Truly Frightening

Cold cement below your feet is splattered with some unrecognizable dark liquid. You inch slowly forward, senses fully alert, palms holding a cold sweat, and heart pounding so loud you're sure the person next to you will hear. Something surely will jump out at you, might grab you, might scream, might pretend to threaten your life with a chainsaw or other torturous contraption. You just know it. You just know that when you take this next step it's there. It's there. It's coming. You close in on the corner. Waiting. Here it comes.

Here it comes...

AHHHHH!!

And that's when you jump toward the friend standing next to you, who convinced you to attend this haunted house in the first place. If you were moderately attracted to this "friend" before, now you're two seconds away from finding an even darker corner and ripping some clothes off. What is it about being terrified that arouses us? And what's the difference between sexy-scary and truly frightening?

Haunted Houses, scary movies, and even creepy carnivals make great dates for a reason. Just think of all the similarities between Scary and Sexy:
1.) sweating
2.) alert senses
3.) things that go bump in the night...
4.) blood rushing
5.) carnal, instinctual behavior
and the list goes on!
Heightened adrenaline encourages borderline insane behavior. Something about it is thrilling. Something about it is exciting. And something about it is distinctly erotic. (Iconic example: Vampires.) It's no wonder the Halloween costume trend has been somewhere between terrifying and scandalous. It's one day out of the year when propriety has no place. The tradition of dressing up is an excuse to indulge in an unapologetic expression of two of the most primal functions of human existence: procreation and death.

But when things are truly frightening it changes everything. You feel nauseous, despondent, and paralyzed. Not only do you feel the opposite of sexy in moments like these, but the thought of being touched is generally lost somewhere far, far away. In some extreme cases the thought of being touched aggravates the existing problem. So this begs the question: what is truly frightening? And what's the real difference?

Slasher movies mimic the sensation of fear, just as romantic movies mimic the sensation of love--but real love is far more than a sensation, just as real fear is more. Sexy-scary, or the sensation of fear, is as shallow as infatuation and lust. True fear (just like true love) isn't an emotion, but something much deeper. I suppose genuine fear is one of those sentiments that is both universal and extremely personal. It is at the core of who we are and who we want to be; this great obstacle binding us to somewhere on the wrong side of the finish line.

Halloween laughs at frightening things and evokes the sensation without any actual danger. Suddenly a "fun" holiday is born. But no one dresses up as Failure, or Loneliness, Isolation, or Brutal Violence and Pain. Indifference and Abandonment weren't popular costumes last I checked either. Things we truly fear, things that pull us far within ourselves and deplete our power are not as easy to laugh at or twist into something exciting.

But what if we could laugh at it all?

The only thing to fear is fear itself.

True fear is our worst enemy: an Achilles heel of the human race. But fear in and of itself is nothing. Nothing at all. Perhaps we should laugh at such a preposterous notion. Perhaps we would be better if we could realize reality contains only everything else.

In the meantime, we can revel in the tradition of converting "fear" into an active energy. Adrenaline pumping, awareness heightening, and heart pounding sensations are much more useful than paralytic self-abomination. Sexy-scary is a healthier habit. Ridiculous amounts of candy aside, Halloween in general may be healthier than we thought after all. It turns a light on in the dark, illuminates those creepy demons, and in the process eradicates darkness itself. Don't you see?

Bad things do happen, and we are better off being aware of them, but awareness does not have to mean fear. True fear produces nothing positive.

Sexy-scary, on the other hand, could mean a great make-out session with your Haunted House partner in a dark corner.

Just one word of advice with that one though: make sure whoever you feel up (or let feel you up) isn't wearing a mask. Now THAT could be truly frightening...