No Celebrity Necessary for Unsolicited Publicity

Several years ago, my in-laws were house-hunting. My FIL having been in the military, they had moved a million times and were not unfamiliar with the search for new digs and all its attendant problems and surprises. Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure that this one particular realtor caught them off guard.

The house was nice enough, I guess, but my MIL pointed out to the realtor that the master bathroom lacked a door. His response?

"Oh, you've been married long enough that you don't need a door on the bathroom."

Seriously. Not surprisingly, my in-laws didn't buy that house. In fact, I don't think they continued working with that realtor.

When did privacy become so cheap that a virtual stranger is comfortable telling you that you don't need a bathroom door? And it hasn't gotten any better.

Actually, it's gotten much worse.

I used to cringe watching sports on TV, knowing that the camera was at some point going to pan the crowd and zero in on some poor schmuck picking his nose or something. And I was always mindful of those cameras when I attended sporting events in person (not that that happened often). These days you might as well forget decorum; what fun is that? For every person who values his own little bubble, there's some intrusive idiot with a camera phone and a link to youtube, just waiting to pounce on the guy with the open fly or the lady with the bra strap slipping down her arm or the unfortunate soul tripping over his own feet or the weary mother dealing with a kid's temper tantrum. Is it not hard enough to endure these types of humiliations without having them displayed on the Internet for all the world to see? Beyonce couldn't escape it even after she begged her audience not to post her fall on youtube. (I once read a description of youtube as the evil genie that will never go back in the bottle. Got that right!) These are the same nincompoops who chat on their cell phones in the restroom, blissfully unaware that others in that same room really might not appreciate the sound of their bathroom activities being transmitted to the person on the other end.

And at whom do you aim the blame? There are all sorts of possibilities, but I think much of it should be directed at those who don't attach any importance to their own privacy, much less others'. Pam Anderson, anyone? Paris Hilton? In these days of out-of-control identity theft and predators trolling for victims on myspace, you'd think people would be a little more careful about self-disclosure. (Yeah, you'd think that, wouldn't you?)

And don't get me started on magazines that print pictures of dead people, or those "true crime" TV shows where you get to see the victims' bodies while listening to the detective brag about his prowess in solving the crime. How does this fall under the heading of "entertainment"? (Currently, my only exception to this objection is the pictures of the death camps in Europe following WWII. There are some things one needs to see in order that no one ever experiences it again.) I've never appreciated reporters shoving a microphone into the face of someone who has been on the receiving end of a calamity, either. What is wrong with people?

It goes way beyond not having a bathroom door. Some things just absolutely belong behind barriers! To my way of thinking, it's more than a lack of respect for privacy. It represents an assault on human dignity, and there is little enough of that as it is.