sex may sell ... but is the product worth the price?

Yeah. First of all, lame title. I know. What can I say. It's late. I should be asleep already, but I've just gotta write down some of these thoughts in my mind before it'll rest.

Tonight I watched two shows that were, ironically enough, rather similar. I've had Adventureland on Mac for a while now, and I finally got to watching it yesterday and today, with the bulk of it landing on today.

It was alright; I mean, I feel that I could have spent that 2 hour chunk in a worse way. Ha. It all felt rather contrived. Pseudo-awkward guy finds out that he's not so awkward, and he ends up getting the girl. Yep. That's pretty much the way it goes. Despite the fact that I saw a lot of that coming, I was still disappointed by the ending.

Because he's always been so awkward, he's a virgin; there've been a couple of times when maybe, if he really wanted to pursue it, he could have had "intercourse" (as he tends to call it), but he's a romantic at heart, and he's waiting until he falls in love.

She, on the other hand, is a much more worldly girl. Some sex in high school, some in college and she's currently screwing around with one of their coworkers, who just so happens to be married.

And they have a fight where they lose trust in one another and don't speak for a few weeks at the end of the summer, but then, after a change of heart and a sudden influx of confidence, he moves away to find her in the big city (New York). They meet up, kind of apologize and the screen blacks out to the beginning of their consummation.

Come on, boy. You've waiting this long, and that's how you let it end? But then again, I guess that's what we do when we fall in love ... sex it up.

That was the first thing I watched. The second was the most recent episode of Glee. As usual, I listened to the music for the episode first, and I like it a lot. I was pretty stoked for the show, and I find that this approach often allows me to give each episode a kinder review. This time, though, it was lame.

Three of the main characters--the jock who's actually a good guy deep down, the leading lady from the nerdy crowd and the school's severely OCD guidance counselor--all make the initial decision to master their bodies and do it for the first time. Each person has a different reason for approaching sex, but their situations are paralleled quite well (and, of course, accompanied by nothing other than their cover of Madonna's "Like a Virgin.").

What we find, later in the episode, is that the latter two--both the gals--just couldn't do it. The guy, however, went right ahead--even though he expressed some sort of regret immediately after finishing.

Now, I think that Glee's on the right track when it portrays sex as a rite of passage ... because it is. I'm frustrated, though, that it takes such a shallow, predictable, mainstream approach to sex and just lets it happen.

While I watched the episode, one of the other viewers commented on how he liked the parallelism between the guy and the gals, showing that both could have a similar struggle. I initially agreed with him. In later reflection, though, I was only annoyed all the more by that point.

This episode begins by placing those three characters in very similar situations; granted, as I earlier mentioned, they were there for different reasons, but they all faced "first time sex" on the exact same night. But then the episode splits, and it draws a clear distinction between the guy and the gals.

Faced with sex in an uncertain (or even slightly unwanted) situation, of course girls are going to hesitate and stop because they have a better perspective on the circumstances and implications, while, of course boys are going to go ahead, get it on and probably regret it because, well, that's what guys do--they fuck things (pardon my language, although the coarse sex term is exactly what I want here).

This isn't the first time, and I'm pretty sure it won't be the last that Glee, despite my high hopes, approached a situation in which a great example could be made, but it, instead, chose to follow the well-beaten path and give us sex 'cause that's what the masses really need.

Snapping back to reality

I've been gone from town for about a week now, and it's been pretty wonderful.

Last week I, along with 41 other Red Cross AmeriCorps members, went down to a small town in West Virginia and worked to repair homes for people afflicted by disasters (primarily flooding) and poverty.

In a very typical "service project/missions trip" kind of way, it was a great experience. We were able to do great things for the families we served, while we simultaneously learned more about ourselves and strengthened some friendships that've been around for a while.

This is the type of effect that I've encountered from my earliest days serving anywhere--through church, school or work groups. Each time a trip like this is made, however, the feelings that existed during the project aren't really expected to last very long after the project itself. That's just the way it goes, it seems.

I don't think I've ever given much thought to why this shift happens--why it can be so good (for weeks at a time) but then revert to blah, blah, blah so quickly. While laying in bed last night, something clicked for the first time.

During that service project week all those involved believed in a common good and strove for a single goal. Collaboration was the rule, not the exception. Selflessness, to a certain degree, occurred without much thought, and although petty squabbles did appear, they didn't stand in the way of every other positive aspect.

And all that ended yesterday morning around 8 am.

Even before I took the first step into my house last night I began thinking about all the things that are contrary to that service project mindset; all the ways in which we, the people I live with and around and I, don't share a common or single vision for our lives. We appear at odds so often because we simply don't buy into the same desires on a regular basis, and it's such a bad way to live.

During that week-long project, not only did we work full, strenuous days and get less sleep than we probably should have, but I also felt sick (due to a cold and some allergies) the entire time we were there, yet despite those potential drawbacks, I enjoyed every one of those days so much more than any single, perfectly healthy "normal" workday back here at home. The prevailing atmosphere and mindset were enough to sustain and maintain even when the rest of my feelings were sub-par.

So, now that I begin my normal routines again, I will be searching all the more for people who can, outside of the service project atmosphere, believe in and strive for that common good, so that we might together live a better life than we'd ever have independent of one another.