This is one of those videos that I think you should watch before I say much about it. There is something shocking about the end of it, something awful.
And yet the request by the young man in the video is a common one today, though it often comes in more subtle forms wherein people use one another in the most crass, utilitarian, and selfish ways. Do others exist merely to give you pleasure? Is this not often the message of cohabitation and sex without marital commitment?
Let me ask you one question about the ending of the video: why does what the young man says shock you?
Oh my gosh, I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach when he said that! He showed that he didn’t love her by wanting to “try her out.” Any parent would be upset by a man using their daughter for sex, housekeeping, etc.
There is no sexual freedom in letting a man have sex with you before marriage. You will probably just rack up sex partners and STDs and become bitter. When I was a student, I couldn’t understand how feminists could be so deluded about how men really thought. When my daughter is old enough to understand, I will tell her why men value sex less…cheap sperm, expensive egg. That’s sexual economics in reality.
Jennifer, this commercial sickened me as well. I want to point out, though, that “men value sex less” needs to be qualified when speaking to your daughter. For a woman can also look at sex as something just for pleasure or may use it to get a guy to commit to a relationship. In those cases, she does not value sex any more than a man using it (and the other person) for the same reasons. When we generalize (though it is unavoidable at times), it is easier for misinterpretations or misconceptions to enter into the discussion.
Unfortunately this is the, and if I may use a term you often use Msgr. Pope, “stinking thinking” that came out of the so called sexual revolution.
Notice how he is saying that “…she is everything I have ever wanted, and trust me I have searched.” Marriage is a selfless bond of love, not the selfish one that the world understands it today. I have many acquaintances that think this same way, and find no fault in it.
What a sad commentary on the trend of our society that Verizon or any company would stoop this low to promote their products.
The end of the video is shocking, partly because Verizon stoops so low equating the use of their products with the use of a woman. There is no comparison between the life-long commitment of marriage (not to be embarked on a”trial” basis) and agreement to purchase internet services.
It is also upsetting that it is in Spanish implying that the message would be better understood by non-Anglos.
How low has advertising gone? I don’t watch mainstream tv because of ads like this, the content of the shows offered, and the lies offered (as news) by the media.
I truly appreciate your posts as they always give me something on which to reflect and you always proclaim the Truth.
What the young man says, apart from the fact that the video is selling a product, is shocking in the fact that the young man has no fear of asking such a thing to the woman’s father, even though it was apparent that he was a bit nervous. Does, “head to the hills and run if you know what’s good for you” no longer exist even at the thought of such a request?
Egads! I think Verizon completely dropped the ball. They should fire their Marketing dept. Obviously, the commercial is vulgur and crude, but I can not believe that any idiot would try that Marketing tactic with the Hispanic community. Several years ago, there was another horrific commercial from the search engine Lycos (notice no one uses that any more). It was of a parent telling a teenager to turn the music down, then later the same parent being an invalid and being forced to listen to the same music. I had regularly used Lycos before that and dropped them completely after that horrid commercial. I hope that the Hispanic community will do the same.
I am more shocked by the Church’s response to Sister Jane Dominic Laurel’s lecture at the Catholic school in Charlotte.
Yeah, I am not in command of the details but it sounds strange and discouraging.
Shocking, indeed. But advertisers just use what we in society give them, And they speak to us in the language that they think we’ll understand. The shocking thing is not that the company or the advertiser would maker the commercial — it is that the society has sunk so deep that this makes sense from a business perspective. This kind of thinking is now the “common currency” of the so-called culture.
While i was watching it , i was thinking, ” this doesn’t happen much anymore, the respectful attitude to the father, the seeking of a blessing .” The archaicness of the concept , is why Verizon sees this as permissible to use for their ad. Most young customers would find the idea of virginity so preposterous, and even humorous, that they would not be offended. In fact , to try something out before you use it , is what makes sense to them. It illustrates the devolution of humanity, or how the secular( popular, ) world views it. People , love, sex , are just commodities ,to try to use, and discard if no longer wanted. Its tragic.