The Dude Testament

29. Jerk off by hand.

Few of us might remember that the early 1990s were filled with a brave new hope that technology might save us from one of the most problematic issues facing mankind: getting laid. After all, in the developed world, we can get housing and food and diversion, but experiencing orgasm when administered by someone else is still a challenge for most people. Thus it wasn’t long after the dawn of computer porn that people envisaged a time in the near future when our sexual needs would be easily satisfied by “virtual sexuality.” Soon we were all going to be fucking virtual partners without having to buy them dinner or respect them in the morning, and no one would care! Johnson? What do you need that for, Dude?

This brief flirtation with high-technonanism is captured neatly by the Coen Brothers in the exchange the Dude has with Jackie Treehorn after being invited to his “unspoiled pad” to discuss the matter of Bunny’s disappearance. Porn king Treehorn laments the fact that video technology has made it easy for “amateurs” to enter a world of porn. Like any savvy capitalist, he hopes to maintain his status by developing ever newer and more robust technologies to better administer to the ancient and much-loved pastime of rubbing one’s genitals while pretending someone else is. But the Dude sees through the charade. “I still jerk off manually,” he says. And why not? Why should he pay for something he can do himself?

The technological world we live in has not replaced the biological one. To some degree it has enhanced it, but to a degree it’s also damaged it. Our daily obsession with gizmos and internet spectacle has surely made a dent in the human condition, even as it’s extended it. You know what I’m trying to say. Are you ready to be fucked, man?

The Dude is no technophobe (he sort of digs the beeper and huge telephone, and enjoys driving around and partaking of modern pharmaceuticals), but he is also precociously wary of the dawn of the “technological revolution.” The point, as he seems to understand it, is to be extended by it, not dented. Look for the one who benefits: Cui boner. In many cases it is not we who are aided by technology, but rather the companies who are desperately trying to seduce us with their “objects like women.”