Sunday, November 28, 2010

Dumbed down news

Two recent events have made me thing the news media has dumbed down in recent years.

I was on holiday in Koh Samui when Prince William announced he was going to marry Kate Middleton in 2011. Let me state I am happy for William and Catherine. Naturally this piece of news is a delight to hear and I wish them all the happiness in the world.

Yet can I move on after this announcement was finished? No, I couldn't since the media was relentlessly following this gold nugget for the next few days. The only news channel I could receive whilst I was in Koh Samui in my resort was BBC World News. I know the Beeb would report this piece of fact as the priority news bulletin, since it concerned the BRITISH Royal Family. Yet I'm disappointed how they treated this piece of news like a piece of tabloid gossip. Just read out the fact that Prince William and Kate Middleton are going to be married next year and move on.

But the BBC couldn't move on. I think they used every single reporter that was available to cover this story. From the University of St. Andrews, to RAF Anglesey to Kate Middleton's home to Kenya, there was constant speculation and gossip of what essentially what I class as a non-story - it doesn't really have an effect on the normal person and doesn't concern the long-term stability of the world. I'm very disappointed with the BBC News. You would think the BBC News, with its reputation of impartiality and credibility would now stoop so low to cover this story as a major news item. I know it is a piece of good news but really, after the first 24 hours, the Beeb should move on.

(Before you point it out, I know there is an irony of me writing about a non-news story which should be covered as news.)

The other story is Barack Obama getting a split lip in a Thanksgiving basketball game. The same rules apply with this story. It is a non-news story that has no major effect on the world or me.

I honestly think we as a human race have dumbed down enough to consider these two events as news. We should take a bit more interest in politics and economics but instead we are more concerned about celebrity weddings and world leaders getting injured. Doesn't this reflect the times?

Sunday, November 07, 2010

I believe Stephen Fry is right...

Stephen Fry, acclaimed emperor of Twitter and aficionado of all things great and beautiful, recently got into trouble with the opposite sex by claiming that women do not enjoy sex. That statement seems ironic coming from a gay man, which has been pointed out by critics. "What would a gay man know about women and their sexual desires?" cried out feminists.

Yet I believe Stephen Fry is right, in some sought of way. There will be women in the world who would have a sexual drive which would put rabbits to shame. On the whole though, women are less sexually driven than men. I don't blame women for that attitude, since it is just the way they are wired. In all species, it is the male who tries to sow as much as seed into as many females as possible, so they have to be as sexually aggressive as they can. That is what their genes tell them to do. For the females, their chromosomes tell them to pick the best suitors with the most desirable characteristics - strength, intelligence, etc. So females have to be selective in choosing their partners and tend to hold out until they are absolute certain their partner is the best.

Nonetheless, shouldn't humans have progressed to the stage where they shouldn't be listening to their DNA and control their own lives? Yes we have but still women still have a "conservative" view on sex. As I stated before and I will state again, women then to attach sex with love, which I don't believe is true. You can have sex without love and love without sex...

Sex with love = the perfect relationship
Sex without love = one night stands, prostitution, fuck buddies, etc.
Love without sex = Most marriages after a few years
No love or sex = single

For most men, I am frustrated there are fewer women who have the same attitudes towards sex as I do. In UK and US, the situation is better. There are ways to link up with people who like straight cruising or fuck buddies or one night stands through reliable means. In Hong Kong and I reckon most other Asian countries, the attitudes towards sex is still in the Dark Ages. Trying to link up with a lady who likes sex as much as I do is nigh impossible.

Of all the ladies I know in Hong Kong, I can only think of two women who I reckon will like sex as much as men do. One is a doctor and one is a nurse who does wear very sexy clothes outside of work.

Yet dressing up sexy and being interested in sex are two different things. For some women, dressing up sexy is not an indication they want to have sex. Sometimes they want to feel powerful, that they captivate men and put them underneath their thumb just because they are showing a bit of skin. Other times, they just want to spite other women by attracting more attention from men.

Before you say it, I'm not frustrated about women having these attitudes towards sex. I'm just frustrated I can't find the women who have the same attitudes towards sex like I do.