Porn Again (or You With the Google-y Eyes)
June 8, 2006
SafeSearch is off.
I love the Google image search feature. I don’t have to wander the seamy alleyways of the internet to find my fix of naked people. Type in a couple of innocent search terms (say, “sexy girl”) and—bang—in .13 seconds I’ve got an eyeful of heady thumbnails to choose from. In one click I can inflate my own private libidolls one after another. And the cool part is that Google keeps me sanitized. It’s safe sex at its best.
This is especially important for an upright God guy like me. I want to be able to taste the spices without burning my head off, so to speak. Google is my spiritual protection. I can rubber neck my way along the righteous road barely slowing down for a glance at the lovely bodies littering the crash sites along the way. In Google there is no condomnation. God, I love technology.
Oh sure, there is that limp guilt thing afterwards, but that’s easily compartmentalized and rarely affects my leap from glory to glory. Life is filled with failures; they just aren’t as privately gratifying as my Googling. What’s more, another click of the mouse and my browser history’s clean, all my scintillations washed away just like that—every time. Call it digital grace. It’s like a smoke-free, post-coital cigarette without the risk of blindness.
Of course it’s tawdry. But I’m not paying for it either. (Voyeurs can’t be choosers.) Premium access is out of the question. That would imply future intent—a killer on the conscience. It has to be marginally accidental. (You never know exactly how it’s going to come up.) Besides, there’s no way I’m going to give my credit card number to those sleaze merchants—my wife does the bills.
So all praise to the Trinity: QuickTime, RealPlayer, and Windows Media! Glory be to search engines and their lofty algorithms! Blessed be digital photography and high-speed internet!
Behold the image of the invisible gal!
***
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoy’d no sooner but despised straight;
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad:
Mad in pursuit, and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
—William Shakespeare
***
SafeSearch is on . . .
off.
Hmmm… I wonder how many readers had to go check it out.
A word to the wise (or, to the foolish…): tracks are not so easily erased. Real grace is a lot more reliable.
Well, this post did seal my fate at the Wittenburg Door’s online site. MuseHead was reviewed as a possible link and got this reply:
“No can do. Today’s post is an example of why.”
Whoa. When “The World’s Pretty Much Only Religious Satire Magazine” (the one behind Robert Tilton the Farting Preacher and the incessant Benny Hinn crucifixions) snubs you for being inappropriate, you gotta wonder. Even a Shakespearian sonnet couldn’t redeem this one it seems.
To their credit (I guess) they are going to publish “Hey Judas” one of my earlier posts. I guess they’re just picky about what kind of inappropriateness they want to associate with.
So ninety-some-odd percentage of guys do it. No one wants to talk about it. Conclusion: your post is true and accords with reality.
However, perhaps the problem they (The Wittenburg Door) had is that this post glorifies the sin (their sin?) to the expense of the shame. Then again, maybe they don’t recognize good satire when they don’t write it?
Note: A pretty gutsy (obnoxious?) post for a guy who relies on contributions for his ministry and the good graces of his wife to sleep in his own bed.
Thank you, Professor, for acknowledging at least the possibility of the post as satire.
(I hope my wife does.)
I am hoping, please God, that it was satire. The news in the last 48 hours has the Eola Inn being bought by a man who runs strip joints in Portland.
Is everyone doing this? Should my heart hurt or not?
That is the question. Shakespeare or no Shakespeare.