Say you're reading a blog that you really shouldn't be reading, because it's the blog of a woman you had a crush on about five years earlier and you found it a year earlier in a weak moment.
You branch out to the links column, as people will do, and discover that your old crush has made a post to a friend's blog denouncing the friend for subscribing to Playboy. This is somewhat hypocritical as your crush had repeatedly expressed her wish to pose for the magazine herself.
So, do you bust the hypocrisy, or remain quiet about the blog-stalking, which you only do every three months, while shit-faced drunk?
Thoughts?
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Sex laws.
Recently I asked a friend of mine for advice relating to how I should be pursuing a girl we both know. His first response was "That's weird; you've just never manifested any kind of interest in her before."
Of course not--I'm Norwegian, just like everyone else from my town. At my high school, couples would blow off class and sneak off to sit behind the bleachers at the football field and stare wordlessly at the same distant object. That was considered scandalous.
Of course not--I'm Norwegian, just like everyone else from my town. At my high school, couples would blow off class and sneak off to sit behind the bleachers at the football field and stare wordlessly at the same distant object. That was considered scandalous.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Hot celebrities I can't fantasize about.
I know a lot of people like to picture themselves in sexual situations with famous people. Like me for instance. Sometimes there is trouble. Some famous women, no matter how much they project a "I want you, personally, to fuck me right now look" in movies or magazines, no matter how much I, personally, would like to tear off their diaphanous movie-star photo-shoot gowns and lick their . . .
Excuse me. No matter how good some women look, there is something about them that so invariably derails my sexual fantasies about them that I honestly just don't bother. The following is an itemized list. It is also an objectified list.
-Nicole Kidman. Nicole Kidman is fucking hot. She's got that flame-red hair and that smoldering gaze--you just know she'd be a hellcat in the sack. Unfortunately, she's also got those frail babybird arms. I am fairly certain that I could snap Nicole Kidman's arms and legs like toothpicks. I am not the kind of guy that gets off on that sort of thing. Every time I try to follow a Nicole Kidman sex fantasy through to the end, there is a bonerkilling detour through "shit, that would probably really hurt her"-land, and once I found myself in an extended reverie about proper first aid techniques.
-Michelle Pfeiffer. First, I was watching MTV several years ago and they had a segment on with Jon Bon Jovi proclaiming "If I could have any wish it would be Michelle Pfeiffer! Just once!" Now, I'm not a caveman when it comes to my women. I don't expect total sexual purity. I can handle that no woman that I have ever fucked was a virgin. But if you picture Jon Bon Jovi with his hair metal guinea hands on any woman you've even considered touching and you don't immediately cast about for a bus ticket to Jersey and a straight razor, then you are not a man.
-Sherilyn Fenn is probably best known for her role as good/bad girl Audrey Horne on David Lynch's Twin Peaks TV show. What is not as well known, indeed, what was totally unknown to me until I was helping out at my parents', sorting old pictures, is that she looks exactly like my grandmother circa 1944.
-Louise Brooks. Louise Brooks is probably the hottest woman ever photographed, and it doesn't hurt that some of those photographs show her bare-ass naked. Unfortunately those pictures were taken in 1922. That's hard not to think about, particularly when you are looking at those pictures. Then you remember that she was born in 1906. If she were alive right now, I don't think she'd be all that hot. Not even cougar-hot.
Excuse me. No matter how good some women look, there is something about them that so invariably derails my sexual fantasies about them that I honestly just don't bother. The following is an itemized list. It is also an objectified list.
-Nicole Kidman. Nicole Kidman is fucking hot. She's got that flame-red hair and that smoldering gaze--you just know she'd be a hellcat in the sack. Unfortunately, she's also got those frail babybird arms. I am fairly certain that I could snap Nicole Kidman's arms and legs like toothpicks. I am not the kind of guy that gets off on that sort of thing. Every time I try to follow a Nicole Kidman sex fantasy through to the end, there is a bonerkilling detour through "shit, that would probably really hurt her"-land, and once I found myself in an extended reverie about proper first aid techniques.
-Michelle Pfeiffer. First, I was watching MTV several years ago and they had a segment on with Jon Bon Jovi proclaiming "If I could have any wish it would be Michelle Pfeiffer! Just once!" Now, I'm not a caveman when it comes to my women. I don't expect total sexual purity. I can handle that no woman that I have ever fucked was a virgin. But if you picture Jon Bon Jovi with his hair metal guinea hands on any woman you've even considered touching and you don't immediately cast about for a bus ticket to Jersey and a straight razor, then you are not a man.
-Sherilyn Fenn is probably best known for her role as good/bad girl Audrey Horne on David Lynch's Twin Peaks TV show. What is not as well known, indeed, what was totally unknown to me until I was helping out at my parents', sorting old pictures, is that she looks exactly like my grandmother circa 1944.
-Louise Brooks. Louise Brooks is probably the hottest woman ever photographed, and it doesn't hurt that some of those photographs show her bare-ass naked. Unfortunately those pictures were taken in 1922. That's hard not to think about, particularly when you are looking at those pictures. Then you remember that she was born in 1906. If she were alive right now, I don't think she'd be all that hot. Not even cougar-hot.
Saturday, July 02, 2005
I know exactly what I want.
I was hanging out with my pal D____ at a coffee shop by his apartment in the T.C's, where I have been visiting over the weekend, and I took the time to fully interrogate my feelings vis-a-vis the attractive barista at the corner coffee shop:
I want to knock her up.
Not saying it's a good idea--not even saying it's likely--but that's the particular kind of "do" that I would like to do to her. I wonder why. Is this some sort of reptile "spot the best breeding partner" kind of reaction? Isn't that what all sexual attraction is technically supposed to be?
I want to knock her up.
Not saying it's a good idea--not even saying it's likely--but that's the particular kind of "do" that I would like to do to her. I wonder why. Is this some sort of reptile "spot the best breeding partner" kind of reaction? Isn't that what all sexual attraction is technically supposed to be?
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Biß Spader.
Lately (now less than lately, but I wrote this a while ago and I didn't notice it didn't get posted - you can tell I don't update a lot) I have noticed that women are quite fond of the movie Secretary.
Part of the current Zeitgeist seems to be the feeling that it is consonant with the ideals of feminism for women to actively express their sexual desires and impulses, even when the content of these impulses is essentially anti-feminist, as in the desire of the protagonist of the film Secretary to be sexually dominated and humiliated by her boss.
The film's relationship to feminism is fairly complex, even omitting that feminism itself is a complex body of thought under which many contradictory conclusions can be justified. It is, however, difficult to find a reading of the film that does not have it as chiefly a male control fantasy. It is necessary for a non-sexist interpretation to stipulate that the content or character of the protagonist's sexual fantasies is immaterial to the plot, but that the fact of her active pursuit of their realization is central. It is ironically the male party who, although notionally dominant during the sex act, is essentially the passive object of desire, and this inversion is central to the movie's feminism.
I can understand that, even as I assert that the inversion of stereotypes as a plot device typically only serves to reinforce those stereotypes, and that even progressive depictions of female sexuality, in the broader context of Western culture, which is not itself progressive on those issues, are interpreted principally in a retrogressive way, and will simply constitute another image confirming the normal female stereotype. That is, in the morass of popular culture, which interrogates cultural objects minimally and only in terms of itself, Secretary is only a film about a mousy girl who wants to be humiliated.
What I don't get about it is that when the women who cite it as a favorite explain why, they tend to bring up their identification with the protagonist's sexual desires. To shift out of academese, the movie seems mainly to appeal to women because they want the James Spader character to humiliate and fuck them.
James Spader's sex appeal sort of confuses me on some level. Sure, I get the whole aesthetic, rheumy-eyed degenerate thing he rocks in his typical roles. But have you ever met a gay man who fantasizes about being turned out by Rip from Less Than Zero, let alone become aware of it as a minor cultural phenomenon like the Secretary thing? I thought not.
The thing is, I don't understand why women would want this particular James Spader character to bend them over a desk. As a dead-languages professional, I would prefer that women focus on the prospect of fucking Dr. Daniel Jackson from Stargate.
A woman with whom I discussed the Secretary issue surmised (semiseriously) that my incomprehension was precisely because I couldn't identify with the female protagonist on the matter. However, I submit that I really can't identify with the James Spader character, either:
Of all the things I could think to do to Maggie Gyllenhaal, pushing her nose into an earthworm is not one of them.
This leaves me the Jeremy Davies character as the character with which I am able to identify, and to do so would probably require that I admit to some things about myself that I'd really rather not admit to right now.
There is also the Oedipal problem that the movie, and its fandom, poses to me: My dad is himself a repressed, domineering attorney in private practice. This means that the women of the audience, in desiring him sexually, are evidently of a similar mind to my mother. And honestly, the last fucking thing that I want is to get with a girl who reminds me of my mother.
In closing: If you are a woman in your mid to late 20s who hated Secretary, get in touch.
Part of the current Zeitgeist seems to be the feeling that it is consonant with the ideals of feminism for women to actively express their sexual desires and impulses, even when the content of these impulses is essentially anti-feminist, as in the desire of the protagonist of the film Secretary to be sexually dominated and humiliated by her boss.
The film's relationship to feminism is fairly complex, even omitting that feminism itself is a complex body of thought under which many contradictory conclusions can be justified. It is, however, difficult to find a reading of the film that does not have it as chiefly a male control fantasy. It is necessary for a non-sexist interpretation to stipulate that the content or character of the protagonist's sexual fantasies is immaterial to the plot, but that the fact of her active pursuit of their realization is central. It is ironically the male party who, although notionally dominant during the sex act, is essentially the passive object of desire, and this inversion is central to the movie's feminism.
I can understand that, even as I assert that the inversion of stereotypes as a plot device typically only serves to reinforce those stereotypes, and that even progressive depictions of female sexuality, in the broader context of Western culture, which is not itself progressive on those issues, are interpreted principally in a retrogressive way, and will simply constitute another image confirming the normal female stereotype. That is, in the morass of popular culture, which interrogates cultural objects minimally and only in terms of itself, Secretary is only a film about a mousy girl who wants to be humiliated.
What I don't get about it is that when the women who cite it as a favorite explain why, they tend to bring up their identification with the protagonist's sexual desires. To shift out of academese, the movie seems mainly to appeal to women because they want the James Spader character to humiliate and fuck them.
James Spader's sex appeal sort of confuses me on some level. Sure, I get the whole aesthetic, rheumy-eyed degenerate thing he rocks in his typical roles. But have you ever met a gay man who fantasizes about being turned out by Rip from Less Than Zero, let alone become aware of it as a minor cultural phenomenon like the Secretary thing? I thought not.
The thing is, I don't understand why women would want this particular James Spader character to bend them over a desk. As a dead-languages professional, I would prefer that women focus on the prospect of fucking Dr. Daniel Jackson from Stargate.
A woman with whom I discussed the Secretary issue surmised (semiseriously) that my incomprehension was precisely because I couldn't identify with the female protagonist on the matter. However, I submit that I really can't identify with the James Spader character, either:
Of all the things I could think to do to Maggie Gyllenhaal, pushing her nose into an earthworm is not one of them.
This leaves me the Jeremy Davies character as the character with which I am able to identify, and to do so would probably require that I admit to some things about myself that I'd really rather not admit to right now.
There is also the Oedipal problem that the movie, and its fandom, poses to me: My dad is himself a repressed, domineering attorney in private practice. This means that the women of the audience, in desiring him sexually, are evidently of a similar mind to my mother. And honestly, the last fucking thing that I want is to get with a girl who reminds me of my mother.
In closing: If you are a woman in your mid to late 20s who hated Secretary, get in touch.
Saturday, July 03, 2004
I'm a wimpster.
First of all, let's get the quibble about spelling out of the way. On Black Table, where the article first appeared, it's "whimpster". In Bust, where it was recently reprinted, it's become "wimpster". I'm going with "wimpster" because that "h" makes no sense. Besides, I think I should have right to spell it how I want, being one and all. I mean, I'm a guy who reads Bust. And I worry it's too establishment. I prefer Bitch, because it doesn't waste as much space on makeup.
Yeah, I'm a wimpster. Manipulative, passive-aggressive, "emo". I display all of the warning signs. I have even said, and I quote, "I never ask girls out because I don't want to sound like some sexist asshole." And I meant it.
And not to lay blame here, but let's try to get to the root of exactly where my ilk come from. I submit that our reflexive crippling PC-ness is in fact borne of a positive intent. I'm hip to the whole feminism thing, and I think I can be reasonably certain that I follow most of the major arguments, even when I run into words like "reify".
Being probably more than a little neurotic, I and people like me read about the systematic and often unconscious oppression of women and minorities and we're shocked. This can't be us. We're not bad guys. So we try our damnedest to cleanse our thoughts and actions of suspect behavior. Like the whole slut/stud double standard, which probably winds up being the crux of our problem.
See, one thing I think we wimpsters have going for us is that we're open to the possibility of having friends, pals, chums of the opposite sex without reading too much into it. The danger comes when it becomes apparent that it would be really fucking swell if there were some way to read a little bit more into it. The "Ducky Scenario", if you will. We won't say anything, because it will corrupt a completely worthwhile friendship. Put it this way: We're your passive-aggressive non-boyfriend. It starts out with a lotta beers, lotta laughs, lotta mixtapery. No pressure, no interest.
Then pow the male hormones kick in and we realize you're not only one of the guys, you're uh, totally, uh, hot. And stuff.
This is where things start to get unstable. Basically the goal is to determine if you're interested in having sexual intercourse with us ("like us like us") in a way that wouldn't jeopardize our friendship if it turned out you don't. Admit it: having one of your friends walk up to you one day and make the kind of confession that typically only figures in bad romance novels and the lives of middle schoolers is reasonably traumatic. So we don't do anything. We try to suss out, based on your throwaway comments about popular culture and local architecture, what you might be thinking.
Once something finally does happen, because we've nurtured this atmosphere of ambiguity around the whole thing, we can't actually figure out why you're doing it with us (NB: All American men in their mid-20s invariably think to themselves, "whoa. I'm totally doing it right now" in a Butt-head voice during sex). So we keep up with the noncommital "friend" act while you get bored and cheesed off with the whole sordid affair. The sex remains rote and PC for the duration because we're still operating from the premise that if we fuck up once, it's off.
So here's my invincible cure-all solution. I've examined it and it's devoid of double-standard, completely germane to use by either side of both heterosexual and homosexual platonic standoffs. If the first party entertains or suspects they might entertain sexual designs on the second party, heretofore a friend, the first party shall forthwith enquire of the second whether or not the second party would be interested in screwing, often. If the second party is indeed interested, what happens next is no business of mine. If not, however, and this is where the important part comes in, the second party must, after declining, agree to completely forget the preceding exchange and the five minutes of stammering that preceded it. You will note that this arrangement has a lot in common with what happens if you get really fucking drunk hanging out with someone you have a crush on, only the blackout part is mutual and by fiat, and ideally nobody will tell you what you did the next day.
Yeah, I'm a wimpster. Manipulative, passive-aggressive, "emo". I display all of the warning signs. I have even said, and I quote, "I never ask girls out because I don't want to sound like some sexist asshole." And I meant it.
And not to lay blame here, but let's try to get to the root of exactly where my ilk come from. I submit that our reflexive crippling PC-ness is in fact borne of a positive intent. I'm hip to the whole feminism thing, and I think I can be reasonably certain that I follow most of the major arguments, even when I run into words like "reify".
Being probably more than a little neurotic, I and people like me read about the systematic and often unconscious oppression of women and minorities and we're shocked. This can't be us. We're not bad guys. So we try our damnedest to cleanse our thoughts and actions of suspect behavior. Like the whole slut/stud double standard, which probably winds up being the crux of our problem.
See, one thing I think we wimpsters have going for us is that we're open to the possibility of having friends, pals, chums of the opposite sex without reading too much into it. The danger comes when it becomes apparent that it would be really fucking swell if there were some way to read a little bit more into it. The "Ducky Scenario", if you will. We won't say anything, because it will corrupt a completely worthwhile friendship. Put it this way: We're your passive-aggressive non-boyfriend. It starts out with a lotta beers, lotta laughs, lotta mixtapery. No pressure, no interest.
Then pow the male hormones kick in and we realize you're not only one of the guys, you're uh, totally, uh, hot. And stuff.
This is where things start to get unstable. Basically the goal is to determine if you're interested in having sexual intercourse with us ("like us like us") in a way that wouldn't jeopardize our friendship if it turned out you don't. Admit it: having one of your friends walk up to you one day and make the kind of confession that typically only figures in bad romance novels and the lives of middle schoolers is reasonably traumatic. So we don't do anything. We try to suss out, based on your throwaway comments about popular culture and local architecture, what you might be thinking.
Once something finally does happen, because we've nurtured this atmosphere of ambiguity around the whole thing, we can't actually figure out why you're doing it with us (NB: All American men in their mid-20s invariably think to themselves, "whoa. I'm totally doing it right now" in a Butt-head voice during sex). So we keep up with the noncommital "friend" act while you get bored and cheesed off with the whole sordid affair. The sex remains rote and PC for the duration because we're still operating from the premise that if we fuck up once, it's off.
So here's my invincible cure-all solution. I've examined it and it's devoid of double-standard, completely germane to use by either side of both heterosexual and homosexual platonic standoffs. If the first party entertains or suspects they might entertain sexual designs on the second party, heretofore a friend, the first party shall forthwith enquire of the second whether or not the second party would be interested in screwing, often. If the second party is indeed interested, what happens next is no business of mine. If not, however, and this is where the important part comes in, the second party must, after declining, agree to completely forget the preceding exchange and the five minutes of stammering that preceded it. You will note that this arrangement has a lot in common with what happens if you get really fucking drunk hanging out with someone you have a crush on, only the blackout part is mutual and by fiat, and ideally nobody will tell you what you did the next day.
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