Some of my recent posts have attracted adverts from Christian dating services. They seem to target posts which use the word Christianity and don’t avoid any pages at all. This would probably also explain why adverts for St Paul’s Cathedral appeared, to some readers, on some of my pages which severely criticised the Cathedral authorities at St Paul’s (London, not Rome), Tesco advertised chicken on my vegetarian cookery pages (it took an age to track down and ban all its affiliates to block such adverts, too long to repeat for every offensive company) and nerdy fantasy role games servers appear on my chess pages. Yes, I know, look who’s talking… anyway, back to the Christian dating.
Yesterday morning I noticed that a Christian dating service had started to follow me on twitter. Why would they do that? Perhaps, like Grant Shapps, they are using a strategy based on the notion that I would pretty much just follow them back, they would stop following me and then it would look like they were enormously popular? Presumably they also use a robot to perform this task for theme and it is one which cannot read English?
New readers will not realise that I have recently criticised just one of our local Christian councillors for supping with the devil by lying to her immediate colleagues, breaking the policy of the party she was elected for and by generally not bothering to turn up to her own political meetings. She is, in round terms, about as righteous as a mass manufacturer of obscenely large butt plugs who goes to Church and condemns homosexuality. Hm, will be interesting to see what sort of adverts this word combo attracts. When I published all those cow milk jokes, it was weeks before I could lose the donkey milk adverts. On no! What have I done? Here they come again… … what many people don’t realise is that the adverts you see are there for you, not for everyone who sees the page. Other people will get different adverts. The ad server looks at the content of the page you are looking at but also at your search history, where you have visited lately and perhaps even what it may know about your purchase history.
‘I bet that Christian dating service is just like any other, with C-word inserted from time to time!’ That’s what I told myself. Then I went to have a look. Forgot to go proxy first though. Doh! That’s me targeted now for weeks by adverts for vacuous fantasy heads who think socialising with other ‘like-minded’ people is a crucial part of a good and healthy life. Turns out, this particular service appears to actively promote a number of potentially sinful activities! Is this how they recruit customers? Presumably a buttoned up case of chronic insecurity freakery would find the carefree background images on the dating service’s twitter account seductive in themselves. Here’s what the ribald imagery includes:
- a woman touching a man’s face
- a woman touching a man below his neck
- kissing – lots of it
- bare feet touching – isn’t that below the waist?
- a pillow fight
Isn’t this a cynical attempt to coin the Christian dollar without complying with the commands of the good book? Did the Christ allow women to touch his face in that way? Did our Lord and Saviour allow an unmarried woman to touch a man below his neck? Does it make any difference if he’s got his shirt on? Is there romantic kissing mentioned in either the Old Testament or the New? If it isn’t in there, it cannot be allowed, right? God doesn’t make mistakes, he didn’t forget to leave anything out of his Word in his Book.* As for bare feet touching, doesn’t that imply that there are other body parts touching as well? Remember this is a dating service, not a marriage guidance counselling service. A pillow fight is the ultimate suggestion of sexual misconduct because they can only happen in the bedroom, which unmarried couples should not be.
Looking at the website itself, there was a more conventional attitude to the business of finding a bride. There was none of that feminist clap-trap. I was pleased to see every article written from a male perspective. It delicately dealt with the issue that concerns all Christian males: how to overcome our insecurity and actually get a girlfriend, fiancé. It plainly acknowledged that women are superior beings who don’t like overly pushy men whilst recognising that men suffer excessively from base animal temptations. What a refreshing relief! I now see the kissing imagery was just a hook to divert sinners towards the holy path. If I wanted an innocent Christian girlfriend for romantic dinner dates, the last thing she would want is my hand on her knee or, God forbid(!), our feet touching.
* Given that there are various matters omitted from the Bible, the Vatican is rumoured to be bringing out a Newer Testament. The working title is “New Testament 2″. We’re told that it is based on saintly writings and will deal with why nuclear weapons are good, what God intended for all those spare planets out there in the universe and why sinners are much more sexy than the quiet compliant ones.