Monthly Archives: February 2018

Being a Pain

People love pain. They seek it as entertainment, strive to share their hurt with the world while simultaneously blocking out the agony of those they do not care for. I’m not referring to the action movies and S&M ‘romances’ that dominate the entertainment industry, I’m thinking about the emotional turmoil that fills every story clamouring to hold an audience. Betrayals, failures, conflict and loss all plod along this troubled path to redemption.

Writers are told there is no drama without conflict, even in a humorous romantic comedy.

Beyond the entertainment industry heartfelt blogs create windows into personal pain, grief, the search for love, oncoming death, physical and mental struggle. Everywhere you look people share their pain or the pain of others. Otherwise caring people seem to have no qualms about calling down retribution on those they believe deserve it, clamouring to cast the first stone, share the petition, add volume to the tweet.


I recently read an article about a prize for thrillers free of the torment of women. It seems a great idea. The Staunch Prize will be awarded to any thriller where no woman is beaten, stalked, raped or murdered.

I generally steer clear of thrillers. As a reader, I have always been repulsed by the infliction of violence. Yes, the device makes the tormentor more evil, ripe for retribution, but I also find the baddie getting their just desserts just as sickening. To me, there is an equivalence that cannot be ignored, and the need for it as entertainment is just as repulsive.


Many people believe that the depiction of violence towards women in movies and books, games and TV, are the first step towards actual abuse. Study after study has found some linkage, but not for the over-whelming majority. However, for me, it doesn’t matter if little correlation is found between the consumption of violent entertainment and acting it out, the telling point is the deep-seated human need to ‘enjoy’ the fantasy of pain.

One of the quirks of this conundrum is that the victims of violence are the greatest consumers of violent fiction. Women read far more books than men, thrillers included. One explanation is that women like this fiction because it rehearses the real threat they face in society. By reading such thrillers their fear is rehearsed, guarded against, assuaged. That may be true. Maybe there is an untapped market for thrillers where no one is tormented. Or just children, animals and men. Or the environment.

But when you ally emotional pain with physical pain, it is hard not to see the need deeply embedded in all our desires for communication and entertainment.


Gossip, tweets and status updates. The names of dead loved-ones tattooed on arms and backs, written on cars. Loss is not just consigned to a tombstone or the Day of the Dead, but must be displayed to the world at every moment, anniversary or birthday.


If you feel pain at the actions or words of others, does sharing that pain increase, or decrease it? It depends.

Catharsis and revenge provide equal amounts of relief and turmoil.

Is watching a movie where a stranger struggles with an emotionally difficult choice any different from watching one where a woman is pursued? Are we any different from those gathering to witness a criminal or heathen torn apart in the Colosseum, or on YouTube?

Yes. And no.



Thinking Inside the Box

I’m a little bit psychic. At least, that’s what I tell the girls when I see things before they’re revealed. And even though my daughters believe in magic 2-1, they don’t believe me. They understand the nature of the claim.

Lately, I’ve been showing visitors who stay overnight coloured boxes. Coloured boxes that portent the end of times. Green, blue, yellow, pink, orange and red; each opaque, with a dauntingly amorphous shadow. They stand in a crescent, filled with naked men and women hopeful of being chosen for a date.


Actually, it was my partner who first showed them to her friend. Her guest was horrified, and intrigued. She had never seen so many penises at once. All lined up, eager to find favour; none the same as their neighbour. My mate, last Monday, was just as gob-smacked. He’d seen it all, but he had never seen that. Do guys all shave their pubes these days, he asked? Going by the other dating shows we’ve watched, appearance is much more important in England than in our rough-and-ready colonies.



Naked Attraction turns dating on its head, getting contestants to choose a date based on physical appearance, bottom to top. The face and voice, those heavy carriers of personality, are the last things revealed. It is counter-intuitive; a counter-narrative that fascinates. It challenges assumptions we hear, repeat, and struggle to accept. Looks matter. And don’t. But do. Be-do.



Male and female contestants have all rejected a person they clearly find physically attractive on hearing an unappealing accent. I mocked the Home Counties woman who didn’t want to date the naked Adonis she fancied on realising he was from the North. But I have done the same, losing all my desire for a woman I once lusted after on finally hearing how she spoke. Thankfully, you’re only young and dumb once.

Is it the answer to dating? No. Is it the end of civilisation? Many people clearly foresee that future.


On the morning after we watched Naked Attraction with my friend a story appeared in the media detailing the record number of complaints about the show. Over 500+ people had taken the trouble to express their outrage to the authorities. The Family First Foundation had counted exactly 282 penises and 96 vulvas in one episode alone. They were so outraged at those numbers that they targeted advertising giants like Fonterra and Lotto, causing the gambling behemoth and industrial farming collective to pull their advertising from the show. According to Bob McCoskrie, the ‘state broadcaster’ was showing ‘animalistic’ porn.


But it is not porn. There is no sex, only mildly titillating nudity. And TVNZ stopped being the state broadcaster many decades ago. I guess the complainers have been too busy counting genitalia to notice.

There is no shame in the human body. It is as beautiful, and awesome, as any other creature in the animal kingdom. Separating us from animals is unscientific, lacking in reason; a clear misreading of what we see before, and around, us. This wilful blindness is at the root of all kinds of abuse.


I’ve only been to see a psychic once, after my parents died. She read me very well. At one point she opened her eyes, looked directly at me and said, you could do this, couldn’t you? I didn’t know how to respond. She repeated her statement, annoyed at my evasion, then she closed her eyes and continued.

We all see the unseen. Or think we can. Potential lovers, enemies, the future, the past. It sits before us, waiting to be seen, hidden in plain sight.