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| girls, i'd be doing the same shit if i'd had the facebook |
when frank bruni's latest new york times article 'the bleaker sex', http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/opinion/sunday/bruni-the-bleaker-sex.html was brought to my attention by morning joe early this am, i googlemarked bruni's article for a serious read later, but took a moment to peruse the first couple of paragraphs just to get the gist.
not a good idea if you are one trying to not judge. cuz i totally did.
i disliked the characters; i disliked whomever wrote such characters, and then i went to my chiropractor and forgot all about it til now.
so i read the entire article, and while i still have a bad taste in my mouth about the mini-carries, i absolutely adore the writer/director/actress, 25 year old lena dunham. she has got her status update shit together and knows her audience.
and i will recommit to my pursuit to not judge.
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| cath, you're okay; just try! love, dali |
straight up, i never liked 'sex and the city'. i was a stay-at-home mom that spent most of my day in the clothes i slept in the night before and wiping ass. i couldn't relate in any way whatsoever.
'sex and the city: the tween years' has as much chance with my clicker as those k people that can't keep up with a damned thing.
so back to bruni's 'bleaker sex'.
i looked up bleak because i was pretty certain there was nothing complimentary about it. and i was correct. not for nothin' but there's not one nice damned thing about it.
bleak is nothing but awful. and bleak.
look, i would feel bleak too if i watched young people i would inevitably equate with my own 20-something brood having mostly horrible sex. and ever since 'american pie' i wear earmuffs for young people having sex stuff.
but if, frank bruni, your column insinuates, "the zeitgeist-y, early-20s heroines of “Girls” engaging in, recoiling from, mulling and mourning sex..." makes girls bleak, what about the boys?
let's have a look:
a. boys engage in sex.
b. boys recoil almost immediately after sex, if not when they wake up.
c. girls mull because girls are thoughtful; boys brag because boys are braggarts.
d. girls mourn because "he didn't post a status update!" the next day, guys mourn because girls want them to.
girls are no more nor less bleak than boys have always been.
so there!
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| five sluts |
next, from bruni's article:
"Are young women who think that they should be more like men willing themselves into a casual attitude toward sex that’s an awkward emotional fit? Two movies released last year, “No Strings Attached” and “Friends With Benefits,” held that position, and Dunham subscribes to it as well. "
yes frank, it is an awkward fit and it doesn't work. both movies end with friend-sex turning into happily-ever-after-sex when both girl and boy fall in friend-sex-love. and while i have no personal experience, i have heard one bajillion times, "friends can't have sex and stay just friends" from a couple of friends that would know.
dunham of 'girls' sums this up best -“There’s a biological reason why women feel about sex the way they do and men feel about sex
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| the biological reason |
in 2012, girls are still sluts.
in 2012, boys still aren't.
what we are witnessing, is an earnest effort by girls to achieve the same sexual autonomy boys have always enjoyed.
every day i see girls emulating boys feigning sexual bravado by way of "oops i dropped this! lemme bend over and get it" boob shots and booty call status updates.
on the flip side, boys in public restaurants using their cell phones like grandma's photo album flipping through pics, taking "we were here at this place together" photos, and constantly checking to see who might have called.
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| boys like dirt, forts, and spiders; not status updates |
girls want control. i believe they would like to control the urge to pull their hair out whenever a guy doesn't call. or text, or update his status. i believe girls would like to have casual, random sex if they choose to and not be held to any higher standard than a guy. social networking gives the appearance this is all about sex. i'm not a fan of tit shots, especially when i knew you when you were a brownie, but i get it.
i am going to watch 'girls', http://www.hbo.com/girls/about/index.html only because i'm so impressed with lena dunham.
but bruni, bleak? pffft.
girls are sugar and spice and everything nice and there's not one bleak thing about that!
and young ladies, you do not take ownership of yourself when you share yourself with the world wide web.
be strong, be smart, be have. but especially, don't be boys.
love love.
update: bruni appeared this morning on msnbc's morning joe, amongst a round table that included 4 other men and mika b.- joes' valuable, eye rolling, professional op-ed reading female version of a sidekick. bruni regurgitated his times piece, which regurgitates some father goose fairy tale that what women really want is to grow a great big, old dick and be rid of men altogether.
maybe if you're author, maureen dowd, of 'are men really necessary?', a life without men works.
as a woman who would never think to ask that question a life without men would be sad.
they look good in baseball pants; kevin costner in, 'tin cup'; willing to work 80 freaking hours a week; have the penis; they father our daughters, and if you're lucky, give you good company as you make your way to dying.
i rather like them in general, and a few of them in particular, but i would never, ever wanna BE one of them.
nothing much was added to bruni's misconception that girls just wanna have fun and be boys. and mika sat on her hands the entire time because i am pretty sure she isn't getting any.
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| wouldn't touch that |
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