The Dogged Pursuit of Equality

The graphic image you see here, shows a billboard which existed somewhere in Australia several years ago. It depicts a modishly dressed female controlling two naked men on a leash—as if they were dogs.

Images such as these arrive in the world at a particular time in response to historical energies. These things don't just happen. Rather—being the articulation of deep-seated emotions buried in the collective psyche and squeezed to the surface by the interplay of shifting forces—they happen for a reason. Now, in order to downplay anything resembling seriousness, you might wish to inform me that such things are only a hip, sophisticated, avant-garde "joke". And you might desire to make clear to me also, that only my want of sophisticated avant-garde hiptitude blocks me from understanding this, and from taking it in the proper spirit, and so joining the ranks of those witty avant-garde boulevardiers who toss these things off lightly with a glass of absinthe—or whatever the bloody hell they toss it off with!

Oh, bugger all of that! Listen, I'll tell you what. Here's the plan:

We shall design another billboard of the same size. On it shall be depicted a man wearing a black leather outfit reminiscent of an S.S. officer. We'll show this man holding a leash, and controlling two women—as if they were dogs. Picture to yourself those naked females, with their little fantails poised way up in the air, and their swingin' little knockers knockin' together pendulously. Got that?

All right, good! Next, let us install our new billboard directly across the roadway, opposite the original. So that henceforward, the passing stream of motorists and pedestrians will be administered the very same message with a double-sided treatment; they can swivel their gaze from one to the other, and back again, and the two hoardings will offset one another in a perfectly equilibriated equation.

Well, we all know what happens next. A gaggle of feminists finds the second billboard, and screams bloody murder about it, and demands that the horrid thing disappear post haste. But I would defer to their request on one condition only: that the original billboard across the way be likewise banished from the public eye.

I will not budge an inch; I will not bate a grain. Either both billboards stay, or both billboards go! That, my friend, is non-negotiable. End of subject.

But you know. . . the Larger Thing that I'm really talking about here, is calling the dogs off. Of course, you knew all along that I was talking about something larger, didn't you?

Mind you, we know perfectly well who let the dogs out in the first place! They did! But see, the problem is, they didn't let ALL the dogs out; they only let their OWN dogs out!

So in the name of consistency, under the sacred banner of No Double Standards, I INSIST (dogmatically if you will!) that ALL of the dogs be turned loose so they can run wild, wreak havoc, spread wrack and ruin, and knock over every dog-gone garbage can in every flea-infested alley from here to hell and back!

Yes, bring on ALL the dogs!!!!

OR . . . call off all the dogs!

Woof-woof!

Hey, I'm down with either scenario!

So what's it going to be then, eh? ;)