is it something we have learned in culture -- ?
It is not unique in the business world for a company or an industry to have to offer its customers a message with which to battle-back the guilt they might feel after consuming what they were sold. Generally, these messages reinforce the impulse inside all of us that occasionally shouts: YOU DESERVE THIS TREAT. We are human beings ? essentially beings of pain ? and it is inescapable, it is a part of pain?s own process that we REQUIRE a jolt of hedonistic ?well-deserved? [fill in your own blank], if only just so that we can get up again the next morning and Survive the Day all over again.
Sex is the one item I think we all have on our list ? whatever flavor of Sex you prefer. If a person were caught rubbing expensive Amazonian Green Tree Frogs against their genitals, their shame before society would at least be plausible, if never correct. But instead, why do we all deny each other the enormous
friendliness that it would be to say ?Hey, you ? Hey
YOU, I see you lusting there ? and that?s okay. For I lust, too -- !? -- ??
That would at least allow adults to be
present in each other?s company ? for none could gaze with condemnation at another, then.
What to do about the children is, I think, the most important consideration in anything we do, decide or undertake.
Let me simplify a picture for you, just to be
crystal clear:
We know that Sex enters the mind and spirit of Human Beings before they reach the age of 18.
When know that during this pre-sexual phase Human Beings ?flirt? with Sex in ever-bolder explorations, until they are sufficiently overcome by desire to embark upon their Sexually Active lives.
We know, both for remembering our own experiences and because the list of possibilities is very short, that exposure to pornography is common, very common, perhaps nearly universal among pre-sexual Human Beings.
Those are the Givens, and now the Proof:
Decide
right now whether you think the break in closeness that occurs between Child and Parents at the sunset of Adolescence is natural or whether it is an artifice, a subjectivity of this time and this place. I think natural, 100%. I think nature knew to trigger that separation, so as to allow the child go off and build independent experience. At the same time, this provides for the parent a manner of relief from the building tensions and the conflicts of will.
If you acknowledge it is nature?s wisdom that must make a child ?go off somewhere? to become an Adult, then that would explain the enormous discomfort that precludes communication and empathy during that phase ? we could offer the answer ?Natural Necessity? to the question ?Why do parents and their children estrange at such an important moment for the child?? ? Because they must.
And, if they must estrange, and if they must estrange to ?flirt? with Sex, what kind of flirtations would we (as parents) wish for them to have -- ?
ANSWER THAT -- ? ? AND THEN ASSESS THE SOCIAL VALUE OF OUR SMUT.
The truth is the First Amendment, while a
lifeline for a long-time and a precious link to a higher level of ideology than usually arises in the daily doing of our work, is growing
t h i n as a defense. The fact that all it is is a DEFENSE is part of the problem. Every time we are judicially challenged and First Amendment saves our butts, I feel like I'm watching one of those movies where like Denzel Washington is the Father of the girl who's rapist just got off -- on a TECHNICALITY. It feels absent-Justice to many who look on.
Technicalities are the most fragile areas of the Law -- they are, you might say, the proverbial thread from which we hang. At the end of the trial the opposing counsel meet eyes, and they know -- THEY KNOW -- it could very possibly be a different outcome the next time they mEet.
I am begging all of you -- OUR ARGUMENT HAS GOT TO GET MORE COMPLEX THAN IT IS. WE HAVE GOT TO SEEK OUT OR CREATE THE STORIES ABOUT OUR INDUSTRY THAT WILL PROVIDE FOR SOMEONE OTHER THAN THE PEOPLE WHO WORK IN OUR INDUSTRY, A SENSE OF JUSTICE WHEN WE WIN --
2HP