Bricking it.

Samantha Brick, by her own admission, is God’s fucking gift to men. So much so, that she felt it essential to tell the whole world about it.

We all read good old Sam’s article with mock-sympathy, thinking ourselves mighty hilarious when we smacked our lips in sarcasm and said ‘Oh, it must be *soooooo* difficult to be that attractive, all the ATTENTION she must get, all the gifts, the compliments, the good-looking men pawning after her…oh how AWFUL.’

And then we read how poor old Sam had been scorned by other women because of her immense beauty; jealous women who, according to her, had absolutely no sense of ‘Sisterhood’.  And we said to ourselves, ‘well they’re probably just tired of listening to the stupid cow bang on about how beautiful she is’.

And then we looked at the photograph of her. And went: ‘Oh’.

‘Oh,’ we said. ‘This woman is not really as beautiful as I imagined. In fact, she, is, dare I say it, plain.’ (Bonus points if you can tell me which Gilbert and Sullivan classic the last five words of that sentence are a quote from.) Some of us even uttered incredulously… ‘Is this some kind of a JOKE?!’

Now, I read an article in Grazia yesterday (not something I choose to do often) which vehemently defended Samantha Brick. It argued that Samantha Brick is a woman who chose to define herself as beautiful, and, as a result of this, was punished by society. Women, it argued, have been taught that they must be self-effacing, self-depreciating and modest. To be confident, to be proud of one’s physical appearance is to be vain and arrogant. It argued: why should this woman be met with such animosity, not only during the experiences she has apparently had with other women throughout her life, but now as she comes out to speak about her difficulties.

And, do you know what, that actually made a bit of sense to me. And I was forced to reassess my reaction to Samantha’s article.

I realised the following things: Samantha’s article was about how women are continuously judged on their appearance… which is what I immediately did when I saw her photograph. (Ah, I am a hypocrite it seems – well, it’s not the first time that’s happened!) I also realised that while I write a lot about the plight of women whose beauty is not represented in magazines, I do not write about the scorn and jealousy many women who happen to conform to stereotypical images of beauty are met with. I also realised, I am not always able to practise what I preach and that I am perhaps more judgmental than perhaps I would like to admit.

And despite all these lovely little epiphanies…

I still couldn’t quite buy into Grazia’s idea that Samantha Brick was actually some sort of feminist hero.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the type of woman who can stand there are say, ‘I think I’m pretty fucking attractive but I deserve to be treated respectfully regardless of what I look like.’ I aim to BE that sort of woman. I would love to be able to wake up in the morning and say: ‘Serafina, you look smoking hot today’. I am all for women feeling proud of their bodies, feeling beautiful, and expressing these feelings. I am aware of the problems many women face because of their appearances and the fact that they are judged by them constantly (hey, that’s pretty much the only thing I blog about, right?).  The problem is Samantha Brick came across as a symbol of none of these things. Samantha Brick came across not as strong, but as weak. She came across not as self-confident, but as arrogant. And, also, I am afraid to say, I believe strongly that a fair degree of hyperbole was used in her story.

From my pop-psychological perspective, a person who needs to reiterate their beauty or superior status time and time again is actually someone who feels very low about themselves. They are someone who, throughout their lives, hasn’t received much genuine praise or love from others. The praise they have received they might have become disillusioned with for whatever reason; perhaps because it had an agenda, or perhaps because it was a by-product of manipulation, or perhaps it was because the one person who did praise them let them down. So, this person realises that they are not going to receive enough genuine praise, enough love or validation, to survive; desperately, they start to praise themselves. They lock themselves in a deluded world and play the princess that everyone has mistaken for a pauper.
(Aladdin, anyone?)

And this is actually where all of this Samantha Brick nonsense gets a bit sad and a bit real. In some of her other articles Samantha has revealed to us that her current husband has threatened to divorce her if she gets fat, that her previous husband’s mantra was ‘you can never be too rich or too thin’ and that she has a history of insecurity specifically related to her being overweight as a child that has now evolved into what sounds like a raging eating disorder (‘If I have a bar of chocolate, I’ll miss a meal’, ‘I’m too scared of gaining weight to consider getting pregnant’). I think this says it all really. This is a woman with some serious issues. A woman who wrote in one of her articles, ‘I was a ‘chubby child’ – its psychological legacy has shaped my entire life, from the way I eat to the men I married to the job I do.’ Samantha, in the depths of her delusion, believes that it has led her to make positive choices, when in fact, clearly, it has led her to choose husbands who will continue to punish and remind her of her insecurities despite the fact she is no longer overweight. Not only this, but by sharing her experiences with the world, she has subconsciously created a platform on which people can berate and mock her appearance. Poor old Samantha (look how the sarcasm has disappeared, the mock-sympathy no longer mocking) is speaking out from a very confused, painful, distressed and unhappy place.

Samantha believes she is a victim of the women who scorned her for her beauty. I believe she is a victim of her own demons. What a shame that she cannot see this, what a shame that she has chosen a job (and a newspaper to write for) that will ever allow her to pander to them, what a shame she is surrounding herself with lovers and strangers who will ensure she remains in this difficult place.

What a shame I had to read so many articles on the Daily Mail website to write this blog post!

And for all you people who haven’t had the pleasure of reading Samantha’s articles, they’re all HERE: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=&authornamef=Samantha+Brick

Lucky, LUCKY, you!

Ode to the ‘Lad’ ( a silly post before bedtime)

Ah the ‘Lad’. The name that we have given to the breed of human male that, unfortunately, have not had the common decency to become extinct. The Lad is indeed a part of the human species, but has not evolved mentally to the same extent as his close relative ‘Man’. The Lad is unfamiliar with popular social concepts such as ‘gender equality’ and ‘feminism’ and is seemingly void of the mental capacity to understand or contribute to discussions concerning these topics.  Any contribution he does make only serves as further scientific evidence that his understanding of basic humanist principles is non-existent.

Indeed the contributions that have been recorded have revealed the Lad’s warped interpretation of the reason for the existence of the human female. The Lad believes that the human female exists for one reason and one reason only: to serve him. The service the Lad expects is mainly, but not limited to, the human female’s performance of sexual acts. Indeed, these sexual acts hold not significance to the Lad. For, unable to fathom the female’s origin or purpose, he assumes she must belong to a lesser species, and therefore has no needs or desires of her own. This, we can only assume, is the Lad’s reason for failing to treat women as human beings during direct or indirect interaction.  

The Lad favours dark, musty places and often marks his territory by vomiting, ejaculating or pissing. This behaviour has given scientists a real insight into the way in which a Lad’s brain functions. A surprisingly small organ for such a huge head, the Lad’s brain is unable to register anything other than his own body’s needs and functions. For this reason, the Lad communicates using either the bodily functions previously mentioned, or by waving parts of his body around that he imagines to be impressive (his penis, for example). Unfortunately, due to this, the behaviour of the human female often gets lost in translation. As the Lad waves his penis around to attract attention he assumes that the slightest movement of a female’s breasts (which could be caused by shifting position, or even going for a brisk walk) is an invitation to a sexual encounter.

Despite research and attempted conditioning of members of the ‘Lad’ species scientists have still not yet been able to teach them the basics of human interaction and communication. They have also found no evidence that the Lad is able to feel basic human emotions such as empathy, sympathy, respect and admiration. Traces of these emotions have been found when showing Lads photographs of footballers or cars but, unfortunately, no traces have been found when showing the Lad’s photographs of members of the opposite sex.

What has confused scientists and sociologists alike is that, although the Lad cannot comprehend, understand or communicate effectively with the opposite sex, he has developed his own primitive rating system to categorize her worth. Which we imagine, due to the Lad’s inability to grasp the concept of the female mind or brain, relates exclusively to her body.  Lads have frequently been shown to rate females out of ten (1 being the lowest, 10 being the highest) in order to advertise to other members of their clan their sexual prowess or failure, as well as their superiority to the women themselves.  The discovery of this rating system has been a real breakthrough for scientists who previously believed that it was impossible for the Lad to learn how to count.

Further research on the Lad has predominantly been halted due to universal hope that if we just stop paying them attention they might just get bored of posting ridiculously sexist comments on the internet and randomly become extinct like the dinosaurs.

 

Fingers Crossed!

Weight a minute! (Ho, Ho, Ho)

I want to talk about weight.

I know, you’ve heard it all before, but I still want to talk about it. And it’s my blog.

So there.

The acceptable weight for a woman is a currently a controversial topic, and the standpoints of the media and the public seem to change weekly, if not daily.

On Monday: “Curvy is BACK! Adele is proud of her curves”
Tuesday: “Adele looking fabulous after losing 2 stone!”
Wednesday: “2011’s Best Bikini Bodies: Alexa Chung, Angelina Jolie etc. etc.”
Thursday: “Angelina Jolie and Alexa Chung looking worryingly thin”

Friday, Saturday, Sunday: More Bullshit.

Rinse and repeat.

As a young woman, or even an older woman, it’s becoming incredibly difficult to feel comfortable with the weight you are and the body shape you have. Now, some people have mentioned to me that they believe it is getting better, some people have argued that it has always been this way. My opinion is this: currently, because of the fact that we have more types of media than ever before, because these types of media are accessible to far more people than ever before, because of the power that the media have to influence people and because there has been a recent surge in campaigns aimed to educate people about what a “healthy weight” is due to an increase in obesity and eating disorders in the UK and the USA, weight has become an issue that is at the forefront of every woman’s mind, not to mention on the front of every woman’s magazine.

The problem is this: we know too fat is bad, we know too thin is bad, we watch ‘Supersize vs Superskinny’ and we recognise that these are extremes we should not reach. We know these extremes well. But we’re not really sure what the middle ground is. Indeed, no one advertises the middle ground. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a Closer Magazine cover that reads “Rhianna is a normal weight. She hasn’t lost or gained any weight. She has remained the same.”  Granted, that would be a very boring headline but, WHY is it that we are obsessed with losing or gaining weight, but when it comes to what it means to maintain a healthy weight we are completely and utterly uninterested, not only that but we are unable to define exactly what a healthy weight is.

The media are not advertising “healthy”; they are advertising “unattainable” and, sometimes, they are even advertising “dangerous”. Women’s magazines that focus on the weights of celebrities estimate their weights and then advertise them as ideal. We find ourselves aspiring to the imaginary numerical weight values of airbrushed women. And, as previously illustrated, the media’s interpretation of the ideal weight fluctuates more than the weights of the yo-yo dieting celebrities they write about. It’s exhausting to try and keep up. Then (and this is the good part) these magazines trick us into thinking if we just tear out the meal plans in the “healthy eating” section, sign up to their weight loss plan and exercise three times a week we’ll look like Halle Berry. What they fail to mention is that Halle Berry has thousands of pounds, a personal trainer and most probably a personal chef at her disposal to aid her in the weight loss process.  We find ourselves trying to look like women who have the financial support necessary to achieve “body perfection” (whatever that is) and who work out for hours a day because that is how they get jobs. Unfortunately, one of the first things a casting director is going to look for when casting the hero of his commercial Hollywood blockbuster is a hot body and a pretty face. Hey, “sex sells right?” Please.

I hate the “sex sells” phrase in particular because, for me, it perpetuates this idea that women who don’t have large breasts and skinny figures, and men who don’t have 6 packs and aren’t 6 foot tall, can’t be sexy. It is the same with weight. The women who are presented to us as “attractive” in society are all very thin, the men are all very muscly. It is difficult, if you are not the same shape as the men and women who are being advertised as attractive, to feel confident about the way your body is; to feel your body is sexy, to feel your body is attractive. Real bodies; your body, my body – they are not reflected back at us by the media as beautiful, in fact, they are not reflected back at all. Because our bodies are not represented to us as beautiful or they are not represented to us at all in popular media, we begin to feel that there is something wrong with us. That the body we should have, the body that will make us worth something is the body we see on our television screen, or magazine or film or music video.   I believe that the powerful media giants that churn out all this crap (the same androgynous men and women with sallow faces who look like they’ve just been rescued from crack dens or the Hollywood hotties who are made from plastic and silicone, work out four hours a day and eat rabbit food) need to do more to positively reinforce the beauty of diversity in women’s (and men’s) bodies. Chucking a couple of “plus-sized” models in a Bra Catalogue and presenting us with token curvy women in films (who are NEVER cast as the protagonist or romantic interest) like Queen Latifah is NOT GOOD ENOUGH. The term “plus-sized model” drives me up the wall anyway. Did you know that “plus-sized” is rarely more than a size 12? Why can’t they just be called models? Why must they be separated and prevented from being invited into the world of modelling with open arms just because of their weight? Why must we categorize beauty in this way?

Now, when I say promote different body shapes and sizes, I am not for one minute suggesting that we bypass the issue of obesity. I am not suggesting that we replace these stick-thin models and celebrities with fatter alternatives. Just as it is not healthy to be unnaturally thin, it is also unhealthy to be dangerously overweight and I believe that the images that are being sold to the public day in day out should contribute to their understanding of what a healthy body is. But it’s not only that, it’s about time the media started advertising that it’s okay to be different. That all bodies, different bodies, are beautiful.

The fact is, every person has a different “healthy weight” anyway, and this often depends on how tall we are and what shape we are. It disturbs me that perfectly healthy, beautiful women are being made to feel every day like they need to be smaller. I myself, and many of my friends, really struggle with feeling comfortable and confident with our weights, and the terrible thing is that the more depressed and insecure we feel about out weights, the more likely we are to develop eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia or actually put on an unhealthy amount of weight due to comfort eating or reducing the amount of meals we eat per and therefore decreasing our metabolisms. It’s worrying to see that girls as young as seven are fretting about their weight these days. When I was seven I don’t believe I gave it a second thought. So not only are women losing their minds, their self-confidence, their self-worth over their weight, but young girls are losing their childhoods.

We are all different shapes and sizes and as long as we are not putting ourselves in any medical danger there is no reason that our shapes should be underrepresented or represented as not being ‘beautiful’ enough. The media needs to play its part by representing the variety of body types that exist and advertising their beauty as much as they advertise the beauty of tall, thin women. However, perhaps we also need to give ourselves a little more respect next time we step on the scales. Check your BMI, talk to your doctor – are you a healthy weight? Good. Now stop worrying about it. You are stunning. Just the way you are.

Not a healthy weight? You are STILL stunning. Go for a walk in the park, take up a new sport, learn how to cook healthy and exciting meals. Make losing weight a positive experience in which you can try new things and improve your health. Please don’t do it just because Karl Lagerfield or Closer Magazine says so!

Please celebrate that you body is your own. No one has a body quite like it. Just because you cannot see celebrities with a similar body to yours does NOT mean that your body is not beautiful and sexy and unique.

I can tell you now, whoever you are, I think you have an amazing body.

Who do you think you are?

So I haven’t written in here in a while.

‘WHY?’ I hear you cry. ‘Our lives have been meaningless without links to your extreme and often contradictory musings posted on our facebook walls’.

I KNOW.

The thing is: it’s not for lack of things to write about, but rather the arrival of the niggling feeling that I am somehow running around in circles.

Originally, I wanted to write this post about the gender/carnal issues posed in the film ‘The Skin I Live in’, then I changed my mind and decided I wanted to write about the discrepancies between female music artists and their “independent, strong woman” message and the fact that they objectify themselves time and TIME again in their videos and seem to be unable to perform without almost revealing their tits, ass, noon (to pinch a euphemism from TOWIE – God my writing really HAS suffered) or all three.

Then I thought, hey, why not write about the fact that your views on plastic surgery have softened since you got a tattoo? That’s interesting.

And then: why not write about weight issues and comfort eating?

But then I realised this: almost ALL the things that I want to write about revolve around the woman’s relationship to her body.

And this is what interested me most of all.

Our bodies.

In a previous post I mentioned that we often mistake our psychological issues for issues we have with our bodies. We are unable to change our psychological issues easily, so we opt for something that is somewhat easier to change –our body. Thinking about it now however, I think a better thing to say would have been this:

Our feelings about our bodies and our feelings about ourselves are irreparably entwined.

Because of this, it is so difficult to know the TRUE reasons that we get plastic surgery, wear make-up, change our hair, start going to the gym, start over-eating, get piercings, tattoos, body-modify or self-injure.

It is particularly interesting for me because I believe that the word ‘woman’ is intrinsically linked with the word ‘body’. The female has always been a carnal figure – her body defines her. A woman is defined as a mother because of her physical and biological capabilities. She is ALWAYS a sexual figure. Whether she is viewed as sexy or sexless, beautiful or ugly, her sexuality and attractiveness is always discussed, questioned, connected, soldered to who she is as a person. Her body has defined her roles in society in a way that, in my view, a man’s body, has not. Though men have been dubbed as the true manual workers, athletes or soldiers because of their higher levels of testosterone, not “manly” unless they are strong, I don’t believe that their bodies define them in the same way that a woman’s body defines her in our society.

We are first and foremost mothers because of our wombs, we are sexual figures because our bodies have more visible physical symbols of sexual reproduction than men (wombs, hips, vaginas and breasts), we are physically ‘weaker’ because of our lower levels of testosterone. And so, it is no wonder that, as women, and perhaps for me as a writer (if I can call myself that…), we become obsessed with the way that our bodies look.

Male and female, the body and mind are always linked. But for women, the body and mind are one. Because our body does not perform in the way society expects; if we are not slim, if we do not have large breasts, large lips, small noses, large eyes, long hair, prominent cheekbones, tiny waists, big hips, slim legs, small feet, if we cannot give birth, if we are not “tight” enough or “neat enough” down there or hairless enough, if we do not exude sexuality, if we exude too MUCH sexuality….

We are not good enough.

And this is also what we’ve been told psychologically. We should be quiet, meek, gentle, a lady when we’re in public and a slut in the bedroom (one song that always comes to mind is Andre 3000’s ‘Behold a Lady’, particularly the suggestive lyric ‘in the street you hold your head high at home you get low down for me, can’t get no lower, can’t get no lower’). We have been told in the past we are not entitled to learn, to work, to be treated equally. And though things are much better now, though we are more equal, though we have more rights, many of these stigmas (especially those about the way we look and how we should behave sexually) still linger and are empowered by the media, not only THAT but the words that have been whispered into baby girl’s ears throughout history ‘YOU ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH’ still linger in the air like a fart in an elevator. And they are just as, no, MORE unpleasant than that metaphor, believe me.

So, why do I write about women and their bodies all the time? I guess I am trying to find a way to productively process my own body issues in a creative way. Trying to find a way to disconnect myself from defining how much I am worth by what my body looks like. Trying to make MYSELF and my friends believe that they are worth more than how long their hair is, how big their breasts are, before I try and convince the rest of the world.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is: We deserve to do things to our bodies that make us feel more confident about them. We deserve to feel good about ourselves. But we need to be careful that the changes we make aren’t symptoms of the stubborn link between a woman’s worth to her body and sexuality.

Interestingly (if I can be a little more personal than I usually am on this blog) I recently got a tattoo. Unexpectedly, the tattoo made me feel so much better about myself, and somewhat sexier. It didn’t make me want to cover myself in tattoos (though I may get a few more) but it did make a difference to my happiness with my body. Perhaps, having been hard on those who have had plastic surgery before, this is a similar thing. Maybe one procedure can make all the difference to a person’s self-esteem and maybe this is okay, if we are sure we are doing it for ourselves and not for society, or the man who told us we weren’t beautiful or sexy (by the way girls, that guy can FUCK OFF!)

But we have to be careful:

It’s fun to show the person that you are on the inside on the outside, but remember, what you look like on the outside is not the person you are!

Do it like a Dude … Dude looks like a Lady

A while ago a friend posted an article on my wall that begged the question: What, or indeed who, is the ultimate woman?

The other day I had a dream that a bearded woman coming out of a ladies toilet scolded me for looking at her and then the toilet door to double check that I was in fact entering the female toilets. (FYI: My dream dictionary dictates that seeing a woman with a beard in my dream ‘foretells unpleasant associations and lingering illness,’ bad times for me I guess…)

SO – while I was attaching a fake beard to my chin with eyelash glue this afternoon, I found myself thinking back to this dream, and the article my friend had referred to me. And I found myself wondering if gluing facial hair to my jawline on a Sunday afternoon would make people consider me to be “less of a woman”, and in wondering this I decided to write a quick list of those things society deems to be feminine, and those things that society deem to be masculine. Some of these things were physical features, and some were character traits.

Female                                                                          Male

Hairless                                                                         Hairy
Docile                                                                            Aggressive
Soft                                                                                 Hard
Quiet                                                                              Loud
Naïve                                                                             Worldly
Slut                                                                                 Player
Slender                                                                          Broad
Hysterical                                                                    Measured

Now, obviously, I could go on, but I’m just going to stop there for now.  Looking at these lists I can say straight away that I don’t know a male or a female that adheres to all (or in some cases ANY) of the characteristics attached to their gender. Indeed, many characteristics that are attached to each gender completely contradict each other, for example, men are considered to be both more logical and measured than women, but also more aggressive. Women are considered to be naïve, often innocent, and yet they are also dubbed whores.

So, who is the ultimate woman?  Who is the ultimate man? What qualities would they possess? Well of course society’s ideal man is strong, broad, tall with a deep voice – he is a lad, he can talk the talk and walk the walk, he is great with the women, but more importantly, he is outstanding in business. The ultimate woman? She has comically large breasts with a waistline that can barely hold them up. She has long hair, white skin, no body hair. She has a high, girlish voice and wears dresses and French knickers on all occasions, she doesn’t talk too much, she doesn’t demand anything from her husband and, most importantly, she looks after the house and the children.

In short, the ideal male and female do not exist. They are ridiculous constructs, a collection of connotations shackled to our narrow-minded conception of gender. And so we become imprisoned within our genders and society is deceived by the notion that our characteristics are inextricably bound to the sex that we are born.

Indeed, this is where physical characteristics differ, for these are (9 times out f 10) inextricably bound to the sex we are born, however, should our physical characteristics therefore come to define whether we are “more or less” male or female? No. I guess this is where my dream comes in. When I did a double take at the bearded woman and the sign on the front of the toilets my brain was saying: look at the beard, this is a man, it must be the men’s toilets. Granted, women do not generally grow beards BUT… funny things happen to the human body my friend and funny things happen to the human mind. And some of us, unfortunately, wind up with disorders and diseases that threaten the physical features we take for granted to advertise to others what sex we are, causing them to make black and white decisions about our genders too.

I suppose, for me, the first people that come to mind are breast and testicular cancer sufferers, who often have to lose one or both of their breasts or testicles in order to remove tumours and prevent the spread of the disease. Many men and women who undergo these treatments find that they feel less masculine or feminine after the procedure – a fair amount opting for prosthetics or cosmetic surgery. Our sexual organs are what define as men or women biologically, but should the loss of them affect whether we feel male or female in our minds? Should whether we possess them or not contribute towards defining our gender? And why is society obsessed with the constant advertisement of whether someone is male or female? For me, these questions immediately bring to mind those undergoing, having undergone or wishing to undergo sexual transformation surgery. Have we the right to tell a woman that is so sure she is trapped in a man’s body that she is less of a woman than someone who was born a physical woman? Have we a right to tell a man who is so sure he is trapped in a woman’s body that he isn’t a man, because he doesn’t possess the “right” parts?

But there are less dramatic images of women and men who face gender prejudice that come to mind: the homosexual male who is countlessly referred to as “one of the girls” or the lesbian that finds herself described as “the man” of her relationship time and time again. This is where one starts to realise that it is not only our physical characteristics that people use to define us as male or female, but also our sexuality, haircut, clothing choices, pitch of voice and facial features etc. etc.

I suppose this is what it comes down to: what is gender and what defines it? Something conceptual or something physical, something we can see? Are we men or women in our souls or just in our bodies? Or both? Sex is biological, but what can be said of gender? In my opinion, gender has become so mixed up with the biological sexes that, to most people, they have come to signify exactly the same things. For this reason, I find gender an almost useless means of identifying people now. What is it but to perform the same relentless task of placing someone in a box according to the traits that they possess?

In my crazy little ideal world, we would all be genderless – box-less, if you will, we wouldn’t trip over ourselves to define ourselves all the time, put ourselves into categories depending on our characteristics and our appearances. But I understand that for many people (including myself sometimes…) a sense of identity is important, and gender, sex and sexuality is a huge part of this for many. So, in this case: who is the ultimate woman?  For me, it is the person who stands up and says: I am a woman because I fucking feel like I am. Who is the ultimate man? The person who stands up and says: I am a man because I believe I am a man. Who are ultimate men and women? Those who respect and accept other people’s decisions to be whatever they choose.

Something beginning with ‘P’

So I guess we knew this day would come – I just thought I could hold out a little bit longer.

I have lured you into a false sense of security, readers.  Perhaps because I’m pro-pubic primping I may have given you the impression that I’m the kind of girl who’s open to “experimentation” and “sexual discovery”.  This impression is not altogether incorrect. Indeed, for any of you who know me well enough, you will know this: I am open to most things. I will give most of things a go. I will give most things the benefit of the doubt…

And then…

BAM!

I will make an extreme and unflinching decision on whether or not I like or approve of this thing I have ‘given a go’. And if I do not approve of or like it, those who come into contact with me will probably find out about it within the first ten minutes of meeting me, whether it is relevant to the conversation we’re having or not.

I will wake up in the middle of the night just to rant about how much I hate this thing.
I will question my feelings towards a person if they cannot see the reasons for my opposition towards this thing.
And sometimes, when I really, really hate a thing – I can physically feel my blood boiling.

Anyway – you get the picture.

So, if you read my first post closely enough, you will know that one of these things that really gets on my goat (his name is Arnold. Geddit? The goat? Oh fuck, nevermind.)is pornography.

Here are my main problems with porn:

1)      The majority of it advocates violent, derogatory and humiliating sex, often portraying the woman as the sexual victim.

2)      It portrays sex in an unrealistic and mechanical way. My particular pet hate is lesbian porn manufactured for men where the lesbians have FAKE NAILS. I MEAN, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? Long, artificial nails anywhere NEAR the vaginal opening is just a fucking ludicrous idea. And the stuff the women do to each other, well, let’s just say: boys, that ain’t what lesbians really do.

3)      It perpetuates body ideals that both women and men feel that they need to live up to that are not realistic and not healthy. E.g. massive fake breasts or massive, permanently erect penises (Grim).

4)      Viewers of pornography (particularly those beginning puberty) develop false expectations of both their partners and themselves in the bedroom, as a result of the unrealistic and often gruesome scenes they are shown in porn. Furthermore, they are presented with an awful example of how to treat women and expect things from them sexually that are humiliating, degrading and often painful.

5)      It moves us further away from the idea of sex as an intimate physical connection and perpetuates it as a meaningless, mechanical, masculine urge to destroy or conquer something. Not someone, something. Which leads me onto…

6)      Men and women become objects instead of people.

Now, I understand the concept that pornography is about fantasy, about being able to watch people doing something that you would probably never try yourself, or don’t currently have the opportunity to. However, just because I understand this, doesn’t mean I agree with it.

If you have a fantasy I think the best thing to do is this (as long as it’s not illegal): try it out with a REAL person. Because then you can understand the real implications of what you are imagining and whether it really is sexy, or actually (more likely) motherfucking TERRIFYING.

Or, hey, here’s an idea (especially if your fantasies involve anything illegal): USE YOUR FUCKING IMAGINATION. I don’t understand why sex is becoming a more and more passive act. Sex is an active experience, or at least it should be. And I see it as a symptom of our consumerist, lazy, I-want-everything-now-for-as-little-effort-as-possible society that we can’t even be bothered to get ourselves off by using our own fucking brains.

That is something, in fact, that most worries me about pornography: how accessible it is. In fact, arguably, porn is more accessible to most people than actual sex. It is good news that some internet providers are now operating the opt-in policy in regards to pornography (in order to be able to access porn you have to ‘opt-in’ when finalizing your internet contract or else, by default, it will not be accessible) but why aren’t we doing more to regulate the kind of stuff that appears to us on the internet and how we access it? Most pornography can be viewed on the internet without having to provide proof of age or input any sort of code or passkey. In my opinion, this has got to change.

I would like to mention that, rightly or wrongly, I draw a clear line between what is erotica and what is pornography. For me, erotica is classier than porn, it often builds relationships, feelings and real plot-lines into its stories and images, whereas porn doesn’t really give a shit about any of those things. Porn just wants to show something repeatedly coming in and out of a hole. Oh, and a pizza guy is there at some point. Erotica for me is more thoughtful, the sex happens for a reason, not just because two people are in the same room at the same time, and it is normally shot, written or photographed in a more creative and clever way.

Looking at a couple of descriptions of the differences between erotica and pornography on the internet I’m finding that the main factors are these: erotica is done not just for sexual arousal but to tell a story – for art’s sake as opposed to orgasm’s sake, erotica feeds the imagination, whereas porn lays it all out in front of you – brain-power not needed.

But I think this is a line we all draw differently. I would be interested to know how other people define the difference between porn and erotica, from their own personal standpoints.

Here is another question I am really keen on answering:

Are there any men out there who choose NOT to watch porn? And if so, why?

Most statistics on pornography will tell us that it is most popular with men. Often it is a 70/30 per cent split between male and female viewers, with an assumption that a lot of women are not admitting to regularly viewing porn. Either way, it is assumed that men are the prime users of pornography and it is almost exclusively marketed and produced with this fact in mind. There are more and more female producers and directors emerging within the porn industry, but the amount of these women making porn that targets women is still rather slim.

When I was young and naïve, I thought porn was something that some boys and men watched but not all. As I got older I realised that women watched porn too, and most boys and men watched it. Now I struggle to find a man ANYWHERE who does not watch pornography on a regular basis.

Or those that don’t, have only started watching it less because they are in relationships, NOT because they have any ethical concerns about it.

So, if only to restore (or completely eradicate) my faith in mankind, I would like to ask all readers this question: Do you know any men who do not watch porn? Are you a man who doesn’t watch porn? Why?

And:

Why is it something that so many people feel is so integral to our ability to discover and experience our own sexualities?

Insults on the Internet (Or Why I Hate Facebook)

So.

There’s a lot of sexism on the internet.

There’s a lot of sexism everywhere actually, but I’m not here to talk about that right now.

I just really wanted to show you this: http://www.gabbysplayhouse.com/?p=1444

Because I think it pretty much sums up the problems that women face when they decide to share their opinions on the internet.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could say what we wanted without being accused of being: fat, ugly, slutty?
Wouldn’t it be lovely if making an argument about something from a feminist standpoint didn’t result in being called a dyke, lesbo, femminazi, bitch or cunt?
And wouldn’t it just be peachy keen if random men on facebook didn’t private message you saying you look like you’d take it up the arse?

Yes, it would. But unfortunately things just don’t work out that way.

But it’s not just women who get it, oh no.

In my experience of reading comment threads on various websites, and having learnt some harsh lessons when I’ve made the mistake of getting involved in them, people on the internet get very angry when other people on the internet say something they don’t agree with. And a lot of the time, politely stating their conflicting argument doesn’t seem to be a satisfying enough revenge on the heathens that think differently to them. A lot of the time, some bitchin’ insults are in order. And naturally, people will latch on to the most identifiable characteristic of their adversary.

Trust me, I’m ginger, I KNOW.

So. If you’re not white you can expect some charming racist comments, if you’re a woman you can expect generous helpings of sexism and, if you’re really lucky, threats of sexual violence, if you’re gay you can expect a world of homophobia, if you’re disabled you can expect the usual suspects: “messed-up”, “cripple”, “ugly” etc. and if you wear glasses you’re a nerd. The list goes on; if someone wants to hurt you, they will find a way to do it.

I’m not saying that sexism on the internet isn’t a problem on its own. But I am saying that the internet has become a tool for people to anonymously broadcast their hatred of pretty much any and every minority.

And now, of course, there is the trolling trend. Where people say terrible and awful things JUST to spark a reaction.

Wow.

Don’t they have anything more constructive to do?

It’s a real shame that the internet – such a powerful tool for the spread of positive change – is being abused in this way. It’s also a real shame that some people are STILL unable to fully embrace the views of ANYONE OTHER than the white, heterosexual male.

I’m all for free speech, but to be honest, if it’s unkind, unprovoked and unjust I don’t want to see it. And I think that there need to be tighter regulations on internet sites for comments.

Facebook is an interesting one. Because it’s perfectly okay to post sexually violent, sexist, homophobic and racist abuse on someone’s page. Facebook leaves judgement in the hands of its members. If they don’t like a comment, if it’s their page, they can delete it. Or they can choose to ignore it. They can also choose to report it. Whether Facebook will give a shit or not is questionable.

FACEBOOK! The site that brought you pages such as ‘Behind every great woman is a guy checking out her ass’, ‘Why do women take so long to get ready? Not that hard to put on an apron’, ‘A chick without boobs is just a dude with a vagina’ and my personal favourite: ‘Women can’t drive? It’s okay, there’s no road between the kitchen and the bedroom’.

This is the part where someone who chips in and says I don’t have a sense of humour. Au Contraire. I do. And I like jokes that make comments on sexism, which are occasionally ironically sexist to exercise their point (e.g. this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqXi8WmQ_WM). I don’t like mindless shit that someone passes off as a joke but actually kind of believes.

SORT IT OUT FACEBOOK. Why are you allowing these pages to exist? Oh yeah, I forget, because you were created by a bitter young man who wanted to compare the attractiveness of women in his college.

Sweet MOTHER OF GOD!

Actually,YouTube is very much the same. Allowing both racist and sexist comments to sit happily at the bottom of their videos.

The moral of the story is, it’s difficult to fight against this sort of thing happening on the internet if some of the biggest players on the scene are more than happy to turn a blind eye.

If they have decided to leave the comments on their sites to the mercy of the people, perhaps we need to take more action ourselves.

I guess the only thing to do is become an AWESOME internet vigilante. What this should involve:

1) Reporting abusive comments where possible.
2) Rating comments (on a lot of sites low-rated comments are deleted or hidden)
3) If you run a page or internet project of any kind, making sure there is an accessible set of guidelines for the kind of comments that will not be tolerated. A good example of this is here: http://gomakemeasandwich.wordpress.com/ (see the comment policy in the sidebar)
4) NOT COMMENTING BACK. This is exactly what these people want: a reaction. And even the smartest comeback is not going to shut them up. They’re not worthy of your awesome comebacks, they won’t be offended or derailed by them – so don’t bother.
5) START TALKING ABOUT IT. A lot of people don’t even realise this is a serious issue. Let’s make people aware that this sort of behaviour, this bullying on the internet, is not okay.
6) Wearing a cape.

Let’s do it people.

 

‘Hungry Hungry Hippo-crites’ or ‘Making the Cut’

So, I was in the shower this morning, thinking about what I said in my previous post.

‘The point is that women should be able to choose to do whatever the hell they want with their pubic hair, whatever makes them feel good, whatever makes them feel sexy. Isn’t that what we are fighting for? The freedom to choose. ‘

And then I started thinking. Surely, this should apply to any cosmetic procedure? If it’s your body, it’s your body, right?

Wrong.

And then I realised, like my dear friend Bidisha, I was a little bit of a hypocrite too.

Now, if you know me, which you may or may not, (either way I’m telling you now), you will know that I have A LOT of feelings about cosmetic surgery. And the feelings that I have, are not good ones.

Over the last ten years, cosmetic surgery has quickly become some sort of weird fashion trend. And the media fucking LOVE it. Scrutinising every single female celebrity to try and find out if she’s had something “done”, like it’s the most SHAMEFUL thing a woman can do, whilst at the same time plugging out the same boring images of tiny women with massive breasts to a nation full of women who are all different shapes and sizes and telling them, ‘You need to fucking look like this. How are you going to achieve it? Get some surgery. Hey, don’t worry about having to find somewhere – there are plenty of ads in our back pages.’

I don’t believe that women (or men) should have anything cut off them or plugged into them to make themselves feel more attractive.

But, YOU SAID… ‘Isn’t that what we are fighting for? The freedom to choose?’

I know. But here’s the thing. Shaving off your pubic hair is just dandy with me, because guess what? It’s going to grow back. If you shave off a bit of your nose, that bit of nose is gone forever. That’s permanent.

And I think that’s my problem with it. For me, it’s the difference between wanting to be someone else for a day, and wanting to be someone else forever.

This is the part where I say that people wanting plastic surgery for cosmetic reasons need to realise that it’s not what’s on the outside that counts, it’s what’s on the inside. But do you know what? I think this is exactly what they believe. They’re on to it, oh yes. They’re just messing with the wrong bits.

To love and accept yourself, change needs to come from within. It’s a mindset. An incredibly hard one to get into, but a mindset all the same. I think the media trick us all the time… and this is one of their favourite tricks. “10 easy steps to loving the skin you’re in” – like a complete mental overhaul can be achieved by reading some drivel in more magazine (which I love by the way, but it is still drivel). Loving yourself, if you have grown up hating yourself, feeling unattractive, feeling worthless, is probably the hardest thing to learn to do. And I know people who are well into their 80’s who still haven’t learnt to do it. It’s one of the most invaluable skills you can possess, and yet one that we play down time and time again.

So when people have cosmetic surgery, for me, it’s trying to change the inside of yourself the easy way. You do something permanent for a temporary effect. But that initial joy you get from having tits three sizes bigger isn’t going to last, and for many people, once they get one procedure they get more and more, cutting more of themselves out, plugging more shit in, hoping, HOPING, that it will change who they are. Thinking that if they conform to what society wants, they will be happy. When really, it’s your mindset that needs to change, not your bra size.

We forget, because the idea of cosmetic surgery is so prominent in our society, that to have voluntary cosmetic surgery is to put your health at risk, to allow your body to be mutilated, cut and bruised. It’s a form of self-harm. And yet, because the self-harm is beautiful, because it is socially acceptable, no one seems to have a problem with it. Orlan, the French performance artist has had many cosmetic surgical procedures, but because the results do not conform to our ideas about what cosmetic surgery should create – beauty – she is often deemed a freak.

Looks like me and Bidisha are not the only hypocrites eh?

The media (and all who worship in its temples) want us all to look a certain way. But by the time you’ve cut yourself up and stuck bits on and injected yourself with the latest shit, the media are going to want you to look like something else again. Furthermore, they will criticise you for trying to be the thing they wanted you to be in the first place. You’ll find your face smack bang in the middle of the “hoop of horror”.

Is that what we are messing with ourselves for? A pat on the head from some fucking hormonal, hypocritical, HATEFUL entity? For the guy in the chinos across the road to check us out, go home and tell his mates he saw a “fit bird” with “fucking nice titties”.

You’re cutting yourself up for THAT guy?

Come on ladies (and lads) – we’re better than that.

Bidisha’s Concerns

Today, through the magic of my facebook feed, I had the pleasure of reading this misinformed and vaguely hypocritical rant written by a woman from The Guardian who goes only by the name of ‘Bidisha’.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/feb/11/womens-pubic-hair-removal-porn?fb=native&CMP=FBCNETTXT9038

Bidisha believes that pornography should not be dictating the way that women choose to present their pubic hair. Bidisha, how right you are, porn should not tell us how to groom our downstairs departments, but neither, my dear, should you.

The problem I have with this article, apart from its painful attempt to sound edgy and shocking by using a number of different metaphors for both male and female genitalia, is its condescending, simplistic and judgemental tone towards women who choose to groom their gash (see Bidisha, I can use rude words too!).

Now, I agree that the influence of porn on both women AND MEN leads to poor self image and grossly misinformed interpretations about: what our bodies should look like, what is feminine, what is masculine, what is “sexy” and what is socially or sexually acceptable. However, what I struggle with is Bidisha’s implication that “intelligent”, “feminist” and “professional” women are women who have hair on their vaginas. Women who don’t are impressionable and desperate slaves to the whims of pornography, willing to do whatever it takes, as Bidisha so charmingly puts it, ‘ to get some willy time’.

For me, Bidisha’s assertion that a woman who shaves off her pubic hair is somehow lacking in independence or self-respect (or even intellect) and hasn’t ‘got anything more interesting to do’ is as damaging as the assertion that a woman is not sexy or feminine unless she shaves her pubic hair off completely. The point is that women should be able to choose to do whatever the hell they want with their pubic hair, whatever makes them feel good, whatever makes them feel sexy. Isn’t that what we are fighting for? The freedom to choose. Not the freedom to stop doing what one person is telling us to do and start doing what a different person wants us to do.

What Bidisha worries about when she tucks herself up in bed at night, is that what a woman may think she is choosing of her own accord, she is actually choosing because porn has sneakily planted that idea in her head. This worries me too, because it means that the image of the ideal female form that has been perpetuated both by pornography and the media, is so deeply ingrained that some of us don’t even know we are being influenced by it. But Bidisha, some of us do. And those of us that do, do not have to have hair on our privates to prove that we can make decisions on our own, for our own reasons.

 I understand Bidisha’s frustration with the damage that pornography has done to society’s perception of the woman’s body. I really do. Hey, Bidisha, it pisses me off too! As far as porn is concerned, I should shave off all my leg, armpit and vag hair, get breast implants, lose ten pounds, wear ridiculously dodgy fake nails and enjoy getting relentlessly pounded by some guy that looks like a truck driver from the 80’s who’s travelled forwards in time. And that annoys me. And sometimes, like all of us do, I feel inadequate because I don’t look the way that porn, or indeed the media, wants me to – and that’s not right. It’s a massive, massive problem.

But, Bidisha, us all leaping around with hairy armpits and luscious vaginal bushes is not going to solve it.

To be honest, I’m not sure what is. The thing is, if we keep trying to work out what is appropriate for a woman to do with her body, someone is always going to feel inadequate, someone is always going to feel like they don’t fit into the image that has been dictated by whoever is dictating it, whether that be pornography or Bidisha from the Guardian. What we need to be celebrating and advertising is that diversity, variety and difference is beautiful in regards to pubic hairstyles… and everything else too.

Welcome

Hello.

Welcome to my blog.

This blog will mostly consist of vaguely sarcastic rants in response to, well, anything that pisses me off a bit.

If you don’t like rants,

LOOK AWAY NOW.