Sexist Beatdown: Love Means Never Having To Say "I'm Sorry I Impregnated You While You Were Drugged And I Thought You Were A Prostitute" Edition

Well, friends, it is (for me, anyway) a fine summer afternoon. I assume many of you are eating sandwiches, thinking about your weekends, planning your strategies for getting out of work early, and what have you. That means it is time for a little light entertainment. Such as A CHAT ABOUT RAPE FANTASIES.

Yes, RAPE FANTASIES. As Amanda Hess of The Sexist pointed out in a really excellent post this week, they can be found in romance novels for ladies! A lot! This is a disturbing statement about patriarchal sexual mores. 

...Or is it? Perhaps, my friends, it is just an indication of the fact that people's sexual fantasies are inevitably pretty disturbing! And people like them that way! Because we are all FREAKS! In this tastefully erotic edition of Sexist Beatdown, Amanda Hess and I venture into the wilds of human sexuality.

"The wilds of human sexuality," by the way, contains at least one person with a fetish related specifically to the back rooms of Chinese restaurants. Also, someone who likes to simulate phone sex with Chandler Bing. 

ILLUSTRATION: Could I BE any more aroused?

SADY: hi there! i'm glad we're taking on something tasteful and uncontroversial this week. such as RAPE FANTASIES!

AMANDA: Yes, and furthermore, I believe that in order to fully haze Sotomayor this week, I think it's time we create the New Litmus Test. The New Litmus Test is: Rape fantasies? Eh?

SADY: Well, I have to tell you that I really loved your take on the whole matter.

  And this is tied to a personal anecdote about the first romance novel I ever owned. May I tell you my personal anecdote?

AMANDA: please.

SADY: All right. So I had these two cousins, who were in their teens when I was about eleven. And they felt I needed to get a boyfriend, and gave me many romance novels in order to further my boyfriend-related education.

AMANDA: cool.

SADY: One of the romance novels they gave me had the following plot: a young woman is betrothed to a wealthy family friend, whom she has never met. She wanders around the city to process this, with a high fever, and stumbles into a BORDELLO, where she is given LAUDANUM. in this drugged state, a doctor comes, looking for a prostitute! he is sent into the drugged young lady's room, due to an entirely understandable error, and they end up fucking like two wildcats, or, more accurately, one wildcat and one seriously drugged and basically unconscious young woman. then in the morning she wakes up, remembers none of it, and goes home to meet her fiance. can you guess who he is?

AMANDA: the doctor?

SADY: YES! AND THEY GET MARRIED!

AMANDA: but ... she's been sullied!

SADY: and she is like, "i don't know who you are, Dr. Rapington, but for some reason I feel totally uncomfortable having sex with you." but eventually she learns to love him and his prostitute-raping ways and also she gets pregnant and has his baby.

AMANDA: i see. and so, did you finally land a boyfriend?

SADY: um, i was never able to land enough laudanum, as a middle-schooler, to really make the scenario work. i had to try other methods, such as consensual makeouts.

AMANDA: do you remember, did a lady write that book?

SADY: well, yes, the name on the cover was a lady name.

AMANDA: sounds progressive then. So: i have a rape fantasy lit story as well!

SADY: hurrah!

AMANDA: in college, i worked for this "women's fiction / erotica" literary agent. my job was to read the unsolicited manuscripts, which were not just any unsolicited manuscripts, but unsolicited manuscripts for erotic romance novels targeted at women.

SADY: oh, lord. you had the best job in the world, it appears!

AMANDA: i grew up fast that summer.

SADY: hahaha

AMANDA: anyway, a lot of the people who liked to target their erotic romance novels at women were dudes. i remember one dude's fantasy, err, novel, in particular: aman and a woman meet at a Chinese restaurant. they're acquainted in some way - maybe they work together. anyway, they eat some lo mein or whatever and one thing leads to another, and all of a sudden some old mystical Chinese woman is beckoning them into the back room, of course.

SADY: right, as you do

AMANDA: where they eat this magical Chinese herb, okay, and then the woman falls into some sexy trance.

SADY: this sounds totally realistic. i'm compelled to learn more!

AMANDA: so---paraphrasing here---he ends up with his penis inside her, and then his penis magically expands, until it's this really long magical penis that goes through her vagina, up past her entire body and then pokes out of her mouth. thus raping her in two orifices, at once! and i thought, i wonder if this guy thought i would actually pass this on to a literary agent to consider it for publication? or did he just want the intern to read his bizarre one-dude double penetration rape fantasy? and i realized: it was probably both.

SADY: Yowza. I mean: leaving aside this dude's one (RESTAURANT-SPECIFIC) rape fantasy, I get that people's fantasies, in general, are weird. I knew a girl who worked at a phone sex operation and one guy would call her up, constantly, to discuss his fantasies about the cast of "Friends." She would play Rachel, and sometimes maybe Phoebe; he would be Chandler.

AMANDA: wow. this guy fantasized about being chandler! chandler would make some hilarious ironic comment about this, were he here.

SADY: but, in your article about romance-novel rapings, you do touch on the fact that some women have rape fantasies. and they totally do! because people's fantasies are weird! but what worries me is when the raping just (a) isn't addressed as such, or (b) is in EVERY SINGLE ROMANCE NOVEL, which - it was a major part of the romance novels I read as a pre-teen, I'll tell you that.

AMANDA: yeah, i think the world of the romance novel is an interesting space for discussion of the rape fantasy, because it's a space that is a) largely written by and for women, and b) embracing (probably too much) of what is a very taboo fantasy for women to have. But at the same time, these novels are also c) EXTREMELY derivative and conformist, and one wonders what exactly they are conforming to.

SADY: right. like, at one point, i just did a study of romance novels, because they're one of the only "acceptable" outlets (or were, for a while) of porn for ladies. and they follow a very recognizable script. like, the heroine is never "classically beautiful," and she's often though not always working-class, and they always have to hate each other at first, and etc. and when the rape thing crops up so often (along with all of the stuff about "taking" and "possessing" and etc.) it just seems like part of the script is that women aren't sexual and men are and men have to "break them in," as it were, so that they can enjoy sex. which is remarkably similar to many rationales of actual real-live rapists! what with the "she wanted it" and "she said no but didn't mean it" business we all know and fear.

AMANDA: and yet ... people, like, read these books. and supposedly identify with them. women-people.

SADY: yeah... that's totally true. and i think we can talk about rape as a real-live thing that is unconscionably evil, and also own up to the fact that a rape FANTASY (which is pretty much within your control, seeing as it exists only in your head) is not the same thing.again: dude porn is almost always based on some kind of sense of transgression. so lady porn might be the same way, for similar reasons. maybe ladies enjoy this stuff because it's one of the most extreme taboos in existence, if you are a lady-person.

AMANDA: yeah. ive always thought that "rape fantasy" was a bit of a misnomer, though i guess calling it "actively desiring someone to have sex with you while pretending as if you don't actively desire it fantasy" takes some of the punch out of it

SADY: yeah, exactly. i mean, "rape fantasy" is such a contradiction in terms. but i think a lot of people's sex fantasies are about (a) feeling that what you're doing is "dirty" and (b) pushing past the feelings of "dirtiness." and having a fantasy that is about losing control is a really easy way of just not feeling "dirty" or "guilty" in a way that inhibits your enjoyment.

AMANDA: and if the guilt extends all the way from your vagina, through your organs, and out your mouth: bonus.

SADY: well, you know: i suspect that dude is not someone you'd want to be trapped in an elevator with. i do give him credit, however, for not including matthew perry.

SEXY TEEN NAKED HARRY POTTER CONTROVERSY: A Post That Will Probably Get Pageviews

Uh-oh, you guys. The sexy teens are at it again!* 

I know about this, you see, because I read the Internet. Specifically, I know about it because I read Tracy Clark-Flory's piece over at Broadsheet (which was written up by Miranda at Women's Glib in a post that was cross-posted at Feministe and also quoted at Feministing: look, the Internet is complicated) about a pamphlet published in the UK by National Health Services, entitled (yikes!) "Pleasure." 

Yes, this pamphlet is about the fact that sex feels good. And it was handed out to the teens! Who were no doubt corrupted by their early exposure to this top-secret information! Here is a sample of the terrible and pornographic knowledge contained therein: 

Beyond having the audacity to suggest that educators tell students that sex can feel pleasurable, the booklet says that teenagers have "a right" to sexual satisfaction, so long as it is in a safe and consensual situation. It also advises honesty about masturbation being perfectly healthy -- it  winkingly says that "an orgasm a day keeps the doctor away," which strikes me as a cheesy attempt to be cool -- and that sex isn't always about procreation.

Oh, dear! So, you can totally see why certain UK newspapers are up in a huff about it, saying (as Clark-Flory notes) that it is telling "schoolchildren" to have orgasms every day and so forth. Clearly, had this pamphlet not been published, no UK teenagers would ever masturbate, and the world would be a far safer and more wholesome place. 

Say, you know what else comes from the UK and is of interest to the sexy teens? Harry Potter, and specifically the Harry Potter series of films starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and that one homely kid! ("Rupert Grint?") Salon published a piece about that, too, and specifically about the fact that Emma Watson, who is 19, is posing for sexy photos, has been the victim of an upskirt shot, and has a legion of devoted fans who would really, really like to see her naked. They furthermore note that plenty of people have already had the opportunity to see Harry Potter himself naked, as 19-year-old Daniel Radcliffe and his naked penis had a starring role in Equus not so very long ago. 

It is a truth universally acknowledged that at least two of the Harry Potter kids grew up to be really, really hot. (The other one is Rupert Grint; also, that Malfoy kid, who now has THE FACE OF A MONSTER.) It's also a fact that we got to watch it happen - and, as anyone who has spent any time on the weirder and less comfortable portions of the Internet can tell you, a lot of people were very invested in that process. 

On the topic of Naked Harry Potter, Joy Press notes that "Since it was for a serious role in a serious play (Peter Shaffer's "Equus"), Radcliffe was feted for artistic credibility and bravery (especially after he talked in interviews about the shriveling effects of a live audience on the male member).... I doubt many people actually wanted to glimpse Harry Potter's wand." Actually, a whole lot of people did, and they were all on the Internet; also, they were at the showing of at least one of the Harry Potter movies I attended (can't remember which one! It was about wizards, if that's helpful). In that movie, an underage Naked Harry Potter was shown slipping into a large tub - the scene really only showed his back, but one contingent of grown adult women started to cheer and hoot in a wild and excitable manner. I was rude, and turned around to stare at them, because I had simply never seen women do such a thing. I kind of thought hollering at naked teenagers was for guys! 

But I do, in fact, smell what the Salon article is cooking. Its point - that young women, especially, are pressured to be sexual as soon as they reach "legal" age, and sometimes before, and that this can have a major impact on whether they're perceived as Artists or just spectacles - is a good one. 

We eroticize teens all the time. The "Twilight" series is popular among teens and adults basically because it is entirely about one teenager wanting to fuck the living daylights out of one specific non-teenage dude (but not doing it, because it will DESTROY HER) and apparently conveys the feeling of wanting to fuck that dude very effectively. It manages to play to both sides by devoting thousands of pages to horny teens whilst telling a story about how sex will, literally, kill you. 

It shouldn't be that revolutionary to note that teens eroticize each other, or to educate them about how to do that in a way that's not unsafe, cruel, or otherwise disastrous. Yet we're more comfortable with sexy teens as spectacles - spectacles for adults, no less - than we are with them as subjects. It's a predatory dynamic: we want girls (and also maybe Daniel Radcliffe) to be pure, asexual, not enthusiastic or assertive about sex in any way, but we also want the freedom to slaver over them at will, to sexualize them whether they want us to or not. 

Of course it's never OK for grown-ups to pursue sex with non-grown-ups, even if those non-grown-ups are teenagers who have sexual feelings: it's a desire based on a profoundly unequal power dynamic, one that's about exploiting young people's "innocence" or trust or respect for adults, and it's often profoundly abusive. Yet the idea that acknowledging teenagers' sexuality is somehow invasive or un-OK or will lead to a vast wave of statutory rape (or just forbidden teen sex) is completely wrongheaded. 

The fact that the dynamic is so very much about ideas of "innocence" or "purity" is precisely what makes educating teens about pleasure so subversive. If they're not "innocent," if they're not "pure," if they're just people with bodies like the rest of us, who are trying to figure out how those bodies work and how on Earth one integrates the fact of sexual desire with the demands of polite society, the entire dynamic crumbles. And then we might realize that they're kids, and that they have a lot to work out, and that they deserve our support in the matter. 

"Support" is kind of incompatible with "sneakily taking pictures of someone's underpants," by the way.  

* I am just now realizing that every single post this week will be about sex in one way or another. Didn't plan it that way! Oh well, enjoy your cheap titillation. Meanwhile, I will try to get my hands on a copy of Ginger Snaps. 

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: I Actually Liked Something! And It Was "Humpday!"

Yes, it's true: I, a person who gets cranky on a more or less continual basis, often at movies, saw a movie that did not make me cranky at all. That movie was "Humpday," and probably you cannot see it because it is only playing in two theaters in the entire world right now. However! It will be opening in Berkeley and San Francisco shortly! So you can see it then! 

Also, I wrote about it for "Comment is Free," and talked about its relationship both to Bruno, homophobia in general, and the fine cinematic tradition of the Bromance. Here is part of what I wrote: 

Last week, two movies opened. Their intentions were, on one level, remarkably similar: both of them were intended to be about homophobia, or, more specifically, about the weird blend of fear and fascination and prejudice many straight people express when faced with the thought of two men having sex. 

The first movie, Bruno, opened internationally, had a massive promotional campaign, and stars the straight comedian Sasha Baron Cohen playing a hugely exaggerated, hugely offensive gay stereotype: its method of exposing homophobia was to have this comedian wander around and act in an offensively stereotypical manner in the hopes of making people visibly uncomfortable. (The critical reaction so far seems to show that while Bruno did his intended job, and got some rises out of the yokels, what makes many people really uncomfortable is the idea of a straight man playing a hugely offensive gay stereotype.)

The second, Humpday, opened in just two cinemas in the United States. Its aims were smaller, and simpler, and smarter: it's a comedy about two straight men, who have known each other for many years, and how they try to close the rift in their friendship (one is married, and quickly growing up; the other couldn't grow up if he tried) by having sex with each other. They intend for the sex to be filmed; they intend for it to be exhibited at a local "art porn" festival; it's not entirely certain – to us, or to them – what else they intend for it to be. Whatever it is, they want it to happen; whatever it is, they're scared.

Now you can read the rest of it! Over at CiF! I will probably never be this positive about anything ever again (and, hey: maybe if "Humpday" ever makes it out into the rest of the world, we can discuss the un-positive aspects of it! Right now I am just hoping that people will actually see it) so I encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity. 

Sexist Beatdown: Not Gonna Milk Passin' That Ball The Fish Slime Also Sarah Palin Resignation For Ya There Edition

Friends: when is the right time to mourn the passing of something great? When, if that thing is specifically Sarah Palin's political career, vital as it is to the Extremely Lazy Comedy Industry? Do we discuss it the day of its death? The day after? When whatever insane dirt caused this passing (LATE-TERM MOOSE ABORTIONS) eventually surfaces? Or just when about a week has passed and we are tired of dirt-waiting?

It turned out to be that last one, actually. For Sexist Beatdown is upon us again! In this edition, we repudiate blogging as usual as the highly unusual Amanda Hess of The Sexist and the slightly more uncomfortably unusual Me of Tiger Beatdown discuss the major events of the day. And how they relate to Megan Fox! Also: prepare yourselves, for one of us will make a shocking announcement.

ILLUSTRATION: Hey, remember when you thought this was real? This was SO NOT WEIRD ENOUGH to be real! Also: not disastrous enough for women.

SADY: amanda, i have something sad to tell you. i am resigning from this chat.

AMANDA: aw. okay

SADY: NO! STOP TRYING TO WOO ME BACK! This resignation of mine: it is final. Anyway, now that I have resigned from the chat, we can move on to new, more invigorating forms of activity, such as chatting. As long as it is not "chatting as usual," I am all for it! I have vague theories as to how this will be good for Alaska.

AMANDA: i think the whole thing (minus her being a terrible governor) may have been good for alaska. who cares about the people who live near all that oil? not me, until now. suddenly, i'm very concerned with how corrupt their government seems.

SADY: right: the well-being of Alaska is now paramount in our minds, in a way it has not been since the heyday of "Northern Exposure." for example: we now know that investigations into the ethics violations of those who run alaska is very bad for alaska. it slows down the business of (unethically?) governing alaska.

AMANDA: yes, and the business of engineering unusual politics. i know everyone criticizes sarah palin for denouncing politics as usual, but to her credit, she is an extremely unusual politician

SADY: right. for example, she appears to have developed an entirely new theory of politics that revolves principally around point guards and how important it is for them to pass balls to things. for VICTORY.
yet: as unusual as she has been (and this is at once an unusually mild yet extremely apt characterization!) my question is: basically, she has no other job now to be unusual at. so what is she going to do now?

AMANDA: personally, i would be very interested in sarah palin also resigning from Last-Minute Imagined Monologue By Maureen Dowd i cannot take any more tongue-in-cheek grizzly references sullying the pages of the New York Times.

SADY: Oh, God! I had not seen this previously! It is entitled "SARAH'S SECRET DIARY!" How many unicorns do you suppose are on the cover? And are they in the business of making leprechauns pay for their own rape kits?

AMANDA: i was wondering about those rape kits the other day. you know how sarah palin pretended to be obsessed with wasteful government spending that didn't include additions to her wardrobe?

SADY: yes, indeed.

AMANDA: i thought that everyone in alaska actually received money from the government instead of paying the government. "i won't have my anti-taxes going toward finding justice for alaskan rapists"

SADY: well, that is only as long as the government does not spend money on basic government-y things. like prosecuting crime. basically, the money goes directly to you and then you... um... hire a policeman to find your rapist? or something? look, what is important is that we PASS THE BALL that symbolizes rape kits to the HOOP THAT IS JUSTICE.

AMANDA: because that's your economic choice. ooh, the sports references get a little icky when applied to the rape problem.


SADY: oh. goodness. yes, they do.

AMANDA: rape, see? it's like, a sport. so what do you think she's going to do?

SADY: i have no idea. at this point, i even feel bad making fun of her. because i think that fuels the Sarah Palin, Media Circus deal that is her. and i basically think she quit the job because she'd reached the point wherein she could take Sarah Palin, Media Circus on the road, independent of the job of governing that one big oily state next to Canada.

AMANDA: you know, when you announced your sudden and unexpected resignation from Sexist Beatdown, and said "NO! STOP TRYING TO WOO ME BACK!" it occured to me that that's not really a response we've heard from palin's resignation. we've heard supporters say 'she's doing the right thing!' but not really, 'oh no, alaska will miss you soooo much as governor.' although maybe i'm reading the wrong sarah palin blogs.

SADY: ha, yeah. i have read some alaskans cursing her for messing up their state's business, messing up their state's reputation, and then just unexpectedly leaving and forcing everyone to deal with a lieutenant governor they know nothing about who may or may not be able to clean it up. yet i have heard no one say, "if only sarah palin were around to continue governing our state in her previously accustomed manner of total competence and reliability!"

AMANDA: yeah, so i think we, as THE MEDIA, should take a moment and say that sarah palin is probably completely right. this is the best move she could have made, for the people of alaska.

SADY: right. her resignation is a mystery and i keep expecting to read a headline that says she is secretly running an abortion clinic, or has a meth lab in her basement, or something. yet this resignation may actually turn out to be exactly what it appears to be: a politician realizing that she has a vote of no confidence from the people she governs. and then just sort of taking her toys and going home.

AMANDA: moving on, can i tell you how much i appreciate your take on the new diablo cody trailer? (yes, people: we review trailers now)

SADY: TRAILER REVIEWINGS ARE IMPORTANT. how else will we know what trailers to accidentally see on the internet or in theaters?

AMANDA: I had no idea that Megan Fox was in this movie, and I think it's interesting that feminist bloggers are like "we're totally torn on whether this is feminist or not!" because I think Fox has really situated herself as a feminist antihero, or perhaps, an antifeminist hero. because she is THE WORST, and yet, she's doing this movie which i think will probably be at the very least interesting.

SADY: yes, i cannot tell where megan fox exists on the feminism/antifeminism spectrum. actually i think she is one of those girls who drives me insane because she doesn't give a damn and does what she wants and i think it is all kind of feminist and commendable, but then it turns out that she actually hates girls.

AMANDA: she should do a "millionaires" video!

SADY: girls talk shit. megan fox doesn't care. she'll take off her underwear! actually, perhaps "Jennifer's Body" is an extended Millionaires video, ala Thriller, and I have been duped.

AMANDA: i'm glad we've finally figured out the ideal next move for sarah palin, which is to star in a diablo cody horror film soundtracked by the millionaires.

SADY: um, actually, i think her wacky nonsensical statements accompanied by graphic turkey death already fit that description.

AMANDA: oh, thanks, my brain had trashed that one.

SADY: where is my video editing software? i am going to add SO MUCH VOCODER TO THAT VIDEO. thank you, sarah palin, for my new career.

BONUS VIDEO: Now, if only we could find some way to add blow-job miming dude strippers and GarageBand.

Tales of Performative Gender PRESENTS: Humpday

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Geeks Do Not Have Pedigrees, Or Perfect Punk Rock Resumes: In Which I Spring to the Defense of Diablo Cody

You guys? I think I really like the "Jennifer's Body" trailer.

I mean it! I am excited for the upcoming feature film "Jennifer's Body!" Which is by DIABLO CODY!

Now: I am not a cool person. I know some people who are cool! And one of the things that the cool people enjoy, apparently, is talking about how much they do not like Diablo Cody. 

I can see where they are coming from, sort of! Diablo Cody is weird, like an American Apparel advertisement or Hot Topic or the music of 2012th-wave feminist band Millionaires: "cute" and "cool" in a way that consists of pitching "cute" and "cool" all the way out into the bleachers, basically just hollering, "YOU GUYS. LOOK AT HOW COOL I AM. ALSO, CUTE. I AM PRETTY CUTE, RIGHT?" And nobody thinks that is cute or cool, actually. Not even me. 

If we could keep the conversation on this level, that would be fun. Unfortunately, when people talk about Diablo Cody, they tend to slip pretty easily into what is known, in the feminism industry, as "stupid misogynist bullshit." For example: did you know that she was once a STRIPPER? I mean: strippers! Who write about stripping! And later become successful in other fields in which they do not strip! Jokes ahoy! 

So, cool people: I would like to join you in not liking Diablo Cody. Unfortunately, I think you are huge sexists. Also, despite her grating attempts at cool cuteness, or cute coolness, or whatever, I keep getting this feeling that this Cody woman is actually far smarter - and, specifically, far more feminist - than she lets on. 

You guys, have I mentioned that I really think I like the trailer for "Jennifer's Body?"

I know, right? It is so embarrassing. Because, "buff your situation?" No. "Phuking?" AIIIIIEEEEEEE, and also: no. Yet, consider!

1) THIS IS A MOVIE BY SOME LADIES. It came from a screenplay by a lady, and was directed by a lady. Also? It is a HORROR movie, by some ladies! Now: who here can name a genre of film which is typically gendered as uber-masculine, and yet is preoccupied with themes of sex, perversion, violence, victimization, freakish bodies, bodily invasion, female purity, and subjugation to transpersonal, malevolent and uncontrollable forces, and is therefore pretty much made for girls to play with? Was your answer "costume drama?" Because, if so, I doubt your reasoning. I am of the opinion that girls need to make more horror movies. If you can combine a subversive critique of patriarchal sexuality with some chainsaw murders, I am on your side. 

2) THE SUBVERSIVE CRITIQUE OF PATRIARCHAL SEXUALITY starts, in this trailer, right around the point when Naked Megan Fox, Professional Hot Lady, extends her mouth to about five times its natural size and eats a dude with it. Because: female sexual desirability is simultaneously prized and demonized. Female appetites, sexual or otherwise, are unilaterally feared and shamed. Women's mouths, like most of our potentially dude-pleasuring orifices, are eroticized. Yet the "devouring" or "toothed" vagina is an ancient bogeyman. If you asked me to concretize all of that stuff in 1.5 seconds of trailer footage, I would have no idea how to go about it. I wouldn't know what it ought to look like. As it turns out, however, it looks almost exactly like Naked Megan Fox, Professional Hot Lady, eating a dude with her giant scary mouth.

3) HEY, IS THAT AMANDA SEYFRIED? It totally is! Hi, Amanda Seyfried! You are wonderful! 

4) DID I MENTION THAT IT IS A MOVIE MADE BY SOME LADIES? Leaving aside the situation-buffing and Phuking (again: no, and no), there are actually two funny moments in this very trailer. In the first, Amanda Seyfried tells her friend, Currently Not Naked Megan Fox, that she's "killing people." Megan Fox rolls her eyes and says, "no, I'm killing BOYS." In the second, Amanda Seyfried, whilst getting it on, shrieks in terror. Her exceedingly dorky-looking boyfriend asks her if he is "too big." Now: men are lovely, and have written very lovely things in the past, and continue to write lovely things to this very day. However, here is one thing men cannot, if their track record is any indication, pull off: get the female (hetero)sexual experience to such a degree that they can write scenes like these. 

5) LET'S TALK SOME MORE ABOUT AMANDA SEYFRIED, AGAIN. Because, yes, there is the sexy sleepover, and also "I Go Both Ways," and this causes me to go into a whole Katy-Perrian realm in which my thoughts are unhappy. (You guys! This is almost as bad as the "Phuking!") Yet, if Jennifer and/or Naked Megan Fox represent unbridled female appetite, which is demonized and (in this movie) literally demonic, then Amanda Seyfried is the Last Girl Standing: the pretty blonde horror-movie fixture who survives because she resists sexuality. In most of these movies, the Last Girl Standing is the one who successfully runs away from or tricks a male monster who stands for predatory male sexuality - death for her would also, symbolically, be rape, what with all the penetration-y stabbings and such that are typical in this sort of movie. If "Jennifer's Body" wanted to flip the script, it could have gone another, grosser way: a boy running scared of the toothy devouring lady-orifice, and eventually taming or destroying it. Yet that doesn't happen here. The monster and the victim, the pure and the impure, are both girls. There is even complicity between them. But girls are afraid of female sexuality too - afraid of its consequences, or of the loss of control or purity that it represents. We're afraid of it in each other, and we're afraid of it in ourselves. The relationship between Jennifer and Not-Jennifer is about female relationships, yeah: about the way we can be drawn to other women, and be in awe of them, and fear or hate them at the same time. But it's also about the psychological struggle that takes place within women (or, often, as in this case, adolescent girls) themselves. It's not about running away from the killer/rapist. It's about you: what you will permit yourself to want.

6) YOU GUYS,  I REALLY THINK THIS MOVIE IS NOT AS STUPID AS IT LOOKS. Even with the "Phuking!" Damn that Diablo Cody. 

AND NOW, A GUEST POST: Fuck Your Fascist Body Standards (And Also Face-Devouring Bread Mold, Because That's Just Scary)

Friends, there is a new tradition arising at Tiger Beatdown: the tradition of me, Sady, haranguing one of my favorite commenters until she finally agrees to do a guest post. Today's guest post comes from Chelsea! She comments as ChelseaWantsOut, and also sometimes as Chex. All other information pertaining to her life is mysterious; this may have something to do with the fact that she is actually Batman. Well: such is my theory.

My best friend Hanna recently started dating another friend of mine, Abbey, who I’ve known since second grade (a quick shout-out to my elementary school tee-ball team: Sparkles REPRESENT!), and it’s a little weird.

The way they met was pretty cute. There’s this whole story involving Abbey’s brother and a pool party and a bunch of “oh, you’re THAT Hanna/Abbey?” Anyway, they’re a lovely couple, but just yesterday they emerged from the opening phase of the relationship life cycle, the warm insular eggy first month of staring lovingly into one another’s eyes and never disagreeing, and there was the usual amount of pecking that goes into breaking that barrier. The fight they had will seem trivial to some of us, since we are superfeminists who haven’t bought into the beauty standard since eons of the unenlightened masses’ Patriarchy-years ago, but here it is anyway:

Hanna was upset with Abbey because Abbey wouldn’t stop telling her she was beautiful.

Abbey refused to “admit” that Hanna is empirically hideous. As Hanna confided, “I don’t need her telling me lies to get me to love her. I would be happier if she would just tell me the truth so that I didn’t have to be so uncomfortable. It’s okay that I am not pretty. I can still be loved and loving without that.” And later, “What scares me is that I do trust her. And I feel sad that she is so infatuated with me that she thinks I am beautiful. I will let her down when she realizes I am not and I am terrified of losing her.”

The reason this incident is significant to me, apart from the fact that someone I love very much and think is gorgeous genuinely believes herself to be unattractive (and she’s fine with that, really! Except when she’s not!), is that (despite what I said in the first paragraph) I’m there a lot of times, too. Me! Makeupless, unshaven, debrassiered, loud feminist Chelsea still occasionally looks in the mirror and thinks, ugh, those cheek creases, what’s with my nose, I’m so damn flat-chested, look at all the myriad ways in which I don’t resemble perfect perfect beauty wonder! I still spend an inordinate amount of time trying not to wuss out of wearing shorts for fear someone will see my hairy legs and make fun of me. I still use a complex algorithm to determine the precise level of femininity appropriate for the outfit I wear to any given outing or social function.

And that pisses me the fuck off.

I don’t want to think those things and I don’t want to have to spend lots of time and energy trying to reprogram my brain so that I don’t. I want a world in which acquaintances would never dream of telling me how “disgusting” my body hair is, both because they respect me as a person and don’t feel it is their privilege to judge my appearance and because it simply does not disgust them. I want a world in which women are encouraged to love their bodies and use them in positive ways of their choosing, instead of hate them and subject them to the will of all mankind.

But until that world exists, I don’t think the answer is to say, “I am unpleasant to look at, and there’s nothing wrong with that.” Even that guy who had most of his face devoured by some kind of face-devouring strain of bread mold has a wife who enjoys looking at him. She changed her ideas of what is aesthetically pleasing, and we can do the same for ourselves. We NEED to do the same for ourselves for our own fucking sanity. It’s going to be hard as hell, and it’s so fucking unfair that we have to do this, but it’s better than spending our lives thinking we’re hideous and dodging cameras like thrown punches.

So here is your homework which I am giving to you on Sady’s blog because I am THAT presumptuous: Do some cheesy-ass self-help shit. Pretend you are someone else and give yourself compliments in the mirror. Write yourself a letter detailing all the things you like about your appearance. Do the exercises from that one post on Shapely Prose, however fat or thin you are. Do some affirmations or something. Masturbate furiously. Because, seriously, you are pleasant to look at. The people who love you enjoy looking at you, and I’m sure there are people who don’t even know you who enjoy looking at you. Your corporeal form is really neat and I’m sure you’ve heard this a thousand times, but your body does really spectacular things, too.

And Hanna, Abbey doesn’t conform to the ridiculous beauty standard imposed by our society any better than you do. And you are both beautiful.

Shut Up, Cunt! The Cultural Logic Of 97th-Wave Feminist Band Millionaires

Ladies: I have bad news for you. Feminism is over.

No! I am serious! Feminism - that is, the belief that women deserve full autonomy, full participation in the public sphere, and the right to make their own choices - is totally dead. No sane person can believe in it now. Why is that, you ask? Well, because SOME OF YOU - and I am not naming names, here - made the choice to participate in the public sphere by starting the band "Millionaires."



You know, Millionaires, I have some thoughts about this video. My thoughts are: WHAT.

Millionaires has been around for a year or more, apparently! Sometimes on a thing called "The Warped Tour"? I don't know what the kids are up to today.

Now: I have been engaged in Millionaires Studies since 9:00 this morning, when the gentleman with whom I happen to date woke me up, with a manic gleam in his eye, and was like, "ARE YOU GOING TO WRITE A BLOG POST ABOUT MILLIONAIRES? YOU SHOULD TOTALLY DO IT. YOU SHOULD WRITE A BLOG POST ABOUT MILLIONAIRES. LOOK AT THIS MILLIONAIRES VIDEO I HAVE SEEN." Also he showed me videos by Brokencyde and Attack Attack? I don't get him.

Now: I will, indeed, write a blog post about Millionaires. ("CALL IT 'MILLIONAIRES: THE CULTURAL LOGIC OF LATE CAPITALISM!'" No.) Because one of the most interesting things about Millionaires is that many of their songs are about how much people hate the music of the band Millionaires! The people that they envision as "haters" of the band Millionaires are, specifically, girls.

They have an entire song about this! It is called, "Talk Shit," and it is available on their MySpace! Which is kind of what it would look like if one of those girls who self-tans a lot and wears the Playboy bunny shirts vomited out 19 apple martinis and also the contents of her subconscious onto your face! It has done a lot for me, in terms of illustrating how any dialogue with Millionaires might go.



"Seriously, Millionares: WHAT?" I would say. "Shut up, cunt! I'll cut your tongue," Millionaires would say. "Again, WHAT?" I would say. "I fucked your son," they'd say. "I don't even have a son! That makes no sense," I would reply! "You can get [your boyfriend] back; look like this and fuck like that," would be Millionaires' response.

That's where things would get serious. Because, seriously, Millionaires: what is up? Why all of the references to girls who think you are "annoying" because they are "jealous?" Do you really think that all of the women who have issues with you are upset because THEY are not the ones paying half-naked black men to play strippers who pour champagne directly from bottles into their mouths in what is more or less a direct rip from porn (THE BOTTLES SYMBOLIZE PENISES)? Is the problem just that we all wish we could be huge racists? Because I do not think that is the problem, actually, Millionaires.

I think the problem is that when you are including lyrics like "no talent, just lucky, they still want to fuck me" in your singles you are basically saying that there is nothing good about you outside of the fact that boys want to touch you with their boners, and selling your fuckability as literally the only valuable thing about your person - the badge of your worth, and the sum total of your accomplishment, in fact. Whereas a whole bunch of us are not so convinced. We know that you are actually probably having unsatisfying two-minute hump sessions with dudes who think that Brokencyde is the sound of their souls and also don't want to use condoms because they might extend the hump sessions past two minutes, which would be AWFUL. We are not "jealous" of this! You will never believe it, but "jealousy" is actually the very last thing we experience when faced with such a prospect!

But that makes us cunts, right? Whereas the guys who are doing you or determining you to be a candidate for doing based on the fact that you pour play money over your boobs are totally awesome. Those are the dudes who are going to be there for you when the chips are down. Those are the people whose good opinion and respect and friendship it is not only desirable, but totally possible, to obtain.

Bad news, ladies: you're cunts, too. We're all cunts, to those guys. We're either cunts they're going to fuck, or cunts they used to fuck (SHE WAS A PSYCHO, BRO. SHE GOT ALL MAD JUST BECAUSE I SLEPT WITH A BUNCH OF OTHER GIRLS AND DIDN'T TELL HER ABOUT IT) or cunts they don't want to fuck, which are the worst cunts of all, of course, because the cunts they don't want to fuck often scare the shit out of them, due to the fact that those cunts don't constantly send out signals indicating that it would just be the bestest thing ever if boys such as themselves would honor them with a boner. And this is a survival tactic, for many cunts of the latter category: we're actually, purposefully, trying to scare those guys off, so that we can determine which ones get freaked out by women who act like people, and maybe eventually end up dating ones who don't get freaked out, who not only sleep with us and maybe have feelings for us that are of the romantical nature but actually like us, the way you would like a person.

Millionaires? Are you listening to me, young ladies? This is the voice of wisdom! I am TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS OLD, so I can speak to the younger generation!



Oh, Jesus. "Let's get fucked up?" This is not even a lyric. This is a vague mission plan for what a lyric might be, should you ever get around to writing lyrics. This is like if Nirvana (a band the old people once enjoyed!) wrote a song called "Let's Do A Lot Of Heroin And Be Depressed." It is like if there were a Ramones song called "This Is A Limited Number of Simple Chords, Played Really Really Fast." If Eddie Vedder ever wrote a song called "I Will Now Bellow Earnestly Into Your Ear," that is the equivalent of this lyric, I am telling you. Millionaires: WHAT?



You're twelve years old. You're twelve years old, aren't you? Only a twelve-year-old thinks of White Zinfandel as the height of alcoholic debauchery. Well: you are either twelve years old, or my mom.

Sexist Beatdown: The True Meaning Of Sex Edition

Greetings, fellow adult humans! Do you know what "sex" is?

I have news for you: no, you totally don't! At least, not if you are an American. There have been studies, and they tell us that none of us actually knows what the word denotes! "Sex," therefore, should be legitimately impossible to use in a conversation, as it refers to no set concept. We will have to make up another word for that thing with the thing and the other thing touching the thing in it. I suggest "crotch fiesta."

Until "crotch fiesta" ("Crotchtoberfest?") catches on, however, we will have to use this "sex" term. Here, Amanda Hess of The Sexist and I try to figure it out: using LITERATURE, CINEMA, and "TRAPPED IN THE CLOSET" as our guides to its infinite complexity!

ILLUSTRATION: When two people and some bunny suits and the stairs leading to the elevated N train love each other very much...

AMANDA: hi

SADY: why hello!

AMANDA: do you want to talk now?

SADY: yes indeed! first off, i think we should acknowledge that approximately 125,000 celebrities will have died by the time we post this.* THE GRIM REAPER HAS COME FOR CELEBRITY

AMANDA: and they never learned the true meaning of sex!

SADY: ah, yes. apparently, americans "can't agree" on it! this is something i could in no way have learned from my own personal life of dating. i define sex as a peanut butter sandwich. is that so wrong?

AMANDA: when involved in a high-profile political scandal, i define sex as "one step past whatever i did with that woman"

SADY: i personally define sex as "anything you can't tell grandma about for fear she might lose her tenuous grip on this mortal coil." but the studies themselves are intriguing!

AMANDA: yeah definitely. i think, though, that they may be lacking in context. like, it's not as important to define what "sex" is as it is to define what we're comfortable with people doing with us or with other people. i feel like defining sex is just inviting loopholes. see: anal sex to keep virginity.

SADY: right, exactly.

AMANDA: and any cheater's excuse about anything

SADY: and many many men's magazine think-pieces about how it's not cheating if it is with a stripper or other sex worker

AMANDA: or in argentina. etc.

SADY: oddly, the men's definitions of sex tend to be more liberal than the ladies', though, as per this particular article! like: forty-four percent of men surveyed said that oral sex was doin' it. only thirty-seven percent of ladies said the same.

AMANDA: yeah, that was a surprise to me. i have a theory on this. it's good.

SADY: i eagerly await it!

AMANDA: ok, so women are socialized to downplay their sexual expertise in order to not appear as--- i believe the scientific word is "slutty". and so may tend for the stricter definition in self-reporting. whereas men may want to fudge it a little bit in order to be able to put another notch in the bedpost

SADY: there is actually a long passage in that keith gessen novel ("All The Sad Young Literary Men") that backs up your theory. observe how i move smoothly from actual science to literature! but: the dude is trying to figure out his Number and his List and whatever and is trying to figure out how liberal his definition needs to be. he concludes, if i remember aright, that blowjobs should indeed count in The Number!

AMANDA: sha-wing

SADY: whereas ladies might indeed self-identify as Virgins, a la Dionne in "Clueless" (CINEMA! INTERDISCIPLINARIAN THOUGHT!) had they only, say, given the BJs, or received the Lady BJs. actually, this study is weirdly non-specific about Giving and Receiving of sexual favors.

AMANDA: yeah, i noticed that also. allow me to extend an example from yet another genre, the Hip Hopera.

SADY: please do!

AMANDA: one thing that i've always found is important in these definitions is who is doing the sexing or non-sexing. so, a man could get Very Very mad at his girlfriend kissing another man, while he's out Real Penis Vagina sexing some other woman. and maybe it's not so much men excusing their own behavior while demonizing women, but that, as an individual, you can excuse your own guilt because you know the emotional context, the strength of the temptation, etc. etc. See: R. Kelly's Trapped in the Closet, where everyone is fucking everyone else and they all get PISSED when they find out their significant other has been doing the same thing.

SADY: yes, and yet i feel that (since this article is all about contextualizing "sex" in light of certain political figures putting the Thing in the Places Where You Ought Not To) that there has probably never been a case of someone being cheaterly without KNOWING that they were being a cheaterly cheater. i think you can basically define "cheating" as "that thing you're going to feel really guilty about not telling your wife and/or husband and/or unmarried life partner because you know, for some reason, even if there was no Sexual contact involved by any definition, that you did something they would not like."

AMANDA: totally. i think the rush to define it, in the case of the high-profile cheating, is that the public is just honestly curious about the sexy details. not that we like, want to know what sex is.

SADY: right? especially if they took place in argentina! and involve THE FORBIDDEN PASSIONS that you told everyone you were on the Appalachian Trail to cover up! all of the futzing around, semantically, can be useful only when trying to figure out how the other person involved sees your sexual exchange... but no-one's denying that the exchange was sexual, in that case. the actual interest is kind of in knowing what other people have been up to.

AMANDA: and, in the case of say, gay sex, trying to define them out of the mainstream or out of existence. like, sure, you can put your penis in his butt, but it's not sex, whatever it is you're doing. which i refuse to equate with my penis in vagina business.

SADY: ha, yeah, or sex between women, in which case basically everything outside of a strap-on is relegated to "foreplay." never "duringplay."

AMANDA: UGGGGHHHH i feel myself sliding into the inevitable rant about the supremacy of the male orgasm in the sexual blah de blah and how that's what this is all REALLY about and i can't force myself to do it.

SADY: you sure? i have lots of thoughts about how the penis-in-vagina-as-real-sex thing is totally not good even for couples that have, respectively, penises and vaginas! LOTS OF THOUGHTS I TELL YOU.

AMANDA: save it for another sexist beatdown.



* This is not true. The only thing that has died is Sarah Palin's political career! HEY-OOOOOO.

Bathing Suit Areas and Sex-Positivity: A Post In Which I Talk To Your Children, Sort Of

*** WARNING: IF YOU KNOW ME IN REAL LIFE, YOU SHOULDN'T READ THIS POST ***

*** WARNING: I AM SERIOUS, IF YOU KNOW ME AND WE GO OUT TO DINNER AND YOU HAVE TO MAKE POLITE CONVERSATION DURING WHICH IT IS NECESSARY TO LOOK ME IN THE EYE, YOU MIGHT REGRET HAVING READ THIS POST ***

***WARNING: ACTUALLY, MOST OF THE POSTS I HAVE PLANNED FOR THIS WEEK ARE OFF-LIMITS ***

*** WARNING: THEY'RE ALL ABOUT GETTING IT ON ***

Why, hello there, strangers! It's a pleasure to speak with you today! About the Human Sexual Urges!

I am, as you may know, a former educator about the Human Sexual Urges, and how best to gratify them. (MEANING: I sold sex toys, but I had to talk to people about what they wanted and how best to make that happen, for my shop was of the Sex-Positive and Educational variety!) I earned slightly more than minimum wage for my expertise, so you can imagine that I am quite the whiz.

Actually, the most important part of having educational conversations about the HSUs is realizing that no-one, ever, really, is comfortable having them; there is always a delicate balance, when talking about one's sexual habits, between being overly graphic and coming across as a lascivious weirdo who is just having this conversation so that you can masturbate about it later, or being "polite" according to normal social conventions and basically not saying anything at all. My one great gift in this arena is that I find sex to be totally fascinating in an abstract way, and also was born with a defective Shame Gland, and so could have relatively specific and instructional two-way conversations on the topic of, say, how best to put things up your butt for sex reasons, in a chipper and detached manner, as if I were telling the customers which vacuum cleaner attachments were best for cleaning their upholstery. Once you can convince a middle-aged heterosexual man who is shopping with his wife that you really don't CARE that he puts things up his butt for sex reasons, and that your chief concern is that he does so in a way that is both medically safe and personally fulfilling, the conversation gets a lot easier.

Do you know what I have never done, however? I have never taught a child about sex! Which is why this comment fascinated me so:

I hereby submit a request for a post about how to talk to our pre-pubescent daughters about this thing they hear about called "sex" (as in, where-do-babies-come-from kind of sex). When I tentatively told my almost-nine-year-old daughter about the sperm and the egg gettig together, I was vague about the mechanics because I refused to tell her "he sticks his penis in you", like it's something that happens to her, like her role is one of passivity. I didn't want that to be the first thing she ever heard about the mechanics of the act. But, I didn't want to say, "you put your vagina on him"...I mean, when she's trying to grasp the basic facts of HOW this occurs...the question of agency, of who does what to whom and HOW, was so freaking tricky that I really didn't tell her any details at all... as a feminist, and as her mother, I'd really like to give her the non-misogynist, non-passive view of her part in the act before she hears about it otherwise. You're the first person I've run across on the web with a blog that might actually be open to hosting a discussion about the language involved in introducing, from a feminist perspective, the basics of how "traditional" conception is accomplished. You up for it?

I sure am! Because, also, there was this comment:

You know what? I think your comment has totally changed my approach to how to talk to my daughter about this. ""Sex" is an umbrella term which I've used to denote a wide variety of consensual activities intended to help the parties involved get off. Masturbation is sex; mutual masturbation or digital stimulation of one party by another is sex; oral sex is sex; anal sex is sex; pivving is sex." I kinda want to explain "s-e-x" to her like this, even exactly in those words, but how do you define "get off" to a pre-adolesent?

It is a fascinating question! One which I have never before attempted to answer! However, here is why it is important to me: had we been having these conversations all along, there might be a significantly smaller part of the population stumbling into Educational Sex-Positive Spaces feeling deep embarrassment that they (gasp!) enjoy the sex that is not all about Making Babies, or staying away from those spaces and just sort of fumbling through unsafe or unsexy sex in which their instructions come from either equally clueless former partners or (at best) tremendously unrealistic porn. (Seriously, people: I've said it before and I'll say it again: using mainstream porn to teach yourself how to have sex is like the government using Die Hard as an anti-terrorism manual.) Indeed, if we were raising all our kids with a comfortable, positive attitude towards the Sex, including the Sex that is not undertaken for purposes of Making Babies, we might have a far more progressive national conversation re: sex and people who aren't necessarily setting out to Make Babies with it (GLBT folks, ladies on birth control, etc.) in general!

So, for the record, here is how I would set out to have this conversation with a child. I am going to say, a child of about five or six. Not being a parent myself, I am hoping that parents will chime in with corrections and additional thoughts!

"You know, [Timmy and/or Suzy], I think it is time for you to know some stuff about how our bodies work. This is stuff you will not need to know many details about until you are grown up, because it is a very grown-up topic, but I think you are probably old enough to know some basics about it right now.

"We've already talked about how your privates are private, right? They belong to you, and you should never feel like you have to let another person touch them or look at them, and you should never try to force another person to show you theirs or let you touch them. If someone tries to do this to you, you know that you need to come to me and tell me that, because that is a very serious, very bad thing to do to someone, and people who do it need to be punished."

I like to start the conversation off by emphasizing that violating someone's boundaries or doing anything non-consensual is a bad thing! I also think we need to teach the children that everyone else has boundaries, just like they do, and that they should respect the boundaries of others. I don't assume that the children are out doing terrible things to each other, of course, but the fact is that we live in a culture that doesn't stress full and informed consent as a prerequisite, so stressing that at home is a good solid idea.

"Now: when you grow up, your privates are going to change [I KNOW, THIS IS DORKY. ROLL WITH IT - Ed.] and touching them or having them touched will feel good. This isn't going to happen to you for a long time. People need to be grown up before they touch each other in those ways. There are a lot of ways that grown-ups touch each other to make each other feel good, and as long as they both want to do this and they like each other, that's a good thing. It can be a way for people who are in love to express that, for example. Sometimes girls do this with girls, sometimes boys do this with boys, and sometimes boys and girls do it with each other. Every grown-up has their own favorite ways to touch someone or to be touched, and, again: as long as the people who are involved are grown-ups, and they like each other, and they both want to do it, that's a good thing."

THIS IS TOTALLY VAGUE. I know! You can see why I want parents to actually weigh in on this business! But I think it is important to stress that this stuff is done for the purpose of feeling good, and that there are lots of ways that it happens other than the old Procreative Heterosexual Intercourse, and that all of those ways are cool and good and potentially loving but at the very least friendly. So, you know, we're not doing that whole thing where everyone's genitals are referred to as Baby-Making Devices and other ways of doing it are invisible or shameful and sexualities other than Cisgendered Heterosexual Missionary-Position Enthusiasm are erased.

"Now: one of the ways that grown-up people like to touch each other can lead to having a baby. Some people enjoy having their partner's penis inside their vagina; some people enjoy having their penis inside their partner's vagina."

See? Let's not talk about sticking-it-in versus enveloping-it. It's a thing that people like! On both ends! So, you know. Let's just talk about the fact that the thing has another thing in there. I really dislike terms that imply one person doing sex to another person, especially since the doer is typically a dude with a dick and the done-to is typically a lady with a vagina, which sort of erases the fact that ladies with vaginas are active participants in consensual sex, or should be, and ends up reinforcing both rape culture and the denial of women's sexual agency.

"When this happens, cells called sperm can come from the penis through the vagina, into a space just behind the vagina, which is called the uterus. Those sperm cells combine with egg cells inside the uterus to make a fetus, which is the start of a baby. The fetus grows inside the uterus, and when it's fully grown, it comes through the vagina and is a baby. Having a baby is a serious decision, and not all people who want to do this with each other want to have babies afterward, so they take certain medicines or use other ways to make sure this doesn't happen. It's very important to realize, also, that touching another person in that private way, or being touched by another person, can make you sick. If you touch a person who's sick in that way, you can catch what they have. So when you're grown up, and you start to do this, you will need to know all the ways to be safe. These, we will talk about when you are more grown up."

BIRTH CONTROL! SAFE SEX! NOT REFERRING TO FETUSES AS "BABIES!" Man, I feel progressive right now. I also feel like there is possibly no way I could actually have this conversation without running from the room in a mad panic, and that I am missing a whole lot. So, again: do you have anything better for me, here?

"So, do you have any questions?"

AAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.