Easier to Watch

What is it with us these days? We are watching people doing things that we traditionally do ourselves. It started out with sex. Video normalized pornography to suburban homes and the Internet made the consumption of it completely private and common. Now, everybody watches pornography without hesitation. Next it was cooking. Public television started this abnormality then came Food Television. It has evolved from the more informative Julia Child shows to the purely entertainment of Emeril Lagasse. Julia Child knew what she was doing but fail every now and then. The way she dealt with the failures made her endearing. Lagasse does not know how to do half of the things that he is supposed to be doing but no one noticed; everybody just want to watch and hear him say bam! It is wrong to say cooking shows turned food into porn but they certain turned cooking into porn. It is no accident that restaurants now have open kitchen with bars situated like ringside seats. Restaurants have become strip joins. The latest thing is poker: a game men played in basements when they did not want to have sex with their wives. It is now a spectator sport and we watch with the highest level of vicarious emotion. Finally we do not have to do anything anymore. TV is taking care of our needs for sex, food and marital space. What more can a man want?