Can I Interest You In Some Sarcasm? Using My Attitude With Less Abandon

Lately I have been ending a lot of conversations with the disclaimer that, “I swear I'm not a bitter man-hater or anything...” This will be after an hour long diatribe that verbally castrated the entire male gender for some type of obviously moronic behavior that for some asinine reason they have refused to acknowledge or make any effort to remedy. It is all well and good to say I am not a man-hater but the case is destroyed when all evidence clearly points to the contrary.

I really don’t want to be that girl.

It upsets me that somehow, without my knowledge, I may have become that girl. That at some point this attitude infiltrated my everyday conversation and became uncontrollable, making it virtually impossible for me to say anything about a guy that doesn’t drip with sarcasm and condescension.

It feels like I am engaged in an epic battle of wills; demure, optimistic, romantic me vs. raging bitch me.

This point was driven home (like a knife through the heart) when a male acquaintance hit me with the following: “You know, when a woman hates the fact she is single it is incredibly unattractive. Her dissatisfaction floods out her eyeballs.”

Floods. Out. Her. Eyeballs.

Lock your doors. Take cover. Protect the children. There is a psychotic woman with single ladies syndrome FLOODING OUT HER EYEBALLS on the loose.

I enjoy being single but that isn’t the point. That isn’t what hurt me so much about this statement. What hurt me is that I was obviously being enough of a bitch that this guy had to resort to the oldest trick in the book, the “she’s angry because she is single” cliché. It’s the man’s go-to comeback and I have heard it so many times it doesn‘t even phase me anymore.

Well I thought I had moved past these meager defenses. I thought that I had learned how to have civilized conversations with men that didn’t have to end in boy vs. girl mudslinging. It’s like when you were a kid and you said, “I hate you,” and the person responds, “I hate you times ten…” finally ending with, “I hate you infinity!”

“She’s just angry because she’s single,” is the man’s version of “I hate you infinity.”

When it gets to this point nothing I say matters anymore. I might as well be talking to a wall, which is no big deal because my diatribes are not for anyone else’s benefit nor or they meant to impress anybody (clearly, as I am sure there isn’t a self-help relationship guide called “How to Attract the Perfect Guy by Outright Insulting His Gender"). Most of the time I don’t even think before speaking…we all just need to vent once in a while.

But my anger is a righteous anger and that is why these comments will fly out of my mouth with or without my meaning them too. To stop expressing these opinions would be betraying my sense of social justice. It would be betraying the moral model that dictates how I want to live my life.

I also think that on an unconscious level I say these things in front of my male peers so they can learn a thing or two from a female perspective. See firsthand how fed up women are with the current state of things. I know when my male friends have talked about the controlling, back-stabbing, non-appreciative women they have encountered they strike the fear of God into me.

Because I don’t want to be that girl either.

That being said, my moral model DOESN’T need a side of sarcasm. Because if I don’t start curbing my attitude, how is anyone going to take me seriously? Because if I have to resort to angry soapbox speeches to make my point, what does that say about my credibility?

I hang out with some amazing, stand-up gentlemen who are doing their best to navigate a difficult social landscape. I hope that I can temper my attitude enough so that when I express my opinions, I can paint them a credible picture of what the not-so-stand-up gentlemen look like.

Because thank God, I know they don’t want to be that guy.

Inked: Are Tattoos on Women Trashy or Liberating?

Ask anybody how they feel about tattoos and you are bound to get some strong opinions. I remember the first time I attempted to broach the subject with my mother. I was 16 and set on getting a tattoo on my 18th birthday. She said absolutely not. Her reasoning…only bikers, hookers, and pirates get tattoos.

Exactly how does one argue with that? If you figure it out will you please let me know?

Needless to say it was exasperating and after weeks of debate I made up my mind to get a tattoo whether she decided to disown me or not. But my mother’s perspective, while hilarious and seriously outdated, does bring up an interesting point. During the years my mother was growing up tattoos were a symbol of anarchy and liberation; think Janis Joplin who famously said, "Women with tattoos like to f*ck.". Tattoos bespoke a life of crime, gay advocacy, flower power and radical feminism at its best (or worst).

Which begs the question…have tattoos become our generation’s version of bra-burning?

Look at some of the reasons tattoos are so appealing to women:

Appeal #1: Mom and Dad don’t like them. I’m sure there are exceptions but I have yet to meet a pair of parents excited about the prospect of their daughter getting a tribal band tattooed on her upper arm. Exactly what tribe is she a part of? It doesn’t matter; spiting Mom and Dad is fun.

Appeal #2: Men don’t like them. Sure there are exceptions but research has proven that the average man has more negative attitudes toward women with visible tattoos. It may not be a deal breaker but given the choice they prefer women without the artwork. Well, if we have learned anything from human history it is that women will look for any excuse to give a male dominated opinion the middle finger. “You guys don’t like tattoos? Well too bad, I‘m not getting it to please you.” It’s juvenile, it’s prideful. It doesn’t matter; putting the patriarchy in its place is fun.

Appeal #3: They are a physical right. We should call the shots when it comes to our bodies and tattoos are a visual proof of that fact. Nobody else has any say when it comes to having something permanently printed on our skin because we are the ones that have to live with that decision. Sensing any similarities to reproductive rights? Yup, pissing off radical conservatives is fun too.

Women are still in the trenches fighting for the right to make decisions about their own bodies regardless of what their family, significant other, or government dictates. Tattoos symbolize a small victory within that struggle. At its most basic level, tattoos are a social statement about the control that women DO possess. That when it comes to our bodies, no one can tell us what to do.

Even if we somehow end up looking like a pirate working a street corner.

If you still don’t think tattoos are culturally significant check out this article:
Got Ink? No Drink! Swedish Nightclub Doesn’t Serve Tattooed Women

Chauvinist Musicals: Why Are Those Seven Brothers So Irresistible?

When I get sad I like to watch old musicals. Cheaper than Prozac and ten times more entertaining. The scripts are corny, the dance numbers are meticulously choreographed and the costumes look like they were designed by color-blind drag queens. Fun for the whole family. Some of my favorites include Guys and Dolls, The Pajama Game, Calamity Jane, and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

All feature a strong female lead that doesn’t take crap from anybody. Good thing too because a lot of crap gets thrown at her…from none other than their lead male counterpart and potential love interest of course.

Check out some of these winning lines:

“The dolls were agreeable with nice teeth and no last names” -Sky Masterson, Guys and Dolls
“If a guy did not have a doll, who would holler at him?” -Nathan Detroit, Guys and Dolls
“Why don't you ever fix your hair?” -Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane
“What do I need manners for? I already got me a wife.” -Adam Pontipee, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

On the evolutionary ladder these guys are one rung up from Fred Flintstone when it comes to respecting women.

These musicals were released in the 50’s which was not a decade known for its emphasis on female empowerment. Just like any art form these movies should be viewed with consideration for their context. I accept these male characters with a grain of salt because I’m fully aware that is how men spoke about women during that time period.

While this is true, and while I know that nobody takes these movies too seriously, I still couldn’t reconcile the fact that despite their blatant chauvinism I found these characters not just tolerable…but also incredibly charming.

After a recent re-watching of one of these favorites I think I figured out why.

The dancing certainly doesn’t hurt. I can’t be trusted on a flight of stairs when I’m sober but these men are leaping through the air, somersaulting through drainage systems and balancing on spinning logs. That level of coordination is pretty impressive.

However my major epiphany came when I noticed that the men in these movies are not good at verbalizing how they feel, either because they don’t know how or because they are terribly out of practice. They represent the stereotypical mid-century man’s man who refuses to acknowledge he is even capable of emotional depth…when suddenly, about 48 minutes into the movie, he falls madly in love to the point where he can’t bare it any longer. So what’s a guy to do when he doesn’t have the words? Burst into song of course.

When his love is so strong words alone can’t express it, it is only through the magic of a choreographed musical number that he can adequately do his feelings justice.

Ladies, some of us pass out from delight when a guy declares his love in a text message. I think this is a step up.

And on the charming scale it’s an adorable 10/10. Or maybe I am just a sucker for baritones, but even so, don’t forget that after all the catty remarks and insulting banter runs out the male lead is still succumbing to a love he denied was even possible. AND he wants to sing about it.

A man who is willing to admit he was kind of clueless? That, to me, is pretty darn charming.

Victim Blaming 101: It Wasn't Rape-Rape...Sure, and the Age of Consent is Just a Number

The debate is certainly heating up over Roman Polanski’s arrest. I for one am glad because this is not something that should just be swept under the rug. This is something that needs to be talked about because the public perception of rape is obviously severely skewed. There are way too many myths circulating out there about what rape “isn’t” and it needs to stop.

Now whenever there is scandal in the entertainment industry you can always find a few celebrities contributing their opinion. Two notable figures in this debate have been Whoopi Goldberg and Chris Rock. (click their name to view video) Chris Rock has always been an asset to the feminist movement in my opinion as his comedy routines often call out behavior that is offensive to women. In one routine he asked all the men in the audience if they were feminists to which he got an unenthusiastic response. He then asked them if they had a mother, a sister, a daughter…if so, they were a feminist. Because if someone hurt their mother how would that make them feel? If someone insulted their mother, made her feel bad about herself, would that make them angry? He may be shallow, egotistical, and crude but Chris Rock knows what a feminist is.

Rock also recently released a documentary entitled “Good Hair” which examines the traditionally white standards of beauty that black women are exposed to. He was promoting this documentary on Jay Leno when he brought up the Roman Polanski case. His inspiring rant may have been in response to Whoopi Goldberg from The View who said that, “I know it wasn't rape-rape. I think it was something else, but I don't believe it was rape-rape.” (Jezebel)

Poor Whoopi. She is getting slammed for this and sadly it was probably just a case of not thinking before speaking. That being said, she should have known better. Her words illustrate a perception of rape that a lot of the general public shares; that there are “levels” of rape, that some types of rape are worse than others, and that in certain cases the rapist isn’t completely at fault.

Oh HELL no. The victim is never at fault. Why? Because the rapist is the one who is physically doing the raping. It doesn’t matter what she was wearing, what kind of person she was, whether they had a sexual relationship before; if the woman says no, it is rape. Tell your friends because it scares me to think there may still be confusion about this.

Roman Polanski drugged, raped, and sodomized a 13-year old girl. That. Is. Rape.

It is being suggested that the sexual relationship was “consensual.” Who are these people and are they on acid? The victim testified that Polanski gave her champagne, drugs, and took nude pictures of her in a hot tub before having sexual intercourse with her despite her resistance and requests to be taken home. He doesn’t deny this. He plead guilty and fled the country when he found out the jail sentence for statutory rape was, well, kind of long.

So it’s not even her word against his. Too bad we are a culture that loves victim-blaming, a culture that is quick to suggest that OBVIOUSLY this 13 year old girl was asking for it and willingly participated in consensual sex with a 44 year old man.

Let’s just suppose, for a second, that this is true.

When you are 13, there is no such thing as consensual sex. When you are 13 you can barely decide what outfit you want to wear to middle school that day, let alone whether to have sex with someone. This is why the age of consent exists. It wasn’t like a bunch of politicians were sitting around one day and thought, “Gee, wouldn’t it be fun to mess with those crazy teens by telling them they have to wait to have sex? That sure would piss them off.”

No. The age of consent was put into law because we recognize the fact that children do not have the cognitive ability to make informed and unbiased decisions about their physical well-being. A 13 year old girl is working with a limited supply of brain cells. Her priorities range from how popular she is to how good her hair looks. If she thinks for one second, “If I don’t do what this man says he’ll tell all my friends and I won’t be popular anymore” chances are she will have sex with him. That, ladies and gentlemen, is her extensive and thorough decision-making process. So go ahead. Just TRY and tell me that is consensual sex.

In Georgia the age of consent is 16 which personally I think is still too young. The majority of 16 year olds I know can barely tie there own shoes. It is mind-boggling that they are considered old enough to make smart decisions about there sexual health, but whatever. I'm not the expert and I don't make the rules.

The moral of the story is this; there is no such thing as rape that isn’t rape. I don’t care if Roman Polanski made a shit-ton of amazing movies. I don’t care if he has spent the last thirty years saving dolphins, feeding the homeless, and is this close to finding the cure for cancer. If you rape a 13 year old girl and try to get away with it, I will hunt you down vigilante style like it’s my job.

Oh and Chris Rock is my hero. And Whoopi Goldberg, even though her comment was inappropriate, has made an issue go public that needed to be clarified. And she starred in The Color Purple. So there’s that. Try and go easy on her.

Quite A Catch...

This is what happens when a guy badgers a girl into giving him her number. The first voicemail was kind of funny, in a wow this is pathetic kind of way. But the second message? This guy needs to pray to his Greek gods for a clue.

http://melodymaker.posterous.com/the-reason-some-girls-stay-single-very-funny

The Porn Identity: Is It Damaging Men as Much as Women?

Porn is hard to ignore. Whether it inundates your life intentionally or unintentionally, its out there and its status as an economic cash-cow (revenues each year average $10 billion or higher) are undeniable. Personally I used to be on the fence about pornography; I took the “each to his own” and “whatever floats your boat” stance, mostly because of its inevitability. Porn markets the inevitability factor well. They argue that pre-historic man painted naked women on caves, so what’s the big deal about double penetration? I didn’t have the energy to fight this kind of ridiculous argument so I just let it go. I had more important battles to fight.

Well, consider me officially off the fence. Somehow porn has unintentionally inundated my life in a big way lately through articles, books, news stories, and casual conversations with friends. But instead of the usual battle cries of how damaging pornography is to women, the conversations lately have revolved around the affect pornography has on men. After all, men consume the majority of pornography so it makes perfect sense that they should be included.

The question is this; it is pretty obvious that pornography is damaging to women, and how men perceive women, but is it equally damaging (if not MORE damaging) to men?

If porn turns women into objects, what does it turn men into? Slaves? Animals? Addicts? Abusers? Run of the mill assholes?

Men as a whole are not to blame (the men producing porn are another matter, one that involves my fists and there big dumb heads). If young men are learning about sex by viewing porn in one of its myriad forms then their perception of sex will be altered accordingly. Sure its “fantasy,” but the human brain doesn’t have an easy button when it comes to separating fantasy and reality.

When it comes to the human male it is basically monkey see, monkey do.

Considering the porn that is most frequently consumed, as in what is rented or viewed online the most (I am not including soft-core, erotica, artsy porn simply because its viewing is fractional compared to hard-core gonzo and feature porn) the common denominator is control. Men are always in control, often to the point of causing pain.

Sex as domination, fantastic. Sure glad we don’t live in a rape culture or anything, because then we’d REALLY be in trouble.

Take note that my use of the word “consumption” to describe pornography viewing is intentional. Just like food it satisfies a need, plain and simple. But also like food moderation can be a problem. And it’s the food that is bad for you that tastes so much better.

Herein lies the problem of porn. Because it is so masterful at taking emotion completely out of the equation, porn becomes boring. Producers are scraping the bottom of one nasty barrel for the most extreme fare they can get. In this equation the nasty, demeaning, pain-inducing factor goes up while man’s capacity for human decency and empathy plummet.

Porn is destroying man’s capacity to remain HUMAN. This is the thesis argument of Robert Jensen’s excellent book Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity. Consider this excerpt:

“For many men, sex is often a place where we both display and reinforce our power over women. By that, I don’t mean that all men at all times use sex that way, but that a pattern of such relationships is readily visible in this society. Women deal with it every day, and at some level most men understand it. We can see that pornography not only raises issues about the buying and selling of women, but…about sex in general, about the way in which men and women in this culture are commonly trained to be sexual. It’s about men and women, and sex and power.

We live in a time of sexual crisis. That makes life difficult, but it also creates a space for invention and creativity…the possibility of a different way of understanding the world and myself, the possibility of escaping the masculinity trap set for me, that chance to become something more than a man, more that just a john-to become a human being.”

I don’t have any lofty ideas about single-handedly bringing down the pornography industry, however much I would like to. I will have to settle for indignation, outrage…but mostly sadness. I am sad for the men that are exposed to this smut, this degradation of women, and think it is the norm. Think that this is what the masculine identity looks like. Think that the women in these films are not somebody’s friend, somebody’s sister, somebody’s daughter.

It is our job to remind them. When they watch Ariana Jollee have sex with 65 men in one day as she does in the film 65 Guy Cream Pie they need to remember that her real name is Laura David and that Laura David is somebody’s daughter. Is that the life a father envisions for his daughter?

We are indeed in the midst of a sexual crisis, and we don’t have the luxury of riding the fence when the stakes are this high.

Lets take sex off the screen and put it back in the bedroom where it belongs.


For some incredibly different perspectives on this subject, I suggest the following reading:
Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity by Robert Jensen
Feast of Burden: The Transgressive, Disturbing World of “Feeding Porn” by Jessica Hester
Porn-Again Christian by Mark Driscoll

Some Gender-Related Factoids

• In the 1400's a law was set forth in England that a man was allowed to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb. Hence we have "the rule of thumb."
• Many years ago in Scotland a new game was invented. It was ruled "Gentlemen Only...Ladies Forbidden." Thus the word GOLF entered into the English language.
• The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time TV were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.
• Men can read smaller print than women can.
• Bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laserprinters were all invented by women.
• It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based this period was called the honey month, which we know today as the honeymoon.
• Men’s shirts have the buttons on the right but women’s blouses have the buttons on the left. This is because during the Victorian period buttons were quite expensive and were mostly worn by the wealthy. Since proper, well-to-do ladies were dressed by their servants, and most people are right-handed, their buttons were placed on the servant’s right which is the wearer’s left side. Most gentlemen dressed themselves so their buttons were placed on the wearer’s right side.
• Every year, 11,000 Americans injure themselves while trying out bizarre sexual positions.
• On average women blink nearly twice as much as men.