Hard Sell

Today I walked a couple of miles down to the local ice cream/candy shop. Covering the distance isn’t good enough – I always need a pleasurable destination. Anyway, they have a new offering: Chocolate Coma (double Dutch ice ream, fudge, shaved dark chocolate and cocoa nuts). Hang on a minute: Chocolate COMA? Really? Couldn’t they have stopped at paralysis or something?

So you thought you lived in a liberated country that had pulled up its Puritan roots. Think again. Apparently, the association with depravity and hellfire (Decadence or Devil’s Food) isn’t working anymore to discourage us from chocolate. Now it’s severe physical disability or death (yes, I have seen Chocolate Suicide Cake).

But actually, these designations attract us, not scare us away. If it sends us to the hospital, the grave, and maybe eternal damnation, it must be pleasurable, right? Or intended to be. What’s the most common word you find in porn film titles? Do you think maybe it’s “sin," or variations thereof? I am not an expert in this area, of course, but I think it’s a safe bet.

Does pleasure always have to come with a correspondent unpleasant price? You would think so. And the higher the price, it naturally follows that the greater is the pleasure. So we pay the price, even if the experience threatens to leave us comatose. We were raised that way.

You’ve got to give the related industries credit for trying. How many studies have there been telling us that chocolate is good for you, or that you will live longer by drinking more red wine? But are these any match for about 15-plus centuries of Western-culture guilt trips, most of which now seem to be related to food? You be the judge.

At my current consumption rate, I should live for quite a while yet. But I think I know where I’m going in the end. Oops.