Sex is suicide: The peacock principle

Are we raping the planet in some cracked attempt to look hot?

Posted by Elsa Mary (Guest Contributor) at 12:31 PM on 19 Jul 2007

Read more about: sex | green living

Car enlargement guaranteed results Got it? You'll flirt and flaunt it. But the human drive to mate could be killing our planet and ultimately our species, according to Matt Prescott via the BBC. We're collectively thinking from the seat of our pants and using the wrong brain, so all of our little earth-saving intentions add up to vain fluffing, he adds. Why? Cheap energy and oil have given us new, ecologically toxic ways to compete for partners:

In a world of "bling", the last thing a car is used for is getting from A to B; it is a symbol of wealth, power and status, and a tool for enhancing a person's sex life ... If we cannot naturally restrain the ways in which we attempt to show off, because we want to attract the opposite sex, we need to take this into account and to develop fair and robust ways of making up for our own natural limitations and of taking carbon emissions out of the ways we compete with each other.

Following that argument, then how should we remove carbon from copulation? Aren't there already so many efforts to sex up sustainability? Hasn't catalog porn nearly gone green? Has the ecosexual not risen? Prescott, however, believes humans grope for that cup that runneth over, but we want not if we can waste not. Framing a good time in terms of "saving" yourself or anything else sure kills the mood.

Will humanity eventually earn the biggest Darwin award ever for self-extinction, or can we save ourselves simply by lusting for this Tesla instead of my best childhood friend's $150,000 Mercedes, and so on? Maybe we've got to see that Tesla ripped to shreds, like the blended iPhone, to crave it fully.

Sex and death are supposedly the easiest sells in advertising. Those two drives merge naturally as the globe heats up, so who's doing the limp PR job to get people goo-goo eyed over Gaia?

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8 Comments | Post a Comment

and then there are those black widows

This comment to Matt Prescott's essay is rather amusing, not least for the name of where the writer is from:
<<
Nonsense - anyone who sprouts ideas like; "we need to create robust ways of detecting, reporting and policing selfishness" is clearly daft. Green issues are extremely important; we don't need misguided comment like this to muddy the reputation of those who support environmental protection. It would be terrible to suggest that being environmentally friendly means having less fun in life and being less ambitious.
Richard Tanner, Dorking
>>

My own reputation is muddy enough. But I doubt anyone can accuse me of failing to miss an opportunity to mingle virtue with fun.

Actually, female animals have an alternative sexual strategy. Not only do they play around with the mighty fine, flashy males, who are likely not to turn out to be reliable long-term companions, but they also go after the more humble, diligent, sensitive types, who will want to hang on and take care of the larvae. Oops, I mean, the kids.

And never mind whose kids they actually are (wink wink), so long as the sweetly acquiescent guy agrees to raise them as his own.

How this translates into car-buying conduct is anyone's guess. Status and sexiness are obviously here to stay, at least for a long while. And yet one commenter says that he got a Prius, because his wife would not permit him to get anything more sexy! -- whatever that means.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 1:14 PM on 19 Jul 2007

Dave Chapelle said it best

"Men have nice cars. Not because they like nice cars, but because they know women like nice cars... If a man could f*** a woman in a cardboard box, he wouldn't buy a house."

by Sean Casten at 1:39 PM on 19 Jul 2007

One of the Driving Forces to the Precipice

Hey, all:

This should be no surprise, folks, Sex is a very strong drive. I was in a bird blind watching a turkey lek years ago, and watched a frustrated subordinate male copulate with a cow pie. Pretty strong drive.

Continuing to focus on the lowest common denominator, marketing people have understood this for decades. They sell sex and status as interchangeable themes. It is one of the essential ingredients of the phenomenon of consumerism, and in fact probably substitutes for sex and status in our psychologically messed up minds and times.

It is one of the forces that needs to be short-circuited to allow us to stop and turn away from the precipice. Otherwise it is like a brick on the gas pedal.

David
Sustainability For Life

Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!

by SustainableGreen at 4:08 PM on 19 Jul 2007

Public Relations

Obviously the Earth Girls need to step up, and lie to us if necessary, as they tell us how sexy a hybrid really is.

by odograph at 5:19 PM on 19 Jul 2007

Another part of the anti-drug hysteria

This has a lot to do with the war on drugs, especially on pot.

The whole work to buy/buy to live/live to work cycle that supports about 2/3 of the US economy depends on people being willing to stay on that hamster wheel and keep subordinating their sex drive into consumption in an attempt to make the wheel spin faster so they can get a nose ahead of the hamster on the next wheel over.

The 5% Project

by JMG at 5:42 PM on 19 Jul 2007

Thats why

Thats why I'm most interested in Electric Cars.

Since an Electric Hummer in California would be greener than a Prius.

Let em have what they want, as long as it's Green.
http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=377

by GreyFlcn at 6:50 PM on 19 Jul 2007

Sounds like he read my book

"In my view, climate change is an unintended side-effect of many of the ways in which we show off, such as driving over-sized cars, owning holiday homes and buying the latest electronic gadgets."

I'm glad to see this meme starting to take hold. However, his proposed solution is way off the mark. If we are going to "save the planet," it will have to be a side effect of how we seek status:

... but this does not mean we cannot foster co-operation and organise our social, economic and political activities in ways that allow us to align short-term competitive advantage with long-term sustainability
Where the temptation to go for short-term advantage is too great, we need to create robust ways of detecting, reporting and policing selfishness.

Now to kill the above meme that coercive enforcement of mass cooperation is the answer. The answer is to find environmentally benign status symbols. The market will produce what the consumer wants, status. The Prius is a high status car. Time to one-up it with a plug-in, that has an acceleration switch "men" can use to leave a rolling black cloud of burned rubber in the face of the Hummer driver stuck in traffic behind them... drool.

It would only cost $10bn (£5bn) a year to provide 1.1 billion people with clean drinking water, yet we currently spend $38bn (£19bn) on pet food and $1,200bn (£600bn) on the world's military.

And that is the way we human beings are. I have noticed a trend for dog lovers to own two dogs, and of course owning large pure bread dogs with high status pedigrees beats owning a small ugly mutt. I have also noticed a trend for single young guys (the ones I play pick-up basketball with) to own cute lapdogs instead of pit bulls. Smart move. Which is more likely to attract a woman over to pet it?

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 8:50 AM on 20 Jul 2007

I believe sex improves our health, even sex toys

I can not agree that sex can be wrong, only if it is not safe. Even masturbation or using sex toys is much better than nothing. So if you don't like real sex, use sex toys for your pleasure, and stay healthy.

by savweb at 8:57 AM on 05 Feb 2008

ADVERTISING POLICY

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