Dear Chaps, syringe
It’s been a while since we’ve spoken. Come to that, gynecologist
it’s been a while since your trowel last tilled my lady-garden. But, discussion of my area, or “Ground Zero” as it is known to my therapist, is for another, more private time. For the moment, we’re going to talk about you.
More honestly, we’re going to talk about me; or, we’re going to talk about my gender as it relates to yours. No. Don’t worry. There will be no whiny “You Go Girl” drivel about A Woman’s Right to Shoes. I hate that shit.
In fact, there’s a lot of stuff about perky women that makes me long to grow a penis. I don’t like their fascination with handbags and cupcakes. I don’t like the way they keep scrapbooks. I don’t like it when they say “women are really good at multitasking” and demonstrate this through buying kitten-heels, scrapbooking and ramming cupcakes in their pie-holes all at once. I mean, if you’re so good at multitasking, stop buying things, shut the hell up and become an urban planner. Don’t waste your neurological gifts whining “blah blah blah women are so much smarter than men” but doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to bear this out in civic life. Our foremothers did not throw themselves in front of horses so you could buy the Gossip Girl boxed-set, you self-centred, over-spending bint. Shut up and measure housing density and re-route the traffic; I’ve had it with your moaning.
But, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
There is a critical thing you should know about women which is rarely discussed. To wit: they have an aching need to be told that they’re hideous. I know this seems odd. Given the dollars and energy women expend in bra and diet technology and the horseshit they produce like “All women want to be thought of as beautiful”, you might reasonably think that all women want to be thought of as beautiful. Not so. From about the age of fourteen, nearly all women will do whatever they can to get you to call them ugly or, even better, fat.
This strange feminie urge is universal and generally proceeds something like,
Helen: “What do you think of this new chemise?”
Man: “I want to fly my love-plane into Ground Zero this very minute! You look really hot and curvy! ”
Helen: “Are you calling me fat?”
Or,
Man: “Wow. Your arse looks great in those jeans.”
Helen: “Are you calling me fat?”
Or,
Man: “I believe public response to the proposed Carbon Tax has been negative and extreme.”
Helen: “Yes. Excise could be an effective way of cutting emissions and showing leadership in the region.”
Man: “Moderate reform for middle-income earners is good, too.”
Helen: “Are you calling me fat?”
Are you calling me fat? I have absolutely no advice in addressing this question; particularly given that I have asked it myself many times. You could, of course, try saying, “no, no, no my darling. You are so svelte of silhouette and lissom of limb as to make Katy Perry appear portly. If we painted you Mission Brown, you could be mistaken for a paling. Darling, you could use dental floss to wipe your tiny butt.” Yes, you could.
Or, you could help put an end to all of this coddling and call our bluff. I mean, if somebody wants to engage in self-destructive behaviour, there’s not a thing you can do about it. It’s certainly not your job to make people feel crappy about themselves, but nor is it your job to fix their crazy shit.
There is a lesson I learnt when I was a resident of Kings Cross, Sydney. Every day on Ward Avenue, a bloke called Spoons asked me for money for “food”. I gave it to him, chiefly because his name was so inspired. But, when I’d got to around the thousand dollar mark, I’d had jack of it. One day, Spoons offered the usual, “Can I have some money for food, sister?” and it struck me that I could say, “You can have some money. But only if you promise to spend it on heroin.” He never asked again and I was free to use my spare change to buy cupcakes and scrapbooking materials.
My point is, the drama of nearly being called fat is a kind of illicit drug to women. Actually daring your boyfriend to call you less-than-Angelina has all the thrill of smack. So, cut off the supply NOW. If, when asked, more men said, “Yes. I am calling you fat”, then perhaps more women would acknowledge how pig-bonkingly stupid the question is, stop asking it and get on with something important. Like urban planning.
It may help you to know that many women have violent conflict with their looks. And they are not at all content to keep this war civil; they’re looking to fight on other fronts. From the interior, soldiers of self-loathing march toward you, the unwilling ally, with the battle-cry ““Are you calling me fat?”. There’s no winning, so don’t fight. Gentlemen, lay down your arms and practice nonviolent resistance. It worked for Gandhi.
Chicks. When it comes to their bodies, they’re certifiable.
Having said this, I don’t have much truck with this “Battle of the Sexes” crap; it’s a boring stoush that belongs on breakfast radio. Instead of focusing on our differences, we should be focusing on (a) urban planning and (b) interesting things to do with our genitals.
Are you calling me fat?
Regards,
Helen
This was written for the dapper chaps at FHM Magazine
4 thoughts on “So Hot Right Now”
In recent comedic seasons, the gifted humorist Daniel Kitson has elected to replace actual jokes with the sort of quirky reminiscence that would make John Irving call for restraint. Once, he spoke with incandescent wit about all he saw wrong in the world. Now, he sits next to bits of obsolete technology in a cardigan and talks about “ordinary lives”.
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My criticisms of your media preferences are tedious and petty, but it doesn’t hide the fact that Wes Anderson is fun. I respect your cynicism in opposition, forril (Wes Anderson, while maintaining his artistic integrity IMO, has since appealed to the masses). This assumption comes having never even heard of Kitson (which the internet tells me I can’t even blame on being a 90’s child), but it makes sense to me that fame and wealth would relieve me the societal and personal pressures of moving out of my parents house and finding a box somewhere that I may freely write my whimsical fairy-tales without a higher education telling me how they’re supposed to be structured (fuck you, Carleton University. 1000 hours at minimum wage that I’ll never get back; 1000 more hours spent spending said cash on ‘class’). Thus eliminating the anger at the world – or belittling it. It did, after all, give him a TV show.
What has apparently been apparent in my second nitpick of your opinion which is somewhat but in no way related to the topic at hand (my first being some shpeil I wrote you one morning earlier this week about how Ashton Kutcher wasn’t half bad and also something about me sucking dick), is my overwhelming desire to do nothing but consume and create media. It’s all I’m fucking on about.
Because nothing irritates me more than pseudo-intellectuals winning accolades that I rightly deserve (I don’t, yet). Not to mention there are 1000’s of ideas which interest me and have been done poorly, however they remain in the museum of copyright which demands I not touch for artistic merit but am encouraged to visit the ‘fan-fiction’ Gifte Shoppe.
Short-story-shorter: creating meaning that IS meaning (i.e. derived from the real) is not limited to those that do it first rather than those that are willing to write from the heart(/brain). Making up meaning to be relevant is about as good as me thinking up a good gimmick for a story – without something to tie that art to you and me it’s a fucking sculpture.
Unless, of course, you fancy the emporer’s new robe. /howifeelabout”””independantfilms””
*shrug* did I even come close to understanding it? Why did I even try? I clicked on one of your articles and now I’m kind of in love with a woman 5 years younger than my mom.
Not to say you have a stalker on your hands (fat chance if you’re hoping, Canadian means I’m both geographically and ethnically incapable of doing such a deed) but I’ll buy whatever shit you wanna sell. Because whoa is me, heartbreak and the pursuit of happiness is sold out.
But fuck sympathy, I just wanna tell you I’m appreciative for someone gallantly calling out stupidity without a (absurd) regard for the emotion of the individual.
#3cents #everydaysexism
I saw YMEWK when it was released and I liked some scenes for their “awkwardness”. Gotta give her points for trying to do something a bit different. I remember thinking, at the time, this is going to earn less money than the Choc Tops sold during one session of Spiderman.
I had to Wiki this July person (is it possible to be too hip to notice things that are hip???).
Anyway, I saw this quote in Wiki-land which made me think that perhaps a cupcake might be more substantial (but I am in a rather bad mood today). 2007 interview with Bust magazine re her feminism: “What’s confusing about [being a feminist]? It’s just being pro-your ability to do what you need to do. It doesn’t mean you don’t love your boyfriend or whatever…When I say ‘feminist’, I mean that in the most complex, interesting, exciting way!”
Whimsical indeed. Ms Greer has found her successor.
*applauds*