V.I.P.

In the world, very few things have any inherent meaning, other than what we attach to to them. A young child has instincts that give meaning to the world around it. It knows that snakes and spiders are to be avoided (a self-preservation instinct), and that a mother figure is comforting.

As you grow older, many things in the environment will take on meaning depending on how they are used. The colour red, for example, is used to mean danger. This could be a 'STOP' sign, or a warning light in a movie. Seeing these things mean that in your mind, you will associate them with the colour red, and the meaning they bring. Another example of this is how red is often used as a shorthand for violence, because it is the colour of blood. This is an example of classical conditioning, which utilizes reinforcement. It's also the reason why horror movie posters often contain large amounts of red in the pictures or font.

What I'm trying to say is that often, it's not important what something actually is, but rather the meaning it carries with it.

The largest, and most influential instance of this is sex.

SEX!

Just then, when you read the word 'sex', a thousand connections were made in your mind. References to things you've read, seen, or experienced, all of which make up an incredibly detailed idea of what sex is to you. We all carry our own version of this idea with us, influenced by our own experiences. But increasingly, our own ideas about what sex is and what it should mean are influenced by forces outside of our personal spheres, and not for the better.

A Dictionary defines sex as: "An act with reproductive functions".

I define sex as: An expression of affection.

Our culture defines sex as...here's where it gets complicated. In television, movies, books, videogames, sex is now shown to be a goal.

Instead of being traditionally portrayed as an act, or an event, sex is overwhelmingly shown to be a prize. Something you get. Something you are entitled to through your actions. And when something is shown to be a prize, people lose all perspective on it. If it's shown as a prize, it becomes a be-all, end-all attainment, or something to be won. Suddenly it seems viable, even normal for people to spend their entire adolescences, sometimes their lives in pursuit of it.

You might think "Okay, our culture gives a terrible impression of what sex is about, but it's only an impression, and people will see past it. Right?"

But the thing is, they won't. They won't be able to.

When something is placed on a pedestal in the same way that sex is, it's status as a concept is elevated. Due to the fact that it is so ill-defined and mysterious in young people's media, yet so prized, they will assume that it is simply above their understanding. They'll be driven to pursue it, without really knowing why.

And this is where the danger is.

We risk having an entire generation grow up with a stunted definition of sex. If the first ideas about sex that they're given are distorted and fetishised, then that will affect the ways in which they percieve sex throughout their entire lives.

I'm concerned about these effects because I've been influenced by them. Half my adolescence has been spent fretting over something I didn't understand. Let me tell you what sex was (and on a bad day, still is) like to me.

...

Picture a cityscape at night. All is quiet, and small lights pierce the blackness. Towards the centre of this place, a dark monolith rises up out of the pockmarked pavement. It's a nightclub. A gaudy and gigantic neon sign adorns it, carving a name into your retina in primary colours. The beat from the music playing within vibrates out from the club's walls, permeating everything around you. Nothing seems untouched by it's influence, all the city's architecture seeming to lean obliquely towards it.

It commands attention. It's the centre of everything. At least that's what the throng of people around you seem to think. You're in snaking line, surrounded by them. Preening hopefuls, waiting to get in. A cookie-cutter collective of haircuts and brand names. You're pushed along by them, carried towards the club by these braying skittles, gossiping and enthusing about the wonders that supposedly await.As you approach the doors, you can see frosted glass windows, behind which blurred and indistinct figures can be seen doing...something. There's a huge, stony-faced bouncer guarding the door.

If you ask him how to get in, or what you're supposed to do when you get there, he'll just shrug. How's he supposed to know? I mean, you've been here before...right?

So, what now? If you want to be included, or even find out what all the fuss is about, you've got to join the teeming throng. But suppose the place is members-only. There's an implied standard if you want to participate, and you DO want to participate, don't you? Good. Thought you were a weirdo for a second.

So you'll wait with the others, shivering, hoping, and worrying.
But what if you don't get in soon?
What if you're not good enough?
What if you're left alone?

...

Weird situation, eh?
And that's what sex seems like to a great many people. A massive, daunting, unknowable concept. And it's not, it's one of the most normal things in the world.

The night is cold, and the velvet rope's all sticky. Why don't we get on with living instead?

Cumulo Irritatum.

It is 9:27am, and the heavens have opened, sending freezing sheets of hydrogen and oxygen molecules down to us.

It is 9:27am, and it has been raining for 3 days.

Don't get me wrong, I like the rain; I like looking at it, seeing it strike the ground at a furious velocity. I find watching the murky figures that trudge about in it, heads downcast, endlessly fascinating. There is also something that appeals to me about the immense randomness of billions of objects that constantly alter their shapes, impacting each other, merging, splitting, crashing about and all the while plummeting to the ground.

What I dislike is being out in it. To retain any semblance of warmth, I have to don:

-A Trench Coat

-A pair of Leather Gloves (just wearing these makes me feel so creepy I have to hide them by shoving my hands in my pockets; but if you're wearing a trench coat, that's somehow worse...)

-A Scarf (This is truly an accessory for the mentally deranged. I mean, this is an item of clothing that actively TRIES to strangle you as you're wearing it!)

- My poor, beloved trilby, which ends up defeated, slumped over my head like a depressed felt haddock.

If I close my eyes really tight, I can imagine I'm a sleuth from a bygone era, pacing the streets in search of adventure...though the feeling walking in the rain produces is usually more akin to being a soldier with trench foot (though at least I've got a dead rat dinner to look forward to.)

If, by some miracle of architecture and parenting, you have never encountered this phenomenon of 'Rain', I suggest you pay a visit to your nearest bus stop.

A bus shelter in a raging rainstorm is alone in the universe as being a quintessentially miserable location. A piece of mass-produced metal that must have been commitee-designed simply to incorporate this many bad ideas. In a miricle of engineering, the only part of the roof that keeps water out is the centre, affording dryness only to those prepared to stand surrounded by shivering, dog-faced people. State of the art non-functioning lights act as small conduits, funneling rainwater onto a lucky few. Brand-new perspex windows with holes kicked in them by highly-trained experts,are strategically positioned at face and genital level for maximum discomfort.

But surely there must be some silver lining to this misery shared between people. A chance for conversation, maybe friendship to be struck up; some gallows camraderie?

People huddle underneath the shelter through an unconscious atavistic instinct to share body heat, but are repulsed by each other. So we end up standing, deperately trying not to make eye contact, close, but divided, like a little pack of grey, damp sausages.

And that was my week.