Wait a Second...

WHAT.

So, for those keeping track, that's Marilyn, Jayne, and Betty (the most shameless, and therefore most lovable one - you've got to like a girl who can fondle a riding crop while smiling like she's in a Sears family portrait) gone. It's weird that people think of '50s porn as cute, harmless "vintage erotica" - like, yeah, right, the porn industry was much less exploitative back when it was RUN BY MOBSTERS - while condemning sex workers who are alive and active today. However, there's no denying that pretty people were prettier back then. There's a reason that Madonna will never be Marilyn, and that Chloe will never be Betty Page. Thank God Mamie van Doren is still around and selling boob prints. When she passes, it will be the end of an age.

Sense and Sensibility: It Is Not Everyone Who Has Your Passion For Dead Leaves

Anyone who takes it upon herself to write lady business book reviews must, sooner or later, file a piece on Jane Austen. (It is a truth universally acknowledged! Ha, NO.) Austen seems to be the ultimate Chick Writer: canonical, virtuosic, indisputably important in terms of both technique and influence, yet widely mocked or ignored outside her circle of avid fans, simply because she wrote about, well, girly stuff. When I tell people that the three writers I admire most, as Voices, are (a) Joan Didion, (b) David Foster Wallace, and (c) Jane Austen, people who know Didion and Wallace tend to agree, or at least to respect the sentiment, but Austen... she's some sort of proto-chick-lit writer, isn't she? And: I'm surprised to know you read her. I always thought that she wrote sappy romance stuff.

Yikes.

***

Austen's fans, it must be said, have not helped her case: the sheer amount of sentimental crap "based on" or "inspired by" Jane would be enough to scare away any serious reader. Even worse, Austen has been accused of inventing chick lit itself. Better clear this up now: like Shakespeare, Jane Austen wrote plots that people felt comfortable "adapting" to suit their own tastes, with mixed results. Shakespeare has Ten Things I Hate About You and She's the Man, amongst others; Austen has Bridget Jones' Diary and Clueless. BJ did, in fact, spawn the current mass of chick lit, but Austen is no more responsible for that than Shakespeare is for Amanda Bynes. In my experience, people don't tend to denigrate or avoid Shakespeare because of She's the Man. They do, however, feel perfectly justified in avoiding Jane Austen because of Bridget Jones.

The saddest thing about this is that the people who are most appalled by contemporary representations of Austen - people who shudder at the cozy, syrupy, suburban, anti-intellectual horseshit on display here,* let's say - are the people who might most enjoy her work. The woman was anything but cozy. Here, for example, is a passage from one of her personal letters:

Mrs. Hall of Sherbourn was brought to bed yesterday of a dead child, some weeks before she expected, owing to a fright -- I suppose she happened unawares to look at her husband.

This sentence demonstrates everything that made Jane Austen great. Note, for example, how carefully it's plotted: there is a lengthy, twenty-eight word set-up, during which Austen lulls us into a false sense of security with her proper, subdued, nearly journalistic language ("Mrs. Hall of Sherbourn was brought to bed yesterday," who what where when), followed by a shockingly brutal four word punch line, the full impact of which is not felt until the final word. See how effortlessly she shifts between the three voices in the sentence: restrained and declarative ("Mrs. Hall of Sherbourn," etc.), breezily conversational ("I suppose she happened"), and stone-cold cruel ("husband"). Note, too, the role of punctuation: the quiet, steady rhythm of the commas, followed by the dash -- like a comedian pausing for a beat before the laugh line -- and then the quick, unresisted rhythm of the payoff. Even at her most casual, Austen was never less than totally in control of her technique.

Also, careful readers will note that this is a dead baby joke. About an actual dead baby. At its father's expense. So, there's that.

***

So, where to start? Pride and Prejudice is Austen's most charming book; Emma represents the perfect balance between her early, goofy work and her later, more serious endeavors. Still, my favorite Austen book has always been Sense & Sensibility. Since it is, among other things, a book about the liabilities of good taste, it seems like a good introduction for a skeptic.

The book opens with a scene that would not be out-of-place in a fairy tale: a father, on his deathbed, makes his son promise to provide for his stepmother and three half-sisters. The son, deeply moved by his father's dying words, pauses only to consort with his wife ("To be sure... [an annuity] is better than parting with fifteen hundred pounds at once. But, then, if Mrs. Dashwood should live fifteen years we shall be completely taken in") before obligingly taking all of their money and kicking them out of their house. Thus disinherited, the mother and daughters move to a dismal little cottage in the middle of nowhere. The four women have only one hope of escape or financial betterment: someone's got to marry a rich dude, quick.

The plot centers, therefore, on the two daughters of marriageable age, Marianne and Elinor. Marianne is passionate, gorgeous, and deeply in thrall to the fashionable Romantic sensibility of her age. Elinor, on the other hand, is smart and funny, and a substantial amount of her time is spent mocking Marianne's exquisite taste. Here are the sisters:

"How does dear, dear Norland look?" cried Marianne.

"Dear, dear Norland," said Elinor, "probably looks much as it always does at this time of the year. The woods and walks thickly covered with dead leaves."

"Oh," cried Marianne, "with what transporting sensation have I formerly seen them fall! How have I delighted, as I walked, to see them driven in showers about me by the wind! What feelings have they, the season, the air altogether inspired! Now there is no one to regard them. They are seen only as a nuisance, swept hastily off, and driven as much as possible from the sight."

"It is not every one," said Elinor, "who has your passion for dead leaves."

"No," Marianne replies, "my feelings are not often shared, not often understood." It is this statement, infuriating as it may be, which provides a key to the novel. Marianne, like every teenager, hipster, and/or LiveJournal user who ever walked the earth, believes that her feelings are unique and special, though they are anything but; because she's not polite enough to conceal or control them, she assumes that those who do have no feelings at all.

On to the marrying. Elinor falls for the dependable, kind-hearted, deeply boring Edward Ferrars, whereas Marianne falls for the not-at-all-boring Willoughby, whom she meets when he arrives in the rain (!) on a stallion (!!) after she has taken a fall (!!!) and carries her in his arms (!!!!!!infinity!) back to her house. After a promising start with Elinor, Ferrars becomes unaccountably cold and distant, which is just oh so much fun for Elinor, especially considering the fact that Willoughby and Marianne are by that point so passionately, demonstratively in love they might as well be fucking in the town square. It gets even better when Elinor learns the reason for Edward's coolness: he is, in fact, secretly engaged to someone else. But while Elinor is forging bravely ahead with her broken heart, like the good little soldier that she is, Marianne learns that Willoughby is - you guessed it - secretly engaged to someone else. At this point, Marianne loses her shit entirely, and the novel's true theme comes to the forefront.

Sense & Sensibility is not a comedy about marriage, although marriage is involved. It is not even a comedy about money, although money, as always, has a lot to do with it. It is simply this: a comedy about sadness, and how to get through it intact.

***

By this point, I have written some words that may freak you out: marrying, in love, secretly engaged. This, you are thinking, is that sappy romance stuff! Fear not, good reader: Austen's characters, much like actual humans, do in fact care for each other, struggle to find committed relationships, and fuck up as much or more than they succeed. However, Austen - that lifelong virgin - never takes a particularly sentimental view.

Austen was a comic genius precisely because she combined a freakishly keen understanding of human nature with an icy detachment. Unrestrained passion, in Austen's work, is always either a moral failing or a lapse in judgment. Like Shakespeare, she wrote happy engagements, but no happy marriages; her novels end, tellingly, with her protagonists' weddings, and one always gets the sense that, if her protagonists stay happy together, it will be an exceptional accomplishment. Witness this charming little scene from Sense & Sensibility, between husband, wife, and mother-in-law:

"You and I, Sir John," said Mrs. Jennings, "should not stand upon such ceremony."

"Then you would be very ill-bred," cried Mr. Palmer.

"My love you contradict every body," said his wife with her usual laugh. "Do you know that you are quite rude?"

"I did not know I contradicted any body in calling your mother ill-bred."**

"Ay, you may abuse me as you please," said the good-natured old lady, "you have taken Charlotte off my hands, and cannot give her back again. So there I have the whip hand of you."

Charlotte laughed heartily to think that her husband could not get rid of her; and exultingly said, she did not care how cross he was to her, as they must live together.

So that's marriage. What about babies - dear, sweet little babies? Well, as we've established, if they're dead, they're fair game. On the living-baby front, the Dashwoods are initially disinherited, through a baroque, typically Austenian system of entailments and endowments, due to their great-uncle's fondness for just such a creature, who possessed "such attractions as are by no means unusual in children of two or three years old; an imperfect articulation, an earnest desire of having his own way, many cunning tricks, and a great deal of noise." The affection of mothers for small children is also a frequent object of derision. One gets the sense that Austen had no patience for anyone who couldn't keep up a steady stream of sparkling banter, and that children were therefore beneath her notice.

So, marriage, out; babies, out likewise. How did she feel about puppies?

Oh, dear God, let's not even get into how she felt about puppies.

SPOILER: It wasn't good.


***

So, as the men fade out of the picture, to be regained or replaced as necessary, we are left with the two sisters - Elinor and Marianne, Sense and Sensibility - and their ongoing argument about the nature of sorrow.

This dialogue has been going on since the first pages of the book, actually, ever since that weirdly bracing passage in which Marianne and her mother respond to Mr. Dashwood's death by "[giving] themselves up wholly to their sorrow, seeking increase of wretchedness in every reflection that could afford it, and resolv[ing] against ever admitting consolation in future." You have a choice, Austen is saying. Master your grief, or else it will master you.

Elinor, who believes there is honor in fighting through the pain, conceals not only her sadness, but its cause: she tells no-one about Edward's engagement, and befriends his loathsome fiance. Marianne, faced with the same problems, stops eating, sleeping, and even speaking. Here, Elinor finally confronts her:

Elinor could no longer witness this torrent of unresisted grief in silence.

"Exert yourself, dear Marianne," she cried, "if you would not kill yourself and all who love you. Think of your mother; think of her misery while YOU suffer: for her sake you must exert yourself."

"I cannot, I cannot," cried Marianne; "leave me, leave me, if I distress you; leave me, hate me, forget me! but do not torture me so. Oh! how easy for those, who have no sorrow of their own to talk of exertion! Happy, happy Elinor, YOU cannot have an idea of what I suffer."

But, of course, she does. Everyone, in fact, has some idea of suffering: Elinor, obviously, but also Mrs. Palmer, whose husband cannot get rid of her, and Mr. Palmer, who cannot get rid of his wife, and Mrs. Dashwood, who is allowed about three pages to grieve for her husband, and even Edward and Willoughby, engaged to women they don't love, out of duty (in Edward's case) or for money (in Willoughby's). For most of the book, in fact, Marianne scorns the advances of one Colonel Brandon, who turns out to have survived not only the forced severance of his first engagement, but his first love's pregnancy by another man, her early death, and her daughter's subsequent seduction and impregnation by Willoughby, who of course also happens to be dating the girl he has a crush on, all of which he is too much of a gentleman to mention. In this context, what stands out is not Marianne's pain, but her selfishness. This, however, is something you can never communicate to Marianne, or to anyone like her. This is also the reason that, as the book winds to a close, Elinor is in a sickroom, tending to Marianne, whereas Marianne is in a coma, nearing death.

***

At this point, there are the obvious questions: whether Marianne lives, whether Edward is ever loosed from the clutches of his dread fiance, whether Willoughby is punished for his actions (which are really the same as Edward's, but we the readers historically do not care - Willoughby is a dick!), and whether the surprisingly attractive Brandon ever gets his rocks off with a lady half his age. To these, I say: THIS IS JANE AUSTEN, DUH. Comedies are tragedies that don't happen. Jane Austen wrote comedies. This, I trust, you know. But here, in one of the most delicate and quietly devastating conclusions of any novel I've read, she revisits Willoughby - and all the blind youthful love he represents - shortly after Marianne marries someone else:

That he was for ever inconsolable, that he fled from society, or contracted an habitual gloom of temper, or died of a broken heart, must not be depended on—for he did neither. He lived to exert, and frequently to enjoy himself. His wife was not always out of humour, nor his home always uncomfortable; and in his breed of horses and dogs, and in sporting of every kind, he found no inconsiderable degree of domestic felicity.

For Marianne, however—in spite of his incivility in surviving her loss—he always retained that decided regard which interested him in every thing that befell her...

And among the merits and the happiness of Elinor and Marianne, let it not be ranked as the least considerable, that though sisters, and living almost within sight of each other, they could live without disagreement between themselves, or producing coolness between their husbands.

So, there you have it. Love fades, or you learn to live without it, and everyone - villains, heroines, stoics and Romantics - ends up sort of, kind of happy, or at least not that sad. There is the real beauty: Jane Austen, notorious writer of sappy, girly, sticky romance, ends her novel, not with a wedding, but by saying, basically, You can get over anything - and, hey, it could be worse.

* Oh, God, don't click on that link. I have to include it, if only to address the fact that it exists, but I fear anyone who sees it will be forced, as I have been, to scream, cry, or vomit up his or her intestines.

**So, for the record, Austen can pull off not only a dead baby joke, but also a "yo momma" joke, when called upon to do so. And, okay, Jane Austen film adaptations invariably suck, because the actors overplay everything (it's deadpan humor, people, DEADPAN!) and the writers sap and sex the books up beyond recognition, but there is one golden exception to that rule, which is that Mr. "Your Mother Can Suck My Ass, Dear" Palmer is played in Emma Thompson's S&S by... Hugh Laurie. Fucking House. He's unsurprisingly perfect in the role. Probably not so very perfect that you should actually watch the movie, which does tend to blow, but hey: want to see a picture of Hugh Laurie wearing a silly hat? I know you do! Here goes:

If every second of our lives recurs an infinite number of times, we are nailed to eternity as Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross.

This? Again? Really?

Well, now I need a drink.

[Via.]

A Revolution Without Dancing

... Ugh. That'll learn me not to Make Statements while I'm drunk. Seriously: the "calling in gay and/or Bjork" thing? I had meant to post something in support of it, and I also thought it was funny that when I told someone I missed work he said, "oh, you called in gay!" And then I hadn't posted yet, and it was 11:45 p.m., and I was watching this PJ Harvey cover of "Satisfaction" on the YouTube, and somehow my need to steal that dude's joke became identical with my need to
share the PJ Harvey video with the world became identical with my thoughts on "Satisfaction" as feminist statement (like, yeah, the Rolling Stones are totally sexist dudes, but in a female voice it means differently, and anyway, as Emma Goldman said, "a revolution without arguments after which I get to cry to 'Angie' in a crappy bar is not a revolution worth having") became identical with "withdrawing a marginalized group's labor and capital from the market in order to demonstrate that group's crucial role in society is a pretty great statement, at least on a symbolic level" and all of this, combined with a not insubstantial amount of whiskey, melded into a post that was... well, not offensive, I don't think, but definitely dumb, and also not really about any of the above-listed things at all. So, yeah, for the record: I would say that drinking and feminist politics definitely have a relationship, of the "they totally do not get along and should not be invited to the same party" sort.

Which is not at all the point of this article! The point of this article, actually, is probably to whip the lady blogs into a furor and thereby increase the author's name recognition - oh, and hey! it worked - but Alex Morris, on the way to her (his?) five minutes as a succes de scandale, manages to make some random point about how feminists are all big lousy drinky drunks who ruined feminism, as in:

For better or worse, drinking has become entwined with progressive feminism. “I don’t think that the drinking in and of itself is feminist, but I do think that it comes from a feminist place, that it can bolster one’s sense of herself as liberated,” says Jezebel editor Jessica Grose. “You know, the whole point of Third Wave feminism is that individual choice should not be judged. If you choose to opt out and be a stay-at-home mom, then that’s your choice.” And if you choose to drink yourself unconscious in some random guy’s bed, that’s also your prerogative. To say that you shouldn’t would be paternalistic hand-wringing, implying that a woman needs to be protected from herself.

Yes, ladies: thanks to feminism, you can be a selfless stay-at-home mother or a drunk slut who gets date raped! I mean, I guess it kind of sucks that there are no other options, but hey! At least you have a choice!

This article is so dumb in so many ways (for example, it contains about 5,900 iterations of the word "alcopops," which I think means Zima and sparkletinis, and I don't think the young, Third Wave-influenced, New York-based feminists to whom Morris refers would ever even drink these apparently feminism-killing beverages; I mean, fuck, he or she is talking about me here, indirectly, and I'd get drunk off my own fermented urine rather than put a Captain Morgan's Bottled Raspberry Mojito Drink to my lips; girls drink them, sure, but the girls who do that and the girls Morris writes about are culturally and alcoholically distinct groups) that it is tempting to focus entirely on its mistakes and to ignore the real news: all of these responses, which are fun. You'll note that none of these writers really denies drinking! In fact, some of them use the piece as a way to squeeze in irrelevant back-handed boasts about what big drunks they are. Check out this irresponsible twat, who, within the space of one essay, manages to reflect poorly on women, feminists, bloggers and alcoholics alike.

The thing is, it's not as if I've never yelled at another lady, or accused her of killing feminism. I do that a lot, actually! It is this super fun circular dialogue that goes as follows:

GIRL #1: You're killing feminism! Stop it!
GIRL #2: Stop saying that I've killed feminism! It kills feminism when you accuse me of killing feminism!
GIRL #1: You're the feminism-killer, as evidenced by your efforts to censor all criticism of or dialogue about your feminism-killing, which by the way have killed feminism again!

It just goes on from there. I mean, I hated the "Thinking and Drinking" thing - hated it - because I generally believe that jokes about date rape are never ever ever funny. I could probably find lots of folks to back me up on that. Then again, those same folks would probably be disgusted by my frequent and casual use of the word "retard," and I would make fun of them for being vegetarians, and the whole thing would just go South really fast, so maybe we should all just aim for a little more nuance and a little less righteous scorn.

This may come as a shock, but a lot of feminists are, um, girls - and the narrative of morality, for girls, is pretty retarded. We're all brought up on the same fairy tales, which tell us that women are either pure, virtuous maidens or evil witches - stay-at-home mothers or drunk sluts. There's Cinderella, and there's her Wicked Stepsisters, but the character of the Stepsister Who's Pretty Nice and Tries Really Hard but Has Some Failings does not exist. We require perfection of ourselves, and we require perfection of others, and in the process of demanding universal moral purity, we all too often make hypocrites of ourselves.

It was Emma Goldman who said that "a revolution without dancing is not a revolution worth having," and I don't know about you, but I don't dance until I've had a few. She also said that "it requires less mental effort to condemn than to think," which, if true, means that Alex Morris's article about drunk feminists must have been an absolute breeze to write. She did not, on the other hand, say "I yell because I care." The person who said that - often! to me! - was my mom. We all care, and we're all yelling, and just because we don't always agree doesn't mean that we can't respect each other. These conversations about who's killing feminism - whether they take the form of shouting matches, passive-aggressive blog posts, or articles in New York magazine - are, in fact, the proof that feminism is alive and well, if a bit hung over.

Welcome To My LiveJournal

Hola, amigos. It has, as they say, been a while since I rapped at you. Let me attempt to explain the delay. As you may know, I: 

• Quit smoking, after which I 
• Hated everything, then got really
• Sad about everything, and then
• Cried a lot, then contracted
• The flu. 

I also: 

• Lost my wallet. 

This does not really look all that impressive in bullet list form, so let me just add: 

• Lost my wallet.
• Dammit. 
  
• Dammit. 
  
• Dammit. 
  

Oh, and also, I am normally not the sort of person to volunteer this information, but on the very day that my wallet went missing (yeah, my wallet "went missing" like JonBenet Ramsey "went missing" - MY WALLET WAS MURDERED, I TELL YOU, MURDERED) I: 

• Got my Mystical Wombyn Moon Ocean Nature Lady Time. 

Now, having read The Mists of Avalon, I am fully aware that, were I to have sex with a man during this Mystic Time, I could bewitch him to do my will. Unfortunately, my will at this point in time is that I be given a backrub and some hot tea while I watch re-runs of Mystery Science Theater 3000 on the Internet, which is so boring that even a sex zombie would pass on it. So I guess I'll just be looking up those YouTube clips myself. Oooh, hey! 

Also, I know that right now you are like, "none of this is remotely funny, nor does it have anything resembling a point. In fact, I find it tasteless! Were I not offended, I would be bored." I quite agree, my good man or woman! Sadly, everything that I've written recently has inspired the same feelings of shock and/or tedium. And that is why, for the past week, I have refrained from posting. 

So, that's it: my absence, explained, with bullet points. Now, on to something resembling news. 

Today Is the Day I Share

So, I looked up "smoking withdrawal" symptoms (no patch today, check me out) and then I got this:

Feelings of being an infant: temper tantrums, intense needs, feelings of dependency, a state of near paralysis.

No, really. Also, crazy dreams! Like: one of my favorite writers opened a bookstore, and it had a special section marked "Pathetic Books," and I went to that section, and found all of my diaries there.

I do appreciate the fact that, when my subconscious is mocking me, it manages to be kind of funny.

Vanity, All Is Vanity

Blah blah blah Tina Fey blah blah Vanity Fair blah Maureen Dowd blah blah blah sucks blah scar blah blah weight blah blah "showing tit" blah blah blah.

Anyway! Yes, Maureen Dowd has some fucked-up business that she needs to attend to, seeing as how she's swallowed the whole "being a powerful woman is about lipstick and heels" thing like a hungry bluegill going for a worm, and if her previous work did not convince you that she lives in this state of perpetual insecurity re: Whether Maureen Dowd Is Performing Gender Correctly and/or Whether Someone Else Performs Gender Better than Maureen Dowd, this will. ("Overcompensating," I think, is the term one uses.) It is basically about how Tina Fey used to be so hideous that no one could look directly at her for fear of being blinded, but then became pretty so that everyone could love her, including Maureen Dowd. Because you can't be a woman, you see, unless you give dudes boners. You know who gives dudes boners? Maureen Dowd! She would like to tell you all about the boners she gives dudes, because there are lots of them, you see, because she's really pretty and she wears these high hee -- hey, wait, where are you going?

Anyway again, did you know that Tina Fey used to weigh as much as I do? Also, she was alive during the early '90s, and therefore had a terrible haircut! Look at how fat and ugly she is:

WHAT A FAT. WHY IS SHE SUCH AN UGLY FAT? GO BACK TO YOUR FAT CAMP, YOU GIANT FAT.

However, seeing as everyone else in the entire universe has already formed and published an opinion on this, I can probably skip the question of whether Tina Fey was ever unattractive (answer: no, but the '90s were - dig up pictures of yourself in your Before Sunrise giant bohemian smock dress or rebellious Jordan Catalano pageboy for confirmation) and focus on one entirely relevant and interesting bit of the piece:

Fey saw an entertainment reporter on TV say that Palin had been gracious toward Fey, but Fey hadn’t been gracious toward Palin. “What made me super-mad about it,” Fey says later, “was that it seemed very sexist toward me and her. The implication was that she’s so fragile, which she is not. She’s a strong woman. And then, also, it was sexist because, like, who would ever go on the news and say, ‘Well, I thought it was sort of mean to Richard Nixon when Dan Aykroyd played him,’ and ‘That seemed awful mean to George Bush when Will Ferrell did it.’ And it’s like, No, that’s not the thing. This is a comedy sketch on a comedy show.” “Mean,” we agreed, was a word that tends to get used on women who do satirical humor and, as she says, “gay guys.”

“I feel clean about it,” she says. “All these jokes were fair hits.”

This is very true, and something I hadn't really thought of before. So, um, neat. Careful readers may notice some not-so-subtle effort on Dowd's part to identify herself with Fey. She's not mean - you're a big sexist! Etcetera. The key difference is that with Fey, the hits are fair.

Virgins, Whores, and Retail: Holiday Cheer Edition!

Women! They sure do like it when you buy them things. Am I right, fellas? Unfortunately, this holiday season, you may find yourself sleeping with one of them - or maybe even married to one! As a male, you are of course totally incapable of buying someone a thoughtful gift which is tailored to her personal tastes. Fortunately, all women fall into one of two categories - the kind that's good for marrying, and the kind that's good for fucking. That is why Esquire has compiled (thank you, ma'am) these two extremely useful gift lists: one for your wife, and one for your mistress. Um, LOVER! For your LOVER. Ha ha ha, woo, boy, that was a close one.

Here are some highlights.

Lingerie!

For the Wife: Just because she's married doesn't mean she has to stop wearing ridiculous underpants! However, you should never make her feel too sexy. She's a woman of virtue now. "Skip the dominatrix costume and get her something a little more practical," Esquire advises. (Ah, "practical." Is there any more erotic word in the English language?) They recommend this jacquard Merry Widow from Victoria's Secret. It's tasteful, yet patterned to look vaguely like a gigantic vagina.



For the Skank, er, Lover: She can't be naked all the time - though that would be nice, huh, fellas, huh, you get me, yeah, she'd be naked, because you'd be having sex. Esquire advises a teddy that is "blended mesh and lace," does not incorporate one single inch of non-transparent fabric, and is perfectly suited for the sensuous strip-teases she will be performing daily. "She’ll feel as good putting this on as she will taking it off, both of which we’d advise doing slowly," Esquire says. You ask: can something really qualify as a strip-tease if the woman's entire body is visible throughout the process? To that we say: who cares! She's naked! For purposes of SEX!

DVDs!

For the Wife: Say, here's a sentence that goes downhill fast: "Give your wife the gift of nonstop sex" - awesome! - "with the complete DVD collection of Sex and the City" - dammit! You should have known better: Esquire would never recommend that you have sex with your wife. She's a nice lady! Sex is for hookers and girls with low self-esteem. "Now she'll have something to do while you're watching football on Saturday." Get it? Because you don't talk to each other, or share interests, or enjoy each other's company! Awwww, sweet.

For the Tramp, er, Lover: Unlike your wife, your lover can watch movies with you. Esquire recommends The Lover (well, that was easy), adapted from the novel by Marguerite Duras. It's a story about colonialism and the problematic positioning of desire within hierarchies of race and gender that will totally get her lubed up for you. Enjoy your fancy French movie while the wife is watching that Sex & the City crap at home.

Books!

For the Wife: So, women can read now. I think this happened in the seventies. Give your wife West with the Night, by Beryl Markham, a lady pilot. It's "a must-read for the 21st-century woman who thinks Carrie Bradshaw is what being a strong female is all about." Yep, those feeble-minded ladies can't be "strong and independent" unless men tell them how. (The complete Sex & the City you just bought her probably didn't help.) As a special bonus, this book was recommended by Ernest Hemingway. No-one knew how to please a wife better than Hemingway. That's why he had four!

For the Hoor: Say, is your sexuality mired in shame and lack of imagination? Good news! Esquire has a book for you to give your lady, and it is specially suited for men who are "not sure how to approach the subject of light bondage." It is entitled Revenge, and it has pictures of women getting tied up and doing chores in their underpants. "Slip this book under the tree and keep the fuzzy cuffs handy," Esquire says.

Oh, Christ, fuzzy cuffs. Here's a story for you: I used to work in a sex toy store. (I know! Not done talking about it yet!) The fuzzy cuffs were huge sellers, particularly among timid couples who would sort of sidle up to them and avert their faces from the display while looking at it out of the corners of their eyes and giggling, like, you are in a sex toy store, I am helping people to decide what size butt plug they want, are you afraid someone will think you're interested in sex? When they'd approach the register, we'd say "who's getting tied up?" in this very cheery "this is normal, don't get freaked out" voice, because 99% of the job was trying to get people to feel OK about themselves. If it was a straight couple (and with the fuzzy cuffs, it was always a straight couple) the guy would do this incredible twitchy dance and shout, "SHE IS! SHE IS! NO, NUH-UH, NOT ME, NO, I'M NOT INTO THAT!" We'd smile graciously at them while ringing up their purchases. Then, as soon as they left the store, we'd call that guy a douche and say his girlfriend deserved better.

The moral of this story: don't act like getting tied up is this insane horrible degrading thing that no reasonable person would ever enjoy or be into, particularly if you're planning to tie someone up later. And, for the love of Christ, don't do it with fuzzy cuffs.

Clothing!

For the Wife: "She feels fat. She needs to vomit. She wants a pickle-and-ice-cream sundae." Because she's replaced your love with food? No, silly: because she's pregnant! Now that you're not treating her like a sex object any more, you can start making babies. Knock her up and buy her a nice maternity dress. Not necessarily in that order.

For the Lover: A Herve Leger bandage dress. Ooooh, I know this dress! It's the one that Sadie Stein thinks is boring! But is Sadie Stein aware that it's "hand-sewn to embrace the female form?" Um, probably. "She'll be happy to have a seemingly couture piece in her closet, and you'll be happy to see her curves," Esquire notes. Ladies love clothes! Men love boobies! Well, until they get married, apparently. Then men love football and ladies love ice cream cozies. I read about that in Esquire.

Accessories!

For the Soon-to-Be-Ex-Wife: Socks. Fucking cashmere socks. "That's what women love: things they don't really need." Ha ha ha, like their husbands.

For the Soon-to-Be-Ex-Lover: Fish. Net. Stockings. "The sexiest kind of sexy stocking." I can only assume this is a typo. The correct sentence, I am guessing, would read "the sexiest kind of sexy stocking, if your preferences are to sexy as White Castle is to hamburgers." Or, "the sexiest kind of sexy stocking, if you got your sexuality in bulk at the cheapest possible price, and therefore ended up with Generic-Brand Instant Sexuality that has no real flavor and can only be justified by the fact that it requires no effort and, hey, is almost as good as the real thing." Or, "the sexiest kind of sexy stocking, if you never quite got over that lamp in A Christmas Story." All of those would make more sense. Ultimately, however, you still bought a girl fishnet stockings. That's got to suck.

Santa Claus Is Coming

To town!

And, by "town," I mean "your vagina!"

Witness:


Now, here's the beauty portion: this is an ad for emergency contraception. That's right: Santa has a special present for you this year, and it is a bastard child. He wants to squirt his magical sparkling pine-tree scented spunk into your womb (it tastes just like candy canes - would you like Santa to prove it?) and impregnate you with his ageless elfin spawn. Don't let Santa get away with this! Take EC!

Also, how many people do you think recreate the above-pictured scenario every year? Lots, I am thinking. In other news, EW EW EW EW EW.

[Via this via that.]

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone

SO MUCH SNOW HERE! I'M DRUNK CAUSE MY MOM WON'T QUIT CALLING ME A WHORE.

- Text message received at 6:45 p.m., 11/27/08

I think I texted her back about the box of wine I had hidden under my bed.