The Challenge

It is with a sincere sense of urgency that I take it upon myself to call to your attention a matter which I feel insists on immediate resolution.  Firstly, permit me if you will, a few moments in which to paint you a picture so that you may come to fully comprehend, as I have, the grave nature of what I am about to discuss. 

In my explanation I hope that nothing shall be left wanting, and that by the time I have finished there be no remaining doubt in the reader’s mind as to my position and the consequences proposed herein.

Consider that man is an animal like no other - an animal so deeply entrenched in the language with which he describes himself and the world around him, that his perception has become inseparable from words themselves.  These intangible abstractions are the hidden forces that drive the human machine to action, and give purpose and meaning to an otherwise lifeless and unresponsive existence. 

Words are our filter through which we view the world, and as such, great responsibility must be exercised when using them.  The reckless manner in which words are commonly expunged from the human oesophagus is characteristic of a far less considerate and deliberate attempt at communication than any use of language that will suffice here. 

Objectivity provides us with the knowledge that any attributes we may assign to a particular article or phenomenon are not innate properties of the thing itself, but moreover, they serve as a greater insight into the workings of the mind that ascribes such qualities. 

By way of example, consider the immediate emotional associations that spring forth when recollecting the image of a sky laden with thick cumulonimbus clouds.  For many, the thought of an occluded sun seems entirely inseparable from the ideas of depression, lethargy, demotivation, and ennui. 

Counter to these impermanent labels that appear to naturally adhere to the notion of overcast skies, we can see how they might begin to come unstuck if we were to imagine ourselves as inhabitants of an almost perpetually arid land, one in which dark skies would signal the welcome possibility of rain.  In such a scenario it seems inevitable that we would have come to associate the same phenomenon with an entirely different set of feelings and words with which to describe them. 

In light of this observation we may go so far as to conclude that by changing the language we implement, we could in turn alter our standard viewpoint in addition to our emotional responses. 

We each have strange relationships with our responsibilities, particularly those that we perceive as being bestowed on us against our preferences and which are not directly necessary for our continued survival.  When we unconsciously label something as being a means to an end, it cements its position as an unavoidable obstacle, something that we might often resent, perhaps due to some inability to accept the inescapable.

The most universally detested feature of life, rued by man, woman and child alike has to be this thing called ‘work’, and more specifically, that which we refer to as our ‘job’. 

In the French language the expression ‘devoir quelque chose á quelqu’un ‘ means ‘to owe somebody something’, while the term ‘devoir’ refers to a piece of homework.  Here, in plain sight, you can see the concept of debt inextricably linked to the notion of work. 

In the ancestral environment, all work would have been directly correlated to the survival of the individual and their kin, and if any concept of ‘work’ was to exist in the mind of a hunter-gatherer type it would have had very different connotations to those that exist today, and not because of any obvious differences between primitive and modern languages and the brains that implement them.

Where work in itself was once the ‘debt’ that must be paid in order to live, it has now become a more abstract intercessor in the chain of survival and prosperity.  Work simply bestows credit upon us: credit which can be exchanged for goods and services, credit that we may never actually see except as numbers on a screen.  Now a different kind of ‘debt’ also exists, one which if paid off, will not feed, clothe, or protect us from the elements, but one which exists solely as a bi-product of a society in which people are separated from reality by their jobs. 

Ironically enough, jobs have made it easier for us to neglect our survival-based responsibilities by virtue of their intermediary and often unpleasant nature.  It is relatively easy for Neanderthal man to go out and hunt when he gets hungry or becomes low on food, but by comparison it is much harder for modern man to extract his lifeless body from beneath the bedclothes in order to attend to his ‘duties’, duties that will no more feed him than the paper on which his earnings are printed will nourish his cells.  

Having a job indicates that one has submitted to external forces in order to achieve some greater good, but it tells nothing of the silent grudge that one is burdened with in the process.  To counteract the feelings of cognitive dissonance that accompany the reluctant acceptance of any profession, people have invented a myriad of ways to make-believe that it is their job that is important, and in the process they have confused the means with the ends.  This is what is referred to as a ‘lost purpose’.

When compiling a C.V we note our previous labours and provide a list of our past duties, with the intention of conveying to any potential employer how noble we were in fulfilling them and preserving the vision of our superiors.  The curriculum vitae is the soon-to-be-workingman’s opportunity to upset the balance between himself and those who administer responsibilities, by making words work for him, and by employing choice phrases. 

All of this should serve to demonstrate how strongly the aversion to jobs is embedded within the human psyche, and how much of a pivotal role words and associations play in shaping our perceptions.  It is with this in mind that we at last arrive at the crux of the problem which I have yet to illuminate, and is as follows. 

Once you accept the initial premise that words have very tangible effects on how we view life, and you also agree that for the most part the word ‘job’ has strong negative connotations for all those that use it, then it should logically follow that you also accept the position that we can no longer continue to refer to fellatio as ‘giving a blowjob’. 

For the time being we shall ignore the misnomer introduced by the prefix ‘blow’, which has no doubt led to much embarrassment the world over, and is wildly misleading when used as a purely descriptive and not euphemistic term. 

The idea of giving as discussed earlier is profoundly entwined with the concept of paying back a debt, which is emphasized even further by the addition of the word ‘job’.  And when viewed as a complete phrase it has the cumulative effect of dampening the metaphorical, and not euphemistic, spirits of the potential performer. 

There is an old, familiar saying intended to warn of the dangers one may encounter should he fail to maintain certain boundaries in life, that is along the lines of ‘never mix business and pleasure’.  This is exactly what the offending phrase does in the mind of the listener, and it does so in spades.  I must assert that ‘blowjobs’ be cast off into the domain and darkened bedrooms of those sadistic and masochistic folk, for whom such painful association and delegation of drudgery is appropriate.

The solution to our collective quandary is a simple one, made even simpler for you the reader, as prior to the writing of this essay, and over the course of many late nights spent experimenting by pure trial and error, I had already formulated a word-perfect replacement for the diabolical expression that we have all tolerated for far too long. 

At the heart of this campaign to reinvent the face of oral sex is my long-deliberated proposal to replace the aforementioned archaic saying with the expression ‘to take the suck challenge’, and the reasoning is thus:

Besides the two being almost exact opposites of one another, by utilising the expression ‘to take’ instead of ‘to give’, we are presented with a far more favourable set of connotations with which to draw from.  Challenges are exciting, and free from the weight of commitment or necessity, and the use of our novel phrase has the effect of spurring on the participant and casting them in the new role of competitor whose goal is no longer to simply get the work done or to pay off a debt, but to take on the challenge and win at all costs.

We must empower ourselves to break the restrictive shackles of language, and to escape from this hidden enslavement under which we all toil.  We must resign ourselves to never again under any circumstances, give or receive another blowjob.  Likewise, we must not allow ourselves to be distracted by superficial accolades such as ‘employee of the month’, which only serve to keep us hopelessly caught in the illusion that our jobs are important. 

                                  

Now that I have put down the groundwork with this essay and its many elaborations, the real challenge of bringing this new phrase to the public awareness lies ahead, and is left for you to seize firmly with both hands and a youthful vigour.  So to you concerned and willing reader, I say this:

Will you take the challenge?