Tiffany

The other day I saw a woman at the bus stop who I used to work with. I never talked to her, but I sometimes saw her and lusted for her. Talking to someone just because they have a smokin' hot body is overrated anyway. What bands and movies and books a woman likes is way more important which is why Internet dating, in spite of all it's faults, is way better for meeting rad women than pick up. I guess pick up is probably okay if you just want a one night stand. Even then, most pick up artists are really shitty people.

Anita Sarkeesian you are the queen of my world

So it's been approximately 9 months of hiatus from this blog. The motherboard broke on my old computer and my employment history has been sketchy at best, so the funds necessary for a new computer were scarce. Anyway, welcome back, all 0 of you faithful readers.

So about a week ago, this really neato friend of mine named Alan sent me a vid of a woman named Anita Sarkeesian giving a TED talk about how Anonymous attacked her after she started a kickstarter to raise funds for this video series she wanted to do critiquing portrayal of women in video games. I have to confess, at first I wasn't impressed. I think part of it is I've always associated video games with something to do when you're bored, as opposed to an art form to examine critically. I watched the TED talk and imagined a Toni Morrison-esque term paper on the sociological repercussions of Mrs. Pac-Man and thought to myself 'Could anything be more boring and self-congratulatory.' I guess there's also a sleeping libertarian in me that thinks Kickstarter is an inappropriate way for one to raise $$$ for their projects. I still feel that way to an extent, but that's a story for a different blog post.

So I had those sort of, 'I like the motivation behind this whole thing but otherwise I'm nonplussed by it.' thoughts until about 2 hours ago when I watched this video from her, which randomly appeared when I watched a video my friend made at work:


Now I want to try and make a long story short. That's not one of my strong suits, so here goes nothing. I love feminism as much as anyone. I really do. Not just because I have the capacity for empathy and I understand how it's a just cause, but because all my life I've never fit into conventional gender stereotypes. I wasn't good at sports. My favorite colour was purple. I was always more imaginative than the kids at school that I felt I was supposed to be more like. And later in life, I cried. I still sucked at sports. I crossdressed. I don't want to say I needed feminism in my personal life as much as Loretta Ross or whomever, but at the same time, the knife of sexism cuts both ways, and I've been cut, motherfuckers. I've been cut.

Which is funny, because I spend a minute defending this blog against feminists, and to that, all I have to say is that I'm not perfect. I like to think I'm becoming a better feminist as I get old and able to make more rational decisions in my personal life, and I've made mistakes along the way, and I just might make a few more. Still, I sincerely believe my heart's in the right place, and if someone comes to me with a constructive concern (i.e. not 'Fuck you Charles.') I'll at the very least take it into serious consideration.

But I digress, until I was like 20 I thought the word 'Feminism' meant 'women who think women are better than men' and of course never bothered to look it up. This is in spite of the fact that Bratmobile's Ladies Women & Girls was in my top 5 for almost all of high school. I think I just didn't really have the peers to back me up on that shit. There's only so far you can go when you're alone in your ideals and in high school in a town with a population of 780.

So anyway, this all gets back to the episode of Family Guy that Sarkeesian talks about in her video up there, and how I remember being 19 and living in the dorms around the time that the Family Guy DVDs got really popular and watching that episode 20 times and thinking it was right on, and then going through the rest of college and realizing that no, no it wasn't at all, and seriously, when someone says the things that Sarkeesian is saying in this video, and makes the point she makes, the feeling of validation is overwhelming. I'm practically in tears watching it, and as previously stated, I'm a pretty macho guy (LOLJK) so that rarely happens. Because now I have to live in a world where I think things like this are horrifically misguided:

and getting backlash when I state such on facebook. You probably can't read all that. If not, consider yourself lucky.

And so anyway, it's so seriously, seriously refreshing and endearing that someone is willing to recognize the shitty elements that I have been upset by for so long that I seriously want Anita Sarkeesian to be my best friend and we'll go grab beers together and I can explain to her why I feel that, while not perfect, I think Fritz Lang's Big Heat is actually way more female positive than any of its contemporaries and together we will go hand in hand to fight the good fight against oppressive culture wherever it may lie and we each get our own unicorn to ride and free pizza for life.

Whatever. I'm drunk.

Let's do drugs!

I've changed a lot as a person since I started this blog, and I've been trying to be a better person when maintaining this blog. One way of doing that is to avoid getting gossipy (in related news: Beth Ditto is a woman who I like). This post will in all likelihood come dangerously close to that. I'm doing my best to keep it together.

Almost exactly a year ago, I started an OKCupid profile as a joke. I was trying to make a profile that was as unappealing as possible. I used a bunch of pictures of myself in my underwear, and I answered all the questions in the most awful way possible. E.g. 'I am pro-life. My ideal match would be pro-choice.'

After a while on there, I made a real profile and sort of forgot about the fake one. I checked it for the first time in a long while and the experience was sort of surreal.

Imagine my surprise to find a bunch of messages from women who apparently didn't get that the profile was a joke and thought this crazy alter-ego I'd cooked up would be a catch. Seriously. What the fuck? Why would you ever want to hook up with someone who under 'What I'm Doing With My Life' puts 'I'm unemployed and I like to have sex with my hand.'

One of the women who messaged me (twice) mentioned in detail on her profile that she hated herself and she was looking for someone to fix her life. For the record, I wholly believe that if you're in a distraught place like that the last thing you need is to get romantically involved with someone. It's a bummer but dating is only going to make things harder for someone who's already in a bad place.

So that was weird, but then, even weirder, was a message I got from a user whom I'd previously been talking to on my real profile, who ostensibly didn't realize that the profile was fake, or that the pictures of a man in his underwear were of the same man who she'd been talking to previously.

Even before that, the whole thing was sort of weird. She told me about a show going on that I went to once, and I never quite ran into her there, but then it turns out I did see her, I just didn't recognize her. Apparently some guy grabbed her but or something and she kicked the shit out of him, and I awkwardly watched the whole thing and still didn't realize it was her.

So that's weird, but when she contacted the fake profile she wanted to know if I could hook her up with drugs.  I'm pretty sure she didn't mean soft stuff, because when somebody non-specifically says they want 'drugs' it seems to me that they're implying they'll do any drugs they can get their hand on. Also, I find it hard to believe she'd have a hard time scoring something like weed in San Diego. In this city, if you throw a rock you hit marijuana.

So anyway, I don't really want to get involved with someone who's into drugs. They might be a nice person and all, but drug addiction typically negatively affects not only the addict but everyone around her (See Johnny Cash covering Nine Inch Nails). So I'm going to chalk that up to dodging a bullet. She goes to shows in the area though, so it'll be really weird if I ever run into her.

So I took down both OKCupid profiles. I've had enough weird in my life for the time being.

Many Women on OKCupid are truly awful human beings.

I don't mean to single out women like this, but I hardly use OKCupid to meet men. Sometimes I look for men on OKCupid in the hopes of sparking a new friendship, but that's only happened 2 or 3 times. I can't really gauge the men on OKCupid from that. Oh wait, I do have this picture that a woman put on her profile that suggests that at least some men are rather crude and awful.

 So I'm not bullish on the way she talks about obese women. I mean, I get that we live in a society that is really cruel to obese women, and fat women deal with that in lots of ways, one of which is some of them become sort of desperate in the romantic field, but I feel like her message still represents fat women as second class romantic partners.

And you know what, lots and lots of men are awful. Why am I even reflecting on this? Ask any woman who hasn't lived the majority of her life in a cave, and you'll find examples of how lots of men are absolutely cruel.

 However, what I've found from OKCupid, is that there's really a lot of people who hold unmitigated, hate-filled opinions, and they come from every gender under the sun.

The area where this really becomes apparent is in the 'questions' section of the website. The questions in question are available to OKCupid users to discern how they feel about various issues in life, and most of them are fairly benign, like 'If someone says "I love you." on the first date is it sweet or scary?' Then there's a number of questions that deal with topics that reflect not just as a person in the dating world, but on the ethics of the individual. Here are some examples:

The life of one of your fellow citizens is more valuable than the lives of ten foreigners. (true/false)

 Do overweight people annoy you?

Do you have a problem with racist jokes?

Which best represents your opinion of same-sex relationships?

Do you find it disturbing that products are still tested on animals?

Is long hair on a guy inappropriate?

Is a straight person considered gay if they are friends with a gay person ?

Do you ever use the word "gay" as an insult or pejorative?

Someone you like is drunkenly flirting with you. You know that with a sober mind this person would never engage in casual sex, but now it seems that they're willing. What do you do?

People's answers to many of these are shockingly vile, but the last question really bothers me. I've seen two women who, from their profile seemed like okay, decent people, but then you get to their questions and you find out they're willing to have sex with someone who's messed up, knowing they wouldn't be into it sober. I feel like there might be women who don't see what the problem with this is, and I think it's part of the rape culture sentiment that 'A girl can't rape a guy.' If you'd eff a person in this situation, you're a rapist and a shitty person and I hate you and stay the fuck away from my junk you evil fuck.

 There's also some questions, that, while about an aspect of dating life, clearly are a reflection of the person's prejudices, like this little number:

Could you date someone who used anti-depressants?

There's a lot of people who have answered this with 'no,' which I find just horrid. I sort of don't understand the stigma. I mean, someone using anti-depressants is coping with depression, and if they're willing to shell out the cash for meds they're probably more adamant about staying on top of their mood. I've used anti-depressants in the past, and now I don't need to anymore, which I count amongst one of the most fortunate things that's happened to me. If I still needed them, I would do it and I'd be responsible about it. One person commented that they would look down on someone who's using anti-depressants for being too stupid to just smoke pot. I was going to comment on that, but maybe I don't even need to. I've experienced first hand how anti-depressants can work, and I've experienced first hand how trying to 'just deal with it' is a really, really bad decision.

In short, OKCupid is overrun with abominable humans and it makes me hope that the website is not an accurate pool of the general public opinion.

Why am I posting this?

A lot of people hate this blog and I think one of the reasons is because it tends to feature women who perhaps lack substance who I like on purely physically attractive grounds. This is one of those posts.

When the basis of your show is that 'B' rhymes with '23'...

A few days ago I ran out of shows I routinely watch on Hulu, and it suggested I check out 'Don't Trust The B In Apartment 23.' Okay, I thought to myself. I like sitcoms. I watched it for about two minutes and turned it off. Sometimes I wonder if twenty years from now we'll look back at 30 Rock reruns with the same disdain we have for Family Matters reruns today. Only time will tell, but I can say for certain Don't Trust The B is not a show I care for now and it probably won't age well.

The B mentioned in the title is Krysten Ritter, who bears a striking resemblance to transsexual adult film star Mandy Mitchell. I noticed this because I am classy as fuck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 
I had a difficult time finding two pictures that demonstrated their similarities well, so if you're overly skeptical you'll have to go watch some porn and/or sitcom.

Dirty Signs With Kristin

Oh my shit, where do I start?

Okay, so like half an hour ago, I thought it would be funny to Tweet 'I need to know how to say 'prostitute' in sign language. Don't ask.' and this guy who I barely know hit my sweet ass back on Facebook with a link to a YouTube channel called 'Dirty Signs With Kristin.' It's a very good channel. She does all her videos completely straight faced instructional while saying things that make you wish you knew how to sign back 'You kiss your mother with that mouth?' but on second thought maybe it's okay that you don't know how to say that, because it wouldn't make sense since you don't do sign language with your mouth. Anyway, this is my favorite video because she says 'poop.'