My wife gets a lot of catalogs. You know the drill, you buy one thing on line, you get on the mailing list, and they send (more likely, sell) that mailing list to dozens of other resalers, who in turn pass it along again. When I was single, I used to actively cull these mailings, telling them to remove me, but the wifey actually likes getting catalogs. So now, we get a half dozen or more a day. And she actually browses the things almost on the same basis. As a result of this habit, she picked up on something I never would have noticed myself, buried in a catalog clearly geared towards housewives.
Between the page with the quilted duffle bags, and the embroidered shower curtain, without any fanfare or emphasis, was a page of sexual aids. Two kinds of vibrators, a couple of sexually explicit video tape libraries, and the obligatory male erectile dysfunction aids (in the housewife catalog, I presume, because the hubby would never get these on his own).
Now, this is the kind of catalog you might find in any home. It’s not something like Victoria’s Secret, that you would immediately hide in the lingerie drawer (or wherever you keep it out of the scope of curious kids – in my place, they go straight in the trash). This is the kind of catalog that might sit innocuously on the coffee table, for browsing during one of those wind-down moments. You may even be inclined to buy those embroidered shower curtains. So why the sexual aids and appliances? And why stick them right in the middle of completely unrelated items?
It’s almost as if the publisher is saying, “we know you aren’t being satisfied, and we are here to help.” They aren’t just selling the appliances, they are selling the idea of a “happy” housewife, who couldn’t help to be even happier with that fancy new vibator with interchangable tips. She need not worry about relationships. If her man doesn’t please her, here’s something that will. If he can’t “maintain his interest,” well, there is a cream, or a device for that too. There’s no need for her to worry about trying to actually make herself more appealing.
What are they really selling? Cheap “fixes” to deep problems that aren’t really going to be fixed by any of this. The result is eventually going to be a mindset that says, “if I can’t do it the easy way, I may as well blame it on someone else.” Once that particular line is crossed, the relationship is doomed. They are really only selling more discontent, and quite possibly a divorce. And they are trying to hide it amongst the embroided shower curtains.