eccles's Diaryland Diary

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A sexy, sexy rant

The front-page article in my local newspaper today is that of a local minister complaining about a few nearby shops…I’ll let the opening line give you the gist of the story: SEX [sic] shops and massage parlours are turning parts of Crewe into red light districts, community leaders have claimed

Now, this rant is different to most. Most rants are directed at a group of people, a collective mass of idiots. Today’s rant is different in that, even though at its heart it is ranting at a collection of idiots, most of the venom is directed at just one person: Reverend Rob Wykes who is the one complaining the loudest.

Now, Rob. You don’t like the idea of this kinda shop being in your town. That’s fine, that’s absolutely fine; everyone is entitled to their own opinion. “I may not agree with what you say,” Voltaire and all that.
But, hey, I hate things, too. Like cauliflower. I really hate cauliflower. It repulses me. Eating cauliflower is what I imagine it would be like to chew on damp socks for a while, which...frankly it makes me want to vomit. I would crawl backwards through napalm if it meant cauliflowers would cease existing in this world.
Can I demand the shops stop selling cauliflower because I don’t like it? Or how about the toe-curlingly, syrupy sweet pop track that the tweens like this week? I hate those, too, so the shops have to stop telling them. Why? Because I say so.

And thus we come across the major fallacy in your argument: If we banned everything that a few people don’t like then we’d have, quite literally, nothing left. Some guy doesn’t like clothes and wants to ban them in favour of strutting around nude all day. Some other guy doesn’t like the naked form and wants it covered up. Oh dear, conundrum. Which of the two sides do we go with?

And then we have the second fallacy in your argument: apparently you are unaware of the basic principles of supply and demand. Let’s say a shop opened up that dealt exclusively in hacking off limbs, “Andy’s Limb Hack emporium: Come here and enjoy severe mutilation for a reasonable price”...how many people do you honestly think would pay for that? Very few, if any.
Now, let’s say a second shop opened that dealt exclusively in sexual encounters. How many people do you think will use that shop? More than would use the Limb Hack Emporium, I’ll bet.
Why? Well, apparently people don’t want to be on the business end of a katana, but they do want the sex.

And that’s how supply and demand works. People are willing to pay for something? It’s good sense to open a shop and make them pay for it.
Why do you think we have so many take-away shops, especially down Nantwich Road? When people don’t want to cook it’s a convenience to have other people do it for you.
To go even further, why do you think a lot of take-away places offer traditionally British food? Because a lot of people want fish and chips instead of dim sum pork.

There are brothels and shops that sell sex toys in town? Well, that shows people want them. You don’t like the idea? Don’t go into those shops, it’s a simple enough concept. I can’t say I’m too enthused with the idea myself and…well, if I went to the limb hack emporium and lost my arms I’d still have enough fingers left to count the amount of times I’ve visited the brothels and sex shops in question.

The next argument is not one of yours, but I feel it is worth addressing anyway. The rest of my family seem to think that having sex shops is corrupting people. If I knew a single person who has visited these sex shops who would not have visited one before then I’d certainly agree with the notion. I’ll be honest, I know a grand total of 2 people who have openly admitted to buying stuff from adult stores. Why did they buy from these adult stores? It’s cheaper and more convenient than ebay, apparently.

How many of your parishioners have been corrupted by the stores evil presence? How many of their families have? How many of their friends, their friends’ families…I could go on, but I’m willing to bet that you don’t know a single person who has visited a sex shop or brothel simply because it was there (as opposed to wanting to go to one in the first place).

And don’t even get me started on that “It degrades women” garbage. That’s a whole other 3-page beatdown that I don’t want to get into right now.

Now there is, would you believe, a point where we do agree with one another. When the clients at a brothel are getting rowdy and out of control to the extent that they are breaking the law then...yeah, I’m all for having them arrested, tried, fined, whatever the law calls for in such an instance. But I’m not going to try and have a building shut down if crime happens in or around it: if we did you could say goodbye to pubs, restaurants, shops and, you guessed it, churches!

But let’s play it your way in a purely hypothetical scenario. We should ban brothels because you disagree with them. How far should we take it? Tell me Rob, just what kind of limit do you think we should put on the things people want to do?

Let’s say Fred and Ethel down the street want to try something new in the bedroom. They want to try a...new toy, new fetish, new position, whatever, I don’t care.
To be fair neither should you, but that’s a moot point.
Should Fred and Ethel give you a call to see whether or not it’s okay for them to try their new activity? Or do you only disagree with peoples’ sexual taboos when they’re performed in certain areas of town?
Or hey, forget taboo subjects like sex, how about people start calling you for a ruling on everything? After all, if you disagree with it then it’s wrong and we have to find an alternative. If you don’t like the idea of me having cheese and marmite on my sandwiches I want to know about it so I can use tuna, so I don’t offend you. If you don’t like the idea of me favouring Windows over Linux, I want to know about it so I can change my OS and stop offending you. If you don’t like the idea of me listening to angry, Japanese death metal I damn well want to know about it so I can pick up some other kind of music and calm you down.

Now, look. I cannot get into the mentality of someone who would go to a brothel and buy their way to a good time. Honestly? I think the whole thing is really sad. But just because I don’t like it I’m not going to launch into a protest against it.
Oh, and before anyone points out the irony of ranting like this in response to something I don’t like, consider this...I wouldn’t be nearly as angry and I certainly wouldn’t have written this if Reverend Holierthanthou wasn’t being such an uptight, judgemental bigot and had just kept his mouth shut.

Like I said, it’s fine to have opinions, no matter what they are. Heck, you can even discuss those opinions if you find the right forum for discussion, but as soon as you bring your narrow-minded views into the public eye? You’re going to have them dashed on the rocks.

Now, would it be okay if I closed with “My name is Andy and that’s all for today. But remember: I’m not evil, I’m nicely challenged” or would that be too offensive to you?

Today’s rant was brought to you by the letter G, the number 7 and Reverend Rob Wykes of Christian Concern Crewe, St. Pauls Centre, Hightown, Crewe, Cheshire CW1 3BY (Tel: 01270 586186).

Not that I’m encouraging to call this guy at work so you can bother him with your everyday queries, you understand, but if even one person rings the church to ask about whether it’s okay if their socks don’t match I will laugh until milk shoots out my nose.

11:04 p.m. - 2007-02-28

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