So there’s a company in France offering a new kind of recreation adventure — for a fee, they will kidnap you. Now you too can experience the thrill of being taken off the street at some unexpected moment, thrown in a van or a car trunk, taken somewhere, tied up, terrorized just enough to get a taste of the “real thing,” and then turned loose after a preset number of hours. Or for a little more, you can even add in the entire ransom negotiation experience. Or customize your abduction (who knows, maybe you can be kidnapped by willing women in bikinis or men in tight pants, or something…)
Have you seen the movie The Game? I really enjoy that film, and I think it’s a cool movie idea. I find that I’m less sanguine about the reality. I’m fine with the general notion of folks paying for adventures in expensive role-playing games — what I don’t like is that a kind of violence that is visited on so many people in the world is now being turned into a Disney ride. Kidnapping is a brutal business with horrible consequences to victims and families. It’s not a game.
If I’m reading various blogs correctly, you can get one of these packages for about 1,000 GBP. Somewhere in the range of $1,500 – $2,000 USD, depending on the exchange rate. If that’s the case, then this moves from the realm of the uber-rich vacation into a realm that most people on an executive salary, for example, could easily afford. And it’s weird to me to think that this kind of “sport” might enter the mainstream/middle-class consciousness as an alternative to, I don’t know, going to the Grand Canyon or renting a beach cottage for a week, or all the other ways that people like to spend their leisure budget.
There are plenty of ways that people use their money that I find personally disturbing, and so I don’t spend my money that way. But when people do things I wouldn’t do, I mostly think Meh or Huh or even sometimes I wish I had the guts to do that too. But those are personal choices that affect only the people involved. This one seems… hmm, bigger than that. This seems like a choice about “visiting” other people’s pain. It feels like a bad idea on a social level.
I dunno. Am I just being a sensitive plant? Maybe it’s all just good fun and I should lighten up. Still, wouldn’t it be lovely if there was a company that could make a profit from taking people by force out of their office jobs and subjecting them to an entire afternoon of picnics and peace?
Much as I hate to admit it was me, I’ve been brutalized, for the first six years of my life. It was absolutely no fun at all, and has bequeathed to me a lifetime’s worth of PTSD and DID. I’ve learned to work with the DID remarkably well – I’ve passed for “normal” all my life — but I’m the exception to the rule. I’ve been in survivor groups with women who’ve survived kidnappings and rapes and I can assure you that none of them would ever pay to repeat the experience.
I try to be openminded about what floats other people’s boats, but I don’t think I will ever see the thrill in being tortured (been there) or humiliated (been there too. Oh, flashback. Now I see where that trigger came from, good to know).
Call me crazy, but I’d choose the Grand Canyon.
Then let’s be crazy together.
What is it with people, do you suppose? Lack of imagination? Lack of empathy (which is not the same thing)? The blinkers of privilege? The idea that as long as it’s not “really hurting anyone,” it’s okay?
Bleh.
I’d say all of the above, plus I think that some who engage in such are people who are too afraid of things in life to admit they’re afraid. If you’re honest with yourself about life, you face up to your fears. People who aren’t tend to belittle others’ experience because then they don’t have to contemplate that they could wind up being a “mental case” if something traumatic happened to them, too.
It reminded me of “The Game” too. Personally I think it’s just plain sick. I like your idea of people being forced instead to have times of picnics and peace, but I’d prefer it if we didn’t need to be forced. Maybe if we could do it as a normal activity there would be no takers for the masochistic stuff.
There must be a million other things I’d rather spend money to experience. Maybe even base jumping while free diving…
That might not be the right link. Here’s the actual blog post with video. Under water free fall. Anyway. Kinda crazy too, but in a beautiful way.
So call me a party-pooper, but wouldn’t this make things difficult for law enforcement if people are being mock-abducted off the street? Sorry, I’m just Ms. Practical here . . .
Hi J,
Well, I thought about that too 🙂 And I have no idea how they handle it, but one assumes that they must have some kind of process, although I have to say I can’t imagine what it might be…