Sometimes - very rarely, but just sometimes - it's possible to stumble upon something that pierces the jaded, seen-it-all knowingness of the age and causes a shudder of outright revulsion. It’s quite hard to come by these things, unfortunately, as our digitally-enhanced desensitisation kicks in.
I occasionally wonder (and worry) about the accelerated sexualisation of young people. I mean, if the internet age is all you've ever known then there must be a high chance that you're one terribly twisted soul.
As a plethora of warped imagery and sickly ideas bombard the fragile senses, disfiguring social and sexual expectations, the gap between "may I hold your hand?" and "may I hold your head above the toilet and give you wee kidney digs with a paddle as I slake my fell desires…..please?" must be frighteningly small. It used to take years - years - to persuade a girl to do that sort of stuff, I imagine.
Anyway.
"A restaurant in London's Covent Garden is serving a new range of ice cream, made with breast milk. The dessert, called Baby Gaga, is churned with donations from London mother Victoria Hiley, and served with a rusk."
It’s no big deal, right, but I find that absolutely minging. I felt my tummy lurch when I first read those words (many months ago), a proper queasy feeling. Something about it makes me feel clammy, discomfited and sick.
The man behind the scheme, Matt O'Connor, said: "if it's good enough for our children, it's good enough for the rest of us." Matt? Die.
I do the sums:
Ice cream = good
Breast milk = good
So where’s the problem? There really shouldn’t be an issue here, but breast milk ice cream simply doesn’t add up to anything good – not in my head, anyway.
I worry when I lapse into unfathomable, illogical prejudice. I don’t want to be that man. I don’t like what it says about me that I should find this so disgusting - and I don’t like not being able to think my way out of a failing.
Me: Read this.
Charlotte: What is it?
I don’t let it show, okay, but this kind of question always destroys me. What a terrible, terrible waste of words. If you read it then you’ll likely find out, hmm? [passive-aggressive smiley]
Me: It’s a thing about breast milk ice cream.
Reading….
Charlotte: Oh, but that’s really properly revolting.
Vindication. Or that’s what I’m telling myself.
In any event, it was nice to find something that made me feel sick; something that made me feel something, or anything much at all.
In any event, it was nice to find something that made me feel sick; something that made me feel something, or anything much at all.
