Seeing Red
Red has always been a controversial color. Red flags make bulls crazy. If you are especially angry, you see red. If you are an irresponsible driver you do things like run red lights. If you make a faux pas you might blush red. Redheads have been intriguing to men over the centuries for all sorts of reasons, most of which are too obvious and risqué to mention. If you exclude white, the most commonly patriotic color on national flags is red, with 14.3% of all national flags having some amount of red in evidence. And let’s face it, few colors have as many hues that you can name as red does, ranging from crimson to magenta. I once recall flying over the port of entry in Bayonne as we were landing in Newark. There were thousands of new cars parked there awaiting transshipment to some dealer or another across the Eastern Seaboard. The cars were predominantly white and silver with black being the next dominant color. But every 20 or 30 vehicles there was one little red one, which would pop out and distinguish itself from the rest. It was a telling and impressive sight that spoke to our automotive preferences and yet gave a hint that some people just gotta go red no matter what.
We all know that red has become the color of conservative America and specifically the color of MAGA in hats and other apparel. The opposite of red I guess must be blue, since blue has become the liberal badge of honor. Coincidentally enough, red is the color of both Russia and China and even anchors the flag of Iran. Strangely symbolic is the fact that both the flags of Ukraine and the EU are blue and yellow without a trace of red evident. The last century’s fascists preferred lots of red to blue with Germany, Japan and Italy showing their red tendencies. you can’t accuse them of too much today for that because nations do not easily change their colors or necessarily imbue their colors with as much meaning as I am stretching to do here. Nonetheless, I think it meaningful that many of the mainstream democracies like the U.S., the U.K. and France try to balance the red and blue. Is that an accident or did someone at some time find a subconscious need for that balance?
So, what is making me see so much red in the world today? No, it is not politics really. While you can’t even say the word “red” anymore without someone inferring a political connotation, let us go back to the oldest profession and its orientation towards the red lights over their doors. Why are red light districts the places where prostitution resides? Even though the term “red light district” was only first mentioned in writing in 1882 by some women’s temperance league in Dodge City, Kansas, as a derogatory designation for the vamping of illicit sex to the offense of the God-fearing in the community, we know that brothels over the ages have used red lights to advertise their wares. Some recall railroad workers in the western U.S. carrying red lanterns when they want off for their evening fun, just so their pals could find them if they ran into trouble (seems to me like trouble is exactly what they were looking for).
The most well-known established place of prostitution and all other manner of vices is Amsterdam. That’s actually pretty funny given that the Dutch are such buttoned-up kind of people. But my theory has always been that the more repressive a society, the more likely they are to need outlets that congregate in some manner. To me, the sexual abuse at British “public” schools always seemed to be a form of this. And, I found the same to be the case when traveling in Brazil and staying at the legendary Caesar Park hotels in São Paulo and Rio, which were Japanese-owed hotels that catered to the every wish of their visiting countrymen from Japan. Japan was actually in the habit of redlining the prostitution districts as a means of controlling their spread and it is only logical that redlining turned them into red light districts.
Prostitution is mostly prohibited across the world, probably less for prurient reasons and more to prevent the spread of venereal disease and prevent sex trafficking and child abuse. But there are countries that are abolitionist in allowing the sale of sex and not the purchase, or the sale one-off but not the organized sale thereof (I guess organized crime being the concern). There are also some that decriminalized prostitution altogether, sometimes even legalizing it and regulating it for the common good. This seems not unlike the overall global path of recreational marijuana usage, the classic and supposed victimless crimes.
So, why am I seeing so much red today? Well, its all Elon Musk’s fault I think. That’s right, the richest man in the world is once again in my head in a very unusual way. I cannot ever remember making a tweet on Twitter, but I think some long time ago I did set up a Twitter account. That presumably makes me one of the 250 million Twitter users that get bragged about first by Jack Dorsey and now by Elon Musk. I don’t even have that little blue Twitter bird app on my phone and I never go onto Twitter directly. But I do, for some Twitter marketing reason, get emails from Twitter quite regularly. I’m sure I could shut it off if I tried, but I get stuff from Lawrence Tribe, George Conway or Preet Bharara and other notable people who are somehow politically active in the national dialogue. It always seemed like a worthwhile momentary glance to see what they were tweeting, so I kept those email channels open.
Suddenly, and without either notice or any change in my personal habits (no, I did not suddenly start surfing pornography sites), my twitter feed suddenly became infested with middle-aged women showing me pictures of their breasts and nipples. Note that they didn’t show more than that, and I do recall from my high school Penthouse-viewing days that there is more to show. They make some dirty comments to me trying to entice me to open their tweet. Note that Lawrence Tribe, George Conway and Preet Bharara are still there, but they are lodged in between the cleavage of these various aging beauties. What is up with this?
I have determined that this change coincided EXACTLY with Elon Musk taking over Twitter and firing all the content control people. So far I haven’t seen any blue check chicks, but then he hasn’t yet activated his $7.99/mo version of that preferred client roster. Maybe Elon has decided that he wants to rebrand the political world by destigmatizing red and making pornography more of a blue thing. One way or another, his abject elimination of controls on this heretofore important social media vehicle has had the immediate impact of doing the opposite of what the Evangelical Community would presumably want. But then again, those damn Evangelicals are always doing things like having dalliances and then garnering forgiveness as they find God and repent. I fully expect Elon will be singing “Praise the Lord” as he tries to walk back all the damage he has already and so quickly done to Twitter and perhaps altogether for his purchase of Twitter. Let the healing begin and maybe I will start seeing less red.