Marx Was Wrong

Love is the opiate of the masses.


I mean love in the sense of romance.

What is the meaning of life? Well, the world seems to say the answer is love.


But we live in a culture so saturated with impossibly complicated ideas of romantic love.

It's even more complex than gender I tell you... Gender has a starting point. But love, oh goodness, it's such a complicated topic.

What is love? And what is romance supposed to be like?

We have the idea that love is like oxygen, love is a many splendored thing, love lifts us up where we belong, all we need is love...





Feel a tingle down the back of your spine when you listen to the greatest love songs of our time all sung back to back? That must be love right?

Well if love is a feeling we feel when we feel a feeling we never felt before, then yeah maybe.


My concern though is what happens after all the feelings come into the open- Love is declared, love is reciprocated, and most of the time if it get to this stage (it's far more complicated than this) they end up in a relationship.

Now what?


Well looking at the clip from Moulin Rouge, the next thing was them having sex.

And this is what seems to be what our society says.

What's the purpose of having a relationship?

Hmmm. I don't know exactly, but according to the media, sex is definitely in.


Almost all the songs we're hearing today are about sex, from Katy Perry's Teenage Dream and Bruno Mars' The Lazy Song to practically all of Gaga's songs.

But it's not a new phenomenon.

Remember Vengaboys' Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! and Red Hot Chilli Peppers' Californication from a decade back?

And it goes further back to before I was born with Labelle's Lady Marmalade, Jefferson Starship's Miracles and Abba's Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) etc.


Yes Abba too.

Half past twelve
And I'm watching the late show in my flat all alone
How I hate to spend the evening on my own

Seriously, what did you think Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) was about?


I've been listening to songs about sex since before I was born.

But at least back then it was more subtle and you might not have realised the sexual undercurrents.

Now it's a little more blatant.

In your face with almost a billion views.

And it's not just the music industry.

Almost every show I watch assumes that once a couple gets together, they copulate.


Well maybe that's more a western idea, but what else is there to watch but American TV? Our local Chinese dramas are... drama... to a point where I can't stand watching them. Well most of them.

(Maybe I should finally try watching Korean shows. I must ask my friends if K dramas provide us with better model relationships.)


Look. I don't want sex in my relationship till I'm married.

But the current portrayal and thus understanding of romantic relationships does not fit my hope.

Thus I reject their mainstream definition of romance, but don't have a clear idea of a better alternative yet.

Not a bad parody of the video above. Thanks Dave.

Not all media is bad of course. But quite a bit of it is.

I no longer listen to love songs. Their portrayal of love is not what I agree with.

The Only Exception is one of the few exceptions, along with Falling In Love at a Coffee Shop.

Simple songs about the little things.


I just wish for more shows that are more simple, sincere, and true in their portrayal of love. Love does not need to be a fire that is out of control. It can be a gentle whisper. Like this:





We need more shows like Fighting Spiders and A Walk to Remember.

It should be norm and not the exception.


Look at the parting scene between Peter and Sam starting at 5:09 in this episode.





They don't kiss. They don't hug. They don't hold hands. Not even close.

But it is beautiful.


I'm sorry, but I think love is not in the blazing fire or the wind tearing up the rocks or the earthquake shaking the foundations of the mountains.

It's the gentle whisper.


It don't make good TV, but it makes good love.