In a world in which manifestations of hatred keep popping up, making it clearer every day that the human race is divided, feeling lost and hopeless makes sense. How can I enjoy the privileges of my life when I know that, just a few states away, families are being torn apart from one another?
It appears that I can't, that we can't. Instead, I—we—collapse. We self-medicate. We turn to excessive spending, drugs, and alcohol. All things that only make us feel worse.
When Viagra — sildenafil citrate — was tested initially as heart medication, its well-known properties for men were discovered. “Hallelujah,” said Big Pharma, and research ceased. However, in subsequent tests the same drug was found to offer total relief for serious period pain over four hours. This didn’t impress the male review panel, who refused further funding, remarking that cramps were not a public health priority.
The default pop cultural perspective remains that of the adult man, and from his vantage point, exposing adolescent female sexuality onscreen can feel predatory or perverted. These comedies have little interest in considering how those men will feel when they are transported into a girl’s bedroom. Girls’ feelings matter, too. And these girls feel so much.
Even if you're not aware of it, it's likely that your emotions will influence someone around you today.
This can happen during our most basic exchanges, say on your commute to work. "If someone smiles at you, you smile back at them," says sociologist Nicholas Christakis of Yale University. "That's a very fleeting contagion of emotion from one person to another."
But it doesn't stop there. Emotions can spread through social networks almost like the flu or a cold. And the extent to which emotions can cascade is eye-opening.
In the 2006 documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated, director Kimberly Peirce notes that her 1999 film Boys Don’t Cry was originally rated NC-17—which is considered the kiss of death for movies seeking a broad audience—in part because a main character, Lana (Chloë Sevigny), had an orgasm that was “too long.” Peirce speculates that the problem lay in Lana’s undeniable pleasure—“There’s something about that that’s scaring them, that’s unnerving them.”
In order to get right with ourselves, we have to see outside ourselves—and in order to do that, we need other people. Our survival depends on it.