I need someone to explain this to me please...
I spent the last week getting to Florida and back so I could teach Friday, Saturday & Sunday of last weekend. I also gave a talk on "How to Find Your Creative Voice in an Over Stimulating World" on Thursday evening at the South Florida Guilds meeting.
During the 2000 mile drive from Albuquerque to Miami I drove through some of the most conservative areas of our country. As I was traveling along I started to see a very interesting pattern. I tend to drive through the center of the country a great deal and most of those states are considered pretty conservative. As I passed through these last few states I noticed something strange.
What has struck me as an odd dichotomy is the very real fact that there are more XXX rated Adult Super Stores in these Ultra-Conservative, Religious Fundamentalist Republican states than I have ever encountered in any liberal state that I have visited
My perplexed state comes from a very real double standard that is being represented. How is it that these states that lay claim to be so morally and religiously superior to the rest of us heathens, have more billboards touting the damnation that a woman will incur is she dares to have an abortion and yet have HUGE billboards for strip clubs that "bare all" & XXX rated video stores with 1000's of the hottest titles and massage parlors that I am assuming are not actually giving massages.
How do the people who live in these states reconcile these two diametrically opposing points of view? Do the inhabitants of these states find it acceptable to have such establishments open for business and having these billboards seen for all who travel along see their moral two-faced lives?
Now here is the major caveat to these observations, to me it seems that the majority of these establishments are placed along the highways so that maybe the locals can claim that it's the travelers that are passing through that visit these businesses. But as I was driving, I actually took the time to take an exit or two and look at the cars in these lots and I was not surprised at all to see that majority of the cars were locals plates.
I find the moral dilemma here a fascinating one for sure. I would truly love to understand how the strict moral right can reconcile this issue for me in a way that does not demean and belittle the moral values that they scream so loudly about.
6 comments:
It's amazing, right? Driving I-75 from Lake City to the Turnpike in Florida is like stepping through the looking glass. I can't explain it, Anne. I can only say that I have observed this dichotomy and I think it speaks loudly about the number of individuals who are so repressed by their ultra-conservative families and neighbors that they must act out by pushing the envelope of decency on the other side. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much "middle ground" down here. Best to just drive as quickly as you can through those areas without sacrificing your own safety.
I've driven across the US a couple times now, so I know what you mean. Strangely enough, those sorts of stores were also fairly abundant in a couple strongly Hasidic communities in upstate New York. In a weird way, I think it's actually consistent with the "ultra conservative" male view of women as unequal... as somehow lesser objects to "serve" them. Thus, the disrespect for women's rights.
It's sad and creepy. I agree with Wendy - get through there as quickly as you can.
Brigitta, I think you hit the nail on the head. The sadist note on this are the numbers of conservitive women who feel that is their station in life. They even vote against women's rights. Some real brain washing is going on.
Well not only in the USA but in The Netherlands too I found that the most conservative religious groups are sometimes the most hypocritical too.
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that a sin for them is not necessarily a sin for me. But at the same time I judge them at their own standards. And it is much easier to cross a boundary if there is not much room...
It'a a very simple reconciliation that occurs in these areas.
People refuse to be judged by what they do in their own bedroom. They are vehement about their personal privacies. And this carries to the local xxx convenience mart.
The problem they have is when they start to peer into their neighbor's bedrooms and see them doing something they never thought to do...and then they judge people by their own very small view on the world's moralities.
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