I've been reading Harper's Magazine for some time; usually to while away the hours at my job in the town stationery store and keeping myself entertained by the writings of Joyce Carol Oates (who writes a lot about randy professors). Harper's has been around for what seems like millenia. It is one of those publications which is perfectly acceptable to name-drop in polite company at, say, a fancy fête which serves a lot of brie and vintage clarets.

"Ah, yes...I read something about that in last month's Harper's," one might overhear, uttered dreamily amongst the aroma of freshly-prepared hummus.

As I leaf through Harper's I am entertained and rather glad to be reading something beyond Oprah's picks and the latest Bridget Jones installment. Does one feel smarter, reading Harper's? Not really...no more than I do reading my dad's back issues of The Economist. But the general consensus reigns supreme: it is more palatable to read an intellectual magazine than to read a more common publication, such as Cosmopolitan. Harper's is geared to educated people who want to enrich their minds and contemplate relevant issues, such as the deal concerning John Walker Lindh. Cosmo is perceived to be mere fashion and lifestyle propaganda with no worthwhile ponderings.

Americans currently live in a society run by "bobos," a term coined by NPR commentator Dvid Brooks, which identifies a new, hybrid upper-class: the "bourgeois bohemian." Brooks's book, "Bobos In Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There," examines the drastic revolution in American society throughout the 1990s, and notes a new tendency for the culture to marry bourgeois capitalism to bohemian ethics. Thie results, mainly, in a creepy businessworld of sensitive tyrants.

The cultural reigns of the classic WASPs, the hippies, and the yuppies have been usurped, but the residue of their collective influences has been scraped off the seat and re-moulded into a society of Advertising-As-Social-Movements and CEOs-As-Funloving-Criminals. The old stodginess and greed of the American bourgeois leadership has not REALLY been brushed aside, as many would like to believe - but the newly-discovered sensitivity toward racism and sexism as brought forth a new snobbery...a little something I like to call "Degreeism."

Brooks suggests that Americans have changed into a society of elevated awareness. More baby-boomers attended post-secondary education than ANY previous generation; people have learnt from the prejudice of the 1950s, the anarchy of the 1960s-1970s, and the gluttony of the 1980s. They now stand poised on the brink of a new revolution which embodies both mindsets. The children of the baby-boomer generation are now adults who are eager to both admire and criticise the follies of their parents and grandparents.

They're re-arranging semantics to demonstrate sensitivity toward people who probably cannot spell, anyway (i.e. "womyn" and "chairperson"); they resent archaic racial and sexual stereotypes; they resent people who do not wish to take care of themselves and the environment. Gone are the guilt-free days of eating Cool-Whip out of the tub in a drunken stupour.

Brooks argues that we have, instead, modified our collective unconscious snobbery to exclude those who have not yet achieved academic Nirvana. Everything Bobos do now - whether it be going on holiday or purchasing groceries - must contain some element of education; some sense oh utilitarian achievement to provide them with the illusion that they are doing something out of merit or something for spiritual gain. This has also come to include sexual intercourse.
 

"...Bobos do more than merely moralise what was once subversive. They are meritocrats through and through. So they don't just enjoy orgasms; they ACHIEVE orgasm. Sex in this literature is like college; it's described as a continual regimen of self-improvement and self-expansion...Lady Chatterly's lover becomes Lady Chatterly's empowerment counselor." (Brooks, p. 193)

I had noticed, for some time, that advertisements for companies such as Xandria (which specialises in "sexual aides") had been featured prominently in not only "educated" magazines such as Harper's, but also in catalogue promoting earthy products and culturally-diverse paraphernalia. These tasteful advertisements for sexual-instruction videos take great strides in differentiating themselves from, say, "Deep Throat." The covers for these usually feature some kind of Hindu temple graphic, exotic fonts, and/or an Asian woman deep in the throes of passion with some white dude. Somehow it is more acceptable to watch these two people having wild sex if it is advertised as having "loving real-life couples and tasteful nudity," than it is to have brazen bare tits blazing across the cover. If an element of exotica happens to be included, or someone mentions haute literature as the Kama Sutra, somehow dirty, kinky sex is instead considered a "learning experience" and no longer becomes taboo.

The same goes for other sexual aides sold in such catalogues. They are no longer considered commodities of sin, but rather serve as happy guides for exploring your own personal path to sexual bliss and higher spiritual understanding with your partner. The language of these adverts attempt to convince the crowd reading Harper's that they should be happy - nay, OBLIGED to purchase environmentally-friendly dildoes and organic, gluten-free genital pasta. This is the most brilliant marketing scheme to come along since the Burma-Shave billboards.

It's groovy to know that there is a company out there as hep as Xandria, which is more than happy to fulfill your deepest fantasies and provide them for you in discreet, plain brown kraft paper. Your individual needs can be satisfied by Xandria's sex-ploration toys. But what is the real message in these Harper's adverts? Why is Xandria advertising in the back of such highbrow magazines in the first place? Xandria also advertises in Cosmopolitan and Redbook: the usual literary fare for handy sex tips.

Being the curious sort, and as a responsible reader of both Harper's AND as an occasional peruser of Cosmopolitan, I decided to see how Xandria's business homepage markets its home products. Do they cater toward the horny Cosmo crowd? Or do they cater instead towards the intellectuals who feel compelled to know everything there is to know about vibrators? They do, after all, seek both clientele.

Xandria provides us with an informative lecture about the history and etymology of the dildo (corruption of the Italian "dilettante", meaning "to give pleasure"). I'm not entirely all that certain that the Cosmo customer wishing to purchase said dildo really gives a rat's ass about how the ancient Greek women used them when men were off to war. But the Harper's crowd might appreciate these snippets of history and compare them to the plot of "Lysistrata," and how they, too, emulate the essence of the ancients in the provacy and responsibility of their own homes. The educated Harper's crowd realises that the random sex of the 1960s and 70s led to AIDS (something the ethics of Cosmo frighteningly overlook). 

Interestingly, however, Xandria includes this in their history of sex toys:

"The first electric vibrators appeared in the late 19th-century, still camouflaged as therapy for hysteria and sold only to doctors. But as the years passed, magazine advertisements began offering vibrators to women for self-treatment of hysteria at home. In 1918, Sears Roebuck touted one vibrator as a "very satisfactory...aid every woman appreciates." And an advertisement in a 1921 issue of "Heart's" magazine urged men to buy the device for their wives to keep them 'young and pretty' and free from the scourge of hysteria."

So what is Xandria doing with sex, NOW? It's presenting it as a new kind of euphemism by camouflaging it as education. Suddenly it doesn't feel as if one is shopping for something naughty. It feels as if Xandria aspires to be your personal, understanding comrade, in your personal quest for getting off in the best manner possible. You, the uneducated, must have these products in order to discover your needs. They are your textbooks. It's necesary to want more. It's alright to want to explore. It's natural. It's fun. George Michael knew what he was talking about! 

There is a new emphasis on community, and Xandria is going to be right by your side, every step of the way, through the uncharted regios of vibrators and edible chocolate body paint. In a sense, these advertisements are in and of themselve masturbatory aides....FOR THE INTELLECT. One is made to feel a new, profound sense of duty - not only to use these products, but also to know everything there is to know about them. It's research for the randy - graduate school for the horny. 

Orgasm, as Brooks so pointedly recognises, becomes creepily equated with some sort of hierarchical status. If getting an erection is like getting a master's, then having the Big O is like getting your doctorate.

Advertisements such as Xandria's cater toward the spohisticated and snobby lot who want to feel as if their forays into sex play are not solely for sheer pleasure; but rather that each "journey" to "achieve orgasm" must be a learning experience to enlighten them. These companies prey on residual feelings of guilt springing from old taboos. Now that Harper's allows these adverts to grace their hallowed pages, sex toys and tasteful porn (featuring strains of sitar music for authenticity) become socially-acceptable. The couples in the advertisements are often, as Brooks notes, also rather ugly...purposefully used to sway any overt notions of "Whee, I bought this sex video to get off on that hot mama." 

I can guarantee you that 70 years ago Harper's wasn't advertising hysteria aides.

What has happened to our culture, that it has become socially-acceptable to have these advertisements featured, under the guise of being something constructive? Have we really removed sex and masturbation from taboo? Or have we created a NEW sexual taboo: the sex had for pleasure rather than for education? Is education to curb guilt spoiling the joys of spontaneous intimacy with your loved one? Or are we just fooling ourselves into thinking that getting off should have a rational explanation rather than purely feeling good?

All I know is, as I'm sitting here in the crowded computer lab looking at a webpage advertising vibrating nipple clips and faux pudendae, I cannot help but wonder what the next person is thinking. Perhaps if I whip out (if you pardon the expression) my latest copy of Harper's, they'll believe me to be a responsible and intelligent pervert, rather than a wanton one.