Symbols of our vulgarity

In a world where vulgarity is mainstream you’ve got to hand it to the Chinese; they ban it, no mucking about. No gangsta types clanking around in gold chains, no Chinese Kardashians buying big backsides from plastic surgeons and showing off lives of pointless extravagance on TV, and no Chinese teenagers wandering the streets vomiting drunk at night in search of what they imagine is adult life. Adult life there is probably work.

Europe was once the source of sophistication, but it’s become tattered round the edges. As for America, look no further than the president, and beyond him to Hugh Hefner, whose son is hoping to resuscitate his deceased father’s brand.

With the bunnies of the past described recently as ‘‘bleach blonde and orange-hued’’, you’ll guess where I’m heading.

There must be deals to be struck between the young Hefner and The Donald, though Hefner senior styled himself as an intellectual, seeking ‘‘a quiet discussion on Picasso, Nietzsche, jazz, sex’’. As opposed to simply grabbing random women by the crutch, then, he bored them numb before going in for the kill.

I hold out little hope for the son’s mooted revival of Playboy Clubs, a fleeting novelty killed by feminism. Yes, women will do anything, but would they really line up today to wear dumb animal headgear and a fluffy tail?

The bunny symbolism is so obvious it creaks, the way Hefner’s joints must have even as he organised compulsory orgies in his dotage with his dormitory of live-in women. Women are there to hunt, those ridiculous outfits said; they are brainless quarry.

We’ve moved on from meat-eating poseurs like Hefner, who used to swan about in silk dressing gowns, with a pipe. Younger men have become neurotic about the carnivorous lifestyle. Instead of torturing themselves with jazz and Nietzsche, they opt for restrictive diets, weird beards, and exercise.

A sign of the times is Wellington restaurant Hillside Kitchen and Cellar, which will go vegetarian from September 4. You’ll still get steak and chips at Wellington’s Green Parrot cafe, where you may even rub shoulders with politicians, so long as you don’t ask them to pay for your kai.

Last December Kent Boyd received a $750 payout after a five-year saga that began with asking then prime minister John Key to shout him, and ended with being strong-armed out of the restaurant by Key’s security detail.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was equally unfortunate this past week, asked to leave a Virginia restaurant because of who she works for. I wouldn’t be surprised if diners hurled their burgers at her in light of the ongoing nastiness toward migrants that is his government’s signature tune. I may be overcharitable, but I sometimes think even she gags a little when she fronts for Trump’s outrages.

In China, not having easy internet access to vulgarity and porn on an epic scale seems to have left people with a relatively innocent imagination. As evidence, there’s been what their government’s anti-pornography office calls ‘‘vulgar’’ videos online of young women eating ice cubes, thus inducing ASMR, or ‘‘automatic sensory meridian response’’ in viewers.

Western researchers have found that 85 per cent of ASMR viewers actually tune in at bedtime to trigger sleepiness, while a mere 5 per cent are sexually aroused. Possibly these are the workers in the anti-pornography office, so sated with Western deviance of all kinds that any truly novel fad strikes them as kinky, including the ice cubes in a glass of soft drink.

I picture their orgies and am delighted.