In which I wonder if I'm the only person in the world who doesn't think sexual violence is hilarious.

I have had an exceedingly depressing hour or so of finding what appears to be an endless stream of Facebook pages dedicated to rape jokes.

- "The awkward moment went your misses wakes up and ya dicks in her arse"

- "Im not a rapist LOL jks get in the van"

- "The awkward moment when a slut is not DTF but you fuck her anyway"

- "Raping pregnant bitches and telling my friends I had a threesome"

- "Looking in the mirror and wondering how you haven't been raped yet"

- "Is raping a hooker classified as theft"

- "You know shes playing hard to get when your chasing her down an alleyway"

Rape jokes are bullshit. I realize some people can find something entertaining and enjoyable about the real-life sexual assault of millions of their fellow human beings, and frankly I'd consider that a symptom of a worrying disconnect from reality. I am one of the unfortunate minority who
a) don't think it's funny, and
b) are not afraid to tell people that I don't think it's funny, and proceed to give them reasons why they should shut the fuck up.

It's not viewed as socially acceptable or 'polite' to call people out on their sickening attempts at humour, and apparently that's supposed to keep me from doing it, but I think that's piss-poor reasoning. I should stay silent and just accept it because...someone might feel perturbed by it if I speak up? Good. They should feel perturbed. Ideally they should feel incredibly embarrassed to be spouting this crap and passing it off as a joke. At any rate, keeping quiet is half the problem -- it's a lot easier to get away with hurting somebody if no one's willing to speak up and tell you you're wrong. And I don't really care if everyone in the group suddenly feels acutely uncomfortable and defensive. You know who's automatically going to feel uncomfortable over rape jokes? Rape survivors. The 1 in 4 women, 1 in 20 men -- and that's only the ones who report their assault. The numbers are higher than that in reality.

So you know a survivor, whether they've told you about it or not -- and if you've been running your mouth about how rape is funny, rape is a funny joke, they're probably not going to mention it to you because they can't trust you to take them seriously. And survivors don't get a choice about whether or not they've been sexually assaulted, but everyone has the choice of whether or not to make a crack about sexual assault.

You know it's in poor taste. And it's not the kind of 'poor taste' your grandmother complains about, when women wear red shoes on a date or something equally trivial and ridiculous. It's the kind of 'poor taste' that very literally and very directly communicates to everyone you're speaking to that you not only couldn't give a shit about rape survivors, you actively support rapists. You're saying that you think what they do is pretty okay, and honestly pretty funny.

I know that most of the time that isn't what you think you're saying, and I know for most people it sounds like you're making a joke ('haha, wouldn't it be funny if I really thought it was cool and normal to force people into sexual acts?' -- to which the correct answer is 'in what way would that be funny?'). There's one type of person who doesn't realize you're joking about that. That person is a rapist, and you don't know who they are. You don't know that you know them. They don't go around with flashing neon signs above their heads, but they exist in disgustingly high numbers in perfectly ordinary society, so I can tell you right now that you have met one. You probably hung out with one. Maybe multiple times. Maybe you thought he was kind of weird, maybe it never crossed your mind that he could ever be violent with anyone. Maybe you made a joke around him; it might've been about rape.

And there, right there, you've just told the rapist that you've hung out with at some point that his actions are normal. He already thinks that, this is statistical fact -- rapists believe that all men rape, it's just that some of them hide it better than others. What you've done when you make a naturalizing, lighthearted comment about rape is reassure him that it is normal, that you all do it too, and that you think it's okay. On top of that you've simultaneously told the rape survivor(s) you know that you're on the side of the person who assaulted them; that you don't believe their hurt is real or that it should be taken seriously. This could be your mother, your sister, your best friend.

Now tell me rape jokes don't hurt anybody.

Dear world:

I was going to lie and say that I don't give a fuck if you think anyone else's body is sub-standard, but then I decided that it's okay to give a fuck. (I also decided that it's incredibly sad and pathetic that caring about things is still seen as a weakness; although it's hardly surprising given that particular attribute's association with femininity, which is the scourge of humanity even though sexism is supposedly dead. But that's a different rant for a different day.)

Instead, I'm going to attempt to stick as closely to the truth as possible. So: obviously, I do care quite a lot that you think anyone else's body is sub-standard. I mean 'you' in the general sense, of course, this isn't a missive aimed at one particular person -- mainly because I've noticed so many people spouting that distinctive body-policing rhetoric lately that I wouldn't know who exactly to address it to.

I don't intend to go to the gym. I don't care if you do. That's your choice. I don't intend to punish myself into a smaller dress size under some pretence that I'm only doing it to get healthy. I don't care if you do. That's your choice. I don't intend to stare judgementally and make bitchy comments every time someone bigger than me walks by. I don't care if you do, but it makes you look so shallow and insecure that I get second hand embarrassment just listening to it. Again, that's entirely up to you. I don't intend to start judging my physical appearance based on how closely I resemble emaciated women with eating disorders. I'm not about to convince myself that exercising excessively isn't frequently a product of the exact same mental illness that anorexia and bulimia spring from. I've given up caring if you do, because I don't have the patience or the training necessary to handle mental disorders. If you want to come to me and ask for help, please do, and I'll do what I can, but I'm not going to jump down your throat unasked and tell you that I think you're unwell.

I'm also going to avoid having that conversation wherein I reveal that fat people are usually either just as healthy as you are, if not actually healthier. For every skinny person who is woefully unfit, weak and sickly, there is an athletic fat person in peak physical condition. I'm not going to mention to you that statistically it is virtually impossible to lose a significant amount of weight and keep it off for more than five years, because your body has other ideas about what your ideal weight is, and you're quite pointlessly exhausting yourself fighting against it. I realize you aren't open to these facts, because they don't gel with that nice little cover story about how you "just want to get fit", but complain when your thighs get bigger and you actually weigh more because you've gained all that muscle. It's a bit inconvenient to have to forgo that intelligent and balanced image you like to project and just admit that you're placing an unhealthy amount of value on looking skinny.

I wish I knew what to say to make you realize that it's not actually that important to be thin. It's like high school: you think it's the be-all and end-all while you're there, and then you leave and look back on it and realize it really wasn't. It was just a tiny facet of everything your life is going to add up to. I can guarantee that if you were to live your life as a size 14, 16, 20, you would still be loved, you would still have friends and family who adored you, you would still learn things and still experience things and you might even realize that there's nothing wrong with it. And if you never did, I guess it follows that you'd also refuse to accept that being skinny won't make you beautiful, it won't make you attractive, it won't make you clever, it won't make you wiser, it won't make you more likeable, and it won't make you any less superficial. It might make you simultaneously more arrogant and more terrified, but that's just a guess.

Music is a litmus test for cool.

Sometimes I think about music, and what it means to me, and contrast it with what it seems to mean to other people.

I have a reasonably wide variety of music on any given playlist. Acapella, ambient, post rock, post metal, big band, jazz, blues-rock, bossa nova, dream pop, alt rock, pop punk, Christian rock, ska, drum and bass, dubstep, industrial, doom jazz, screamo, showtunes, sludge metal, swamp rock, symphonic metal, synthpop, trip-hop, New Romantic, psychobilly, folk, post-hardcore, prog rock, goth rock, gospel, grunge, gypsy punk, hard trance, indie pop, indie rock, J-Pop, jazz metal, minimalist pop, the list goes on.

I’ve had plenty of people express surprise or even disgust at the fact that I can and frequently do swing from Copeland to Pelican to Glenn Miller to Fall Out Boy to Regina Spektor. I don’t quite follow the logic behind it; don’t most people find themselves listening to things they ‘shouldn’t’ like at some point? And beyond the age of 16, don’t most people find themselves maturing past the point of moralizing something as open to interpretation and completely subjective as music? I still feel a strong urge to smack anyone who asks, “What’s your guilty-pleasure music?” Are you fucking serious? Are you still in high school? Are you gearing up to make a call about my personality based on whether I listen to Tool or not?

And the stupidest part is, they usually are. Maybe I'm just lucky, but most of the people I seem to bump into in a social setting seem to have quite a lot invested in the idea that everyone they're friends with must have similar or exactly the same taste in music, and more importantly, we must all dislike the same music. I’ve started intentionally throwing out the most widely hated bands in my repertoire whenever people ask what music I’m into, just to watch them pull faces and make disapproving or disappointed sounds over something so petty. “My Chemical Romance.” It’s always followed up by a silent fuck you.

On poor explanations.

Today in my wanderings of the wonderful world wide web, I have come across more than a few mentions and debates concerning the custom of men opening the door for women. Just to clarify -- I am not referring to instances where the lady is carrying three bags of groceries and would physically find it difficult to get the door open herself. Nor am I referring to instances where the man happens to be walking ahead of the lady and holds the door open for her because she happens to be following closely. I wouldn't consider either of those scenarios to come under "man opening the door for the woman", because in either of them the woman could just as easily be substituted for a man, and the man's position could also be filled by a woman.

There seems to be a prevalence of deliberately obtuse men crying foul because "I am so nice and polite, and women are all bitches because they don't appreciate my uncalled for acts of kindness!" At this point I'm always reminded of this article. Oh, that everyone could be exposed to the idea that not being a horrible person doesn't mean you are entitled to sex. There should be a class at high school dedicated to teaching young people that feigning niceness in order to get a girl to have sex with you is deceitful, predatory, and actually not nice at all.

Of course, the men doing the obnoxious whining are not explicitly stating "I opened a door for a woman and she didn't immediately fall to her knees and begin the Fellatio of Gratefulness", but it's fairly implicit when they say things like, "You ignored the nice guy. You used him for emotional intimacy without reciprocating, in kind, with physical intimacy", and, "What happened to all the nice guys? You did." 

I did? What happened? Did I frighten them off with my failure to fall desperately in love with the first male I met who came up with a flirty line? Did my belief in their friendship act put them in the inconceivable position of having to be clear about their intentions? For shame! To think I took all that fake niceness and didn't even pay for it "with physical intimacy". Aside from my obvious downfalls in my role as Breathing Sex Doll, I know plenty of nice guys. Genuinely nice ones. Guys who are kind and respectful and -- equally importantly -- funny and smart and conducting lives of their own that don't involve following me around like a desperate little puppy dog.

Anyway. Back to the door thing. I'm sure plenty of men insist on adhering to tradition out of a genuine desire to do the polite thing, and I'm not at all criticizing them for it. Once, a very elderly man opened a door for me, and I smiled and thanked him because
a) he was clearly from a generation where this was an extremely polite and respectful thing to do, and
b) old people aren't the best at learning new tricks, so to speak. He was probably also racist, but I wasn't about to argue with him about it, because the chances of me suddenly enlightening him at his age are pretty slim.
What I am criticizing is this alarming tendency for men, especially young men, to dismiss the views and feelings of the subject of this politeness as 'bitchy' or 'rude' if she doesn't appreciate it: "Because they lack the grace and goodwill to accept that someone is trying to show respect for their feelings."

Let me get this straight: you open the door for a woman, she expresses that she feels uncomfortable with it, and you call it a lack of grace and goodwill, because you were only trying to show respect for her feelings? Her feelings, which you had no idea of before you opened the door in the first place, are clearly not a big priority for you.

I guess my point is that if you were really so concerned with doing someone a kindness, wouldn't it bother you that the person you did it for was at least mildly upset by it? I mean, surely that wasn't your intention. And instead of blaming her for not seeing how great and selfless your gesture was, maybe you should be thinking that not all women like it when you do that. Evidently you cannot assume that that little act of chivalry is going to make her smile -- in fact there seems to be a pretty good chance that it will actually cause dismay. Perhaps it's not the best idea to do it for perfect strangers, whose views and attitudes you have no idea of.

Some women absolutely adore it when a man opens a door for them. It makes them feel special and respected, and that's fine. Some women find it patronizing, and that's fine too. They don't owe you an explanation, much like they don't owe you an explanation for why they dislike seafood or why exactly their favourite shoes are their favourite shoes. However, I feel like a general explanation is required here, because it seems as if the majority of door-opening men who have received a less-than-thankful response for their actions are genuinely bewildered as to why any woman would take offense.

The fact is that the gesture of opening doors for women is a paternalistic one. Do you open doors for men? No. Why not? Because you won't get a date out of it? Because obviously men open doors for themselves, and it'd be weird for you to interfere? Why should you be uncomfortable opening doors for men if your only motivating factor is to do something nice for someone? I'm sorry, but the only way you're going to be able to convince yourself that there is no male-dominant sexism at work here is by burying your head in the sand as deep as it will go.

Of course it's always nice when people do thoughtful things for each other. What makes this particular situation awkward is that it requires an assumption on the part of the man that any given woman must consider his admittedly old-fashioned chivalry thoughtful -- and that a woman who doesn't must be broken. Women like doors to be opened for them, and that's all there is to it. Right?

Well, no, like most sweeping generalizations, that's wrong. It's been wrong for a while now. I'm not saying that opening the door for a lady should be a punishable offence, but I do think it's a bit rich for guys to get pissed off when women feel patronized and insulted by it. Face facts: some women will, and they are completely justified in feeling that way. Bitter remarks about how "chivalry isn't dead, but women's appreciation of it is" only make you look like a nearsighted, over-privileged and uneducated dickhead.

Life in the fast lane comfort zone

So, as it turns out, there are quite a few things I am not opposed to doing/comfortable with doing that a great many people are not.
Among these things are:

• baring my face in public.
• eating 20 chicken nuggets in one sitting.
• dyeing my hair purple.
• sharing my thoughts on a series of seemingly unrelated subjects via the internet.
• participating in a threesome.
• arguing my point.
• falling in love with people of my own gender.
• eating processed foods.
• wandering through crowded places, e.g. concerts.
• shotting horse semen at a bizarre food festival.

I happen to be okay with all of the above, and that doesn't make me superior or inferior to anyone else. They're just facts. There's also a very long list of things I am/would be extremely uncomfortable doing, including stupid things like "ordering my own food at a restaurant" and "walking around naked". That does not mean I automatically feel the need to censor anyone who is fine with ordering their food or wandering their own house in the nude, because that would be pretty goddamn stupid. Of course it would, you say, but I'm not so sure it's such an obvious fact to everyone.

I'm writing this because I don't think it should be anybody's right to make anyone else feel like their list of comfortable and uncomfortable things makes them bad, strange, or unreasonable, unless one of the things listed in the Comfort Zone is "having sex with underage girls/boys", or "hitting people I disagree with", or something similarly damaging and antisocial. The idea of "normalcy" is a fabrication, and that alone makes it a piss-poor standard to judge anyone by. I tend to judge myself and other people based purely on whether or not they are hurting someone with their actions.

So I will shot my horse semen and have sex with multiple people in one go and hold my head high because I am not hurting anyone by doing it. If it makes you uncomfortable enough that you feel the need to throw names at me and tell me I'm doing something wrong, that's completely illogical and the fault lies with you, not me. Thank you for your attempt at policing my choices, but I don't intend to follow your 'rules' until you can back them up with something other than "Well I wouldn't do that, and neither would anyone I know." I appreciate that it makes you feel better if you live your life by irrationally sealing yourself off from anything you don't immediately understand or which is unfamiliar, and that's fine with me; I sincerely hope it isn't as sad and boring as it sounds. I would appreciate it if you restricted it to yourself - you know, the only person you have any right to control?

I basically live my life according to this quote.

"Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow up. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood with this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."
- C. S. Lewis

And that, my friends, is why I still count 'The Lion King' and 'The Princess and the Cobbler' among my favourite films of all time, why I openly enjoy plenty of young adult fiction, and why I dress up like a five-year-old whenever I feel like it. The fact that I appreciate some childish things does not make me a child. I'm quite secure in the fact that I am a grown woman, and I don't feel the need to overcompensate by pretending disinterest in things purely because they aren't "mature" enough. On that note, I feel like making fairy bread; I'm off to raid the cupboards and see if I can't find a way of making it happen.

This is the reason why people don't like Republicans.

Now, I'm the sort of person who likes to be at least a little bit politically aware. I like to have an idea of what's going on in the world around me. Call me crazy, but I even take an interest in things that don't affect me directly.
Like this. I notice it only takes 37 words before 'God' pops up - golly gosh, you'd almost think there was some kind of link between 'God' and 'fuck all women, you don't deserve rights'.

So. Let's start from the top with this embarrassingly misogynistic piece of pro-rape propaganda. First off, it is completely misleading in the sense that it is supposedly just there to prevent 'taxpayer money' funding abortions. That's not all it would do. It would also prevent private health insurance covering the cost of abortion, and if that doesn't seem fucked up enough to you, read on.
Secondly, and most offensively, when the bill was first introduced it included a proposal to change the legal definition of 'rape' in cases of abortion, and by 'change' I mean 'narrow down', and by 'narrow down' I mean 'a 12-year-old girl who is impregnated by a 40-year-old man is not entitled to health coverage for an abortion'.

Of course, there were very few people possessed of basic reading comprehension who were not at least a little perturbed by the sweeping generalization implied there - basically, that all rape victims who are not able to prove that they have been assaulted enough don't count as rape victims. By this definition, in order to be taken seriously enough to qualify for healthcare insurance, you will have to provoke your rapist to beat you into submission. Because that's exactly what you want to do when you're being assaulted by someone - piss them off! Not to mention the fact that you are probably a woman, and your attacker is probably a man, and physically that will normally give him all the edge he needs to step it up and actually murder you. Thankfully there are a great many people who are aware of the fact that the majority of rape is not accompanied by a beatdown, and they promptly created A Big Fuss. So that particular part of the bill has been dropped.

Honestly, I find it very difficult to believe that anyone - even someone cruel enough to want to deny women, children and trans people who happen to have wombs the right to choose what happens to their own bodies - is stupid enough to think that 'raped in your sleep? lol no you weren't!' was actually going to slip by unnoticed.  You know how when you're bartering, you're supposed to name a ridiculously high price that no one would actually accept and work your way down from there to the price you'd actually be perfectly happy to settle for in the first place?
Or when you'd say to your parents, "I want to get a tattoo!" and they were all, "FUCK NO" and you were like, "Okay...well, can I go to a party tonight?" and they were all, "Yeah sure, do what you want, just no tattoos!"
Yeah. Something tells me this is kind of like that. A red herring, I guess you could call it. At any rate, just because that was the worst part of the bill doesn't mean the rest of the bill isn't complete bullshit too. I can only cross my fingers and hope people don't 'settle' for an added economic struggle for rape survivors in a time of worldwide recession.

On the identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.

I had a sudden Thought the other night, a thought that wondrously linked all my other grand and lofty Thoughts, and that Thought was: empathy is both the greatest human attribute and the one humanity should not be striving to smother.

As I see it, empathy is a woefully undervalued skill. For a start, it's seen as 'childish' or 'girly' (these are insults because to be anything less than a man in this society is unacceptable) - people who cry when they see reports of death which is in no way related to them are pretty likely to hear "harden up", "don't be such a girl/baby", etc. This strikes me as ridiculous because most children, especially very young children, don't even seem to have a sense of empathy. It's a skill they haven't gained, because they've never been taught. It's a higher state of consciousness, and it takes a certain amount of self-awareness and intelligence, which very small children have not had the time to develop yet.

Condemnation of empathy is quite at odds with what most parents seem to want to teach their children: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The Golden Rule - the basis for the modern concept of human rights. Don't pull your sister's hair! Why not? Well, because you don't like it when she pulls your hair, so don't do it to her. Good. Empathy has been suggested, and with a bit of luck the child isn't just being stubborn. Perhaps the whippersnapper is being raised in a religious environment, in which case:

Buddhism
"One who, while himself seeking happiness, oppresses with violence other beings who also desire happiness, will not attain happiness hereafter."

Christianity
"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them" (Matthew 7:12)

Confucianism
"Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself."

Hinduism
"One should never do that to another which one regards as injurious to one's own self."

Islam
"The most righteous of men is the one who is glad that men should have what is pleasing to himself, and who dislikes for them what is for him disagreeable."

Judaism
"You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your kinsfolk. Love your neighbor as yourself"

Taoism
"Regard your neighbor's pain as your own pain, and your neighbor's loss as your own loss."

Wicca
"An it harm none do what ye will."

Why is it, then, that it is good and acceptable for governments of large countries with an excessive amount of firepower to throw hissy fits at one another over genuinely stupid, ultimately meaningless things and turn half the world into a battlefield? How does one find their way from such a basic and obvious ethical code that it appears in basically all of the world's major religions in one form or another, to shooting a person? It's quite bizarre that the morality our parents worked so hard to instill in us as children is later viewed as a weakness, not a strength. I can only conclude that this has something to do with the fact that if you view the world on a basically empathetic level - in terms of unnecessary hurt, and unasked for kindness - you're going to find a lot wrong with it. You might complain. You might begin pointing out to other people how avoidable and pointless the majority of human-generated evil is. This isn't good, because for a start it is much more difficult to govern a thinking mass. It is much more difficult to get them to agree to something as senseless as war if they think for two minutes about what they're doing and why. Thankfully, most people seem to lack the capability to think for two minutes about what they're doing and why, and life carries on much the same as it ever has.

And then, of course, there is the raging debate over whether this rule of reciprocation should apply only to fellow humans, or to animals as well - and if so, which animals, and why? Usually the argument that humans should be the only beneficiaries of basic morality takes the form of something along the lines of "it's just natural to look out for your own", meaning humans should only ever care for other humans and the rest of the species we coexist with be damned. There are so many things wrong with this supremely ignorant point of view that the person espousing it is likely too stupid or too uneducated to even begin to grasp why it is so painfully wrong, so let's save the step-by-step analysis of that clusterfuck for another day.

Or, a favourite of mine, "animals don't deserve the same rights as humans because humans are more intelligent". This is actually incredibly offensive and reeks of eugenics, because according to this argument, intellectually disabled people do not deserve human rights. You may want to go back to the drawing board with that one.

And then there's the wonderfully arrogant "it's a nice idea, but people/society will never accept it so it's pointless to try (because of course I can see the future)." Which is both an unrealistically fatalistic view of the world and a completely unsubstantiated one. If I could have a dollar for every time someone told every inventor of every major technological breakthrough "it's a nice idea, but it'll never take off" and subsequently was proved very very wrong, I would be quite a few dollars richer.

Add to that a dollar for every time the first wave of feminists got told they were crazy, and that women would never be allowed to work, or vote, or choose not to have children. Interestingly, there were pamphlets distributed around the time of the first wave that equated women with 'beasts' and appealed to the ridiculousness of the notion of animals having rights. Hmm...

And more dollars! - for every time anyone said this "racial equality" thing would never catch on, for everyone who claimed that it would never be a crime to murder a black man in the South - well, I would probably be a millionaire. A smug millionaire. Ultimately "people will never accept it" is one of the most short-sighted things one could ever say; basically, you've severely underestimated both what an enormous span of time the word "never" encompasses, and the power of propaganda. Being correct helps, but it's not always a requirement, hello North Korea.

Of course, it is acceptable and arguably essential to throw empathy out the window when faced with a decidedly hostile situation. If your life, family or (to a lesser extent) your worldly possessions are threatened, the only logical thing to do is fight back, figuratively or literally. Frankly I find it disappointing how often people use this excuse for things like attempting to eradicate a species that is only a pest in the sense that that person doesn't much like it. "Sharks are dangerous". This might make sense if cars, stairs, ladders, alcohol, guns, bees, dogs, snakes, fireworks and spiders were not more likely to hurt/kill you than sharks. Start at the top of the statistic probability and work your way down to the things that cause between 4 and 0 human deaths per year; I expect you'll be trying to eradicate cars, which kill 115 people per day in the United States alone.

On the f-word and why it's tragically funny that so many women are afraid of it.

So, almost all of us have at least a vague idea of what 'feminism' is, and the majority of the uninvolved public is pretty much wrong. But the best bit is women who don't seem to realize or want to acknowledge that That Dirty F-Word is the one and only reason why they aren't chained to a kitchen, running the risk of childbirth every single time they have sex, and so economically limited that they will never, ever be able to do anything they actually want to do. Unless everything they want to do takes place in the confines of the house their husband buys for them (and takes reparation for in the form of sex you legally cannot refuse even if you want to).

Sadly, most women will react to the mention of feminism with disgusted comments about armpit hair, because as women, they know that one of the foulest crimes they can commit is to utterly disregard gender roles and do something different with their bodies. They probably don't know that the only reason any of them have had it bashed into their heads that this thing is incredibly important is that in the 1920s, short-sleeved clothing for women was introduced, and Gillette saw an opportunity to sell more razors. So they ran a smear campaign against female body hair, denouncing it as revolting and ultimately undesirable. And it worked! Our consumerist great grandparents fell for it and decided that the marketing scheme was preaching holy truth, and ever since girls and women everywhere have been obligingly shearing themselves. Is this an inherently evil thing? Not necessarily, but it's pretty hilariously sad.

Having said that, fuck body policing up the ass with a splintered plank of wood. Shave, wax, grow, trim whatever the hell you want to. It's none of my damn business. Put on 20 kgs and wear the tightest clothes you can find, because people who find themselves offended by the sight need to grow the fuck up and realize it's not actually a problem. There are plenty of real problems in the world already without oversensitive judgmental shitheads taking it upon themselves to add hysterical, pretend problems. "Oh, I can't control the way that woman looks! My world is falling down around me! War is a totally acceptable fact of life that I have no problem with because there's no point arguing with it, but other people's body fat is something I'm going to take the time and effort to bitch about and loudly disapprove of!" Please. Go clutch your pearls over stupid shit somewhere else.

On Maynardism and why you can tell people you don't like how they look, but they'll think you're an asshole.

I have a friend who is simultaneously quiet and brash. He has a pronounced tendency not to bother with such things as social niceties, and I accepted this long ago as a personality quirk rather than genuine vitriol. Tonight I was introduced to the idea that not everyone is willing to overlook it as such, in the form of another friend of mine becoming heartily offended over an unflattering comment he made on her appearance.
It was the kind of comment that was terribly worded, and knowing him as long as I have I could see immediately that he did not mean it in the way it came out, but by then it was too late. It had been said, the proverbial damage dealt.
And that, children, is why it's best to consider who we are talking to before we say anything that could possibly (definitely) be seen as rude or hostile.

I also spent some time in the company of the kind of people who drink until they vomit and then continue drinking/are pretty sure there's absolutely nothing undesirable about living in a constant cloud of pot smoke/declare poorly edited cartoons with little or no coherency to be 'exactly like a bad acid trip', which makes no fucking sense because modern acid rarely if ever causes visual hallucinations. Inevitably, Bill Hicks was mentioned and adoration heaped upon His Holy Name from all sides. I left before someone could bust out the Tool albums and begin pointing out the Bill Hicks references in the Tool songs. My only response to anything along these lines will forever be best summed up in this video:

Afterwards, I came to the conclusion that these pseudo-intellectual/edgy/whateverthefuck morons have made one very basic mistake.
Say a layman strikes up a conversation about quantum physics with a physicist. There's a good chance the layman will not understand a single thing the physicist is talking about, because the physicist is extremely intelligent and knows a lot more about the subject than the layman does.
Say a useless stoner pseud strikes up a conversation about who-the-fuck-can-tell-what with an average non-idiot person. There's a good chance the non-idiot will not understand a single thing the pretentious Messiah-complex-bearer is talking about, and sadly, they seem to think that this is because - like the physicist - they are just too clever for the poor layman to follow.

It's not because they're talking utter bullshit that has no intellectual or philosophical merit whatsoever. It's just that you don't get it, man.

On female comedians and their hilarity in relation to their genitalia.

It confuses and infuriates me that there are still people in the world today who don't realize what an embarrassing thing it is to seriously claim that 'women aren't funny'.

What are you backing that up with, babe?

Because if I was that dickheaded and logic-deficient, I might conclude that men aren't funny.

"Aw man," I would say, "men aren't funny. All of their comedy is just them cracking gay/racist jokes and rambling about their ex-girlfriends and/or wives."

Which makes a similar amount of sense as "Women aren't funny, all female comedians ever talk about is their period and their kids."

This clever and obviously hilarious individual bases almost all of his acts around race or imitating the speech impediments of the mentally disabled. He's also so funny he has to steal jokes. A+

Oh good, another routine about your shit relationships. Don't men have anything better to talk about?

This one's such a pitiful attempt at comedy that even the guy filming can't force realistic-sounding laughter.

And then there's Carrot Top...the guy copying the watermelon guy and somehow managing to be even less funny.

I suppose the point I'm trying to make is, your anecdotal evidence that women aren't funny sucks. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that men aren't funny, and that is an equally stupid statement. What mystifies me is where you people decided that humor is innately connected to your sexual organs. Oh right, it was right around the point where sexism and the entertainment business intersect.

On friends and therapeutic activities

I usually find baking relaxing. Tonight I learned that the key to this relaxation is not to involve people who lack a proper appreciation of muffins.

Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.

Upon reviewing Christopher Nolan's 'Batman Begins', I believe I could overcome my natural aversion to comics in order to further immerse myself in this world. Of course I'd obviously prefer an animated series, and I do have a vague urge to track down a copy of 'Batman Beyond' somehow, but there's a first time for everything. I'm particularly fond of the villains; I'm almost convinced that the only reason Batman appeals to me at all is because of the recent shift toward the anti-hero, a role which Batman adapts to with minimum fuss.

At any rate, I think there's an unfair tendency to rag on the supervillainesses more than their male counterparts - oh, sure, The Joker, The Riddler, Scarecrow, Two Face, they're all fine, they're more or less substantial enemies, worthy of the (strangely square-jawed) Batman's attention, but Poison Ivy? Harmless, a tease. Catwoman? Isn't she practically Batman's girlfriend? Harley Quinn is passable based purely on excessive amounts of badassery, but she's still just the Joker's sidekick (and punching bag). I find it largely unjustified and distasteful.

Dr Pamela Isley is an eco-terrorist with a penchant for plant-based toxins and mind controlling pheromones, plus she has an immunity to all natural toxins and diseases. I'm sorry, but that is fundamentally pretty cool. On top of that, at least one of her storylines involved attempting to bring Gotham down via huge amounts of superpowered marijuana. So basically, you could think of Poison Ivy as the ultimate dealer.

Dr Harleen Quinzel (are you noticing a trend here? Higher education = villainy? Interesting) is a trained psychoanalyst and a talented gymnast with a whole lot of crazy packed in there to boot. Although she's possibly one of the worst role models for young women imaginable, they're both so batshit insane that no one could mistake her romance with the Joker for a 'healthy' relationship. Harley eventually gains immunity to toxins from her partner in crime, Poison Ivy.

Selina Kyle is the original feline fatale, a whip-wielding jewellery thief with a talent for breaking and entering. Catwoman has gone on to become one of Batman's most enduring love interests, and in recent times has been portrayed as more of an anti-hero than a supervillain. She has always been slightly different from other supervillains in the sense that she is not a killer. This isn't to say she doesn't have claws; she does, literally, razor-sharp retractable claws, along with an assortment of bullwhips and cat-o'-nine-tails, in addition to which she is an extremely skilled hand-to-hand combatant and a gymnast.

It's not that I don't think these characters have flaws, I just don't see why they're so easily dismissed in comparison to the male villains. I'm pretty sure they would turn out just as brilliantly as the already iconic portrayal of the Joker by Heath Ledger if Nolan would give them the chance.


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