Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex sex.
I bet the presence of that word alone got you to read this column. I'd wager that your eyes gravitated right toward the three-letter noun/verb/adjective/interjection, you filthy animal.
Why do you think that is? Is sex a novelty to you? Is it something taboo? Am I being risqué and courageous for talking about it so publicly? How many questions can I ask in a row before you start to get annoyed? Six is probably too many, right?
Anyway, with all the sex in The Spectrum lately, you'd think that I was writing for Playboy magazine instead of a college newspaper. Not that I'd complain about that.
Be honest. Think of all of the other topics I could've written about: Egypt and the ongoing protests in the Middle East, Obama's budget proposal, Christopher Lee's empty seat in Congress (wait, never mind, that's about sex), UB 3030, or the Sabres' late playoff push, among many others.
Would any of those topics garner even close to the number of interested readers as this column, with the word ‘sex' printed seven times at the top? Should I ask another string of leading rhetorical questions?
Here's another wager: I'll bet that most students at this school could tell me more about what's happened on MTV's Jersey Shore this season than they could tell me about any of the topics I listed before.
Is that necessarily a bad thing?
Probably.
That's not anything new, though. MTV has been selling sex to kids since the early days of Madonna. And apparently, The Spectrum is trying to get a piece of the pie, too. If you read Editor in Chief Andrew Wiktor's Feb. 7 column, maybe you'll understand why.
That's actually why I'm writing this column. The past couple of issues have done well. We're suckering all of our horny readers into some prime advertising dollars. And the advertisers are loving it, too.
The advertisers themselves do the same thing. Turn to page seven of today's issue for proof:
See that girl in the ad for the Villas? All the girls at the Villas look like that. That's how they all study, too, with their heads resting on their books, as they let the knowledge absorb into their heads while they smile at you and concentrate on looking hot. They're waiting for you there. Call today to talk about a lease.
Think twice, though, before you rag on us for allowing sex to dictate our actions. I've asked enough questions, so it's time for you to ask yourself:
Is there anything I do that is not based on sex in some way?
An anthropology major once told me that any form of creativity or expression – whether it be playing music, writing a story or a column or a book, painting, drawing, acting, playing a sport, etc. – is really just an evolved mating call. I liked that; it's more romantic than how the monkeys do it. But it also trivialized everything that I do.
So even if this column was about Egypt or Obama or the Sabres, it'd really be, at its core, about sex.
When I think about that idea, I often ask: I do all of this just to get some action?
So be it.
E-mail: luke.hammill@ubspectrum.com
This article is a piece of satire. It should be taken as such.
