Out of the way

It's strange, how the world is filled with vice presidents. In American companies I get the impression that they like to have dozens of them, although there are probably only a handful except in enormous organisations. The United States itself, is really a pretty big organisation, despite the various cries for "small government" coming from conservatives. Over the years, they tend to approach the problem by appointing a few well-qualified people (for example, they went to school with the minister, or they play golf with him...) to a standing commmission to examine why there are so many standing commissions.

I was at a school which was organised into houses, like classic english "public" schools (so-called I think because the public aren't allowed in). We had two vice-captains in our house. One was appointed, and the other was elected. The elected one was unofficial, and got his post by convincing everyone that he had engaged in more vices than anyone else in the house (about 75 boys from 14-18). Most of these vices were against the rules, and a number of them, given he was not a legal adult, were also against the law.

Norway is a society that seems fairly down on vices. Alcohol is not illegal, but high taxes, and limited availability seem designed to discourage regarding it as part of everyday life. In Oslo you can get beer up to 4.7% alcohol content in supermarkets during the week until 8pm, on saturday until 6pm, but in some places only the nearest "vinmonopolet" - a government-owned monopoly that is the only place allowed to sell anything stronger - has beer, along with fairly short shopping hours, and in many cases just a counter where you ask for the assistant to fetch what you want from an invisible store.

Drinking in public is illegal. Someone told me once that there is a law that prevents people drinking in the park. But you only have to visit the park to realise that while it may be illegal, it isn't a very well-respected law. Smoking is prohibited in all enclosed places with public access, or which are workplaces. As far as I know they haven't gone as far as Melbourne, Sydney, or Los Angeles, forbidding it in various open public spaces such as beaches. But tobacco is extremely expensive, as is anything associated with smoking.

Prostitution is, I think illegal. Which, like everywhere else, is a law that apparently makes no difference at all - Oslo has an unofficial red-light district which is neither as "picturesque" as Amsterdam's, nor as depressing as those in Italy (which are generally a gloomy stretch of highway near town). Whether the prohibition actually provides the basis for a framework of corruption and protection, as it used to before Australian states legalised it and began to try and make it a clean, if not actually amazingly respectable or respected, industry, I have no idea.

Australia is a nation of gamblers - although in fact most people only gamble on being able to pay a ridiculously large mortgage one day (the dream of ownning a home is getting further and further from ordinary people , even those prepared to take on this huge financial burden), and on the Melbourne Cup. Like most places, Norway has a lottery, where the government takes money from people who probably can't afford it, and it has horse racing, trotting, and so on. There are also poker machines in pubs, although I don't even know if they have entire casinos.

Sex shops are legal (I presume there are assorted laws about pornography, but I have never really bothered to find out). Norwegians are meant to be, at the same time, extremely open and easy-going about sex, and extremely uptight about personal relationships. Actually they are just people.

As a western society, various companies are trying to sell things we don't need, and a fair proportion of those seem to think that adding a picture of naked or nearly naked women somehow conveys the message that, for example, one brand of plant food has been developed with a better research process than the other. (It's a made-up example, although I am sure that somewhere it could be discovered to exist).

More respectable businesses show naked people of both sexes. A recent poster campaign for a shopping center followed a naked couple as they had a baby, I guess to symbolise the impending (re?)opening of this lovable place.

They're either fooling themselves, or trying to make fools of us. Almost all the research says that women are generally not particularly interested in photos of naked people, and men are particularly interested in photos of naked women. So by adding some stuff that nobody cares about (the bloke), they appear to be respectable and about balance. Although it doesn't take a lot of thinking to realise that it's a cover for doing what everyone else does - using photos of naked women to appeal to a market segment.

I am not especially averse nor immune to pictures of naked women, in general. (I don't know if it's genetic, marked somewhere on the Y-chromosomes that inhabit my body, or a leaerned behaviour, or something else. I'm not that concerned about finding out). Unlike tobacco, alcohol, foie gras paté and electronic gadgets, sex is a fundamental requirement for humanity. Which is why social interaction is almmost universally considered necessary. That doesn't make it always wonderful, mean that anything that can be done should be done, or anything else. It doesn't seem at all clear to me why it is something that should be dangled in front of people to convince them to switch brands of lawnmower, or buy a ticket that statistically has no possibility of bringing untold wealth which can somehow compensate for a broken relationship by providing the guy/girl of some advertising fool's dreams. Although I understand why people seem to keep using it like that.

George Michael, Pope Benedict the latest, and Hugh Hefner, are all famous people who have suggested that (at least in certain circumstances) sex is a good thing. I'm inclined to agree with them about it being good, at least in certain circumstances. I am not so sure I agree about the particular constraints or freedoms each would suggest are important, but society is a balancing act.

But it is intriguing how often those who seek to impose their control on us, and particularly those who seek to impose some ethics-based system of self control, focus on sex as one of the important vices that we should be circumspect about.

And where does all this waffle come from? An article, in which an English sporting body changed its mind (having originally said it was OK) about allowing a club to be sponsored by a legitimate business, which has its retail outlets in prominent public places, because it is a "sex shop". (No, it doesn't sell sex, just things you can use for sex. Although there is probably not much you can't, with a bit of imagination - yet this has become a massive industry taking millions of dollars, euros, roubles, crowns, and so on).

I suppose it is reasonable to set some standards about what is an appropriate sponsor for a recreational organisation that involves children as well as consenting adults, especially one based on something as important as cricket is to the English. It just seems, as the quoted club official pointed out, a bit inconsistent coming from a league sponsored by various alcohol businesses and a gambling outfit.

Still, society is a balancing act. There are plenty of people who are offended by the existence of shops selling things whose purpose is, in their eyes, repulsive, unnatural, or exploitative. Although myself, I find pubs can be a positive influence, as much as they can be a destructive one. I suppose the same might apply to sex shops, although as far as I can tell they are neither, just more places that turn titillation into tills ringing as the punters put down their pelf in pursuit of a mostly delusionary dream. (Or was that betting outlets, or blogging sites selling an unlimited audience?)