Do We Need A Double-Dose?
Let it never be said that I hadn’t warned you. I have listened to the discussion of Foster Friess’ remarks about “an aspirin between the knees,” and I am not offended, or even vaguely perturbed, and I don’t understand the fuss. What Mr. Friess was suggesting in terms apparently no longer politically correct is that abstinence is the best form of contraception there has ever been. You might not like his delivery, but can you argue with his point? I realize the some believe I suffer from PCS (that’s: Premature Curmudgeon Syndrome,) but I have always acknowledged that I am an old-fashioned sort of guy. I believe in abstaining until marriage, and I further believe that applies equally to both sexes. I’m not one of those who views the nature of men as irretrievably primitive, but instead believe that what makes us human is the ability to choose in opposition to our primitive impulses. In other words, you can call me a fuddy-duddy, and I’m fine with that description. Apparently, I’m not alone, and there’s a new generation of fuddy-duddies coming along behind me.
Let me state for the record that I loathe shopping, and in fact, it would be correct to say that I never shop. When I visit a retail outlet, I already know what I want before I arrive, and I carry it to the check-out where I pay and get the hell out of there. I’m not a big fan of idle gawking, or perusing products just for the sake of burning time, but the other day I was in a retail outlet that had a bargain bin of DVDs and the bin was next to the stand featuring “New Releases.” I fumbled around in the bin looking to see if I could find something worthwhile to add to my collection, but as usual, most of these are in the bargain bin for good reason. As I was contemplating whether I wanted to buy a copy of The Longest Day, three young women were at the New Releases display to my right. They were chit-chatting and as I weighed the benefits of competing war movie classics, I heard an interesting conversation ensue over a movie of which I’d never heard and the conversation turned briefly nasty.
The movie is titled What’s Your Number? One of the young women was extolling the virtues of the film, while giving the others an overview of the story line. She described it as the story of a woman looking for the love of her life she missed out on somehow, and that she was going back re-examining her last twenty relationships. At the very moment that in my mind, I was doing a mental face-palm, one of the other two young women let out a sound: “Eeeewwww. Twenty? Slut…” She had her back to me, but I could see the faces of her two friends, who looked at her with derision and scorn as they fell silent, before one of these two rolled her eyes and mockingly spat: “Well, we can’t all be twenty-two-year-old virgins,” as the other of the two nodded in a sort of grim affirmation. What came next was funny to me as I began to walk away, when the third young woman asked in response: “Can’t be? Ever hear of the word No?”
As I walked away with a smile in my brain, walking to the checkout with my new set of grilling utensils and a copy of the Don Knotts Reluctant Hero Pack, I pondered the exchange I had inadvertently witnessed. This is symptomatic of our cultural battle. Here was one young woman who apparently sees her virtue as, well, a virtue to be preserved. Her two companions clearly had other views, and I wondered about the culture that had produced such distinctly different, and completely incompatible outlooks. That’s when it became more clear to me than ever that we are no longer a single, homogeneous culture, but at least two distinct ones with altogether different mores and values. These two cultural views are very much at war, and clearly, the warfare is continuing into another generation, although the popular culture would never admit it, insisting the battle is won.
It’s fine. I’m satisfied with being called a fuddy-duddy, or a curmudgeon, or whatever else people of that other culture would like to heap upon me as if it were an insult, but I’m not offended, and not the least bit put off by the characterizations of my views as such. Folks can call me whatever they like, but I know what I believe, and I was gratified to know that there are still those who despite being of a younger, presumptively more promiscuous generation, adhere to values that speak highly of their respect for themselves, and the virtue that saying “no” represents. Yes, I’m being judgmental again.
Tough.
