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The problem I see with online dating is that
it always automatically involves this aspect
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of self-commodification or self-manipulation.
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When you date online you have to present yourself
there in a certain way putting forward certain
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qualities.
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You present an image of yourself.
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You focus on your ideal of how other people
should perceive you.
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But I think that’s not how love functions
even at the very simple level.
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And so called I think the English term is
endearing foibles, elementary ingredient on
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love.
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You cannot ever fall in love with the perfect
person.
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There must be some tiny small disturbing element
and it is only through noticing this element
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that you say but in spite of that imperfection
I love him or her.
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This is why a funny story.
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They made in Europe, not in the United States
some decades ago when the two big modeling
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stars were Claudia Schiffer and Cindy Crawford.
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They made in France I think a big opinion
poll like whom would you prefer to live with.
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Cindy Crawford won.
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You know why?
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Because of that birth, that particular small
mole here, whatever, birthmark.
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The idea was Claudia Schiffer is too perfect.
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There must be some tiny element of imperfection.
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And now let me tell you a totally crazy personal
experience which happened to me.
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I was talking once in a faraway country somewhere
in Latin America.
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Of course I will not say where.
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A still very attractive lady sexually, late
thirties, who told me of a strange thing that
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happened to her.
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She told me that when her last lover saw her
naked before making love that he told her
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if you were just to lose three, four pounds
your body would have been perfect.
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And I told her just don’t lost three or
four pounds.
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Because, you know, like if she were effectively
to lost three or four pounds she wouldn’t
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be perfect.
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She would just be plain.
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The illusion of perfection is created precisely
by this excess.
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It’s too much but then you imagine or without
this it would have been perfect.
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If you say – if you take away this excess
you don’t get perfect, you know.
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This is what in psychoanalytic theory we call
object cause of desire.
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Not object of desire, object of desire I think
in this case is a woman or a man or whatever.
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But the cause of desire in the sense of what
makes you fall in love is always a sign of
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imperfection.
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So that’s for me a big problem in I don’t,
I’m not doing it so I don’t know enough
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of it how to include into online dating this
element of contingency.
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I don’t find a problem with online dating
in the idea that you are not spontaneous,
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et cetera.
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Listen, we are never spontaneous.
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If there is a big lesson of all those Big
Brother and other reality shows it’s that
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even when we are just ourselves in private
life we always play being ourselves.
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And I think this is in a way a good thing.
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I mean when people say no, you know, all these
actor studio methodology – express yourself,
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be who you really are.
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Well I think most people are monsters secretly.
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I think – I like to live in a society where
you do whatever you want.
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Just please don’t express yourself too much,
you know.
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I like people who know how to control themselves.
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I believe in proper manners.
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So this aspect of health controlling that
you stage a certain image of yourself, this
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doesn’t bother me with online date, no.
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I even think now, I mean, if you allow me
to conclude with another paradox.
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It would be so interesting to demonstrate
how precisely when we act in an apparently
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wild way, you know, like let’s say – it’s
not true but let’s say we are talking in
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a nice polite way.
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Then for whatever reason you get mad at me
or I get mad at you.
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And I explode.
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I start to swear using all dirty words blah,
blah, blah.
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Now one would have thought the this one.
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In normal conversation we control ourselves.
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Then when I cannot any longer control myself
I explode.
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No, I claim precisely this moment of explosion
are the most precisely trained structures
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artificial if you want.
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I notice this, you know how it’s a beautiful
anecdote, I like it.
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With my friends I notice that when we meet
in a group to discuss just to have fun we
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have to go through a certain ritual of humiliating
each other with extremely – it’s not for
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our viewers to know if you know like the usual
way we characterize its other which what I
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– it’s the bulk of stuff what I will do
to your mother, your dead mother, I will dig
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her out of her grave and do things to her
sexually.
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The most tasteless thing.
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Then after ten minutes of talking dirty we
tell to each other okay, we paid our tribute
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to ugliness.
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We got rid of it.
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Now we can finally be what we are and talk
in a nice polite way, you know.
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Again, what I like is that it is – we have
a certain perverse superego duty to talk dirty.
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And after you get rid of that we can believe
what we are.
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This is why I have always.
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That’s why I’m not practicing for sadomasochist
sexuality.
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I notice especially 15, 20 years ago because
they were close to my theory I met many sadomasicist
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lesbians.
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And I can tell you I never met nicer, more
kind girls or women.
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It is as if they were able to enact all the
dirty disgusting stuff out there so that then
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they could afford when you paid your tribute
to your superego to be nice, kind and so on
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and so on.
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So to do the lust joke in this series maybe
some viewers know it but I love it.
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I think this is one of my otherwise in my
series of boring repetitive jokes may be a
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better one.
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Where are we today with sexuality.
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The Guardian, the British newspaper, asked
me is romance still alive today.
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And my idea, my answer to them was let’s
imagine an ideal sexual situation today.
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Let’s say I meet a lady, we are attracted
to each other, we say okay, you are – all
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the usual stuff – your place, my place,
whatever we meet there.
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Then what happens then.
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I come with, she comes with her plastic penis
electric dildo.
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I come with some horrible thing.
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I saw it.
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It’s called something like stimulating training
unit, whatever.
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It’s basically a plastic vagina, a hole.
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But you can – it’s wonderful technologically.
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You can regulate everything.
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How much it squeezes you.
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How strongly it shakes and so on.
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So my idea of a perfect date is the following
one.
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We met.
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Then I put, she puts her plastic penis dildo
into my stimulating training unit is the name
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of this product.
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Into my plastic vagina.
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We plug them in and the machines are doing
it for us.
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They’re buzzing in the background and I’m
free to do whatever I want and she.
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We have a nice talk, we have tea, we talk
about movies.
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What can be – we paid our superego full
tribute.
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Machines are doing – now where would have
been here a true romance.
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Let’s say I talk with a lady with the lady
because we really like each other.
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And, you know, when I’m pouring her tea
or she to me quite by chance our hands touch.
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We go on touching.
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Maybe we even end up in bed.
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But it’s not the usual oppressive sex where
you worry about performance.
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No, all that is taken care of by the stupid
machines.
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That would be ideal sex for me today.
