Kiosk where you pay money to be really mean to someone.

Before you go home to beat your wife or scream at your kids you can get the negative energy out of your system.

Kiosk operatives are trained to tolerate the most intimidating of customers.
-- vfrackis, Aug 09 2010

Monty Python: Argument Sketch http://video.google...572077907195969915#
[zen_tom, Aug 09 2010]

Counterparts http://www.literatu...-joyce/dubliners/9/
[rcarty, Aug 10 2010]

A few things:

Is "negative energy" (whatever that actually *is*) the underlying cause of interspousal-violence, or shouting at the children? Perhaps there's something more tangible that can be identified as the root cause of the problem?

Does it follow that being unpleasant to someone *other* than the wife or children will alleviate these issues? What if it aggravates them instead? And is this a morally sound basis on which to provide therapy?

Is it really a case of exhausting yourself so that you are no longer capable of rage by the time you get home? Exhaustion and stress are likely to be contributing factors to losing your temper. If being unpleasant to someone else either invigorates or relaxes you, then perhaps there is something more fundamental going on. If physical exhaustion helps as a temporary means of managing the symptoms of your anger, then try the gym, or going for a run.

Sometimes practical problems can cause stress and bad-temper; Worrying about finances, long commuting times, being overwhelmed by responsibilities, being bullied at work and other frustrations outside of the family home can build up - only to be catastrophically released while in the comparative safety of the family environment.

For the client, expending more financial resources on this kind of relief might exacerbate the problem.

Worse, by paying someone to assist in practicing, acting-out, or otherwise realising these kind of violent behaviours, you might actually be loosening any remaining barriers to that kind of extreme behaviour that might already be in place. If you become accustomed to venting your anger, it may become an ingrained and unconscious response.

In short, it could make things worse.

Finally, there are already widely known private services locatable in various specialist publications and underground scenes where you can arrange, in exchange for cash, the services of a willing (or not so willing, if that’s your thing) participant in whatever unusual fantasies anyone might care to act out –

But I'm curious, why a kiosk anyway? Doesn't that kind of seem weird to you? What does the kiosk part add, that some other existing arrangement might lack?

Personally, I think it would be difficult to work myself into a lather, at a kiosk. For me, getting angry is a kind of spontaneous thing - I don't like doing it in public, and I don't think I'd be able to get angry, on demand, with a stranger - for no good reason - it's one of those spontaneous things that just happens at times of stress. For that reason, I don't think I could turn up at a kiosk, hand over a £20 note and start spitting bricks, but maybe that's just me.
-- zen_tom, Aug 09 2010


//I don't think I could turn up at a kiosk, hand over a £20 note and start spitting bricks//

I think that your link demolished your own argument there z_t...

z_t: "Right you bastard I'm really gonna let you have it!"
kiosk attendant: "Not until you pay you aren't."
z_t: "But I just paid you..."
etc, etc.
-- DrBob, Aug 10 2010


My point being that the kiosk attendant would have to be actively engaged in winding me up, before I could get properly into it. If they just passively stood there, *deliberately* not making me annoyed, after I've paid them good money for them to professionally provoke me...well, I'd soon show them a blimming thing or two.
-- zen_tom, Aug 10 2010


I realize that Monty Python is fiction, so this isn't, technically, widely-known-to- etc. But still....
-- mouseposture, Aug 11 2010


Future Shock was a good book, psychological economies and all that. That notion probably relates to the following somehow, I can't be bothered though. As illustrated in fine style by Joyce in the link, the services sector provides many clerks for those in management professions to take out their aggressions. That is well understood. The invention by the poster is an interesting idea, because it bestows abuser privilege upon all, perhaps even to the very kiosk worker himself. However, this is most certainly thoroughly baked, so the idea makes for good satire on the contemporary postindustrial condition. Perhaps this is the real manifestation of Toffler's psychological utopia, where each can abuse the other in turn in a perpetual reciprocation of servile roles. The clerk abuses the waiter who abuses the bus driver who abuses the clerk etc. and a 50%+ services economy is possible. Counterparts.
-- rcarty, Aug 11 2010



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