Month: March 2012

Penis or Family Jewels?

~ Clarissa ~ 7 Comments

A conversation with a senior colleague:

Clarissa: Do you remember this play we saw last year?

Colleague: No, what play?

Clarissa: The one with a penis!

Colleague: I have no idea what you are talking about. What was the play’s title?

Clarissa: I don’t remember the title but there was a naked guy in the play. With a penis!

Colleague: Who was the author, then?

Clarissa: I don’t know. I just remember the penis.

Colleague: Oh, was that the play where we bought jewelry during the intermission?

Clarissa: I don’t know from jewelry. The penis is all I retained from the play.

Colleague: Yes, that was some really cool jewelry.

Is Having a Lot of Sex Shameful?

~ Clarissa ~ 53 Comments

I have nothing but the most sincere sympathy for Sandra Fluke who testified at a hearing on the medical coverage of contraception and is now at the center of a shitstorm organized by sexually repressed miserable folks on both sides of the partisan divide. Here is what Rush Libmaugh had to say about Fluke:

It was Sandra Fluke who said that she was having so much sex she can’t afford it. […] She’s spending $3000, $1000 a year, on pills and she’s going broke and wants us to buy it. […] By her own admission, in her own words, Sandra Fluke is having so much sex that she can’t afford it. […] Does she have more boyfriends? They’re lined up around the block. Or they would have been in my day.

I don’t understand why anybody would listen to the guy who repeats the same thing like a broken record, makes strange logical connections, and is so out of touch with reality that the difference between condoms and other forms of contraception eludes him. From this quote, Limbaugh’s show sounds tedious as hell.

But I don’t see what’s offensive about this particular quote.

I copied it directly from a  progressive website that is scandalized by the quote. Mind you, I have no idea what was said in the parts that the progressive website edited and put in […]. I’m reacting to a reaction, so to speak, and for the purposes of my post, what matters is the text that the progressive website in question found offensive. This is how the progressive blog responded:

And still, with the exception of mealy-mouthed demurring by John Boehner and Rick Santorum, the gutless Republicans have nothing to say about these attacks. If the Speaker’s daughters Lindsay and Tricia had been Limbaugh’s targets for these scummy attacks, would he have just said the guy’s words were “inappropriate.”

Now I want everybody to breathe very deep and look back at the quote from Limbaugh. Yes, we all hate Limbaugh. He is stupid, he is vile, he is an uneducated, stupid jerk. But let’s look at this particular quote because I’m trying to make an important point.

Where precisely are the “scummy attacks” in the quoted text? Is having “so much sex”, “more boyfriends” and people who are “lined up around the block” something bad? What is so offensive about being sexually active and popular? Limbaugh is an idiot and a clown, we all know that. But what about the progressives who take the phrase “she is having so much sex” as some huge insult?

Limbaugh’s position is, at least, very clear: “I can’t get it up any more, so I hate everybody who can.” The author of the progressive post, however, has me very confused. He seems to think that having a lot of sex is something that happens but it is a reality that is so offensive that it should never be mentioned in polite company.

There is a lot of sexual repression going on here on both sides. All that differs is the way in which the conservatives and the progressives manifest how much sex horrifies them. The verbiage changes but the substance remains the same.

Enforcing Charity

~ Clarissa ~ 10 Comments

And the prize for the weirdest “parenting technique” of the month goes to the following:

There’s a parenting technique where people force their children to give to charity in an attempt to teach them the value of charity. For example, they might require the kid to put aside a certain portion of their allowance for charitable donations, or they might make a rule that the kid isn’t allowed to get presents at their birthday party and instead the guests should make a contribution to a charity.

Of course, there is always teaching by example. Giving up one’s own luxuries and gifts in a quiet and unassuming way, making sacrifices to help the needy, things like that. But who needs all that trouble when you can unburden your pent up aggression by persecuting a defenseless child while sighing hypocritically about how it’s all for a good cause?

This reminded me of the time when I was taking tango lessons and my teacher would stand next to me and yell, “Be sexy, Clarissa! I TOLD YOU TO BE SEXY RIGHT NOW!!!”

Being ordered to be sexy is as productive as being forced to be charitable, which is why I can’t dance tango worth a damn.

New Theme

~ Clarissa ~ 58 Comments

So?

If you hate it, just tell me. It takes two seconds to change it, and the themes are free.

I just feel ready for a change.

Women in Business Class

~ Clarissa ~ 18 Comments

My sister was traveling from Paris this week on a long overnight flight. She decided to pay for a Business Class seat in order to enjoy the flight instead of suffering for hours in a cramped, miserable little space.

When she went into the Business Class section of the airplane, she was stunned to see that everybody else there was male. She was the only woman until a lady from China joined her. It felt like a striptease joint, she says.

I very much hope to be mistaken but this looks like evidence that, yet again, women economize at their own expense and don’t feel justified in treating themselves as well as men.

The need to sacrifice for the sake of parents, husbands, siblings, children, pets and potted plants is a guiding principle of many women’s lives. I see it everywhere.

Dear women, this has got to stop. You need to start doing things for yourself. Get yourself a massage, find a cool facial mask, slather it on your face and drop into a bathtub for an hour, buy a cake or two pounds of expensive fruit you like and eat them all without considering who might need this money or this cake more than you. Close the door to your office or your room and stick a note that says “Me time. Keep out!” on the door.

Of course, if you are a man who tends to sacrifice yourself, then you should stop doing that, too.

Remember, people who really love you, do not need your sacrifices. They need for you to be happy. If you can’t be happy for yourself, then make this last sacrifice and be happy for the sake of your loved ones.

Projection Game

~ Clarissa ~ 59 Comments

Think of a person you know of your own gender whom you really really really dislike. Now, list the qualities this person has that bug you so much.

My most unlikeable person is:

– cold;

– distant;

– mean;

– robotic;

– overachieving;

– harsh;

– indifferent;

– garishly dressed;

– self-centered like there is no tomorrow.

Now, describe the person you dislike the most.

Do you know what we just described? Ourselves. The qualities I hate so much in my person X might or might not be ones she actually possesses. But we do know for sure (on the basis of my intense dislike of her) that I possess them. And I don’t like them in myself, which is why I project them onto her and then dissociate myself from them by saying, “God, I hate X. for being this way! And if I do, then, certainly, I’m nothing like that.”

Ideology of Oral Sex

~ Clarissa ~ 14 Comments

Somebody came to the blog through the search of “ideology of oral sex.”

Geez, people, what’s next? The ideology of digestion? The ideology of blood circulation? Have it, don’t have it, whatever. Just stop looking at simple physiology through the prism of ideology.

The only question to ask about oral sex is “Do I want to engage in it, when, and with whom?” That’s the only “ideology” of sex worth analyzing. And whether you do or don’t want to have oral sex, there is no other reason or justification that you need for that. Just the desire or lack thereof.

Perfect People and a Sense of Humor

~ Clarissa ~ 22 Comments

So yesterday we finished watching the movie Nine Queens in the two sections of my language course. One of the sections enjoyed the film. People laughed, one student clapped, another student made enthusiastic “woo-hoo” noises, everything went great.

In the other section, however, as the credits started to roll, I perceived a gathering tension.

“What could possibly be wrong now?” I wondered. “There is no sex, no nudity, no politics, and there’s a happy ending. Why are the students uncomfortable?”

“So did you like the movie?” I asked.

“Nah. . .”, was the response.

“Why didn’t you like it?”

“We thought Juan was a good person but he turned out to be dishonest.”

“Well, the only person he tricked was a con man who had hurt a lot of people,” I tried to argue.

“But he lied,” the students drawled.

“He only wanted to restore to a young woman and her teenage brother the inheritance that was rightfully theirs.”

“But he lied.”

“And he was desperate to help his elderly father,” I persevered.

“BUT HE LIED!” the students chanted.

So now I’m looking for a movie where fully clothed angelical human beings go around being perfect all the time. Any suggestions?

P.S. No, I’m not inventing these stories. If I had that kind of imagination, I’d already be a bestselling author.

Why Do We Need Birth Control?

~ Clarissa ~ 18 Comments

I have to say, I’m getting a little fed up with the “women need birth control not because they want to have sex but because they might have health issues that are corrected with birth control and, in any case, being on birth control doesn’t mean you are having that much sex anyways.”

It’s all true but it’s also completely beside the point. It is the XXI century, folks. It is perfectly fine to need birth control because you are having sex and want to prevent pregnancy. It is perfectly fine to have tons of sex if that’s what you want. Let’s stop buying into this idea that there is something wrong with having sex.

Want birth control for your health issues? Good. Want it because you are having lots of sex? Also good. Neither of these reasons is more or less valid than the other. Let’s just stop being apologetic for what we are doing with our own bodies already.

Kudos to Georgia State Rep. Yasmin Neal!

~ Clarissa ~ 15 Comments

Even in Georgia there are politicians who do good work and call people’s attention towards the stupidity of the anti-abortion and anti-contraception hysteria.

Wouldn’t it be cool to have Rep. Neal as our president?