THE BACHELOR AND JAMES BOND

I’ve made a commitment to not watch pornography, in any form, but it’s become harder and harder to do so.  My daughters like watching “The Bachelor”, and so I’ve sat through parts of a couple episodes with them, trying to figure out its appeal.  There must be some, even if they are not easily seen by me.  I mean, what soul can honestly believe the man who tells woman after woman—with whom he’s spent an afternoon doing “fun stuff” while someone else pays for it—“I felt a real connection with you.”  Or “I could see spending my whole life with you.”  This usually occurs after a session of making out. I think most guys feel “a connection” when they are making out—I’ll leave it to you to decide which part of their being that is.

If we knew a man who told one woman after another that they “felt a connection” and then made out with them, and had “sex” with them, only to dump them, we would call him a serial predator.  And if the 3^rd or 4^th woman in line to receive this treatment thought that she would “be the one to change him”, we would challenge her for impaired thinking.  We might warn her about getting involved with a guy like that; our warnings likely would not be heeded until he had moved onto to the next woman.  And our friend would cry on our shoulder and say, “I really thought he was the one.”  And we would comfort them and restrain the part of us that wanted to remind them of our conversations prior to her experience with Mister One.

All this reasoning and support goes out the window when Romance gets televised.  We see the “happy couples” going for romantic dinners; we see them paragliding over the falls of an exotic island, where obsequious colorful indigenous folk wait to offer them a towel (or is that Survivor or the Amazing Race?).  I’ve heard my daughters say that they would love to go out with that man who is so “hot”, or go on that romantic getaway.

I have nothing against infatuation or falling in love.  My wife and I did over 25 years ago, and it’s been a blessing.  But I do have trouble with the promotion of love as something you can buy or win.  And I do have trouble with the way the images are connected to make it seem like it was spontaneous, magical, and therefore real.  (My friend Sheila O’Conner, who is a novelist, points out that the so-called “reality” shows are as scripted, if not more so than any other work of fiction.  And in TV, they are cheaper to make because you don’t need to employ many actual writers.)

Fantasy is not reality.  Which is why I think the real danger of pornography is not only the fantasy that sex and love can be purchased and consumed.  Perhaps a more deadly kind of pornography is the kind we see year after year, in James Bond movies, in Sylvester Stallone movies, in video game after video game where the object is to kill as many people as possible.  “Call of Duty” is a fantasy: that violence is good, fun and even redemptive.  It’s a dangerous fantasy because it reinforces our cultural belief that violence solves all conflicts.  James Bond kills the enemy.  Stallone kills the bad guys.  End of story. Not the robust kind of reflection we need in our morality.

“But it’s just a game, Patrick!”  “But it’s just harmless fun to watch The Bachelor!”  I’m not saying there is a direct causal relationship between watching porn or playing a violent game and then raping or killing someone.  I am saying that these games reinforce deep cultural pillars about the commodification of sex and the blessings of violence.

Besides, have we run out of games?  Have we run out of real stories?  Are there no rubber balls or sticks or things to make puppets with?  Is there no history, personal or social, that inspires us?

In the ongoing debate about gun violence, one thing I would like to challenge people to do is to say, publicly and with humility: “I won’t watch this stuff. I won’t participate. And this is why: it’s demeaning to the love we have and to our imagination.  I don’t judge you if you do.  I invite you to talk about what this means to us.”

That’s not the only step, of course, but cutting out one of the roots of our societal addiction to manipulative sex and cavalier violence might help.

Be justice. Be beauty.  And be reality, be story, be love that does not consume, but celebrates.

Patrick