Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Nothing is Wrong With Welcome Affection

With the holiday season comes another look at this Folgers coffee advertisement.



Eireann Michael Dolan wrote on her blog

Having spent so long in West Africa, where some tribes still practice familial marriage, he felt it was appropriate to leer at his now All-Growed-Up sister, because that is a custom he is now used to, and how long was he gone for? His sister looks 25.

And…

She puts the bow on him and tells him that his safe return from West Africa, where they definitely don’t have real coffee, is all the present she needs.

Then the parents come downstairs before the two have sex.

Some comments were left.

Heather Harmon…

Oh my god yes! I saw this the other day and kept yelling for someone to tell me if they were brother and sister or lovers. Or both.

Molly…

I think they did it BEFORE he went to West Africa and now they are in that awkward “Oops, I slept with my sibling but now it’s Christmas so I’m just gonna be cool” phase.

What do YOU think? I’m not talking about the other stuff she deals with about ad, just the sibling relationship.

I’ve written about bigotry like this before. People are too judgmental of siblings who have positive, affectionate relationships; they feel comfortable openly denigrating such relationships, as if all siblings should be mortal enemies or live like strangers. Not only do these people condemn siblings who have spousal relationships or who, like no small percentage of others, have experimented, but they assign any kind of affection between siblings to those other situations, which they clearly condemn. The message? Do not show your sibling any affection or warmth. That is sick, not siblings who have every kind of love together.

4 comments:

  1. I see what you've got going on here, and get why you might get bent out of shape over her comments, but... I think you're missing the fact that they're jokes. Just jokes.

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  2. I'm not opposed to a good joke, anonymous, but I'm tired of the bashing of sibling affection, both of kind shown in the ad and the kind that happens behind many closed doors, where some siblings love each other in every sense of the word, and fear that someone will figure it out and send them to prison... prison... for loving each other.

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  3. I can attest to the prejudice at showing even the slightest affection to a sibling. Before my half-sister and I was separated for a second time in my early teen years, we formed a bond due to hardship with our family. We were innocent, the affection was completely platonic, but other kids, mainly the ones my age, completely misunderstood our actions. I received bullying for being too close to my half-sister and in the end I conformed to social pressure. In public I became distant, and to this day I regret not standing up to the bullying because it felt like I was abandoning my little half-sister. I was probably around 12 around that time. That too became one of our hardships, my weakness that is. But her understanding, and unwavering loyalty and smile balanced it all out, and we came through. It wasn't much longer and we were separated. Strange and ironic how people felt that I was too close to my little sister and due to us overcoming that bullying, I developed even stronger feelings. I'm not saying it wouldn't have happened otherwise, but it might have happened later. Oh and btw, we're both adults now.

    ReplyDelete

To prevent spam, comments will have to be approved, so your comment may not appear for several hours. Feedback is welcome, including disagreement. I only delete/reject/mark as spam: spam, vulgar or hateful attacks, repeated spouting of bigotry from the same person that does not add to the discussion, and the like. I will not reject comments based on disagreement, but if you don't think consenting adults should be free to love each other, then I do not consent to have you repeatedly spout hate on my blog without adding anything to the discourse.

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