Tag Archives: what is good for the goose is good for the gander

Sweatpants

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Is it just me or does he have boobs bigger than mine

 

(Disclaimer: This post was written at airport lounge while I sipped on my 2nd and 3rd Bloody Marys. Also, it is posted in lieu of the Chinese New Year of which I have nothing to blog about. I am NOT celebrating it as I am on a business trip for the next three days… #ChineseWeGetNoRespectAroundHere)

I want to go to there.

To inside the website pages of Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister. A la The Purple Rose of Cairo. (Incidentally one of my favorite movies that made me cry uncontrollably when I was going through my emo years…)

Yeah yeah yeah. I know the shirtless models from the teen store are old news for you hipsters out there. But I have never really paid attention to the brouhaha back when concerned citizens complained about the half-nekkid men in Abercrombie’s marketing campaigns and sometimes, if you’re lucky, inside their stores. As you can see, the protest has since died down and forgotten, and Abercrombie continues to use sex to lure in the real credit card holders (aka moms). Business obviously is thriving otherwise how can they command the kind of prices they do? Really. Why would any teenager need a hoodie that costs $200 or a winter jacket made of cotton and nylon for $600? (For that price, you’d better be wearing some dead animal. Just sayin’)

Even in my obsessive search for pants, I did not set foot in A&F. In fact, I made a deliberate effort to turn my head away when I walked with my son past by it in the mall. It was on the back of my head: I wanted to steer absolutely away from the potential accusation of being a leering dirty old lady. How wrong is it to lust after the models advertising clothing to your own children? It feels at the very least questionable. Aren’t you all surprised that I am a closeted prude?

Because I have never even taken a good look at the store, I was in for a shock of a lifetime when late one night I decided to check out A&F: I was desperate because the sweatpants from Aeropostale are now reportedly too short for my teenager.

So I opened up their front page…

Oh my. Come to mama!

I am sure my pupils were dilated and my mouth turned into a wolf snout. I quickly looked around to make sure my kids were not around even though it’s already past midnight. I felt… dirty.

Now did y’all know that in the world of these headless, shirtless models, “sweatpants” is a category on its own? SWEATPANTS. A category on its own!

 

Not only that, like fancy jeans, there are different styles that you can choose from. For your kids, of course. Of Course. Behold the glory from both A&F and Hollister (another store I have never set my foot in esp. since it is so deliberately dark and dance-club-hip, I just want to run in and go, “Where is the fucking bar?!”) Anyway, you are welcome.

 

Now that I have had a chance to stop staring and regain some blood back to my brains, it kind of made sense: sweatpants are a big deal for teenage boys. My son has been wearing a short-sleeved t-shirt and sweatpants ever since he became a teen, no matter the temperature outside. (He wears jeans when we ask him to “dress up”…)  But no worries Internet, I did not capitulate to the lure of headless shirtless men with their nether region almost showing. I was not about to pay $60 for a pair of sweatpants.

I hesitated before I clicked on Underwear, expecting to have nose bleeds from getting too excited. But was relieved, ok, fine, mildly disappointed that there is no image of models demonstrating the goods. Thank goodness though David Beckham came through (for H&M). And seriously, him? Fair game, imo. I have no problem ogling that old man.

 

 

By the way, how many of you, like me, chuckled at “Classic Straight”?

Straight fit. All the way down. Thou doth protest too much.

What is Classic straight anyway? Rock Hudson?

 

And… I am not done yet. At the end of day, I do have to admit: A&F website is a much greater pleasure to browse with a cocktail in hand than its competitors. I checked out American Eagles. All I can say is, Really, really?!

 

First of all, they are all wearing shirts. The nerves of those men! On top of that, what is up with that posture? Something wrong with your back and knees? Is that supposed to be sexy? Someone needs to call American Eagles and set them (and those legs) straight.

 

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?

Why I have nothing to write about on the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day?

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Because Hallmark does not make a card for this.

When I opened the newspaper this Sunday, ads with BIG SALES for International Women’s Day did not tumble out of the newspaper bundle. Well, because there was none.

It was not even an after thought here in the U.S. if it were not for the Interwebz, the Blogosphere and the Twitterverse. And for online magazines to come up with LISTS of Most Influential Women, Most Powerful Women, Women Who Inspired Us, yada yada yada, you know, just so all the frantic google searches by people who are trying to find something that they can blog, tweet and Facebook about today will lead to their websites. Traffic-generating content.

I guess the Google Doodle for the day also helped bring attention to the existence of an International Women’s Day to a lot of people.

But, seriously, if it were not for Daniel Craig, who as you would notice is a man, dressed up in a drag, the Interwebz would not have been buzzing about the 100th Anniversary of IWD as much. So men in drag sell. Got it.*

Women have a half day off in China every year on March 8. Just sayin’

I am still reeling from my vehement agreement with Stephanie Coontz who said in her interview on NPR that though women have undoubtedly made great progress since when Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique (1963), there seems to be, instead of “the Feminine Mystique” (or, as a cynic would argue, in addition to), “the HOT Mystique” nowadays:

Women are told, “Yes, indeed you can be anything you want, but, you also have to be hot while you are doing it!” And there is this tremendous pressure on young women… This can be very destructive to young girls when they are channeled into this sense. That, the way to empowerment is to display your sexuality.

 

What else? … Oh, of course, Texas. Can’t forget Texas. In honor of Internati0nal Women’s Day… Ok. I jest. Texas probably does not know nor care. Texas… sigh. I’ll let CNN tell you:

The state house approved the anti-abortion measure [that requires mothers seeking an abortion to undergo an ultrasound examination and listen to a description of what it shows] in a 107-42 vote Monday. And state senators backed a similar proposal last month. After a conference committee hashes out the details, Texas Gov. Rick Perry will have the final say.

 

To put everything else in perspective, here are some latest breaking news around the world:

Ivory Coast marches on International Women’s Day end in bloodshed

International Women’s Day Egyptian march met by men

Not a good day to google news with the keywords “International Women’s Day” really.

 

Sorry I have turned on my cynical pump full cylinder today. Turbo-Cynicism FTW! And really it is all my own fault. Nobody else to blame. I kept on seeing since this morning tweets that asked women to share their greatest accomplishments.

I thought long and hard. <– Elly, this one is for you. Who loves ya baby?!

I could only come up with “Gave births twice but only suffered acute birth pain for 15 minutes so probably did not count after all if you want to be all picky about it”. It’s that or “Managed to keep children alive longer than any pets i.e. fish I have had”…

Ok. Enough about me.

So… how’s everybody’s Fat Tuesday coming along?

 

 

* Don’t get me wrong. I love the promotional video for www.weareequals.org with Daniel Craig and Judy Dench narrating the facts and statistics. Here, I’ll prove it by putting the video right here.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkp4t5NYzVM

The Antidote to VD

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I received the latest issue of Bloomberg Businessweek this Saturday and I could not have been happier.

Such a great antidote for Valentine’s Day Blues.

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Cover of Bloomberg Businessweek, 14 February 2011.

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After reading the well-written article, “Cheating Incorporated”, still aghast and shaking from the get-go by the tagline “Life is short. Have an affair”, I went and checked out the front page of the website, and the front page only. I swear. There is NO wink wink this time.

I don’t know what to say. I feel like crying but not the self-pitying kind wont to happen on Valentine’s Day. No. I feel like crying because I am so tired. I feel besieged.

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"Affairs Guaranteed"

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Well, I guess now we know what many people would be doing the day AFTER Valentine’s Day…

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Now we know what people do the day AFTER...

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I am rather intrigued by this chart really, what would your hypothesis be for the reasons for the spikes?

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