Porn and Prejudice: Letting Teenage Boys Determine School Policy With Their Libidos

Posted on May 17, 2013 by wellsdc

I’m going to talk about sex and stuff in a minute, but first, some exposition: I frequently save links to articles that give me an idea for a blog post, but then never get around to writing the post. I also start posts, save them as drafts, then never finish them. I have over a hundred saved WordPress drafts, and countless links saved in my iCloud reading list, Evernote, Instapaper, and elsewhere. Maybe I’ll get to some of those ideas eventually, but sometimes I go through my blog post drafts and delete the ones that are hopelessly outdated. This is an attempt to consolidate ideas accumulated over months into a single post.

Holly_Sampson_-_My_First_Sex_Teacher_Vol._18_cover_original

To be fair, the adult industry is kind of encouraging the horndogs here.

I. The Long-Winded Introduction

Teachers, at this point in American history, are not allowed to have pasts. Nor are they allowed to have much in the way of lives outside of teaching. This applies to other professions as well, but teachers seem to bear the brunt of our society’s perfectionism.

I’m going to talk a bit about sex, as well as portrayals of sex in entertainment, so stop reading if you’re easily offended. I’ll warn you if a link goes somewhere NSFW (not safe for work.) The gist of what I’m saying is that we as a society have profoundly conflicted views of sexuality, especially female sexuality. People who routinely interact with children are often expected to be effectively asexual, even if no one ever quite puts it in those terms. People who have expressed their sexuality in overt ways, from basic modeling to outright porn, while breaking no laws, often lose their jobs as teachers and in other fields. Sometimes, we can justify it as “protecting the kids,” while other times, t really makes no sense at all.

Even when it is supposedly about protecting children, what is it really teaching kids? (Disclosure: I do not have kids, but I used to be a teenage boy.) The most common justification offered for dismissing a teacher because of modeling, porn, etc. is that it creates a “disruption” or “distraction” in the school environment. I assume that this refers to the idea that students will not be able to learn as effectively because they might have seen their teacher in a state of undress or more, perhaps online.

That is, at least initially, a compelling argument. What is it actually teaching kids, though? This is not about teachers who actually have sex with their students, or who call their students “jailbait” on Twitter. Those are pretty obviously illegal and/or inappropriate. I can also see an argument against letting teachers moonlight as bikini models or whatever, but what about something a teacher did years ago? I don’t necessarily know the best answer for how to deal with it, but firing a teacher for modeling bikinis or more in the past might have more negative long-term consequences: Continue reading →

How Not to Improve a Political Party’s Public Image

Posted on May 17, 2013 by wellsdc

The UK Independence Party (UKIP) seems to be having some PR problems. I’m not much up on British politics, but UKIP is, according to Wikipedia,

a Eurosceptic right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom, founded in 1993. The party describes itself in its constitution as a “democratic, libertarian party” and, as of May 2013, has a membership of 27,000.

UKIP currently has 11 of the 73 UK seats in the European Parliament, three members in the House of Lords, one seat in the Northern Ireland Assembly and 147 local councillors. The UKIP performance in the 2013 local election was the best result for a party outside the big three in British politics since the Second World War, coming fourth in the number of council seats won and third in terms of projected nationwide votes. UKIP has not won a seat in the House of Commons to date.

Stock photo found in a search for “trousers.”

The British media describes the party as “anti-EU.” The party seems to be having a problem with protests, including one in Scotland in which an angry mob shouting “racist, Nazi scum” led to police escorting the party’s leader to safety. What intrigues me are the views of its top contributor, “Greek shipping tycoon”^* Demetri Marchessini. They are quite intriguing in their outspokenness:

Greek tycoon Demetri Marchessini, who believes not wearing a skirt is ‘hostile behaviour’, gave UKIP £10,000 this year – a fifth of all its cash donations.

***

He is the author of a book entitled Women In Trousers: A Rear View in which he photographed women from behind and then commented on their clothes. In it he claimed that the ratio Britain of women wearing trousers to skirts is 10 to 1. Continue reading →

Health, Preventive Surgery, Boobs, and Other Things That Are None of My Dang Beeswax

Posted on May 15, 2013 by wellsdc

Via thesuperficial.com

I gotta run. They’re doing a breast reduction on 3, and I want to get up there to try and stop it. You know what I’m talkin’ about!
Todd, Scrubs season 2 episode 15, “His Story”

So about Angelina Jolie’s preventive double mastectomy. The reaction seems to range from “this is none of my business” to “how very brave of her” to “NOOOOOOOOO, BOOOOOOOOOOOBS!!!!!!!!!” To one degree or another, these are all fair reactions.

None of My Business: This is by far the best reaction, because people’s personal medical decisions should be just that—personal. Still, Angelina Jolie has lived much of her life in the public eye, and whether she likes it or not, people will take notice of her decisions.

Courage: Angelina Jolie is not like most famous people in Hollywood. I’ve never quite been able to put what I mean in words, and I’m not sure anyone else has either. She is beyond doubt a talented actress and an all-around good human being, but she brings something to all of her movies that overpowers everyone and everything else on screen. This manages to make even her not-very-good movies (e.g. Taking Lives) memorable, and makes her the most noticeable part of movies where she plays a bit part (e.g. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.) Even when she’s doing something silly, people take notice en masse. It’s a unique combination of beauty and gravitas, for lack of a better description.

This makes her an ideal spokesperson for various causes, and she can’t seem to help but be a role model. Of course, much of the media attention she has received over the years has focused on her lips and other……attributes. She is and will still be a phenomenally beautiful woman, but there is a bold element to her decision. She may or may not have intended this, but she is basically daring people to assess whether this will affect her entertainment career.

Her mother died of cancer in 2007. She had an eighty-seven percent chance of developing breast cancer, a chance which is now much lower. She has six children, all of whom now have a greater chance of seeing their mother grow old.

Boobs: Let’s just say it. Angelina Jolie had fantastic breasts. I think it is okay to lament the world’s loss, given that it was, is, and will aways be a breast owner’s decision what to do with them. We may think of this as the loss of a great American treasure, but it is not the same as, say, the loss of the Old Man of the Mountain. That was a public trust. These were somebody’s body parts. Let us say no more about them, except to celebrate someone’s courage to take whatever control she could of her own health.

Wait, There’s More! Joe Patrice at Above the Law has a piece on the gene that led to Jolie’s decision, BRCA1. The only test capable of detecting the gene is patented, and therefore very expensive. This means that people like Jolie, who have resources, can get the test, while millions more cannot. Even after the Affordable Care Act takes full effect, “grandfathered” plans may not have to provide coverage for the test. This may change, though, when the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the issue of the patentability of human genes in a few months in Assoc. for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc.

And a Little More: It is impossible to Google Angelina Jolie’s name without quickly venturing into NSFW territory. Here’s an NSFW GIF of her taking off her shirt. Thanks for reading my blog.

Gender Equality is Not a Zero-Sum Game (or, Why I Call Out Prison Rape Jokes, Because They’re Not Funny)

Posted on March 20, 2013 by wellsdc

The following is a comment that I left on a post at The Good Men Project, in a comment thread I have returned to multiple times over the past month. I stopped participating after it pretty much devolved into typical whiny zero-sum thinking, i.e. that addressing inequalities affecting women by definition means neglecting the issues that affect men. What I am finding is that, while there are undoubtedly issues that disproportionately affect men, they generally result from prejudices and attitudes intended to favor men. For example, it is probably true that courts favor women when making orders for child custody and child support in divorce cases—but then, men are the breadwinners and women are the ones who stay home and care for the children. Men have fought hard for generations to maintain that order, and this inequality we see now is really just one tiny advantage women have found amid the oppression. Furthermore, by raising these issues in the context of criticisms of feminism, men are essentially trying to put the burden of improving men’s lot onto women. “Please ignore your own inequalities for now,” the argument seems to go, “while we address these issues that affect men.” Dudes, we can do better than that. Anyway, here’s the comment I left, with a few embedded links added in:

You raise a good point, and one that, due respect, is not so good. In regards to the point that is not good, I feel like I am banging my head against a wall, so I won’t dwell on it for long.

The good point you raise involves the issue of gendering and rape. Yes, most of the public discourse around rape focuses on women. You seem to be assuming, though, that it is women who are keeping the issue of rape against men suppressed in public discourse. I respectfully disagree. The gendering of rape defines it as something that happens to women. So if a man is raped, he is demeaned by the entire concept that rape is something feminine. That is something that we men have done to ourselves–the concept holds that a man who is raped is somehow less of a man, because only women get raped. Men have the power to change that concept.

Yes, men get raped. Quite a bit. They get raped in prison, but “prison rape” continues to be a topic of humor. Where are the men standing up to that, challenging the idea that prison rape is not funny, the way that feminists have been challenging sexist humor for at least two generations? Those men, and the women who support them, exist, but they are few in number. (The same can be said for female-on-male rape, which much of popular culture still does not view as a crime, cf. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RapeIsFunnyWhenItsFemaleOnMale)

Also, what organizations or people are standing up for male victims of rape? If you look closely at most major organizations that support victims of sexual violence, they actually don’t discriminate based on sex. It’s just that men don’t come forward. Why don’t they? Again, because they are unlikely to get any support from other men.

If men are serious about fighting male-victim rape, they need to start fighting male-victim rape, not just complaining about it to feminists.

As if to illustrate my point, a quick Google search for “male rape victim support” turned up a front page of results for organizations in the UK. American men need to get on this. Even if all you do is refuse to laugh at prison rape jokes, it is something. Here are a few resources to get you started:
http://www.mencanstoprape.org/Resources/resources-for-male-survivors.html
http://www.malesurvivor.org
http://www.aftersilence.org/male-survivors.php
http://www.pandys.org/malesurvivors.html

The only other point I will address, even though I’ve heard it so many times and it such a ridiculous argument that it will take a miracle to talk sense to anyone, is the issue of the selective service. If selective service registration is the best example you can come up with for discrimination against men in favor of women, then we guys are doing pretty damn swell. See, there are two problems with the argument:
1. (Assuming you live in the U.S.) we have not had a military draft since the early 1970′s, and there is less than zero political will to reinstate it. I can’t speak for countries that do have mandatory military service, but many of them require service of both men and women.
2. Regarding combat roles being reserved exclusively for men, that is no longer true in the United States, and many men (and some women) fought tooth and nail to keep women out of combat. Many women fought tooth and nail to be allowed in combat units. It strikes me as daft to claim women are privileged because they are, until recently, excluded from something some of them want to do.

The Feral Men and Boys of Steubenville, Ohio

Posted on March 19, 2013 by wellsdc

road_warrior2, via dangerousuniverse.com

Look, Steubenville, even the character named “the Feral Child” managed to keep it together (via dangerousuniverse.com)

This is pretty much the only conclusion I can reasonably reach, given all the talk about how the real lesson of the Steubenville rape case is the dangers of drinking too much. I’m not going to link to some of the more ridiculous commentaries, but the line of thinking amounts to: a girl got so drunk that she couldn’t control herself, and she got raped (see the Public Shaming Blog for a collection of tweets and other social media updates: 1, 2, 3.) Missing from this analysis is the moral agency of anyone else in town. All I can think is that the men and boys in this town are so lacking in self-control that they actually register below most members of the animal kingdom, because most animals have at least some concept of consequences for their actions.

Even the people who say that the boys are at fault, but so is the girl for getting drunk miss the point so much that it is doubtful they even know the point exists. All the girl is guilty of doing is getting drunk while underage. That barely registers on the scale of criminality next to the crime of rape. If you do not understand that, maybe you should not be allowed in public near drunk people.

This is such a ridiculously defamatory notion, that men cannot control themselves around a drunk/sexy/scantily-clad/female woman, and that the onus is entirely on the woman to protect herself. It has served as cover for men for a very, very long time, though, and it may only be recently that it occurred to men that this idea actually makes us look like idiots. I assume women have known this all along, and that privilege blinded the guys from seeing it. Some guys seem determined not to get it. Some women and girls go along with it, too.

Guys, we can do better than this. Have a little damn pride in yourselves, because if you really have such a serious problem with self-control, maybe we need to be the ones covering up all the time.

SXSW 2013 Diary, Day 2 (March 9, 2013)

Posted on March 11, 2013 by wellsdc

[Typed on an iPad with minimal proofreading.] Since it was a Saturday, I could use my fiancee’s parking pass downtown. No bus for me!

I almost immediately regretted trying to drive downtown. I got one of the last parking spaces on the roof of the garage, which I only obtained after a lengthy process of abruptly stopping to avoid rear-ending the driversnwho seem to think that you must close every 10-foot gap between you and the car in front of you at 20 mph or more.

Te first session I attended was entitled Tweets from the DMZ: Social Media in North Korea with Jean H. Lee, AP Bureau Chief for North Korea. While there was some interesting “slice of life” information about a Seoul-based journalist’s regular trips to North Korea, it mostly consisted, quite literally, of screenshots of tweets she has sent. I learned some interesting stuff, though. She said that the regime never stops her from taking pictures, but they always know what she is doing. They try to make sure she is “respectful” to her subjects more than almost anything else. South Korea has very strict limits on access to online material from the north. It is apparently illegal in South Korea to access North Korean websites, and the government has a strict firewall in place. It is illegal even to retweet something from North Korea. People in South Korea, she said, must be careful even following people in North Korea. North Korea has a few government-run sites, including Flickr, Twitter, and Instagram. The main goals of these government-run social media sites are propaganda, getting pictures of the leader out, etc. One person, during questions, basically suggested that she was a dupe of Pyongyang, doing their bidding by presenting their side of things, but she disputed this. He even suggested that North Korean agents might be in the room keeping eyes on her. She responding by inviting any North Koreans in the room to stand up and say hello. No one did, and I decided that would be a good time to leave.

Last year, I met some interesting people in the Samsung Blogger’s Lounge, so I headed there next. Let me try to be charitable here……while I recall that they used the room last year both to give bloggers a place to work and socialize and to do webcasts of interviews with people who are “buzzing” at SXSW, this year the interviews were harder to ignore. Impossible to ignore, actually. The host of these interviews is probably a very nice person, but her style is, I dare say, not suited to any room where anyone is expected to pay attention to anyone except her. She’s bubbly, goofy, and loud, is all I’m saying. I was able to finish my Day 1 blog entry, but couldn’t hold a conversation with anyone for long.

I hesitated to attend the next panel, for pretty basic social reasons of taboo and embarrassment. I’m glad I did, because it was one of the best sessions I’ve attended at any conference, ever. Not just because the presenter, Cindy Gallop, has an awesome British accent. The session was entitled The Future of Porn, and the line to get in extended out of the ballroom quite a long way. (She noted that nearly everything she was going to say in her talk could be a double entendre, andit was good to get that out of the way.) This was not a discussion of smut per se. In fact, she maintains that the sites she created, MakeLoveNotPorn.com and MakeLoveNotPorn.tv, are not porn, but “real world sex.” I’m just going to paste some things from my notes (shout-out to Evernote here):

What happens when you combine easy access to porn online with societal reluctance to discuss sex at all?
MakeLoveNotPorn compares porn world to real world. Led to TED Talk in 2009.
Not anti-porn. Issue is lack of honest conversation about sex in the real world.
Social media platforms generally won’t deal with sex. She wants to “socialize sex.” Launched MakeLoveNotPorn.tv, where people can submit their own videos of real sex. Site is curated, so it’s not like YouPorn. $5 submission/curation fee, $5 rental fee for 3 weeks unlimited viewing, 50% of revenue shared with submitters. The “Etsy of Sexy.”
Not porn, not “amateur.” They are #realworldsex. Community tells them what real world sex is.
Real world sex is funny, while porn sex is “earnest.” Sexual equivalent of “America’s Funniest Home Videos”
Real world sex is messy. Porn is “clean,” i.e. hairless, and you never see lube. No sex during periods [Ed. note: no judgment here. Whatever floats your boat.].
Real world sex is responsible. Porn either doesn’t have condoms, or they magically appear. More condom use if it seems sexy.
“Lazy person sex” – after long day, really tired, but horny. Don’t want to lift a finger to get off. No representation of that in porn or other media.
Thumbnails & copy are all SFW, so no one has to slam down the laptop when someone walks by.
You can make personalized playlists, send them to people. Lets you tell people what you like w/o awkward conversations [Ed. Note: I don't get how this is less awkward than talking, necessarily, but what do I know?].
Could be the “Kinsey of today.” Had to design in-system scoring that is easy to use and one-handed. You hit the space bar to say “yes!”
Porn industry has been supportive. Gen Y in porn has reached out to her (entrepreneurial, ambitious, want to be part of the “new world order” of things.)
They’re not competing with porn. Most porn labeled “amateur” isn’t.
One viewer told her “Porn makes me want to jerk off. Your videos make me want to have sex.”
No bank in the U.S. will work with her because “porn” is in the name. No mainstream payment processor would work with her. Finally got PayPal challenger Douala (?) on board, had to go with a European bank and payment processor.
Porn is falling prey to the same dynamics as the music and publishing industries. Businesses play it safe by doing what everyone else is doing. Porn’s way of dealing with it is more controversial.
***”It’s not that porn degrades women. It’s that business degrades porn” Pushing any business into the shadows enables bad things to happen. She’s trying to change the world through sex, make sex better for everybody. Business world is trying to stop her. She says the business world is driven by men who believe men are their target audience. She listed women entrepreneurs who are doing great work (Nina Hartley, etc.) “Women challenge the status quo because we are never ‘it.’”
She listed a few other products or sites she felt were worth mentioning:

Vibease – device for couples in LTRs.
Offbeatr – website for sex projects
They Fit – custom-made condoms, no FDA approval in the US
Bang with Friends – launched about a month ago.

Average age of first seeing hardcore porn online today is 8. They don’t necessarily go looking for it.
Less than 5% of parents, she says, ever talk to their kids about sex. The talk has changed, as it needs to include discussion of what shows up in porn.
Legalities: 2 forms of ID, “no children, no poop, no animals.” Brought in adult industry lawyers to help.
Protecting privacy and IP: members-only site, no way to guarantee no piracy, though. They review everything submitted to the site before posting it. They remove videos on request if a couple breaks up.
Finance: adult industry-specific companies, payment processors, etc. She wants business partners who get their mission. AI-specific processors think they’re just porn, have extortionate rates. Even they though MLNP was too risky. Company like Manwin has $$$, has easier time with banking.
None of their videos have an “extraneous” cameraman. Spouse might record other spouse, or person might use webcam.
Difference between porn and sex ed. Teachers have asked to use MLNP dot com in their sex ed classes. So few people are willing to stand up for these issues, that everyone wants Cindy to do all of it.

A couple of questions stood out. Someone eventually asked if Cindy appears in any of the videos on her site. Less predictably, the questioner was a woman, and the question was asked very earnestly (as opposed to a pervy manner). A mother of teenagers got up and described how her kids have used the family computer to access adult content. She is worried about the false impressions they will get about sex, and so asked about how to use the MNLP video site to give her kids access to more realistic, perhaps even “educational” material. Mom of the Year? Quite possibly.

I could write for weeks about everything I think is wrong in the way we deal with the issue of sex. It’s prety screwed up in most of the world, but I’ll focus on the U.S. Her opening statement summed it up very well, though: we have unprecedented access to “adult” material, and not just through porn, but through an overall sexualization in our culture. At the same time, we still lack almost any ability to discuss it like rational adults, and we still attach ridiculous forms of stigma to people regarding sex. This applies to people who have sex a lot (cf. Sasha Grey), people who don’t have it at all (cf. Lolo Jones), and everything in between. And that’s only covering the conventionally-attractive young white woman demographic. Don’t get me started.

I went to a 15-minute session on copyright law after that. Blah blah fair use and so on. Then I went home to assemble more IKEA furniture.

Maybe Not the Best Way to Make Friends at SXSW (UPDATED)

Posted on March 7, 2013 by wellsdc

(WARNING: I’m going to be mean in this post.)

Seems legit (via austin.craigslist.org)

Meet Daniel. Daniel is an Austin musician who just wants to meet cool people and hang out for South by Southwest, and he is offering up his place if you need somewhere to crash.

And if you’re a lady. Or two ladies. Who are willing to provide “services.”

I’m looking for one to two ladies to stay free during SXSW at my place. This is a simple deal; a free place to stay with many extras, for your services.

The precise meaning of “services” is left unstated, although you can read between the lines.

He offers many amenities, including “recording equipment and instruments” and “free internet and computer access.” This sort of begs the question: who charges for internet access at their own place?

Listed among the amenities, it is worth noting, is “a 6′ tall 190 lbs 6% body fat with ripped abs and a musician, for company.” The grammar is unclear, but I think that is all in reference to Daniel, although it is possible that he has a musician growing out of his abdomen. If he does, you can’t tell from the picture.

Anyway, Daniel wants us to know that his needs are pretty simple, and that he’s just reaching out to make new friends.

I’m just looking for cool people to hang out with during SXSW.

• Two friends
• Sisters/twins
• One girl is fine too

I mean, when I meet a woman with whom I’m interested in forming a friendship, I always ask if she has a twin. Who doesn’t?

Perhaps I am being unfair here. Perhaps this really is just an Austinite reaching out to make friendships and offer a place to stay during the city’s busiest week of the year, when hotel rooms are scarce and expensive. What do you say, Daniel?

I’m not a shallow person as this ad may seem. This is really a business deal, a nice way to meet cool people, and have some fun at the same time!

Were you maybe picturing something like this? (via moejackson.com)

A……business deal? I’m a little confused. I don’t usually include a picture of my abs in business proposals, but then again, mine are hiding under multiple layers of pizza. Yes, you said you could offer a place to stay with free home-based wifi in exchange for “services.” You also just want to make friends. With ladies, possibly twins. It’s almost like there’s something you don’t want to come right out and say……are you going to make these women clean your pool? Let’s just go with that.

Also, thank you for stating that you are not shallow. I have always found that the best way to reassure someone that you’re not shallow is to tell them that you are not shallow. Because we are all the most credible source when it comes to our own shallowness, or lack thereof.

I suppose I should applaud Daniel’s initiative. Who knows if he’ll get any responses, or if any responses he does get will be remotely close to the image he may have in his mind. He’s offering room, board, other amenities, and his abs in exchange for “services.” I have long advocated for decriminalizing sex work, and now I can point out that decriminalization would make not-shallow stuff like this mostly unnecessary.

Because I figure the post will come down soon (I can’t be the only person to have noticed it), I screencapped it here and here.

UPDATE (March 8, 2013): I forgot to give a hat tip to Damon, who brought this bit of oddness to my attention.

Confessions of a Recovering D-Bag

Posted on February 22, 2013 by wellsdc

8388756753_96e97955f4_z Teenage me, probably around 1992, wrote and publicized the following Valentine’s Day poem, and I will bear that shame for all my days:

Roses are red, violets are blue.
Women are evil, and nice guys get screwed.
I wrote you this poem because I wanted to say
I’m not bitter at all on this Valentine’s Day.

It goes on for several more whiny quatrains, but I think you get the idea. I share this now not in service of the belief that “nice guys get screwed,” but in atonement for ever actually thinking that way. I have been out of the dating pool for a few years now, and it has given me the time and perspective I needed to see just what a d-bag I used to be. If I can use this realization to help even just one person live a more fulfilling life, it will be worth it.

I used to fall victim to the notion that there ought to be a standardized set of procedures for dating. The world of the typical American man has changed from what we imagine was a time when men could meet certain standards and expectations in order to qualify for a mate. Most of these standards involved income or social status, with looks thrown in as (at best) a secondary concern. Factors like charm, personality, and compatibility were near the bottom of the list in this mostly-imagined previous era of courtship. Women, as the idea seems to go, picked a suitor from a panel of applicants based on these attributes. The upshot of this is that men had a uniform set of goals and attributes for which they should strive in order to “succeed” at finding a bride (or hookup, or whatever.)

Very, very few of us have debutante balls like in Downton Abbey, where a young woman can announce her availability to the world. Also, most of this imagined past of following dating instructions set forth in a cultural manual is just that: imagined. Life has always been complicated, I believe, and while the specific norms of relations between the genders (all of them) is in flux, they have always been complicated too.

I could write an entire book or more on everything that I have gotten wrong over the course of my life, but (a) I have stuff to do, and (b) it is an ongoing process of realization. I am not saying this in search of forgiveness, or even just to get a cookie. Rather, I have discovered a wondrous world in which people can coexist and interact without undue concern over gender or identity roles, where a relationship with a woman that culminates in friendship rather than sex is not somehow a failure, where a guy can meet a woman and develop a friendship without feeling pressure to at least try to have sex with her, and where one’s ability to share fully in others’ lives potentially extends to everyone, not just their own gender.

It can be a beautiful place, and I want to share it with others who think the way I once thought.

Whether others want to join in this world is up to them, but this world exists, and it is all around us.

Photo credit: emmstitch [CC BY 2.0], on Flickr.

I Can’t Tell If This Is Satirical, Whiny, or Both

Posted on February 22, 2013 by wellsdc

I’m not sure if this is:

a satirical look at guys who think their lack of money and fame is the main reason women don’t drop trou for them (as opposed to, say, their whiny and entitled attitude and insistence on a degree of physical perfection in a mate that they do not expect of themselves); or
a passive-aggressive attempt to satirize women who move to Los Angeles, spend a great deal of time trying to build a career, as well as a great deal of time working out (the two are probably closely connected in LA), and yet dare to be picky when someone who lacks ambition or accomplishment but is a really nice guy expects to be able to sleep with them.

I’m leaning towards option 2, but satire is becoming more and more difficult to recognize as satire.

Even if this is actually the douche-tastic lament of a spurned Nice Guy™, I have to recognize that it has some effective song parody qualities.

(h/t Manboobz)

I Tried to Avoid the Guns-as-Phallic-Symbols Angle… (NSFW?)

Posted on February 11, 2013 by wellsdc

…but my search for images licensed for re-use led me to this picture, titled “Male-Kink”: Continue reading →

Cryptic Philosopher

Peace, Love and Hair Grease

Category Archives: Sex