Monthly Archives: August 2011

Porn and Empowerment

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There is an incredible amount of to-do over porn – I think everyone knows the internet has made it widely accessible, cheap, and accepted in the mainstream. It’s no longer something you hide under your bed. There are, of course, many lines of thinking about porn, including a lot of hoopla regarding pornography and female empowerment. Basically there are two camps, those who think porn can be empowering to women and those that don’t. I don’t care about either one - what bothers me are the logistics.

First off, I’ll be completely honest and say, I just don’t get it. And I think many, many women feel the same way. I understand it flips some sort of switch in dudes, but in the event I happen to be around porn (don’t ask me what event that might be), I only think about logical things. Such as:

a)     Why does she still have on socks and tennis shoes?

b)     That’s gotta hurt

c)     Sorry, but you aren’t going to get pleasure from that position.

d)     Why is the pizza delivery guy in the background watching?

Before my husband and I married he lived in this really shady apartment building. One of the guys that lived in the back drove a taxi and moonlighted as an extra in pornos. Yup, an extra. I thought he was a total douche bag before I ever found that out, but that really cemented it for me. It also made me feel he must be woefully inadequate, because why else would you be an extra? I mean, come on, why wouldn’t you just commit and actually be in the flick? Clearly the answer lies in one of two things – it’s either a size or longevity issue. Or both.

All fun and jokes aside – perhaps you’ve read about the recent suspension of filming in the adult industry due to a performer testing positive for HIV. What really bothers me about this is that it has happened a number of times, as recently as last year, in fact. Adult film star Derrick Burts tested positive less than a year ago and has since advocated condom use in pornographic films. I understand HIV testing is a monthly requirement for porn actors, but let’s face it, that isn’t enough. A lot can happen in 30 days, not to mention the window for HIV antibodies to show up in the system can take as long as three months to be detectable in blood. HIV testing is not a substitute for condoms.

It isn’t that I’m against porn, I just do not understand it. With the way the industry is currently run I can’t understand how it’s empowering to anyone – men or women.

 

 

I Need a Swear Jar

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I have a sailor’s mouth – big time. I am one of those women that can fit a curse word into the middle of another word (i.e. – absofuckinglutely). It started when I was a rebel without a cause teenager, and I haven’t been able to shake it since. Once I was working in a field school in Belize, smack dab in the middle of Summer, and it was so hot and humid I thought my skin was going to melt off my face. So I yelled out ‘Fuck!’ as a way to let the gods know I was angry, and turned around to find the project director standing behind me. She was well into her sixties, so I apologized right away because, well, it was disrespectful. She smiled and said that the word fuck is the best descriptive word ever. You can be fucking mad, happy, excited, and so on. Totally true – I like to think of it as a superlative. But it still isn’t the nicest thing to throw out there. And yet I cannot control it – I’ve tried.

But you know what? I am not alone. Ladies used to be prim and proper and look like they walked off the set of Mad Men without ever sullying their perfectly made-up lips with the likes of profanity. My grandmother says ‘H-E double hockey sticks’ if she really wants to get her point across. Not anymore – Log onto any number of female blogs and you will find this has changed. When did this happen?  Usually, because so many of my female cohorts swear as much as me, I tell myself it doesn’t matter because it’s normal. Of course, this is an easy way out for me to not stop cursing. And while we’re at it, if I was actually cursing then maybe it would be more interesting. You’ll rue the day you cut me off motherfucker because the next car you purchase will be a lemon! But I can never get anything like that out, it’s always more of the ‘stupid fuckwad’ variety, which is really pretty boring.

Anyway, the point is, every time I say I’m going to stop swearing it never lasts. It never even starts. BUT, I do possess the unconscious ability to not swear in front of my grandma. What I need is to figure out how to conjure the grandma power. And it can’t be picturing my grandma standing beside me at all times because that’s creepy. If someone has a suggestion, I’m all ears.

 

Watch out Father Time, Science is out to Getcha

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Has anyone seen the trailer for In Time yet? It looks awful, and some version of the concept has been done already in, oh, probably a dozen other movies and television shows. In this particular movie no one ages past the age of 25, sounds great, right? I actually don’t even want to be stuck at 25, but I very much want to stay exactly as I am right now, forever, or until I die, whatever. And yes I know we live in a culture that’s youth obsessed and blah blah, but like I said, not 25, 30-something will do just fine. But here’s the thing, it isn’t a pipe dream. We are on our way to halting the clock with science. A lot of technology annoys me – like all the tweety-twitter and Facebook updating obsessed folks that feel the need to share every facet of life. Do I really need to know you stopped at the juice bar after working out at the gym? Um, no. Now, let’s say you went to the juice bar and sat next to a three-headed alien oozing some sort of gelatinous goo, and the alien asked you for a cigarette, that would certainly be worthy of an update.

I lost my train of thought – ah, technology. Yes, when it comes to scientific technology I am all on board. I am not a ‘green’ beauty product lover. Give me the chemicals, any and all of them, as long as they work. Which brings me to telomeres. What’s a telomere, you ask? Wikipedia says it’s a region of repetitive DNA at the end of a chromosome that protects it from deterioration. And what does deterioration lead to? Wrinkles, heart problems, illness in general! Want to learn more? Here you go: http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2011/02/9431/aging-telomeres-linked-chronic-disease-and-health

So here’s what I want to know – if telomeres can turn back the clock, keep our cells from deteriorating, and keep us looking good for longer, do you think marriage rates would go up? Because I know for dudes part of the problem with till death do us part, aside from the whole one sex partner for the remainder of life, is that they worry what we’ll look like in ten years. No one wants to marry a hottie and end up with saggy wrinkles (and for the record, it works both ways guys, not all of you are going to age like George Clooney). So if you took that out of the equation would more men take the plunge?