Talking shit

An odd thought has possessed me of late. Not that long ago, I happened to catch a bit of radio program called "Love Line". The general premise is simple; pair an actual doctor with some glib "everyman" type personality and have them answer calls from people experiencing issues primarily related to their sex lives. Often they will also host some celebrity or rock group who will assist in "helping" the poor bastards calling in. It's been around for a while and if memory serves me right, they even made a fortunately brief attempt to translate it into a show on TV.

I have mixed feeling about the Dr. Drew, who has become quite famous off of pontificating to the romantically befuddled. Often he does recommend seeking specialized help, communicating clearly with others, and provides an outside opinion about the severity of the caller's concerns. Those would comprise the positives. On the other hand, it seems that whenever the subject strays beyond the strictly medical, he's quick to pass normative judgments based upon his personal relationship preferences. The man is bloody squeamish should anything remotely kinky be mentioned and he's quick to condemn anything outside of "traditional" monogamy. To me, those are some decidedly serious negatives for someone ostensibly working to help people sort out their sex lives.

One of the very first things that were communicated to me when I entered into this field of retail marketing was that one could not afford to be judgmental of the tastes of the consumer. As soon as you make the slightest indication you perceive someone as a deviant, you have not only put them on the defensive, but you've also destroyed whatever trust and goodwill you had generated up to that point. If someone lacks the ability to treat a given fetish with aplomb, they have no business mucking about with the other person's sexual life; no matter how peripherally that contact is.

And from out of the swirling irritation at both the two men doing the show and the fawning stupidity/desperation of those calling in to place intimate details of their life into the hands of a smugly arrogant addiction specialist and his flying monkey, came forth the curiosity of just how much air it would let out of their tires to let someone like me behind the mike.

Heavens forfend they should ever get someone with experience dealing with a variety of sexual inclinations professionally outside of a clinical setting.