Pool Hall Revolution

There is a bar in Savannah that offers free pool on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I decided to make this part of my weekly routine. I grew up with a pool table in my house and my Dad taught me to play at a young age. My Dad loved three things; pool, cards, and bowling. He passed away when I was 19 and since I was a hopeless bowler and found cards to be too complicated, pool became the legacy I was left with. Instead of passing on the torch he passed on his custom-made pool cue with pearl inlay.

So every Tuesday is now date night with B&B Billiards. At first I’d like to think I blend in pretty well but when I start racking up at a free table its as if every man in the room feels a disturbance in the force.

Competent with a pool cue she is.

Or is she? When a girl plays pool in an establishment primarily frequented by pool players, they are going to size up her game. I could care less what these guys think about my game but it’s still intimidating. Is this how a man using a public restroom feels?

Fortunately unlike a public restroom (sorry guys) this is a pass or fail test and you only have to be slightly better than horrible to pass. While I may not be an excellent pool player I’m not a shitty one either. Lucky for me being not-too-shitty seems to carry a lot of weight as the men appear confused, intrigued, and admiring…simultaneously. Is this how a Christian youth group leader in a gay pride parade feels? I am not trying to start a revolution and I have nothing to prove but sometimes it feels good to show that I'm not afraid to play with the boys.

Also it’s no surprise that I enjoy playing a game where I can bend over provocatively, handle a long stick and repeatedly bust balls all night long. You could drown in that kind of sexual symbolism.

So where does that leave me? The Madonna/Whore complex enters new and interesting territory when you add some competition to the mix. On the one hand I am being respected and admired for my mastery of the game; on the other hand I am unintentionally flaunting my sexuality with the help of some not-so-subtle body positions and object metaphors. I am literally the ball buster and the tease, at the same time. Even Houdini couldn’t pull that off.

Maybe this is what third-wave feminism should look like.

In summary, the man who invented this game was very sexually frustrated and the secret to being a badass bombshell is to be slightly better than horrible at playing pool. If you can get through a game without completely embarrassing yourself you’ll have it made. If you can’t manage that then rest assured; there will always be a guy out there who is man enough to let you win.

And if you find one who is man enough to NOT let you win please let me know, because I’m still looking for him. :)

Defending the Naughty Nurse

I used to get upset with women that used Halloween as an excuse to wear something that amounts to being naked and get away with it. However this year I dressed up as a Freudian Slip for Halloween, so admittedly, wearing lingerie to a crowded costume party gave me some insight. I am not the skinniest or prettiest girl but wearing that costume made me feel good, made me feel sexy, and made me feel reasonably sure that I made my ex swallow his tongue.

Shameless maybe but desperate times called for desperate measures. It made me think that maybe I should go easy on the Dirty Dorothys and Slutty Schoolteachers. Halloween is all about letting loose and being someone we’re not for one night only. As women who are constantly objectified in our daily lives, isn’t it liberating to openly express a sexualized self on a night where EVERYONE is being objectified?

Dan Savage had some interesting things to say about this "sluttly costume" genre in an article he wrote for The Stranger. Check out his thoughts on the subject here.

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

Dress for Success: Would It Kill Us to Cover Up a Little?

My friend recently shared with me a Mark Driscoll video concerning a married woman who dresses immodestly. I don’t love the idea of a husband trying to control how his wife dresses but I feel like the situation shouldn’t even have gotten to that point. Women should know better. If a woman doesn’t, if dressing that way makes her feel good, that man should understand from the get-go what kind of woman he is committing to.

Personally I don’t like it when women wear revealing clothing (the kind of revealing that borders on ridiculous). I have to stop myself from telling them their village called because their skank is missing. They think it’s empowering, I think it’s distracting. Men are ADD ladies; they can’t pay attention to the words coming out of your mouth if your boobs are falling out of your dress.

But is this fair though? Feminism is about women having choices where once we didn’t. An outfit that used to get us arrested for indecent exposure will now get us in a Flo Rida video. I am not sure that is what the suffragettes had in mind but we’ll take it.

However, just because we CAN doesn’t mean we SHOULD.

Modesty is a volatile subject in feminist circles because feminists often think of modesty in religious or historical terms only. What if we consider it in contextual terms? People make decisions based on their current cultural climate and unfortunately our generation is very good at depersonalizing the personal. They will form opinions based on what we SEE when there’s nothing else to go on. So when we visually leave nothing to the imagination in essence we are saying there is nothing more to us. It isn’t any wonder female objectification is such a problem when you now possess the intellectual depth of a hammer in a man’s eyes.

I’m not saying women who dress this way are stupid, but don’t be surprised if men jump to this conclusion if it appears women are putting all their energy into showcasing their value externally. They probably figure there isn’t enough energy leftover to read a book or form an opinion.

The feminists argue it isn’t about making the men happy but 49% of the population is male. We can’t ignore their perspective if we want to be taken seriously on a global scale. I really don’t want our third-wave feminist zeitgeist to be “we dress like porn stars and that makes us powerful and successful.” No, that makes us unoriginal. It requires a lot more creativity to wear more clothing and still look fabulous.

Women used to wear more clothing because they were taught to feel ashamed of their bodies. Now women feel they are showing how unashamed they are by taking it all off. This is not the only way to show pride in what God gave you, and in my opinion it is certainly not the best way. If you respect your body shouldn’t you only want to share it with those who have proven themselves worthy of the privilege? It’s not about shame, it’s about value.

If you still need a reason to not leave half your outfit at home just think about all the wardrobe malfunctions that result from less coverage. It’s exhausting having to monitor your clothing at all times to make sure everything is where it should be. Trust me, it isn’t worth the energy.

Please, think of the children and don’t be a free show. We are so much more than that.

Suggested Reading:
A Return to Modesty by Wendy Shalit
Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture by Ariel Levy