Women ain’t funny, even if they make you laugh

June 18, 2009 at 6:41 pm (Society, love & relationships, politics, sexuality)
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Christopher Hitchens is a writer I really respect and even, dare I say, love. He has no fear of getting right up your nose and twitching the short & straighties. He’ll even give a yank, hold up one of those snotty pieces of dead keratin, and say, look at what came out of you! Tsk tsk.

I won’t say I always agree with him, because I don’t, but we generally find ourselves on the same side of the primordial fence. Slightly left of center, slightly more on the side of the little guy, slightly mistrustful of authority, and more than slightly pissed off at the way that power not only corrupts but that that corruption is apparently the only thing that follows the supposed law of trickle-down economics.

But, man oh man, Chris-baby. On this point you are so wrong, and I don’t even know how to begin.

A progressive in many ways, Hitchens seems determined that, in the field of sexual politics, we are incapable of behaving in anything but the most stereotypical and base ways.

Take a look at this Vanity Fair article from 2007, in which he propounds his theory that men are funny because they are supposed to impress women, and women aren’t because we were merely put on this earth to laugh at men’s jokes.

It would be laughable, except I don’t want to encourage him in thinking I find HIM funny…

The corollary to this intellectually insulting supposition is that women appeal to men enough just by our existence, and therefore need do nothing more than be objects to get a man.

Can I stop right here; are you laughing enough?

I won’t just trot out a list of very funny women in the entertainment biz (or for that matter in my own life). That kind of argument is the easiest to counter. What, for example, if he has never found Megan Mullally the least bit amusing, or figures that Sandra Bullock is a comic actress and not a comedian, so it doesn’t really count?

Hitchens, who has a well-deserved rep for seeing through the bullshit to what’s really going on seems to, when it comes to women at least, see only what he wants to.

For example, when he is forced to admit that women have been successful in comedy or comic writings (and no journalist can really dismiss Dorothy Parker as unfunny, or else burn in a special hell fired by Press Club brandy), he is quick to state that it’s no wonder some women are celebrated as wits: after all, men are stupid and will laugh at anything.

What a fine double-edged sword. If they make us laugh, it is a triumph, because we are coldly intelligent and look down our fine long noses at the ape-like man who must impress us with his humor because we are not naturally inclined to sexuality otherwise. And if we make them laugh, it’s because they can’t tell a pun from a fart-joke, and find both equally amusing, and by the way, do that think where the milk comes out your nose again.

Maybe Hitchens is not so far off his view of man as dumb ape?

Maybe Hitchens not so far off in view of man as dumb ape?

Underlying it all seems to be the premise that Hitchens just thinks humor is unladylike, while laughing politely is not.

Hitchens nails the seedy core of his own argument when he states that “…Precisely because humor is a sign of intelligence (and many women believe, or were taught by their mothers, that they become threatening to men if they appear too bright), it could be that in some way men do not want women to be funny. They want them as an audience, not as rivals.”

He goes on to talk about the “huge, brimming reservoir of male unease, which it would be too easy for women to exploit.”

Well, duh. Chris, baby. What you’re really saying is that you’re not ready for the same kind of exploitation used ON you that has typically been the province of people LIKE you.

Welcome to an egalitarian world.

I thought this was what you wanted, a world in which Western values of freedom and democracy could apply to everyone, where religious pluralism and universal emancipation as envisioned by Thomas Jefferson could be a global phenomena.

Or do you share Jefferson’s opinion that husband, hearth and children was a woman’s natural lot, and we should leave the big stuff to the men?

The men, who in your estimation, are less intelligent, unable to overcome either their prejudices or their sexual urges?

Damn, it’s enough to make a girl lose her sense of humor altogether. And then where will you be, Chris?

LINKS

WILDsound Film Festival

jen frankel dot com

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Beauty Tips for Real Women

October 30, 2008 at 1:40 am (love & relationships, politics, sexuality)
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What happened to the idea that dressing up is fun?

I’m calling for a full-out revolt here, against the revolting brainwashing that has made so many otherwise sane women believe that clothes, shoes, makeup, jewellery, and handbags are anywhere on the list of the important things in life.

Please, god, there must be a place in this world for people who don’t need a hour of lead-time to leave the house, who don’t rate their success as an attractive human being on the evenness of their skin-tone, who don’t spend more on footwear than on promoting their own career.

I remember my first makeup kit, a Christmas present received as a miniature rug-rat with a definite yen for getting got-up as something else. My dad’s only caveat was that I was not allowed to wear the stuff out of the house. I can still remember the horror dropping down on my over-made face as I realized I’d run out into the street after the ice cream man.

Ah, the good old days!

Now, it’s painful to imagine the number of hours persons of my gender spend prepping like a chef before the dinner rush: wash, tone, moisturize, foundation, eyes, cheeks, lips… Not to mention the money.

Not to mention the underlying thesis, that there is something wrong with us that requires all the resources of the cosmetics industry to solve. And even then, it’s clearly framed as a losing battle.

Well, I say, screw it all. Not the hair and makeup and fun clothes. But the attached concept that dress-up is anything more than fun, that should go down in a bonfire of night creams and hair gel and tweezers and diet pills.

Put your looks before your insides, and you’re asking for more than trouble and less than a worthwhile life. It’s time to get a little perspective on vanity, because while yes, being overweight can cause you health problems, it won’t kill you.

The sad part is that we’ve come to believe that being anything other than a perfectly polished and turned-out 10 means that we are failures. We are unlovable and in all probability worthless.

I can’t say I’m even particularly impressed with the Dove “Campaign for Real Beauty,” although it’s a teeny step in the right direction. Really, how seriously can you take a self-esteem campaign launched by the very guys who’ve been selling you the shit for years? It’s like a drug lord spouting, “Just say no!”

There’s nothing stopping you from flipping off the fear-merchants who need you to obsess about what’s wrong with you to make their cash. What you need to do is look in the mirror and say, what do I want to look like, today and now, not “what’s intrinsically wrong with my appearance that I may be able to minimize with the latest beauty product?”

So join me in a little bit of social disobedience. Dress for yourself, not to be loved or lusted after, not to be admired or bitched about by the girl who didn’t get the latest Gucci whatever. Dress up, dress down. Go out without a scrap of makeup because you can’t be bothered. Laugh at anyone who suggests that your uneven skin tone is going to cost you any potential happiness that otherwise might have entered your life.

Who knows? Maybe you can take the time you’d have spent shopping and primping, and get to know something more substantial about yourself.

Of course, maybe you think I’m some kind of weirdo, like the chick who ridiculed me for not knowing what kind of handbag she was carrying. I have to admit to being rather disinterested in most things commercial, including any product name emerging from the mouths of Sex and the City women with the possible exception of “Stoli.”

Maybe you think I’m just being a bitch to suggest that your wardrobe does not in fact make a big impact on the world, and contribute vastly to your self-esteem.

So be it. I’m not out to demean what you love. All I want to do is give you a bit of perspective on two things: what the time you spend working on your looks might say about you, and what you might otherwise be able to accomplish in that time.

And put the primping in its proper place – make it fun and flirty, and an expression of your mood and yourself, instead of a societal imperative. And have a LOT of fun this Halloween!

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

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Two Minutes on a Hot Stove

July 14, 2008 at 11:03 pm (love & relationships, sexuality)
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Came across an unlikely Einstein quote the other day:

“When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it seems like two hours that’s relativity.” — Albert Einstein

Now, that’s pithy.

Lately, though, I can’t help wishing for the hot stove.

I’ve waded back a bit into the world of “getting to know members of the opposite sex while single,” and I must admit, it’s about as depressing an exercise as ever.

In the almost three years since I was single the last time, I’d say I’m a good deal more confident and less prone to depression. I’ve developed the most important relationship of my life with my former boyfriend, now my solid business partner. I am learning to be a little more sensitive to myself, and treat myself with more gentleness than I did a few years back.

None of that changes the fact that what’s going on around me seems to be basically the same shit, different year.

Men and women are not as different from each other as we’d like to believe. That’s a theory of mine – by which I mean a solid, demonstrable idea based on a lengthy investigation and dependent on a large number of unique facts which, although each of them may or may not be true, lead to a general preponderance of evidence that has a good chance of being the way things really are.

Which, I mean to say, is something I’ve come to believe through experience and investigation.

Men and women both feel insecure around people they’re attracted to. Hell, we tend to feel insecure around people we aren’t attracted to who we fear may be attracted to us.

We worry about the fragile nature of our natures, our tender feelings, our desires. Life is one big, constantly looping replay of the song “I Want You To Want Me.”

But we like to pretend we’re different, because it reduces the possibility that we’ll have to genuinely get and empathize with someone we want something from. That “something” could be unconditional love and understanding, or it could be “stay the hell away.” But if we start off with the theory that true communication between the sexes is impossible, we take away any thought that the responsibility for communication problems is actually our fault.

Take a recent case.

I’ve been flirting on Facebook. Yes, I know. Yes, I know. Yeah, I get that too.

So, I managed one face-to-face, un-Facebook meeting in the midst of a slew of chat. Two phone calls. More chat.

At some point, I realized that I liked the guy, but that I had no idea AT ALL about whether or not I could get along with him.

Eventually, it was pretty clear that assumptions was all we had. Without really meeting, we were both safe – safe from any kind of vulnerability at least. But we could only rely on what I call the “low denominator facts,” the pretense that we can almost guess what a member of the opposite sex is thinking or will do based solely on stereotypes.

Besides the fact that this is monumentally insulting for anyone who considers his- or herself an individual, it totally defeats the purpose of getting to know a person. If I can predict he’ll do “guy-things” when I do “girl-things,” it ain’t a relationship, it’s a sitcom.

All I ask anytime is to be treated like a person. If you get to know me and discover I’m a walking, breathing Barbie doll, then for sure treat me like plastic. Otherwise, keep your damn assumptions to yourself.

We’re at our worst when we lock ourselves into those narrow camps of “man” and “woman.” There’s a huge richness of experience and connection available that has nothing to do with gender – although it’s nice when it has something to do with sex…

And, to paraphrase Einstein, sometimes a guy is like two minutes on a hot stove.

Some new stuff to check out on my site:

  • Night Music - a short story with guns, unrequited love, and jazz.
  • Boxer (“Pride”) - acrylic painting

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    The Third Sex – none at all?

    June 9, 2007 at 3:36 am (love & relationships, sexuality)

    Once, I lived across the hall from a really interesting guy. He was a Deadhead, and loved music and cooking, and had a really cool cat. I knew he liked me, and I was flattered.

    The thing I wasn’t was turned on. I enjoyed being his neighbour, but otherwise, I was just little me at nearly eighteen, out on my own and virginal. I didn’t want to explore sex, not now, not with him. Not that I didn’t think he was attractive and fabulous. I just didn’t feel it.

    So when he invited me over to dinner, I carefully stuck my fingers into the noodles and ate with my hands, as messily as possible, trying to gross him out so sex would just vanish from the items on the table. It worked. . . I didn’t end up sleeping with him until a couple of years later when the stakes seemed very much reduced by my greater experience.

    At the time, though, sex was the last thing I wanted, and I would have done almost anything not to have to even deal with a proposition.

    I’m loathe to admit it, but that wasn’t the only time in my life I thought that asexual reproduction might just be a good idea. I figure no matter how oversexed a person might be, there are always going to be advances that are just unwelcome. Sexuality isn’t an absolute — you can be very sexual and still have lots of triggers for both turn ons and turn offs.

    But there are times when I fall out of sexuality altogether. Not lately, I admit, but sex is really a lot like coffee. I don’t remember what I drank throughout the day before coffee, and I don’t remember life before the advent of my own sexuality.

    What thoughts like that really lead me toward is the realization of how much of a spectrum sexual feelings actually are. We kind of want to slip every sexual thought into a neat box — gay, straight — but when desire can ebb and flow between those particular boxes, who’s to say that a little variation isn’t normal within them as well?

    Another reason sex is like coffee, I guess. Some people need it, and others enjoy it, but don’t absolutely need it to function.

    And, I guess, some people don’t touch the stuff.The Last Rite Read the rest of this entry »

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