This Year Let Her Know Her Love Can Be Bought by Genocidal Slave Labor

Christmas ads really are horrendous. First putting together an important holiday that commemorates the birth of someone that stood for sacrifice and care for humanity being honored with commercialism and forced fake niceties instead of real desire for good will toward man is horrible enough.

But to commemorate his birthday with support for a product that causes Genocide is a level of perversion that is so troubling as to hurt my soul.

To make the circle of depravity and immorality they also degrade women by explicitly stating that the only way to get a woman to love you is through money. Displays of wealth toward her is the only way to get into her pants because (according to prevailing advertising) women are cheap whores.

It was so comforting to have Amanda Marcotte express the sentiment so clearly. And not just her, the article also features many men the feel the same way I do.

This Christmas, You Can Buy Her Affection

Diamond and car ads proclaim, "All women are whores, just set the price."

…Otherwise known as ads pushing luxury goods like diamonds and cars with a fairly unmistakeable message.

These ads go far beyond just saying, "Hey, it's fun to spoil someone you love on occasion," and straight into making rather fucked up insinuations about how marriage and heterosexual relationships are transactional--her love and sex for your baubles. That women give love because they love and have sex because they desire doesn't enter the equation. There was one ad awhile back that was pretty close to explicit on this--a guy runs through the streets declaring he loves a woman. She's angry with him for his romantic and inexpensive gesture. He presents a diamond. Now she likes him again. Women's affections are a commodity, says the ad, not a normal human expression.

But I've seen a series of blog posts that take on these ads not just because they insult women, but because they insult men as well, another important point that needs to be made. Jamie at Masculinity and Its Discontents:

For some reason this one really gets to me. Scene: woman kicking back on the couch, watching the tube, as her young-architect/artist skinny, t-shirted, sandy-haired studmuffin puts the finishing touches on her pedicure, blowing gently on her toes.

He: How's it look, sweetie?

She: It looks great!

He: I dunno, I think maybe they could use one more coat.

Cut to smarmy announcer: because you're not that guy, go buy jewelry at Bob's.

You're not that guy, you're not caring, you're not patient, you're not creative, you're not gentle, y ou're not even good looking (to your woman). It makes me want to scream BE THAT GUY, MEN, once in a while, just be that guy. Stop buying the most overpriced, overvalued, falsely inflated, harvested-by-near-slave-labor stones in the history of humankind and DO something for your woman, talk to your woman, listen to your woman, pamper your woman as you'd like her to pamper her man. Don't buy her, do the damn labor! (and then maybe buy her something nice afterwards, sure. And ladies, it's your turn, buy your man some bling, show him you own him! Yes, I have a double standard, yes yes yes I do! I wanna be owned!)

PZ derides these ads for making men look stupid.

I can tell you exactly what would happen if I spent a month's salary or more on jewelry (or worse, a year's income on a car). My wife would look aghast, and waver between calling the hospital for an immediate psychiatric consult and kicking me in the groin. I would spend that much on inessential frippery? Without consulting her? There sure wouldn't be any sexual arousal, unless these commercial makers easily confuse that sinking feeling in the pit of the stomach at the thought of budget-busting debt with "sexy."

I'm certainly not averse to the concept of getting enthusiastic about giving or receiving gifts. I'm a sucker for it. But when the main selling point of a gift is, "I am so expensive that it puts the recipient into an informal debt to you to be repaid with sex, monogamy, etc.", then it's not about the fun anymore and starts to get creepy.

This Christmas do something to honor the day and/or honor your partner and do something sweet and from the heart; not something that requires the enslavement and mass killing of Africans or cause mass depletion of the environment and in the end only produces carbon causing global warming.

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