I Want You to Want Me. Oh, No, Wait, I Want Crispin Glover!

Hey, ladies! It's ten in the morning on a Monday! This means that, as you are all drinking your coffees and checking your e-mails and cursing the Lord God Almighty for the eight-hour work day and its wicked helpmeet, the five-day work week, it's time to talk about... YOUR VAGINA!

Yes, I know, this is totally appetizing, and exactly what you wanted to be thinking about right now. You can thank me later. Did you know, ladies, that your vaginas are all turned on by pornography? All types of pornography can do this to your vagina, says certified vagina scientist Meredith Chivers in the New York Times: straight people pornography, lesbian lady pornography, gay man pornography, even bonobo pornography! She knows this because there is some kind of terrifying vagina monitor that she stuck up a bunch of lady research subjects ("But I was here for the Xanax trials!") and observed that the vaginas in question got all lubed up after exposure to said porns. Yet the ladies, in clear defiance of the dictates imposed by their vaginas, only reported arousal when watching the pornography that corresponded to their preferred form of humping. This means that either (a) lubrication and feeling turned on are two different things, or (b) your brain is LYING because it doesn't want anyone to know your vagina is such a perv.

Now, there is a perfectly sensical explanation for this finding, and it is as follows: rape (or "unwanted vaginal penetration," as the Times and/or certified vagina scientist Meredith Chivers cheerfully call it) is a violent act that causes physical injury; if your vagina automatically lubes up in the presence of sexual signifiers, your chances for severe internal injury are somewhat diminished. (Though not in a huge way! And this should in no way be interpreted as a signal from your body not to fight back! The body, it has defense mechanisms; this is maybe one. That is all.) This theory has already been put forth, most notably by Natalie Angier in her (TEN-YEAR-OLD) book Woman: An Intimate Geography, so there's no chance the Times would devote this much space to such an interesting and relatively non-newsy finding unless they could find some way to attach a ridonkulous, out-of-date, totally sexist generalization to it, so the whole time you are reading this article you are just waiting for it to land and... oh, here it is!

When she peers into the giant forest [that is your vagina - ED.], Chivers told me, she considers the possibility that along with what she called a “rudderless” system of reflexive physiological arousal, women’s system of desire, the cognitive domain of lust, is more receptive than aggressive. “One of the things I think about,” she said, “is the dyad formed by men and women. Certainly women are very sexual and have the capacity to be even more sexual than men, but one possibility is that instead of it being a go-out-there-and-get-it kind of sexuality, it’s more of a reactive process. If you have this dyad, and one part is pumped full of testosterone, is more interested in risk taking, is probably more aggressive, you’ve got a very strong motivational force. It wouldn’t make sense to have another similar force. You need something complementary. And I’ve often thought that there is something really powerful for women’s sexuality about being desired. That receptivity element. At some point I’d love to do a study that would look at that.”

Oh, yes! Women are all turned on by being wanted, having a sexuality that is essentially passive, reflexive, and performative, rather than a biological drive which causes us to pursue sex like The Dudes (but not The Dude; he was too laid-back)! Oh, and this in no way makes sense when applied to lesbian ladies, because basically no girls would ever have sex with any other girls if this were true, because they would all sort of sit around and stare at each other and wait for someone to get turned on so they could reciprocate, and it would never happen! Oh, and women didn't actually report being consciously turned on by all types of pornography, so this makes less sense than ever! Oh, and porn-watching is not sex and fantasy is not reality so it makes no sense to use someone's response to a fantasy scenario to explain their behavior or desires in the real live world! Awesome! Thank you, Science!

Yes, there are many legitimate criticisms to be made of this theory. However, I am choosing to believe it with the full strength of my conviction. This is because, prior to reading this article, I was convinced (through sad experience) that it was possible to get turned on by a dude who did not only not desire me, but actually wanted nothing to do with me. Now I know this is untrue! They were simply hiding their overwhelming passion and/or boners, due to society's harsh constraints. Since I am not a creep, I will not press the issue: however, it's good to know they were all so totally into me all along. Here, I present a photo gallery of Men Who Have Wanted Me through the years.

RAHM EMANUEL: Seems psychotically intense in a way that makes him kind of sexy; wants me.

CRISPIN GLOVER: Seems just plain psychotic in a way that would make dating him a wonderland of Quirks and Issues; wants me.

RIVERS CUOMO: Delicate man-flower (Quirks! Issues!) who makes crappy music; would probably not perform said crappy music while we were making out; therefore, wants me.

PAUL RUDD: Wants me and every single woman I have ever spoken to; posed for this picture.

SPECIAL AGENT FOX MULDER: Fictional; has wanted me since I hit puberty. Perv.

SCIENCE FACT: Chicks More Likely to Admit Having Emotions

Happy Historic Event of the Inauguration of Barack Obama Day! I hope you enjoyed it! I certainly have. Yet, while we do things like "hope" and "cry" and "pat ourselves on the back for ending racism in America because we are FOX News correspondents and therefore terrible and wrong all the time," Science labors on!

For example, did you know that women are emotional? They are sooo emotional, you guys. More emotional than men, even! Women are so emotional that, even in their sleep, they keep having emotions and stuff! This is what Science, through its earthly vessel Jennifer Parker of the University of the West of England in Bristol, has discovered.

Well, actually, what Science has discovered through Jennifer Parker of UWE is that women have more nightmares than men do, and report having more intense emotional experiences of those nightmares, in their dream journals. This could be due to any number of factors - like, say, the fact that women are socialized to express emotion more freely than men, or the fact that it is not culturally acceptable for men to admit they are afraid of anything, or the fact that, generally speaking, dudes are discouraged from keeping dream journals in the first place and might therefore be less comfortable with whipping out the glitter pens and unicorn notebooks in order to share their deepest darkest secrets with a research team. This is not what Science and/or Jennifer Parker have determined to be true, however! Here, Parker explains:

"From our results it appears that men and women differ in the frequency of nightmares - women have more - and women perceive those nightmares to be more emotionally intense.

"I think that women use their dreams as a subconscious coping strategy.

"I believe these results show that women carry over their waking concerns into their dream life more so than men do, and they appear to have more difficulty with 'switching off' their concerns."

For the record, while explaining her various crazypantsed generalizations, er, SCIENTIFIC CONCLUSIONS, Parker does not say that she actually did any research into what her test subjects experienced in waking life, so she's apparently assuming that women are failing to "switch off" concerns (so emotional!) without really investigating said concerns in the first place.

Which makes no sense, because there are a ton of more or less non-gender-related things you can do to give yourself a nightmare: terrible, horrible, traumatic things, like reading The Lover before bedtime (young chicks and old dudes - I find this gross! IT'S A GOOD BOOK, I'M JUST SAYING) or watching Southland Tales, ever, or quitting smoking, which, for the record, is actually scientifically proven to give you screamingly vivid and weird dreams even when you use that gum that tastes like Satan's asscrack. Like, last night, due to I think all three of these things, I had this terrible terrible dream about being forced (somehow!) into an arranged marriage with Wallace Shawn, and he was telling me about how many times per week I would be expected to, um, have dinner with Andre, and I had just reached the part where he was like, "I would like you to slap me around," and then I woke up, hyperventilating, and my gentleman caller was there, and I was like "OH HOLY CRAP THANK GOD YOU'RE TALL, I mean, HERE." This happens to dudes, too, I am thinking! Or, at least, it happens to someone else. Oh, God, please tell me it happens to someone else. It was so horrible.

Anyway. I have no problem with believing that women might be more able to access their emotional lives than men. I might even be willing to believe that they are under more emotional strain or experiencing more psychological conflict than men are, because, whatever, it's a man's man's man's man's world and all of that. Yet conducting a study that is basically just you reading dream journals and then being like, "chicks have soooo many feelings?" Jennifer Parker, you had better be grateful that I am a person who resists puns in my daily life, because otherwise, I would be mighty tempted to conclude this post with some version of the phrase "wake up."

UPDATE: Oh, snap! It appears that I did just that, and it was lame! Oh, well. Here is something to haunt your dreams. 

You Know What I Love? Responsible Journalism.

Like this charming lede in the New York Times, which does not at all trivialize date rape:

In the new issue of Nature, the neuroscientist Larry Young offers a grand unified theory of love. After analyzing the brain chemistry of mammalian pair bonding — and, not incidentally, explaining humans’ peculiar erotic fascination with breasts — Dr. Young predicts that it won’t be long before an unscrupulous suitor could sneak a pharmaceutical love potion into your drink.

Ah, the power of language: with a single adjective, you can remove "drugging a woman in order to have sex with her" from the realm of vicious crime intended to enforce male domination, police women's sexuality, and keep women scared with the constant, unspoken threat of random, devastating violation at the hands of men and therefore less likely to live full lives or to confront men directly, and turn it into something that might happen on an episode of Jeeves & Wooster. "Why Bertie, I do believe you've date raped me! You unscrupulous cad!"

I say, it was a dashed good scheme, eh wot?

Anyway:

That’s the bad news.

Ha ha, I would say so!

The not-so-bad news is that you may enjoy this potion if you took it knowingly with the right person. But the really good news, as I see it, is that we might reverse-engineer an anti-love potion, a vaccine preventing you from making an infatuated ass of yourself. Although this love vaccine isn’t mentioned in Dr. Young’s essay, when I raised the prospect he agreed it could also be in the offing.

Oh, Science! Is there anything it can't do? It can even inspire this particular dude to write, seemingly from the depths of bummedness, that love is "a dangerous disease" and "a potentially fatal chemical imbalance." JEEZ.

Actually, there are plenty of things Science can't do, or can't do yet, anyway, but this development does at least offer some hope. For example, there might, at some point in the future, be an "actually being friends with your ex, rather than writing each other nice e-mails about Battlestar and then fighting like wolverines every time you are in the same room" potion. Or a "being civil and generous to your boyfriend's ex/your ex's girlfriend because, heck, they didn't do anything you haven't done" drug. Or maybe - just maybe - there could be some sort of very specific medication to keep a man from reciting the lyrics to Ice Cube's gender-theory masterpiece "A Bitch Is A Bitch" in several different conversations just to see you react! ("Now, the title 'bitch' don't apply to all women, but all women got a little bitch in 'em." "OH MY GOD." "But he says it doesn't apply to all women! You're being very unfair! Now: it's like a disease that plagues their character, taking the women of America." "OH SO IT'S A DISEASE NOW IS IT HOW INSIGHTFUL." "It starts with the letter B; it makes a girl like that think she's better than me.") There might even, at some far-distant point in the future, be a "don't put this on the Internet because you can never take it back and also it's kind of stupid" drug. Until then, however, we will all just have to rely on our own finer instincts and act like grown-ups.

So, you know, we're fucked.

Dear Mr. President Barack H. "Stands for 'Hope!'" Obama,

What's happening to us?

You and I have been involved for about a year. I'd eyed you from afar at the DNC in '04, and hoped that something might happen. Then there was that crazy, intense period last spring, when we were definitely doing something, but neither of us knew exactly what - I mean, should I commit to you, or keep my options open for the first female president? Was what I was thinking, and I know you felt that - but, by June, we seemed to have it all figured out. I was committed, and not just in some bullshit "you'll do for now" way, which (I hate to admit) is how I've been with most other candidates. I could see a real future with you. 

That's why these past months have been so rough. I mean, I guess what I'm saying is that my mental picture of your campaign was like this:


Whereas the actual pictures of your campaign have been like this:


Now, Jon Favreau may have many great qualities as a speechwriter, chief among which seems to be an ability to utilize the progressive rhetoric specific to his generation (it is mine as well, so I recognize it!) which Bush's disastrous presidency made popular even among people with no real commitment to social justice issues, while skillfully blending said rhetoric with some lyrical passages and some crowd-pleasing ambiguities, managing to convey a take on social issues and that particular subset thereof which we call "identity politics" which far outstrips that presented by any other President in terms of its intelligence, depth, and nuance, while cleverly distracting the reader or listener from the fact that nothing has been promised or even said outright. I know you like that. However, I always thought that you were more than just talk. Together, you and Jon convinced me that you knew what you were talking about - that you got it. If this photo is any indication, then Jon, at least, does not.

I get the feeling that I don't really know your gender politics any more, Mr. President. Maybe I never did. However, it says something that you kept Jon around, knowing - as you must have known - about these, shall we say, tendencies of his. What it says is not good.

That's not the end of it, either. The Larry Summers thing really hurt. I mean, it was such a betrayal. I tried to convince myself that you didn't know about his "girls are dumb" thing, but it didn't work. I mean, my mom knew about that, and she's hardly the type to spend 50% of her day surveying the feminist blogosphere like I do. You're clearly smart - my smartest President ever, I think - which means that, when you do things like this, I can't really convince myself that you "just don't know any better." You always know better. The question is whether you care.

Rick Warren, Mr. President? RICK WARREN?! Be honest: how little respect do you actually have for me? The worst, most humiliating part of it all is that I blame myself. I finally go ahead and trust a President - something I've never really done - and the next thing I know my friends are coming at me with news like this. Then you have the gall to defend yourself by saying that you "[disagree] with Pastor Warren on issues that affect the LGBT community." Um, great, me too, but what about issues that affect my community? You know: the one comprised of women? Women, whom your new BFF Rick believes should be in submission to their husbands (they will all have husbands in Rick's ideal world - even the Ls! - just as the Gs will have wives and the Bs and Ts will not exist), and to whom he would like to deny access to safe and legal abortion? Or does that not merit a mention - is that just one of those "other issues" you disagree on even though you don't apparently disagree so much that you can refrain from giving this man a crucial role in your inauguration (and your tacit approval thereby) because it's "bringing together all sides of the faith discussion in search of common ground?"

Mr. President, I'm tempted to say that you have found your common ground with Rick Warren, and it consists of being utterly dismissive and clueless re: women's issues, which at this moment both of you seem to be.

You know about my last Democratic Presidency, of course. Everyone knows about that shitshow. It was long, and intense, and although Bill and I had some good times - I'll always be grateful for the deficit - for the most part it was just scandal, scandal, scandal, all the way through. I had to overlook Paula Jones. I had to overlook Gennifer Flowers. It was fucking impossible to overlook Monica Lewinsky, although (sick to say) I tried. I was the very picture of an abused, codependent feminist voter. "I mean, I guess if you looked at these things from an outsider's perspective," I would say, "it might seem like my President is a misogynist with severe impulse control issues who exploits his institutional power in order to seduce or sexually coerce young women, engaging in sexist, demeaning, belittling cigar-in-the-pussy behavior verging on sexual assault, which I would find utterly revolting and unacceptable from any other man on the face of the planet. But you don't know him like I do. He really tries. And he's better than some of the other guys out there." Looking back at myself, all I can say is: YIKES.

I do not intend ever to get back into that place, Barack. I certainly don't intend to go there with you. As far as our Presidency goes, there will be a zero-overlooking policy.

So, Mr. President, here's the sand. I want you to watch me very carefully while I draw this here line in it. I'm going to be generous and say that you haven't crossed it yet, but you are close, very, very close, so close that the outermost grains of it are brushing against your shoe. You need to back away from this line, this line you have not quite crossed, at a speed so great it could break the sound barrier, if my support for you is to continue. Do something to show me you care. Lifting the Global Gag Rule would be a good start. I know this comes across as "needy" and "demanding" and all those other things us chicks are always being warned against - it creates a division in your party! people will be reluctant to ally themselves with you! blah! blah! blah! - but frankly, I'm a little tired of being ignored.

You do not want to cross that line, Mr. President. Hell, as they say, hath no fury like a voter base scorned. You think you had a tough time with Hillary? Just you wait.


Love,

A Lady Voter

UPDATE: Again! "Accidentally unoriginal posts" are the new "terrible sex puns" of this blog. Next week it will be "jokes that were old four years ago" and all the posts will be about Zach Braff. In summary, I guess what I am saying is: do not hire me, or consider me a person worthy of your respect. Also, read this. It's good. I guess she broke up with him before I did, but: don't all of your exes sooner or later sound the same? 

SCIENCE FACT: People Who Take Dumb Things Seriously Maybe Kind of Dumb

In what is undoubtedly the most important and revelatory study of Scientific Matters released to date, "relationship experts" at an Edinburgh university have proclaimed that romantic comedies are guilty of - wait for it - "promoting unrealistic expectations when it comes to love."

I know! I can hear your cries of shock and denial! But es one hundred percent verdad, ladies: people who watch - and consider themselves fans of - such high quality cinematic entertainments as "Runaway Bride," "Maid in Manhattan," and "The Wedding Planner" do, in fact, tend to have crappy relationships, due to the fact that they believe in "predestined love," immediate commitment, and the idea that "if someone is meant to be with you, then they should know what you want without you telling them."

Now, I know what you are saying: this, along with your mean-spirited photo pick, is pretty sexist, Tiger Beatdown! I totally agree. These films are undeniably gendered, and so is the fact that we are reading a study of their deleterious effects on their (female, duh) audience, rather than a study of how dudes are affected by comedies that promote insidious, relationship-destroying ideas such as "your fart and poop jokes are totally sexy" or "your fear of growing up and having a committed relationship is not at all annoying or crazy," or "insanely beautiful blonde girls with high-paying, enviable media careers naturally want to end up with dudes who look and act like this."

And yet.

Romantic comedies are infantile and gross. That much, regrettably, is true; they take one of the most fascinating topics of all time, the question of how we imperfect human beings can achieve or maintain intimate relationships, and they reduce it to a set of signifiers so limited, self-referential and hollow that they leave you feeling cynical, not only about movies, but about love itself. I mean, is that really it?

"I have to write a magazine article about how to make a guy dump you - I hope I don't find lasting love in the process!"

"I have to make this totally free-spirited guy into less of a loser than usual - jeez, I hope he doesn't make me less uptight and teach me to love!"

"I plan the weddings of others, yet my own romantic life is a shambles - I hope I don't meet Matthew McConaughey! Or maybe I hope that I DO.*"

Which is not to say that I have not watched two of these three movies (with my mother, on Thanksgiving or Christmas weekends, because I was oh so very bored) or that they were not, in and of themselves, completely adequate diversions. You don't have to believe in the particular myth of love put forth by romantic comedies just because you've seen one or two of them. In the above-quoted article, there is no real differentiation made between people who watch the romantic comedies referenced within it (all of which are dumb enough to frustrate a mildly retarded hamster, should said hamster take them seriously) as entertainments and people who watch them as Works of Art. In an article that is full of mildly insulting statements, that is more insulting than anything else.


*I DO. Get it? I DO?? For the WEDDING PLANNER?????? Oh, my god, help me.

[Via.]

Hey! Want To Hear About Jean Claude Van Damme's Liquid Creamy Seed?

Well, TOO LATE. The attractively-named Sarah Ball of Newsweek has the goods for you. Mr. Van Damme begins:

I really opened myself up in "JCVD." I peeled back the skin of the fruit, cut the pulp and then took that very hard seed. In this film I cut that hard seed, and inside that seed was a kind of liquid cream substance of the man I am, or the woman you are.

OK —
It was like being naked—I would love to be naked in front of you.

Well, who wouldn't? Sara (or, in compromised versions, Sarah) is, as we all know, a very attractive name. It can survive almost anything! Few men are indifferent to its powers. Anyway, there's more:

So are you in New York?

Yes, I am.
And are you 27, or 32?

I ' m 22.
Oh, f–––. That is very young. Will you come to the premiere?

I don ' t know. When is it?
I don't know. You will wear all black, a black dress and high heels?

Uh —
You can come find me, I will be the one with the very broad shoulders, dark hair and a simple suit. We can have some champagne, you and me.

Sarah Ball's answer is not on record. At any rate, I think we can safely say one thing: DAMN YOU, SARAH BALL! He was supposed to be mine. It appears that my dreams of a honeymoon spent tenderly kickboxing were for naught.

Ah, well, Jean Claude. We'll always have the dance, you and I.

Douche (Noun): Something a Reasonable Woman Wouldn't Put in Her Vagina

Some men aspire to be famous douches; others are happy to toil in douche obscurity until the light of internet fame shines upon them. Then, there are men who arise, in the space of a moment, to the heights of douchery - men like young Ian Sloane, of Wheaton College, who inquires: 

I have a question, addressed to any academic (or social) studiers of women at Wheaton; When will the woman stop playing into the traditional gender role, submitting to a hot and steamy smooch on the lips while griping about male dominance in relationships out of the corner of her mouth?

Ha ha, yeah, when will we? (Also: the traditional gender role... OF KISSING? Since when does a woman "submit" to kissing? I thought we liked to smooch!) In answer to your question, Ian, we will probably stop griping around the time dudes stop saying things like this: 

In a surprisingly musical moment of clarity, I realized all women are prostitutes.

Now, keep in mind that Ian Sloane does not mean "prostitute" in the sense of "a person who is paid a pre-negotiated fee in exchange for facilitating the orgasms of his or her client." He means it in the sense that dudes who say things like this tend to mean it - to denote any woman who has expectations of the dude she is dating, no matter how small those expectations are, and no matter what she gives him. Women: they want things! Things like "anniversary gifts!" And "free car rides!" And "ridiculous time commitments!" Relationships today, they are crazy, Ian Sloane says - mostly because they involve women: 

In spite of all the hooplah about the modern independent woman, ladies these days are trying to have the best of both worlds by assuming dominant roles but still requiring regular affirmations of love and commitment.

Women are asking for affirmations of love and commitment? THOSE DIRTY WHORES. When will they realize that the best way to date Ian Sloane is to not want to go out on dates with him? 

But wait: I don't want to go out on a date with Ian Sloane. In fact, I've been not going out on dates with Ian Sloane for years. Ever since I've been old enough to date, I've not been having dates with Ian Sloane. Does this mean we've been together all along? 

I mean, it's the perfect relationship! He's never bought me a gift, I've never been in his car, I've never asked him to spend any time with me, and I can safely say that I will never want him to demonstrate any love or commitment to me! I've never even met him. This raises so many questions: have I been cheating on Ian? What does this mean for my prior commitments? It's clear now that this is my major relationship. Perhaps I should become a nun, or an anchorite, retreating into lifelong isolation so that I can enjoy the absence that is perfect intimacy.  

As for all the other women who are not dating Ian: don't worry ladies, I'm not jealous. There's more than enough of his lovelessness to go around.