"There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women. Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 380SL convertible"
About this Quote
O'Rourke's joke lands because it pretends to offer a clinical observation and then swerves into pure consumerist anthropology. "Mechanical devices" sets you up for the language of gadgets, medicine, maybe even sex toys. The punchline is a car: not just transportation, but a high-status, sunlit symbol with a brand name that does the heavy lifting. By naming the Mercedes-Benz 380SL convertible, he isn't describing female desire so much as satirizing how male desire gets rerouted through objects that promise social dominance.
The intent is classic O'Rourke: mock earnest social science while skewering the American faith that money and machinery can buy you charisma. It's a one-liner about sex that is really about capitalism's romance with itself. The subtext is deliberately ungenerous to everyone involved. Women are reduced to responders to status cues; men are reduced to believing that status is a substitute for intimacy; the culture is reduced to a marketplace where arousal is just another effect you can engineer if you pick the right product.
Context matters: O'Rourke wrote as a late-20th-century satirist steeped in magazine culture, when glossy advertising and yuppie aspiration were hard to distinguish from personality. The convertible isn't incidental: it signals leisure, visibility, and performance. You don't just own it; you are seen owning it. That's the cynical wink. The line isn't claiming a truth about women so much as exposing the pathetic elegance of the myth: that desire can be jump-started by horsepower and a three-pointed star.
The intent is classic O'Rourke: mock earnest social science while skewering the American faith that money and machinery can buy you charisma. It's a one-liner about sex that is really about capitalism's romance with itself. The subtext is deliberately ungenerous to everyone involved. Women are reduced to responders to status cues; men are reduced to believing that status is a substitute for intimacy; the culture is reduced to a marketplace where arousal is just another effect you can engineer if you pick the right product.
Context matters: O'Rourke wrote as a late-20th-century satirist steeped in magazine culture, when glossy advertising and yuppie aspiration were hard to distinguish from personality. The convertible isn't incidental: it signals leisure, visibility, and performance. You don't just own it; you are seen owning it. That's the cynical wink. The line isn't claiming a truth about women so much as exposing the pathetic elegance of the myth: that desire can be jump-started by horsepower and a three-pointed star.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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