Monthly Archives: July 2011

Porn for Women

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You can say that I have given up on attracting more male readers… Since I am of the Drastic Measure type of bitches: It is All or Nothing to me, I have decided to actively repel men*, esp. the straight kind. Let’s go all the way, baby!

 

This is a real book.

The Cambridge Women’s Pornography Cooperative asked women, young, old, rich, and poor, “What really, really gets you hot?” Armed with their findings, they worked day and night to create Porn for Women.

(Granted, the book should have been more accurately titled “Porn for Straight Women”… And some of the things attributed to the men/actors are plainly condescending, if not insulting, to women IMO, such as “Ooh Look! The NFL Playoffs are today. I bet we’ll have no trouble parking at the craft’s fair.”…  At any rate, I hope you all get the chuckle or drool out of these…)

 

Some choice pornographic photos from the book:

 

I found the following on Flickr:

(This one, to me, is more about fairness: Yup. If you make the mess, you clean up the mess. IMO, most men that claim they love to cook do not have to clean up the pots and pans afterwards. If they had to clean up afterwards, they would not have used three pots to cook one dish!)

 

 

 

As Liz Lemon would say:

I want to go to there.

 

 

* I understand that this is an affectatious** statement: by claiming that I am actively repelling men, I am implying that otherwise they would have visited this blog in drones. It’s like I prefer to think to myself that people dislike me because 1) they are racists, 2) they hate my gut. The truth is, I am deeply aware of this, they probably simply dislike me because they dislike me.

** The use of the word “affectatious” is itself ironically affectatious.***

*** The fact that I pointed the above out is an act of affectation.

**** And so on, and so forth.

***** I don’t really worry about the fact that I have few male readers. In order to prove myself to you, I will talk about menstrual cycles next.

****** Why is “MEN” in the word “MENstrual”?

******* Come to think of it, I think Elly has beat me to it [i.e. talking about menstrual cycles] with this video she posted on her blog called “Her First Period”.

******** I really should turn my footnotes into a separate blog post. And I am writing my footnotes before I write the post proper, and am having more fun doing this.

******** Do people even read these footnotes?

Just sit down and relax, honey.

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I heard this study that was published this May on the radio today. The headline is:

Men relax best when wives are doing housework chores!

 

My first question was: How is it possible that I did not hear about this until now?! Is the Universe conspiring to keep this earth-shattering news from me?

You are probably thinking: “I need a study to tell me this?” I know. But it is always nice to have your suspicion confirmed by rigorous scientific research.

For starters, the researchers “measured stress hormones and daily activities”, specifically, they “sampled saliva repeatedly to measure cortisol, which increases in stressful situations”, a most objective measurement: so there is no arguing that women only feel more stressed because they bitch about everything and they CARE MORE about whether the dishes are done, the laundry is folded, and the floor is not covered with random objects.

The study was done with researchers observing “30 dual-earner couples in Los Angeles, each with at least one child ages 8-10. Most had two or three children. The average marriage was 13 years and the average age was 41… Over four days, two weekend days and two weekdays, researchers tracked activities at 10-minute intervals.”

And here are the highlights of their findings:

  • For women, healthier cortisol levels resulted when their husbands spent more time pitching in on housework
  • For husbands, more leisure time was linked with healthier cortisol when their wives spent more time doing house-related work and less time in leisure.
  • Men, when they come back home, tend to be alone in a room.
  • Women, when get back home, tend to be with one or more children doing childcare.
  • When women are alone, they tend to be doing housework; When men are alone, they tend to be relaxing.

(Note that none of these families have YOUNG CHILDREN. I can only imagine the discrepancy to be even more skewed between men and women were babies and toddlers present in these households studied)

 

You know what? All my feminist sisters could throw banana peels at me. I am not outraged by the research findings at all. Nope.  Au contraire!

I. AM. ELATED.

Why?

Because I am going to remember this research next time I hear about some other woman talking about how her husband pitches in, 50-50, and then I will not secretly hide in the bathroom and cry.

Because I am normal. I am NOT alone. I am part of the statistics. Part of the cogs that make up normalcy. Like the common stock photos showing a man reading newspaper while his wife vacuums and him lifting his legs up for the vacuum out of consideration.

Kapow! Woohoo! I am doing a happy dance while I survey the disaster zone that is our house and also my weekend project. (If you call housework a PROJECT, you feel more accomplished and less housewifery…)

 

It is truly a relief to know I am simply part of the normalcy.

 

WTF Wednesday: I will stab anyone who says “Boys will always be boys”

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I wrote a post titled  I will stab anyone who says “Boys will always be boys”  in October 2010 at the height of teen (and preteen) suicides. With the nation coming together in the movement It Gets Better, I felt relieved.

“People get it now.” I thought. “They are reaching out to our young people. People are taking bullying at school seriously.” I told myself. “There is hope that things will change.”

What the fuck was I thinking?

 

Almost a year from when the movement It Gets Better was first started in September 2010, Mother Jones this week brought to our attention that NINE teenagers have committed suicide in ONE school district in the past two years. (Never mind your first reaction: Why weren’t these cases reported by the news outlet? Now that we have the celeb-endorsed It Gets Better, teen suicides are no longer news-worthy or something?!)  That district, Anoka-Hennepin school district, is the largest in the state of Minnesota with 40,000 students. The situation is so alarming that the area where the school district is located has been identified as a “suicide contagion”, according to the school district website, “because of higher than normal numbers of suicides and suicide attempts.”

Nobody can really pin point precisely why these young people decided to take their own lives. Most of them were either self-identified as gay or were thought and taunted as gay. Wouldn’t you know that the Anoka-Hennepin school district apparently has one of the most homophobic official school policies?

Anoka-Hennepin has a policy on the books known colloquially as “no homo promo,” which dates in back to the mid-1990s. Back then, after several emotional school board meetings, the district essentially wiped gay people out of the school health curriculum. There could be no discussion of homosexuality, even with regard to HIV and AIDS, and the school board adopted a formal policy that stated school employees could not teach that homosexuality was a “normal, valid lifestyle.”

Later the policy was changed to require school staff to remain neutral on issues of homosexuality if they should come up in class, a change that critics said fostered confusion among teachers and contributed to their inability to address bullying and harassment, or to even ask reasonable questions about some of the issues the kids were struggling with, like sexual orientation.  Source: Mother Jones

 

After so many young people have lost to us, people started paying attention and asking questions. The Anoka-Hennepin school district is currently under Federal investigation.  The Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Center for Lesbian Rights have also filed a law suit against the district. (SPLC explains why they are suing Anoka-Hennepin here)

The Anoka-Hennepin school district has been the subject of an investigation since the fall of 2010, after several students and community members came forward to report both verbal and physical bullying and harassment . During the ten month investigation, SPLC heard from students and teachers about concerns regarding the “neutrality” policy and implications of a gag policy in the classroom.

According to Sam Wolfe, lead attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center, students have reported being called vicious anti-gay slurs and subjected to being physically assaulted pushed into school lockers and trash cans due to their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. One student even was reportedly attacked by a pencil and stabbed in the back of the neck. Source: WashingtonBlade

 

Maybe it is pure coincidence, but Anoka-Hennepin school district happens to be in Minnesota’s 6th congressional district whose representative is none other than Michele Bachmann.

Michele Bachmann who just recently signed a Christian right conservative family value yada yada group’s pledge which also stated that children born into slavery were somehow better off than children born into modern African American families.

Michele Bachmann who has from the beginning of her political career opposed any education and policy promoting tolerances towards the LGBT communities, who sees a “homosexual agenda” where gay youth would lure and indoctrinate the otherwise non-gay youth into a life of sin.

 

Yes, Michele Bachmann, there IS indeed a "Gay Agenda"...

 

Michele Bachmann who is the favorite of the Tea Party, and is leading the one woman (+ one ambiguously “pray the gay away” gay therapist husband) charge against gay marriages in defense of marriages, vowing to ban gay marriages (AND pornography, because you know, straight people do NOT watch porn. Ever). “Marriage is something worth fighting for!” she yelled. Cough cough. Michele, on this point, I think we all agree with you: Why do you think the gay community fights so hard for their right to marry?!

(I am waiting for her to say something in support of Hitler and deny Holocaust. Just you wait. It’s like she is playing a “Really? Really?! Are you fucking kidding me?!” Bingo game…)

 

According to a blog post on The Dump Michele Bachmann Blog from 2006 (way before she became a household name), “Most of the time Bachmann avoids committee hearings like the plague. However, she did deign to attend a hearing about a bill to address bullying in schools.” At this hearing in 2006 (which has been unearthed and discussed in these past few days), Bachmann questioned a proposed “zero tolerance” anti-bullying bill:

 “For all us, our experience in public schools is there have always been bullies, always have been, always will be. I just don’t know how we’re ever going to get to point of zero tolerance and what does it mean? … What will be our definition of bullying? Will it get to the point where we are completely stifling free speech and expression? Will it mean that what form of behavior will there be – will we be expecting boys to be girls?” – Michele Bachmann, 2006

 

She went on and on to say that there are differences between boys and girls, that children are like barbarians and we as parents are trying to civilize them, yada yada yada. Why? So we as parents simply expect boys to be barbarians? To bully each other? To pick on the weak who cannot defend themselves? Lord of the Flies? 

I have been seeing red ever since I read this line of hers this afternoon. I am so upset that I cannot really talk about it intelligently. I have said all that I wanted to say wrt. this subject in October 2010  I will stab anyone who says “Boys will always be boys”. I did not expect the day when I need to repeat myself, and it seems more urgent than ever because Bachmann is running for President and I honestly do not want to live in a country ruled by her and her narrow-minded friend. Heck, I don’t even want to live in a country where such an outcome is POSSIBLE.

I need to go stab a pillow or something.

Oh, one more thing.

Can we bring Sarah Palin back please?

Happy Monday. Or not.

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In case you are wondering what the hack is happening to this blog. “I did not sign up for a PHOTOBLOG! (not that anything is wrong with it…)” My dear readers, my most sincere apologies. (And if you are actually happy about not having to read my ramblings, you are absolutely welcome!)

Just got back from our one week vacation from the Outer Banks in NC, and right back into Monday blues. I am still feeling quite disoriented. (Probably more because I have not had any coffee yet…)

Temporary cure for Monday Blues? Take two rainbows with a glass of ocean. (Side effect may include: wanting to repeatedly hit your head on your desk when the euphoria wears off)

 

Vegas Baby

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Anybody interested in listening to more of my drunken tales? This time in Vegas?

Well, no matter. I need to write this all down so I can relive my glory days when I am in my 80s… I sure do hope the Interwebs are still going strong “50” years from now…

We had never been on a vacation without the kids in tow until this past weekend. And thank goodness we did not have our kids with us. Otherwise The Husband would not be able to check out the top-optional swimming pool at our hotel.

TOPTIONAL.

That is the new word I learned from my trip there. Don’t you just love Vegas?

I am leaving on an early flight to NYC this morning, and I need at least 2 hours of shuteye since I have been sustaining on minimum sleep since we came back from Vegas.  Therefore I will be brief, (and you all know “brief” is a relative term when you are dealing with someone who is borderline Narcissistic when they are talking about themselves…) I will make a list of things I can still remember as the massive amount of alcohol finally found its way out of my system.

1. It actually was not that startling to have a woman turn around and you found yourself face to face (?) with her boobs. Well, I am not a straight man so I cannot speak for them. For me, it was kind of natural anyway. Anti-climatic almost.

2. Young boobs are perky. Either that, or all these girls all have had boob jobs. Once you pass 30 though, your boobs start drooping. So enjoy them while you can. Or start saving money.

3. Older, trim and fit women’s boobs even if they do drape a little do not bother me at all. Yes, the young women next to me exclaimed quietly, “Ewww.” I so wanted to tell them, “Let’s see what yours look like when you hit her age.”

4. Men are hilarious when they pretend they are not looking. Ladies, you know what I am talking about.

5. This is a note to the girl who was competing against her (former?) best friend for the same young man’s attention: Taking off your bras somehow did not work, eh? Your friend put hers back on pretty quickly and guess what? The young man continued to talk to her while your boobs were bouncing up and down in the background. I am sorry. Next time, don’t try so hard. And I hope your (former?) best friend forgive you for trying to upstage her the second you got into the pool.

6. People watching is a lot more fun when it is TOPTIONAL.

7. In Vegas, Adult Shows mean TOPLESS. Duh.

8. Those boobs on stage are no larger than yours and oh my goodness they do not stand up like “Boing!” the way porn industry makes you think they do. They droop, a bit. Naturally. Due to gravity. They fucking droop. And they all look gorgeous. You chuckle at yourself because who would have thought that you’d found affirmation at the show Fantasy? 

9. It is a brilliant idea to get well buzzed before you head down to the night club so you don’t spend all your money on those over-priced drinks.

10. Chuck Liddell is apparently somebody famous.  (You found that out when the security personnel told you off “Please stop taking pictures!” even though you were taking pictures of the go go dancer). More importantly, he apparently can crush you with his bare hands, according to your husband, after you obnoxiously yelled Chuck Chuck Chuck! And your husband is no fun because you really want to say to Chuck, “Chuck, Asia loves you!” – a bold faced lie of course. But you are so drunk you could not fucking care.

11. You say and then yell some variation of “I am so drunk I cannot fucking care” throughout the night.

12. You don’t mind going and waiting in line at the bar because you are so drunk… yeah, and you keep on talking to random strangers.

Some young man asks whether you’d mind if he cuts in line to get some water from the bartender. You say, “You are so cute. Go right ahead.” While you are waiting, you ask him, “What’s wrong with you that you are drinking water? Are you Mormon or something?” He mimes giving you a pamphlet, and you laugh and tell him that your son sprinkles you with holy water as a joke. To which, the very nice young man feigns surprise, “You have a son?! Impossible. You look about 21!” Of course you thank him, “I will buy you any drink you want!” When you ask the bartender to give the young man a glass of water, the young man says, “I want to marry you right here right now.” You think, “Too bad he’s gay, and of course, I am married.” Then you send him off to have a great time “because that’s what young people are supposed to do!”

13. When you go back to the bar the 3rd time, you strike up a conversation with a nice gentleman from Hawaii who is a boxing club manager and whose fighters finally get invited to Las Vegas. In the middle of your conversation, you say to him, “Well, I just don’t want to see white people ruin Hawaii.” He bursts out laughing and tells you “You are real.” So of course you have to buy him a drink. And guess what he orders at the bar after the long wait? Pineapple juice. Yup.

14. So yeah, and then there is the part about you getting kissed by a girl. Twice.

15. Your husband actually got a picture as proof.

16. Maybe that was why he was not mad at all even when you dropped his Crackberry into the swimming pool.

 

 

View outside our hotel room
Night view from hotel
NPH sighting!
LOVE! Is all you need...
Love Stage
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Butterfly Ceiling
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Ceiling at the O Theatre
Clown
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Le Cirque
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The Strip at night
Bellagio
New York New York
Luxor
Venice not quite
Venice
Venice
No drinks for you
Fireworks
XS
XS
Babes at XS
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What happens in Vegas

Why not?

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I sometimes wonder why I have not become an alcoholic.

I like myself better when I am just a little bit drunk. Like now.

The state of knowing that you are drunk, knowing that perhaps you should not have leaned out the car window and shouted at the guy across the street but you could not help it. Because it felt like the right thing to do. When you are simultaneously listening to the angel and the devil sitting on your shoulders: The should and the should not. And you are just buzzed enough that you listen to the devil even though otherwise you would have listened to the angel.

The devil asks the right question:

WHY NOT?

 

The WHY NOT. Yup. That is the one.

That is the question that gets to you when you are just the right amount of drunk, isn’t it?

Perhaps I should not have allowed the kids to run around all over the carnival on their own after dark. Nor should I have allowed them to have unlimited intake of sugar.

Perhaps I should not have jumped up and down and WHOOP! when your very interesting friend suggested that you all go to her boyfriend’s bar in the downtown area of Small Town, USA, now that the carnival is closing.

Perhaps I should not have agreed to bring all the kids to the bar now that it is past 9:30 in the evening.

Perhaps I should not have the first vodka+cranberry since I have had 3 drinks at the carnival already.

Perhaps I should not have allowed the kids to play pool and darts at a bar, complete with local townsfolk, drunk and otherwise.

Perhaps I should not have tried to engage the drunk man at the bar who said more than once that he was going to dance on the bar.

Perhaps I should not have mentioned the song Tiny Dancer to the man when he started talking about his little buddy Joe, who was invisible (but of course), that he took out from his pocket and put on the bar and whose sneakers the man asked your more-than-alarmed girlfriend to hold on to.

Perhaps I should not have found the man amusing. Or agreed with the man that Tiny Joe existed.

Perhaps I should not have my second drink. Or the third.

Or talked to the regulars in the bar. All of them were regulars, except us, of course, the way a bar in Small Town, USA is.

This was a place I would not have walked into if I were sober.

These were the people, the Small Town USA people, I would not have the courage to interact with (hey, stereotypes go both ways) if I were sober.

But why not?

So I did.

 

Never for a moment was I not self-conscious of the strangeness of me being inside the local bar where the real Americans, as Sarah Palin likes to claim those who are her people, hang out. But why not?

 

As I became the responsible adult and told The Husband that we needed to leave and bring the kids home, I found two of the bar patrons sitting on the sidewalk next to our car.

Hey. Is the midget going home now?

One of them, some guy that had a friendly conversation with me about Queen and David Bowie and Freddie Mercury and Under Pressure, pointed to my 8-year-old and joked.

Why not?

Oh yes. They are all midgets and that’s why they have the right to be at the bar at this hour. You know, we do not practice prejudices against midgets here.

His friend who just told me that he’s not had a break from working 16-hour days for over a month and is finally having a day off tomorrow sighed.

Isn’t this place just turning into San Francisco now? Are you telling me that we are becoming like San Francisco now?

I paused because I thought I’d misheard. He continued,

It is becoming more and more like San Francisco. I personally could burn a few buildings down in this town.

At this point I was no longer as drunk as I had thought.

Hey, it is the Fourth of July. We are celebrating freedom and independence! Come on. You said you will have tomorrow off!

The guy took a sip of his beer.

Yeah. I am just going to drink more and more and get saltier and saltier.

His friend raised his eyebrow and chuckled at the word,

Salty?

He took yet another sip and frowned.

Yes. Salty.

By  now it was almost midnight and  The Husband has got into the car with our kids and the other boys we were bringing home for a sleepover. (Why not?) I got into the car. As the car spun around, I leaned out the window and yelled,

Happy Fourth of July! Cheer up!

The man looked up, still grouchy, and yelled back,

Goodbye Sweetheart.

(Yes. Of course. The Husband made a motion to indicate that he was going to throw up upon hearing the word “Sweetheart”)

 

As I am still buzzed and am Blogging Under the Influence. I do not think there is any moral to this story. This is of course not a social commentary since I failed to confront the man. I simply needed to share. That is all.

On the other hand, how drunk could I be if I am 1) typing on a computer, 2) all the time thinking I need to go and clean the bathrooms because my mother-in-law is coming tomorrow and I have to leave home early for a 9 am meeting at work.

Later gator.