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Thursday, January 6, 2011

Just Because You Can, Doesn't Mean You Should

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. A friend commented on my last blog post and I wanted to respond, but being long winded, over inclusive and verbose it became another blog.

Frances Pauli commented that:
I want to be in love with the characters, NOT intimate with them. Seriously, the weirder and more graphic it is the better it "sells" right now.


I have noticed that there is an increasing “go for the quick and intense” mentality in the general public. Graphic sex in books as a replacement for good writing or a story line is part of this. Culturally, I think it is also reflected in “speed dating”, “hook ups”, and our rather intense but short relationships. As soon as the “high” is beginning to abate we think there is something wrong and we rush to the next intense moment. The Meth addicts I have occasionally worked with have stated that nothing is as intense in life, sex, you name it, as when you are on a meth run. It is really hard for them to let go of that intense high no matter how destructive it might be to the rest of their life. As a culture we are also not very good at delayed gratification. The ability to delay gratification to a future point requires a certain maturity, something else that our culture doesn’t support.

Just as meditation can change brain function, so can our rapid fire video games, special effect movies,  and texting instead of writing (email is the new snail mail);  the graphic sex in movie and books keeps us titillated and like a meth addict on a high. Partially, I think this might be explained by the presence of mirror neurons in the brain.

mirror neuron is a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another.[1][2] Thus, the neuron "mirrors" the behavior of the other, as though the observer were itself acting.  Wikipedia. 

So all that graphic sex we are reading about, our brain thinks we are experiencing on some level.  The sex, violence, intense music, etc., creates high which is very addictive.  We don’t know how to slow down, to see the beauty around us in simple and quiet things.  We become instantly bored and anxious when our systems aren't amped up, we reach for something exciting like a junkie looking for the next fix and like a junkie we are developing tolerance and need bigger and bigger doses to get the same effect.  Books get sexually more graphic to appeal enough to be purchased.  It is one ugly cycle.

This leads me to something else I have been thinking about lately and my next blog which will be titled "Love is Just a Feeling".

1 comment:

  1. Victoria,
    Thanks for your explanation of the mirror neurons and how the high and the addiction work. I have been trying to put that into words with regard to video games and haven't been able to.

    Mardi

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