They’re not merely unsightly, they have become a daily sight. They are no longer cause for scandal, they have become cause celebre. In the name of freedom of expression, they have thrived like poisonous mushrooms. They have, in fact, become almost edible.
They have become very funny.
Opening an email account today puts you at the risk of opening your eyes as well to the shocking world of unsolicited triple-X porn sites. Make a little survey of these porn sites* together with pirated videos and, if you are not carried away, realize how they all lie laughably to us - from the ridiculous production numbers that masquerade as story-line, to the exaggerated phallus and breast size chosen to make the viewer feel insecure, to the impossible sexual positions and camera angles, not to mention all the faked orgasms. Porn stars should sweep all those Oscar awards – in the comedy department.
Pornographic tabloids, for another, have become a parody of journalistic life, or non-life. What’s making me laugh, though, is not the way women are being used or the way women allow themselves to be exploited, but the hierarchy of priorities of the publisher and the editors in publishing stories. For them, the face of the president addressing thousands of OFWs in Kuwait is obviously of less import than the bare bust of an upcoming bold star. Try checking out the headlines of one such tabloid’s front page and you see that Saddam Hussein’s threat of nuclear war is a minor fourth to stories about restroom rapes, sexagenarian sex, and the prosecution of a peeing tom. Read how colorful the sexual parts are written in the vernacular. Inspect the photos and the letters in the inside pages and they’ve got a unified, inexhaustible theme. Contrary to popular notion, the whole enterprise is not so much about mediocrity-gone-mad as about real talents focused on the pursuit of the lascivious.
Apparently, sexual misadventures and picadilloes are more interesting than wholesale threats to civilization. Imagine a scenario where Saddam strikes with anthrax bombs and nuclear missiles (God forbid) and people insisting to know about the latest sexual conquests or offenses of their neighbors and favorite stars. This is how tabloid people seem to see the world, a world revolving around their genitals, with the G-spot as its vortex – and they want their warped weltanschauung imposed on others. You begin to wonder who is really oppressing whom, whose freedom is really being violated.
Before we veer away from the subject of pornography as a laughable cottage industry, let me add that strippers and a-go-go dancers are particularly even funnier. They have the courage to bare their souls on the job, totally oblivious to the intrusive eyes of onlookers, but once they are caught in flagrante delicto by the police and the newsman’s camera, they frantically find ways to run for cover and hide their faces. It makes more sense that, between one’s face and one’s pudendum, the more natural reflex is to conceal one’s ‘shame’ (to quote the Jews), but look which part of their anatomy these women try to hide instead. These women will grab anything on hand, their own hair and newspapers being the most popular.
You tend to think they are being inhumanely violated for their human rights. Yet look at how they react to the whole operation. They snicker behind the anonymity and giggle like schoolgirls caught in a little pot session. Rats, they’re actually having fun! Dragged into temporary detection by the long arms of the law, they are then preyed upon by journalists who must do this beat presumably for lack of a more newsworthy item. See how the girls gamely answer the interview.
Maybe it’s not self-evident to you, but, to me, the connection has always been crystal-clear. All the illicit orgasms, all the unseemly sex around us – these are what‘s causing all these bombings and explosions, whether they be in Bali, in Zamboanga, in Russia, or in Manila. I observe a direct correlation between these two occurrences especially whenever there’s nothing to watch in the cinemas but bold movies.
“There is a connection between lust and anger,” one priest said during a sermon. Well, I dare say, there is a connection between illicit orgasms and terrorist bombings. It’s as though our collective guilt cannot help but explode all around us, as it gets too unbearable and too unwieldy for our conscience to take.
Now that’s not very funny.
***
*Keep in mind, though, that curiosity killed the cat.
This article should have appeared in Moist magazine (editor: Joe Chua), if not for the adverse circumstances in relation to the war.
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