Person 1: Will you have sex with me for a million dollars?Person 2: Of course!Person 1: Will you have sex with me for ten dollars?Person 2: What, do you think I'm some kind of whore?Person 1: We've already established that, now I'm just haggling over the price.
From what I can gather of businesses marketing their Valentine's Day wares, most of the population apprently views its romantic relationships as a similar bargaining of goods in exchange for sex. Should you fail to produce a bauble or widget of significant dimension, we are warned by the ad copy, and your partner may decline the transaction and, in a worst case scenario, even terminate the relationship.
I suppose it isn't surprising that capitalist advertisers would believe such things. It's only natural for them to see all human interactions as goods-for-goods exchanges. And, of course, the demonstration of your personal material power is the jungle-capitalist version of a mating call. What better way to show your fitness to survive in the current environment!
....
That's really all I've got for the big day this year. For a bit of a follow-up on last year's post, I recommend Deborah Cameron's talk at last year's Marxism conference in the UK "The Myths of Mars and Venus," following up Cameron's book of the same title. (h/t)
