Sunday, March 29, 2009

Illustrator of the Month, March

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Monday, March 23, 2009

Topping from Below

Professor Foxy,

I've had submissive sexual fantasies since I was very young and it's something that I've always found really difficult to come to terms with. I'm a very assertive and driven person in real life so it's just really hard for me to accept how much I sexually enjoy giving up control and power.

I've been dating my current boyfriend for two years and we've experimented quite a bit with bondage and dominance play. It's always incredibly arousing and fun for me. And he enjoys it too because he can tell how much it turns me on.

Intellectually I understand that these feelings are just a part of my sexuality and that they don't have anything to do with who I am outside of the bedroom. But at the same time, every once in a while I just feel so ashamed and guilty. It's hard to reconcile being a feminist with my strong sexual desire to submit. What can I do to accept my sexuality for what it is?
-Conflicted feminist

Hi Conflicted -

A good step towards accepting your sexuality for what it is may be to unpack it a little bit more. I want to quote you back to you: I'm a very assertive and driven person in real life so it's just really hard for me to accept how much I sexually enjoy giving up control and power.

I'm going to come back to the first part, but first let's focus on the second part of the sentence: I sexually enjoy giving up control and power. YOU give up control and power. In the real world, power and control are taken from women in an effort to make them submissive. In your sex life, as convoluted as this may seem, you are in power because you make the choice to give up power. Your boyfriend (yay for him) engaged in this because you (still in power) asked him to engage.

As much as the sex play is about you "giving up power," in reality you are still the one in control.
A friend of mine is a strong, independent, assertive woman, who, like you, enjoys being submissive sexually, says it this way, "even when I am being submissive, I know that I am the one in power. I let the person dominate me, I set what can and cannot be done, and I can call a beginning and stop to the action."

And now back to the beginning of your sentence "I'm a very assertive and driven person in real life." Sex can be a healthy way of achieving balance in our lives. Acting out your submissive side (a side every person has) allows you to unwind and let go. We all need to have a place to act out all of our different sides and it looks like you have found a place to act out one of them.
-Professor Foxy

http://www.feministing.com/archives/014384.html

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Who'dve Guessed?

Who'dve guessed that intelligent social sexual commentary would come from the website Hot Chicks with Douche Bags? Certainly not me. Feminism? No, not really, though it is generally surprisingly kind to the fairer sex. Humour, yes. Unbelieveable haircuts? Yes! Incredible proof people have lost their minds when it comes to self tanning? Definitely. But intelligent social commentary? I wouldn't have guessed.

Here's the post I'm referring to, but if you haven't checked out the site in general, I suggest you do. For a lark. My favourite is the Oompa Prompa, make sure you check them out while there.

The "I'm Getting Some" Defense

Much of the douchewank defense rests around the notion of an "ends justify the scrote" mentality. That if you "get some" as a result of clownish buffoonishness, then it is inherently justified.This is the core concept of choadscrote defense that we, on our mission quest, must overturn.

Spectacle in the service of Ass Pear is not, in and of itself a justification. Ass Pear can be achieved without a turn to narcissistic brand-name spectacle. All it takes is a cultural shift. A revolution.That's what HCwDB is dedicated to.

By shifting notions of the sexually desirable into an unattainably symbolic "Otherness", what Lacan calls the Objet Petit a, consumer culture fuels this chase for the unattainable through purchase of the brand-name object.

Ed Hardy, Affliction, A/X, Grey Goose, each of these products work to sell themselves as means to the Boobie Hottie Suckle Thigh to the Douchewank and, simultaneously, that if the Boobie Hottie Suckle Thigh agrees to boink the Douchewank, that she has acquired the cultural capital to validate her own hottness.The products are the scorecard. Name Brands as hierarchy. Bodyspray as sexualized determinant. Jewelry, sunglasses, hair spike, all the costume of sexual validation forced upon us within cultural structure patterns.

This sexual dialectic has become inherently corrupted by mass culture. Our bodies have become the templates of this tug of war product inscription. Our eros forced to intermingle with market style branding.

So no, whether or not you "get some" does not validate participation in the systemic corruption of intimacy into the culturally validated media spectacle. The means do not justify the ends.

Even if the ends are a luciously pluckable Ass Pear.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Really, Vogue? Really? What a Joke!

Here is the new cover of Vogue magazine:

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At first glance, you think that it's refreshing to see a curvy woman on the cover, right? Even Beyonce's tag line, "Real Women Have Curves," jumps out at you.

But look closer. Here are the other headlines:
"Nip/Tuck: Designing a Perfect Body"
"Shape Issue: Fashion for Every Figure -From size 0 to size 20"
"Work It! - Longer Legs, Leaner Lines, Sexier Silhouette + The right swimsuit for your body type"
and last but not least,
"Weight Obsession: One woman conquers her diet demons"

This can't be real. It is fake, right? How can they promote having curves, dressing to look thinner, plastic surgury AND beating the weight obsession in the same issue? They can't. What they are promoting is the very weight obsession they are writing about. It's all kinds of fucked up.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

F.U.C.K. Me

Can't resist this. It is too good to pass up.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Barbie is Fifty

Barbie turned fifty recently.

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There are some pretty excellent articles about her on Forbes.com , including some celebrity commentary on what Barbie means to them.

Barbie manufacturers Mattel are celebrating her birthday all year - but there isn't a lot to celebrate lately. Sales are slipping dramatically, as she's come up against the Disney powerhouses of Hanna Montana, a younger, more innocent role model, and High School Musical, whose dolls are also 11" tall and wildly popular. One win for Barbie this year is the court ruling that Bratz dolls were conceived whilst their creator was employed by Mattel, and therefore Barbie now owns Bratz. What she intends to do with this ownership remains to be seen.

But fear not - Barbie has been through it all. If three lost presidential campaigns, a breakup of her 43-year long relationship with Ken, and constant wearing of 4" stilettos haven't broken her spirit, a little slip in popularity shouldn't hurt a bit.

There are upsides. Her popular webpresence is going to be dramatically improved, and already has 18 million registered users, and she's got a new partnership with Mac cosmetics.

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She made her first appearance at New York Fashion Week - with fifty well known designers creating her outfits, and is opening her first flagship store in Shanghai, China. All exciting news for this old broad.

It's not the only part of her image she's revamping. Check out this recent incarnation with pink docs and an eco-conscious teeshirt message:

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Barbie has taken a lot of flack over the years. People have criticized her looks, her figure and her apparent sexuality. But if this doll, which was created to fufill the desire of a demographic, was inappropriate, why do young girls love her so much? Did her creator really create a need, or just fill one? 90% of young girls own one, and most girls I knew loved Barbie through and through. I don't buy into the baloney that she is responsible for eating disorders. I think eating disorders are caused by something else altogether. But that's another post.

Boys like to play with guns - and will use sticks or their fingers to imitate guns if they do not have actual plastic guns to play with. Before Barbie, young girls had baby dolls, and could practice mothering, but only had paper dolls with which to practice being adult. As any woman will tell you, much of their childhood play experience with other girls centred on the concept of being grown up. Experimenting with fashion, makeup and most memorably, sex. Sure, Barbie looks a bit like a blow up doll - but if you are using her to practice making out with Ken, isn't that an appropriate look for her to have?

The real question is, what is so wrong with a young girl experimenting with her sexuality via a plastic doll? Is this not a healthy form of expression? I think it is - I think it's not only healthy but important. I wonder who I would be had I never had a Barbie - she was that important to me. She was a role model - she told me I could do and be anything. I could be an astronaut or a fashion designer, and be hot doing it either way. She could have lesbian trysts or threesomes without fear or repurcussion. Ah, the freedom of being plastic. She allowed me to escape the tragedy of childhood - that deep desire to be a grownup and have the world at my feet - a little bit earlier.

Happy Birthday Barbie, and thanks for everything.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Organ Donation

Today my bf and I went to get our new health cards.

The woman at the counter asked us both if we'd like to donate our organs should we meet our untimely demise. I said yes, he said no. I began harassing him on the spot, trying to get his reasoning. He suggested he was a Witness and it was against his beliefs. Fearing the woman was a Jo-Ho, I kicked him in the shin, lightly. He went on to provide some bullshit reason as to wanting to go back into the earth "Just as he came into the world."

Anyhow I couldn't get a good reason out of him. I'm sure he has one.

The woman found the whole exchange quite amusing.

She looked at me over her glasses and said with a smug grin, "You know, it's the next of kin that gets to decide anyhow."

"Good," I said. "We just filed our tax returns as common-law for the first time."

Thursday, March 5, 2009

The Dirtiest Rap Songs of All Time

Click here to check out the list and hear samples.

A sample lyric, from "How Many Licks" by Lil'Kim:

Puerto Rican papi,
used to be a Deacon
But now he be sucking me
off on the weekend
And this black dude
I called King Kong
He had a big ass dick
and a hurricane tongue
Dan my nigga from Down South
Used to like me to spank him
and cum in his mouth