There are two sayings that are familiar in every newsroom across the country: 1, sex sells; 2, if it bleeds it leads.
-Armstrong Williams
If society had a spirit animal, it would be Pepe LePew.
Driven by an unyielding need for love, society spins the disturbingly well-lubed wheels of civilization’s exercise bike going nowhere fast while fueled by a depleting bank account paying way too much for a boutique gym membership heating the planet while we feel the burn, disrupting our balanced climate of love by pivoting towards the empty calories of meaningless sex pushing us all a couple inches closer to the void thrust by uninspired thrust. Breathing heavy, covered in sweat, exasperated, “how do we stop the bleeding?” we ask nobody in particular wondering after another broken heart why -despite our exercise in futility- is it not working out?
The answer? Based on our countless hours of no research, we need a mating season.
Sex sells. It drives us. To get in shape, to make money. To provide. To nurture. To strive to the point of obsession so that the genuine tasks required to build utopia are blurred by the need for the dopamine rush of forced love.
The average office worker “works” for roughly 2 hours per day. That means over the course of a 40-hour work week, we’re looking at 10 hours of work. A 25% efficiency rating. While more efficient than koala bears, as a species we can do better.
Sex sells but what if it only sold for one month? A mating season. A 30-day period of global debauchery and tangled flesh. Like the mighty moose, a single annual rut to get it out of our system. The moose gets its muffin but once sated, back to the grind.
Then for 11-months of the year, with needs of the flesh pushed back from the forefront of our minds, pure efficiency.
We’ll build new infrastructure, construct great monuments, cure incurable diseases, elevate humanity to levels unimagined, and treat our fellow man with genuine kindness without the underlying need to woo anyone we find attractive.
11-months powered by our minds. 1-month passionately driven by our bodies and souls.
Humanity prides itself on its social technology: laws against murder, paper money, invisible borders, make believe racial differences. If we add mating season to the list of artificial hoops we enjoy jumping through, there is a chance we may finally end up with that utopia we’ve been wishing for. A world where roaming taco trucks are just as commonplace as ice cream trucks. Now that would be something to taco bout.
Sex sells everything, but I don’t buy it.
-Natalie Imbruglia