POP PHILOSOPHY: Sexty times

Ryan Carey celebrates the dizzying freedom that comes with tech-induced omnipotence.

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POP PHILOSOPHY: Sexty times

POSTED: Thursday, June 23, 2011, 10:00 AM

I wanna sext you so bad right now

What do Anthony Weiner, Brett Favre, and an undetermined number of high school teachers have in common? I'd like to quote the Detroit-based disco-punk rockers Electric Six (playing at Johnny Brenda's this October): "You can trip on my synthesizer / Electronic world for every boy and every girl / You can trip on my synthesizer / In the end technology, unto the world, will set us free."

This chorus is a modern battle cry, simultaneously lamenting and celebrating the dizzying freedom that comes with tech-induced omnipotence.

I hear some say, "Well, if sexting had never come along, people would have just found other ways to be creeps." I can appreciate the bitterness behind this sentiment, but you know in your heart of hearts that — while this may be true for a certain slice of the population — there are a lot of people who wouldn't have unleashed their inner sleaze bag in the old-fashioned world, simply because of the practical limitations.

What were you to do fifteen years ago? Photocopy your junk on the company Xerox and then fax it to your mistress's office? Even the most cursory cost/benefit analysis shows that this is not even remotely worth the risk. But today, I can stick a phone down my Jockeys, click two buttons and now it's on a single phone in St. Louis? I have unlimited picture texting, it would be fiscally irresponsible not to do this!

Look, it's no surprise that human technology has outpaced human evolution. Zeros and ones are a very trial-and-error friendly variety of intelligence (much more than, say, emotional or social intelligence). Hence, the strongest tech minds produce the shiniest gadgets and everybody marvels at my new ability to Skye Hulu to the inside of my contact lenses. Yet, some Anthropology major realizes that it's a good idea to hold off on marriage until he's done all the traveling required for his doctoral thesis, and now he's got life by the gonads, but nobody cares. And I don't blame the masses for their addiction to immediate gratification, but it means that various modes of sexual harassment and other social ills are gonna get a 'roid shot in the arm every time someone invents a new way for people to relate to each other.

Don't get me wrong, the opposite is certainly true as well. Important ideas like equality and world knowledge certainly flood over the sides with the advancement of communication, but so does racism, misogyny, and any other chemical which is stored up in the fat cells of the zeitgeist. So what would you rather have? An old-fashioned world where only 5 percent of people were known to be sleazy, or a modern world where 10 percent of people turn out to have animal instincts, uncaged by the Nokia keys to the city? It's the Wild West all over again, and I can't tell whether technology is stomping down on human evolution, or if it's speeding it up by outing the socially inept with greater speed and efficiency than ever before. I guess all of these amazing and horrible instincts are the essential oils of the world and in the end technology unto the world will set us free.

Posted by Ryan Carey @ 10:00 AM Permalink | Post a comment

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Featuring everything from event roundups to concert reviews and sex talk, City Paper's Critical Mass is a space for off-the-wall coverage of Philly's A&E scene.

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