Americans are out to get you!

My wife and I were walking down the street a few months ago and for now reason we stopped to look at what was down on the sidewalk. We were just two people in love walking down the street admiring the weird patterns in the concrete that make up the sidewalks in our town. Ah, life.

One part caught our attention because the concrete had a weird shap to it. It appeared that orginally the concrete in the sidewalk had been pured in such a way as to go around a tree that was no longer there. And the spot where the tree was missing from was filled in sometime later to make up for the gap that the tree had left.

Two seconds after looking up and continuing on our way, a 50's-ish man walking his dog passes us and asks: "Did you fall?" And before we could respond and thank him for his gentle concern, he finishes: "If you fell, go down to city hall and tell them you're going to sue." Uh, OK.

My wife and I were both kind of stunned to be faced with such a suggestion from this guy. Maybe we're just naive about our walks around town. But do we need to sue the first time we fall down? I guess there are plenty of people who genuinely get hurt from a municipality's intentional negligence of city sidewalks. But that wouldn't be the case ALL the time.

I thought about this little incident a little bit afterwards and it revealed to me something interesting. I think that this guy's reaction is a common one in the people of the US of A. Something goes wrong, get someone to string up. You hurt yourself, get someone fired. You spill hot coffee on yourself, file a laysuit. You eat too much junk-food and make yourself too obese for the world, get yourself a lawyer. Remember these three little words when dealing with any problem: sue, sue, sue.

Not only is this attitude applicable to domestic issues in the US, but perhaps it reflects in foreign policy. Someone bombs our nation, Taliban, Afghanis, Iraqis, We don't care, just make someone pay. This is probably best seen in the apparent acceptance by Americans that Iraq is the 'front line' for the war on terror when the 9-11 commission found no working connection between Iraq and Al Qeada. (Osama who?) Just as long as there are some cool pictures of American forces kicking some ass on the nightly news. There's almost a vigilante notion of justice here that isn't just at all, this is more like revenge. And if it happens that (oops) we got the wrong guy? Who cares as long as someone is held responsible. It's scary to think that so many Americans out there have this mindset. If I was a European or living in the Mid-East or something I'd be scared out of my mind. Americans are out to get us! Or somebody!

And this tendency to attach blame to others is also one that helps to remove others from the finger pointing. Instead of holding our leaders accountable (like Bush for the current mess in Iraq) we excuse them in order to help justify our own position/beliefs. Instead of looking at our way of life, examining the problems and potential pitfalls, we overlook the obvious and simplest starting points for change, our own lives. Instead of looking to put blame on someone everytime we get knocked or fall on our own butts, we have some introspection to do first.

Not a bargain at any price

Want to know more about sex?* That will be 5.99 a month or 57.99 for a yearly subscription. Choose your payment method: Credit Card, Check or payment by phone.

*Depictions about sex are not gauranteed to be true in any respect regarding human sexuality. Please refer to biology book for details.

Thanks for reading. Today I just feel like complaining about something: sex. Yeah I want to complain about it today but not in the way that you're thinking. I'm pretty sure that I'm getting enough, and I'm also fairly confident that I'm about as satisfied as anyone in regards to "DOING IT" and my wife is totally satisfied, or so she keeps telling me.

Anyway, think back with me if you will about your first days in those wonderfull times called puberty. Ah puberty, full of changes and confusion. Makes you nostalgic to remember, eh? Yeah, I thought so. And with body changes and your perception of the world you see morphing before your eyes, you now have to learn to deal with this very adult concept called sex.

But never fear, in this time of uncertainty two people are there for you that will help define truth and give you the knowledge and the support you need to face this hard life transition to become a mature adult with understanding; your parents! Alright, with the second and third paragraph both starting with intense sarcasm, I think I've reached my quota for this blog entry. But don't lose the sense of what I'm saying.

Basically the point gist goes like this. Here we are the most intense period of biological/hormonal/sexual/weird change perhaps in our entire lives (second only to menopause?) and those we need desperately to give us direction are about as scared to talk about it as we are to face the awkwardness of the transition itself. This is more of an autobiographical (yet applicable to you) case which we can all relate to.

Well, regardless of whether our parents will talk about sex with us to help us get a hold of truth in sexuality, there are countless others who will help us on our journey, mainly the sexual predators and pornographers. Now instead of inheriting a view of sexuality that may actually be close to what is intended for us, we get the "sexed up" (get it?) hollywood version that we have to BUY. Let me rephrase that: WE PAY FOR IT! But in this licensed edition of our sexuality we get more than we bargain for.

In regards to porn, there are lots of things we could go into here: The depiction of women sex drives as being overly sexual nymphos that will have sex with anything, misunderstanding of sexual stimulation of women, objectification of women (and men), self esteem and body image standards, types of sex acts, fetishes, etc. Blah, blah blah. There are a lot of things that the licensed version gives you that we were never really meant to have and can't handle. Thereby opening up a world of sexual (and emotional) hurt for all of us. But this is not exactly what I want to deal with here.

My beef is with the audacity that we have as humans. Before we are fully able to even understand our sexuality we are ready to market it. We even know what price to give it. Perhaps societal understanding on sex is just too slow in comparision to market forces but maybe there should be some catch-up going on. Sexual studies like the Kinsey report were just the beginning of an honest look at sexuality but haven't really been followed up to the extent necessary. That means all we have is Kinsey's questionable research telling us about how we really are, alongside the sexuality that we can buy. These two things combined with the sexual craziness of a select few and the conservatives that won't allow talk of the issue, only creates more controversy and nothing gets figured out.

Either way, we don't have a sexuality that's ours like we're supposed to have. Something that was created to give us intense pleasure in which we feel free to indulge with our partner for life is taken away and made a private asset of someone else. Then our love lives are sold or fed back to us in various perverted forms. We have one that's perscribed for us, one that we could never attain (nor shouldn't), and another one in which we get nothing at all, 'cause it's bad. All are wrong, none are right.

First step in dealing with this is that we should take our love lives off the shelves, take them apart and understand how they work. Really understand it. By doing this perhaps we can understand the true value of what we're dealing with here. I think that also we'll decide that it's too valuable to put back up for sale.

Wolf at the Door

I've mentioned oil depletion before, this site provides us with a good amount of information on the issue.