Healthy Influence – Persuasion Blog

If you patronize this blog (and Lord knows I needs to be patronized) you know that I read widely, the unmistakable mark of either an open or unstable mind.  Persuasion is always in the air, you just have to stick your nose in some dark rooms to sense it.  Or in this case through open windows.

Like this.

Meet the hotel Standard in New York City.  Look at all the windows.  Look at the people in the windows.  Wave at them!  Watch them wave back . . . hmm . . . what are they waving, OMG.  Are they naked?  Are they doing THAT?

Yes.  They are doing IYFSH!  And the hotel is encouraging them!

On the hotel’s Facebook page, The Standard encourages patrons to let it all hang out, according to the paper.

“We encourage you to exercise your inner exhibitionist. Please share your intimate and explicit photos with us — those floor to ceiling windows aren’t just for the views,” read the post, which has since been changed, according to the Post.

Okay, pervs, here’s the hotel’s FB page.  I’ll wait while you check it out.  Geez, the things I do for instruction.

Back?

Apparently, guests at the Standard don’t need much encouragement to share their intimacies through an exterior window in their hotel.

“I’ve seen a few porn shoots — three dudes walking around a hotel room with cameras and lights filming a couple,” Joe, the manager of the nearby Brass Monkey bar told the Post. “I’ve seen at least 10 different people having sex. Saturday nights are the best time for the show.”

Okay, so what have we got here, besides your fevered imagination and an evolving plan for a quick trip to NYC?

Well, let’s be good persuasion boys and girls and do a dual process analysis (and, no, Beavis, “dual process” is not persuasion slang for bisexual and “analysis” is not about . . . that).

Persuasion variables may function in one of three ways:  WATTage, Arguments, or Cues.  So, a hotel offers as a persuasion claim – our guests have public sex – how does it work (not the public sex, you know how to do that, the claim of public sex)?

It certainly gets attention which is good for the Cascade, but does it make your dimmer switch zoom from low WATT to high WATT (down, big fella, didn’t mean it the way that came out)?  Does the idea of public sex make you think more carefully and effortfully about choosing a hotel?  That seems . . . limp.

And, assuming you are already high WATT for other reasons, would reading that “You’re encouraged to have public sex in the hotel” be an Argument that you would elaborate upon and engage in that long conversation in your head?  Sure, for some of you persuasion crazies, but for most folks I can’t imagine that they pick hotels because the hotel encourages you to have sex in their front windows.  “Gee, honey, look how clean those windows are.  We’ll look like we’re in High Def.  And, boy, that’s a wide window, too.  I’ll definitely fit in that frame.”

So, maybe public sex functions as a Cue, especially the Liking Cue:  When you have affection for the source, do what they request.

As we noted in an earlier Sex Sells! post, sex sells with men almost all the time, but such blatant appeals often offend women.  So, maybe the Hotel Standard is aiming at male guests?

Makes some sense in the short term.  I’m a guy and I’m guy enough to get this story.  Good grief, I’m blogging it, aren’t I?  So, hey, the next time I’m in NYC why not, huh?

Except if you think about it just a little bit other ideas might spring to mind.  Like . . . what do I tell Melanie?  (No, kids, she’s not going to want this booking.)  And, what kind of clientele might this attract?  (Maybe commercial sex workers and law enforcement personnel?)  How much will this cost?  (I grew up in the 1960s “free love” era, but have since learned that this kind of love is never free, cheap, or even cost effective.)

And besides the killjoy, bluenoses are on this.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn told The Post she wants the peep show to come to an end. “The alleged actions of The Standard are unacceptable,” she said in a statement.

Of course, there’s no such thing as bad publicity, so maybe the Standard will be hopping even with the City Council talking about it.  And, of course, the Standard is a relatively small hotel, so all this publicity could ferret out the small customer base that actually looks for exhibitionist outlets.

Maybe.

Let’s close with the Rules.

More is the enemy of less.

Persuaders can either be famous or effective, but not both.

There’s a difference between persuasion, and smoke and mirrors; with persuasion the illusion persists.