Being lazy, I only recently discovered that last year's goofiness was supposed to be about favorite bra colors, and that the whole initiative was on behalf of Breast Cancer Awareness Month (sorry for the spoiler).  If I'm at all representative, (and I have never really expected that I am), then the promoters of this curious form of advertisement must be disappointed.  While I may perhaps have been led to imagine breasts (and this is not really a stretch for many men), I wasn't made aware of the specific reason for this.  I didn't donate money or time or advocate on behalf of breast cancer awareness.  I didn't encourage my wife or other women I know to go and get screened.  Frankly, I'm not sure what the goal of last year's campaign was, and I'm equally baffled by this year's effort (the I like it in/on statements are referring to where women prefer to keep their purse, however the double entendre is far from lost).  

Other than setting imaginations to barking madly in millions of respective heads (again, not really a feat of any sort), how does this further breast cancer awareness?  What's the point?  I'm pretty sure that everyone on Facebook is more or less aware of breasts (at least judging by the photos some folks feel led to share), and that the vast majority of these people have also heard of breast cancer.  Connecting the dots to discover that our Facebook friends really aren't bizarre fetishists and rather are campaigning valiantly for breast cancer awareness doesn't really do anything - pretty much like status updates themselves don't really do much, most of the time.  Few are memorable in this age of increasingly shrinking attention spans, and even fewer prompt us to action or change or self-examination.  Those that attempt to are all-too-often simply opportunities for impotent, maudlin, emotional self-indulgence.  The current campaign appears to not even achieve these questionable ends.

I would like to see pretty much every type of cancer eradicated from the earth.  Making me think of inappropriately intimate aspects in the lives of my female friends is not a help of any sort, but just another form of sexploitation which seems a rather callous thing to do to the people you're attempting to save.  Why not just offer free tickets to observe breast exams being performed?  That would probably garner equal or greater attention, if simple attention is all you want.  Once again I'm baffled about how some elements in our culture can crusade so brutally for functional equality, and in the next moment tacitly or explicitly give support to the lowest-common-denominator appeal to our very real (God created and blessed!)  functional differences.  

If you want my attention, tell me what you want from me once you have it.  It might make my attention (and by emotional extension, - some would say - me) feel more valued once you have it.