Friday, February 06, 2009

How desperate are newspapers?

This desperate.

The Omaha World-Herald -- which recently raised the ire of gay activists everywhere by refusing a same-sex wedding announcement for "business reasons" -- nevertheless seems to have found "business reasons" aplenty to run a rather (ahem) large ad for horny-making strips in its Thursday "Money" section.

BACK IN MY DAY, the high-school set was afire with tales of the miraculous properties of Spanish fly -- a magical potion that could get even the most zit-infested adolescent male laid. The tale less told, of course, was that it also could kill you
.

But Spanish fly is so 1970s, you know? And even in the '70s, you'd be (cough) hard pressed to find display ads for the stuff in even the wildest alternative rags. You know, the ones that had all the advertising for abortion clinics and concerts sponsored by NORML.

The times, they are a-changin'. Now it's the formerly staid old maid of Nebraska journalism that's making money off Americans' utter desperation to get their freak on. The newspaper that won't run words like s***, f***, a**, d***, P**** or even "poop" has discovered the go$pel of Stimul-x (TM), the postmillennial aphrodisiac that supposedly gives you all the horn dog with half the kidney damage, tummy rumbles, convulsions or death.

THE BUSINESS of newspapers -- especially now -- is business, and if there's a buck to be made, it's in telling Americans how to get laid. Or, at least, in selling them the belief they're going to finally get laid.

Oh, the taboos that tumble when the high and mighty realize they have a business model that's truly f***ed.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Stimul-X advertises on Sports Talk Radio all the time (I wonder why). It always amuses me that the implication is that the same acne-faced boys (and men) who aren't getting any can put strip on their tongue that makes them feel funky freaky will help them get some. I'll tell you what will help you get some: getting out of mom and dad's house, finding a REAL job, getting some friends and of course, joining yourself to another for all eternity in the Sacramental bonds of Holy Matrimony. The OWH is, of course, hippocritical here, but does that really surprise any one any more than the fact that our nation spends millions of dollars (including several hundred in Council Bluffs recently by some public officials) in an effort to find the Holy Grail that is, to quote the great Burgess Meredith in Grumpy Old Men, coitus uninteruptus? We have become a farce, a caricature of ourselves. God save us all.