When Looking Becomes Shame

Justin Bieber

So I, I was reading this transcript, right, and the guy in it, he, he starts talking about how we process what our eyes do, and he uses this really wild analogy. He says, look, it is like going to a strip club. People go there, they pay their money, and they are literally just there to look. They are not there to find a wife, they are not looking for a relationship. It is just this, like, isolated visual thing. And he argues that, you know, you can be physically attracted to someone or something visually, but it is just, um, it is just biology. Like, you might not even actually want to touch them. The touch itself could be totally overrated or, like he says, a dead experience.

Roxanne

Wait, a dead experience? That is so interesting. Because we usually think of visual attraction as, like, the runway to action, right? But he is saying the runway can just, like, end. It is just a loop that starts and stops with the eyes. But, oh, my god, Justin, the strip club thing is, like, a perfect example of how we compartmentalize. We have built this entire, like, socially accepted zone for just looking, but then we get so, so, so weird about other kinds of looking.

Justin Bieber

Exactly! It is all about the zone, right? He is saying, what do your eyes get focused on? Some people, they sit and watch hot rod auctions on TV all day long. They watch cars. Other people watch baseball. Or, like, game shows. It is just where the brain, like, naturally anchors itself. He calls them visual appetites. And, you know, we do not judge the guy watching the Barret Jackson car auction for forty eight hours straight, even though his brain is totally obsessed with looking at metal and rubber.

Roxanne

Right, right. We do not call him, like, a metal perv. But, okay, so, so he takes this to this super trippy place. He does this, like, historical thought experiment about bird watching. Imagine if, like, back in the day, or in some other country right now, standing in the woods with binoculars staring at a blue jay was considered, like, a massive crime. Like, what if society decided bird watching was deviant and taboo? You would have these, like, secret, terrified bird watchers hiding in the bushes, thinking they are absolute monsters because they like how feathers look.

Justin Bieber

Bro, that is so funny but, like, actually kind of deep. You would have, like, the bird watching underground! They would be so paranoid. Your neighbor would want to show you a picture of a cardinal, and you would be like, oh, my god, keep that away from me, I am trying to stay clean. It just shows how much the, the, the label itself creates the shame, not the actual, you know, the actual act of looking. The eyes are just doing what eyes do, but society is the one that writes the script about what the eyes are allowed to enjoy.

Roxanne

Yes! And that leads right into his other experiment, which, oh, my god, I wrote this down because it cracked me up but made so much sense. The, the pav experiment. He says, what if we decided football fans were monsters? Like, football is just watching humans violently hit other humans, right? So what if we labeled those fans as a pav? Not a perv, but a pav. P, a, v. And suddenly, if you are a pav, you are deemed, like, a sick fucker on the street. People would be like, watch out for that guy, he is a football lover, he is into violence.

Justin Bieber

The pav! That is wild. But, I mean, it is true, right? It is a transfer of labels. If you change the word, you completely change the chemistry of the fear. And the guy in the transcript, he is talking about how this is especially brutal when you already have one label that is hard to carry. Like, he says, it is already hard enough to be gay in this world. That is fear number one. But then, if you are an adult who has these, like, visual attraction issues to younger ages, now you face two threats. You have got the gay label, and then you add the word perv. So you are a, quote, gay perv. It is like a double fear cage.

Roxanne

Ugh, that sounds so incredibly heavy. Like, you are just totally cornered. Because where do you even go? He talks about how you can't even go to a therapist because you are too scared they are going to judge you. The media, the politicians, the psychologists, even, like, your own neighbors. Everyone has you labeled as a monster. It is like the state versus Roxanne Powers, you know? It is like Hogan taking on Andre the Giant and King Kong Bundy all at once. You are just completely outnumbered in the courtroom of public opinion, and it totally paralyzes you.

Justin Bieber

Yeah, Hogan against Andre and King Kong Bundy! You cannot win that match, man. It is a three on one handicap match. And that is why he says he has never exposed himself. Like, he has spent his whole life, forty eight years, basically living in a bubble of secrecy because the paranoia is so loud. When you have no safe place to talk, your brain just starts, like, manipulating itself. You start judging your own thoughts, twisting them, and you get stuck in this loop of absolute terror. It is just a really, really hard way to live.

Roxanne

It really is. It makes you realize how much of our sanity depends on just having one person we can tell the truth to without the labels crashing down on us. But, yeah. That is, uh, that is some heavy stuff to think about. I guess that is it for today. Talk soon.

Justin Bieber

Yeah, peace out.