Curiouser and curiouser

The other day I was in a downtown Seattle coffee shop, waiting to meet up with a friend.  I went to put a lid on my drink, and I noticed a long legged couple with matching long black hair, skinny black jeans and leather jackets.  Then  I did a double take and realized that the woman was actually a mannequin precariously strapped to a wheeled carry-on, so it looked as though it was standing.  I suppressed my urge to gawk–oh, how I wanted to– and hurried back to my seat at the other end of the store.

Then!  The male half of the couple came over to me, leaned in, and asked, “do you mind if my WIFE and I sit next to you?”  He really emphasized “wife.”  And I said, no of course not, and then, wickedly, I began to move over to make room for his WIFE because he was standing behind the only seat on my left.  And he was like, “no, no! You don’t need to move over.  My wife sits here”–and he gestured to the empty space next to the stool–”and I sit here.  Just RELAX.”  So I did, and he brought the mannequin over and situated her on her carry-on, and then my friend came and I left.

Later, I told my dad, who said this guy is a regular fixture downtown and has been wheeling his wife around with him for years.

I don’t know anything about this man or his relation to the mannequin, except that he took great pains to make it look like him (while still being obviously female)  and that he was very intent on letting me know that he considered it his wife.  It reminded me a little bit of the Real Doll phenomenon, and also of Objectum Sexuals, both of which I find bizarrely fascinating.  Perhaps the mannequin is an amalgam of the two?

*Full disclosure:  I anthropomorphized the shit out of things when I was a very small child; I remember playing with lotion bottles and shoes and imagining them as people with families and genders.  But I was three.

**It’s interesting to me that one of the women in the objectum sexuals story said she always got a sense of an object’s gender.  I have mild synesthesia, both grapheme-color and number form, and I guess sensing the gender of an object doesn’t seem markedly different from knowing the color or personality of a number or a letter.

You know what really grinds my gears?

When I read a post on a feminist blog about sexism or masculinity or some such, and instead of having a discussion, a bunch of the commenters write REALLY LONG comments about how this  makes them so glad to have such awesome boyfriends!  My boyfriend thinks women’s bodies are beautiful, and he has never once called me fat!  Also, one time, he told me how turned off he was by the idea of non-consensual sex–I mean, really, he would NEVER rape anyone, for serious.   And he thinks fake boobs are ugly!  Isn’t that so amazing and feminist?!!!111!! I am just so lucky to be dating this gem!  What’s that?  You were talking about pervasive cultural sexism?  Sorry, I couldn’t hear you over the sound of my boyfriend not raping people!

It happens more often than you think.

Since today is my birthday

You will watch this video and like it!

 

Scientism and The Second Sex

I recently dug up my old copy of The Second Sex, and because I feel guilty for never having read it all the way through, I started reading at the beginning a few days ago.  I’m so glad I did; I’d forgotten what an amazing tour de force it is.  Not only is De Beauvoir obviously brilliant–she references everyone from Aristotle to Merleau-Ponty with ease–she’s able to lead the reader coherently through the disparate fields of biology, psychoanalysis, philosophy, and history without ever getting muddled or losing sight of her topic.  Of course, she’s not without philosophical biases, and some aspects of the book, particularly the sections dealing with female hysteria and mental illness, are dated.  Overall, though, it’s incomparably good.

I was really struck by the first chapter on biology.  It seems especially relevant now, when religious creation myths have largely been discarded in favor of evolutionary just-so stories that conveniently justify rigid gender roles in the name of science.  De Beauvoir has little patience for scientific reductionism.

Once we adopt the human perspective, interpreting the body on a basis of existence, biology becomes an abstract science; whenever the physiological fact (for instance, muscular inferiority) takes on meaning, this meaning is at once seen as dependent on a whole context; the “weakness” is revealed as such only in the light of the ends man proposes, the instruments he has available, and the laws he establishes.  If he does not wish to seize the world, then the idea of a grasp on things has no sense; when in this seizure the full employment of bodily power is not required, above the available minimum, then differences in strength are annulled; wherever violence is contrary to custom, muscular force cannot be a basis for domination.  In brief, the concept of weakness can be defined only with reference to existentialist, economic, and moral considerations.

The chapter on psychoanalysis articulates my problems with Freud better than I ever could:

Not being a philosopher, Freud has refused to justify his system philosophically; and his disciples maintain that on this account he is exempt from all metaphysical attack.  There are metaphysical assumptions behind all his dicta, however, and to use his language is to adopt a philosophy.

More to come as I continue reading!

Can I have David Brooks’ job, please?

It would be so easy!  First, I’d have to think of something happening right now that didn’t used to happen back in the old days when everyone was happy.  Texting!  That’s a good one.  So is decadence.  Then I’d have to wax nostalgic about a past that never really existed, like this:

Across the centuries the moral systems from medieval chivalry to Bruce Springsteen love anthems have worked the same basic way. They take immediate selfish interests and enmesh them within transcendent, spiritual meanings. Love becomes a holy cause, an act of self-sacrifice and selfless commitment.

Or this:

When economic values did erode, the ruling establishment tried to restore balance. After the Gilded Age, Theodore Roosevelt (who ventured west to counteract the softness of his upbringing) led a crackdown on financial self-indulgence. The Protestant establishment had many failings, but it was not decadent. The old WASPs were notoriously cheap, sent their children to Spartan boarding schools, and insisted on financial sobriety.

(Wait, did I just claim that the WASP ruling class practiced unerring self restraint in the same paragraph that I mentioned the Robber Barons? Whoops!)

Finally, I’d have to convince my audience that this Evil New Thing is destroying everything, and that the only way to stop it is to embrace amorphous ethical concepts with which no one actually disagrees.  Done.  Although sometimes it would be important to mention the importance of deregulation and smaller government.  I’d just sneak “low taxes” in between “self-restraint” and “America.”

Seriously, this dude is tiresome.

Shirley Jackson update

I found The Haunting of Hill House at the used book store this weekend.  Like everyone else, I’ve read The Lottery, and while I enjoyed it at the time I don’t remember being particularly affected by it.  Maybe I was too young.  Anyhow, I’m pleased to report that Hill House is utterly captivating.  At once lovely and terrifying, it is not only a good ghost story, it’s also a meditation on the darker aspects of female friendship, on loneliness, and on mental illness.  And the writing is wonderful, as evidenced by the opening paragraph:

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

Eleanor Vance, the main character, is one of those heartbroken spinster types (Agnes Moorehead, anyone?) who doesn’t know what to do with herself, her own adulthood, or other people.  She is, however, just young enough to be hopeful.

Don’t do it, Eleanor told the little girl; insist on your cup of stars; once they have trapped you into being like everyone else you will never see your cup of stars again; don’t do it; and the little girl glanced at her, and smiled a little subtle, dimpling, wholly comprehending smile, and shook her head stubbornly at the glass.  Brave girl, Eleanor thought; wise, brave girl.

Whether Eleanor herself is already trapped is, of course, a question you have to read the book to answer.  I’ll only add that it really is scary, and that it’s subtle and psychological in a way most supernatural horror stories are not.

I really need to track down the 1963 screen adaptation with Claire Bloom and Julie Harris.  (Hill House was also used as the loose basis for a 90s horror movie with Catherine Zeta Jones, which I have seen; it sucked.)  And then I want to read We Have Always Lived in the Castle, which is supposed to be excellent, and from what I gather, more psychological and less supernatural than Hill House.

But what is a “salty lady”?

The third stroke

I’ve been re-reading Dubliners, and it’s wonderful.  This time I find myself identifying very strongly with the characters, which is probably a sign of pathology since they are all paralyzed, angry drunks.  Oh, well.  After this, I will read Ulysses and perhaps blog about it.  And maybe I will blog about Dubliners, too, after I’ve thought about it some more.

Today I ordered the following used books:

Nicomachean Ethics,  because I’ve been craving Aristotle, and because I lost my old copy of The Basic Works. And by “lost,” I mean someone I didn’t know THREW AWAY a box of my books for no reason.  I am still angry about it.

On the Genealogy of Morals I haven’t read it, and I thought it would be interesting to compare to the Nicomachean Ethics.  Although I should probably re-read The Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals in between.  Going straight from Aristotle to Nietzsche might be too much of a mindfuck.

The Theory of the Leisure Class I am very excited to read this.  It is so timely!  Plus, I’ve wanted to read it forever, and now that I know things about economics it’ll be even better.

And just for fun, I might go to Half Price books and look for some Shirley Jackson novels.

On second thought, he probably just took his son to Hooter’s so he could blog about it.

Today my ex-boyfriend (who knows me well) sent me this little  gem of a blogpost.  It’s written by a guy–no, a dad–who got in some really precious father-son bonding time by taking his eleven year old to that exemplar of family-style chain restaurants, Hooters.  The post and its comments are chock-full of stupidity, and I have had a bad day and am not in the mood to take stupidity seriously.  So we’re going to play a game of, “re-write the stupid statements for comic effect.”  Ready?

I am sure that my children’s interest in all things sexual is stamped in their DNA somewhere and not subject to rise and fall based on how many boobs they see over a cheeseburger.

Sexuality is TOTALLY impervious to social conditioning.  That’s what DNA means.  Impervious to social conditioning. It’s also why I had to put my son in an artificial setting with hyper-sexualized women in order to help him understand how to be the right kind of guy.

In the end, I would rather my kids be exposed to such things and see their reaction rather than driving through McDonald’s for yet another Happy Meal in which nothing is gained but a 1,000 extra calories of processed food.

When my son was two, I was like, hey sweetie! come over here! daddy has a treat for you! And then I gave him a bottle with lemon juice in it, and he grimaced and spit it out, but you know what?  He could’ve been drinking canola oil, and that would’ve been worse because it would’ve made him fat.  No one has sex with fat people.

The trip to Hooters, I saw, as an opportunity to see how he conducts himself around women. If he drooled and couldn’t take his eyes of the waitress, then that would be an unmistakable cue to me to start preparing another birds and the bees talk.  If he acted embarrassed and shy, then that would be a sign that such a pointed talk could wait a bit.

The great thing about my son is that he would never be embarrassed and shy because he knew I was intently watching his reaction to a pair of DD boobs a foot away from his face.  He’s cool like that.

And from the comments:

Wow. I can’t believe how uptight some people are. Seriously, this is some Puritanical stuff going on right now.

Look, I don’t understand why you guys don’t get it.  It’s so simple.  There are two choices; you can either be a Hugh Hefner, or a Jim Bob Duggar.  Pick one. I personally chose Hugh Hefner because he has better hair.  Although Jim Bob does have a bigger harem.  I go back and forth.

And:

She’s [the Hooter's waitress] not being sexually molested. She’s not a stripper. No one is attacking her in way. . . I, personally, have been to a strip club with my father when I was 18. My dad is a great father and one hell of a person. He’s been married to my mom for 32 years and they’re still together. But you know what? He’s human! I know he looks at other women, because it’s only natural.

I can’t make fun of this one, because when I read it all I can think about is this Lifetime movie I saw years ago.  The protagonist was a prim, artsy girl, an aspiring actress, who got into stripping to pay for her acting classes because her super WASPy parents wanted her to be a lawyer and refused to help her out.  So she keeps it a secret and gets this cokehead roommate who steals all her money (natch) and then DIES when she has a botched breast implant operation.  (Way to show those hussies that get fake boobs, lifetime!)  And then one day her father and brother visit the strip club for kicks, and they see her stripping!  Yelling and tears ensue, and she ultimately goes home with them, but no one, not one person, asks why it was ok for her father and brother to go to the strip club, but not for her to be a stripper.

fuck this recession, item #3497

During my extensive study of pick-up artistry, I came to the conclusion that most guys who embrace its strategy do so in the following manner:

Lonely Dude: “Girls don’t like me! I haven’t had sex in never!”

Mystery/PUA artist: “Well, I just had sex fifteen minutes ago with an 8.9 I met in a bar.”

Dude: “What? How did you do that?”

PUA: “Easy! First, chicks like assholes, so you have to act like an asshole.  Also, you have to touch them in unexpected places at unexpected times.  Can you juggle scarves?”

Dude: “?????”

PUA: “Whatever, look, here are some pick-up lines.  Go to a bar tonight and use them on the ten most attractive women you see.  If they throw their drinks in your face, don’t worry, that’s just their bitch shields talking and they’re probably only 6s or 7s anyway.  Just go to another bar, and I guarantee you’ll find someone who’ll have sex with you.”*

See, it’s a numbers game.  If you go to a bar, chances are that it contains some people who are looking to have sex, and some of those people will be women.  And if you approach enough of those women at enough bars, chances are that at least one of them is going to be drunk enough and/or desperate enough for sex to overlook the fact that you sort of remind her of her abusive ex-boyfriend when you tell her that her nose is adorably crooked.  Or maybe she will be drawn to you because of your resemblance to said ex-boyfriend because she has issues.  Either way, it’s not about the seductive genius of PUA techniques, it’s about spreading your bait as far as it can go.

This, my friends, is how I feel when looking for jobs.  Sort of.  Actually, it’s even worse, because unlike the lonely guys, I am not particularly disadvantaged; I know how to write a good cover letter,  and I’m professional and smart and competent and all that, but I still know that it is almost wholly a game of chance, the odds of which are not in my favor.  And so there’s nothing to do expect keep trying.  Because it’s not about me.

*as for whether she’ll want to date you, well, that’s dubious.