From an email I just sent:
I've never thought lads who shout out the windows of moving cars to startle ladies were that swift, but the lad who shrieked at me from the passenger side of one of your vans on his way to X today at 14:10 struck me as particularly stupid.
I just thought I'd let you know what the public face of your business looks like today.
Sincerely, &c.
Update: Justice rolled. Two apologetic emails from the company, and then a phone call from a supervisor to say that he had carried out the investigation and impressed upon the lads, including the malefactor, how unacceptable such behaviour is.
And, also in the spirit of justice, I informed my husband of this excellent phone call because, as a matter of fact, that business does business with the Historical House.
The moral of the story is that it is worth calling thoughtless young men--or the people who employ them--to account, and if you do, women's lives might become a little better and the young men a little less...er...thoughtless.
Showing posts with label Auntie S Lays Down the Law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Auntie S Lays Down the Law. Show all posts
Thursday, 19 September 2013
Saturday, 20 July 2013
Clutching Your Handbag in an Elevator is Not a Hate Crime
I live in the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom used to be something like 99.99% people of English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish descent. Of course, over the centuries following the Norman Conquest (1066) sailors, soldiers, servants (or slaves), traders and refugees of other ethnic groups would either breeze through or settle, but that was in small numbers. About 40, 000 French Huguenots (Protestants) settled in the UK over a period of two hundred years. And the small, London-based community of Jews was so augmented by Central and Eastern European Jews over the nineteenth century that there were about 250,000 by 1900. That was a significant change from the 20-25,000 Jews in 1800, but this can be explained by massive persecution of European Jewry in the 19th century.
I mention this because when I wrote my "Living in the UK" test, the study guide was very keen that I think of the United Kingdom as a nation of immigrants (like me). But as a matter of fact, until the 20th century, people migrated to the UK in such small numbers, or over such a long period of time, that it was easy for them (or, at any rate, their UK-born children) to blend in and become English, Scottish, Welsh, or Irish.. Arguably it was tougher for the Jews, but many of them became absolutely establishment figures, some having become Christians (like Prime Minister Disraeli), but others not (like Lord Rothschild).
Still, there was a lot of anti-Jewish feeling in the UK even before more Central European Jewish refugees turned up in the 1930s, and I suspect this had as much to do with their comparatively large numbers as with plain old anti-Semitism. A good book about this is George Eliot's Daniel Deronda. Nowadays a London Jew is as English and as stereotypically "London" as the Tower or a pearly king strutting about. There are 263, 346 Jews listed on the 2011 census. (Gracious! What a small rise since 1900.)
In contrast, there are 1,200,000 Pakistanis in the UK today, and 521,000 Poles who were actually born in Poland. There were 15,000 Pakistanis in the UK in 1951, and about 162, 339 Poles. Many of these Poles had British-born children who are so indistinguishable from the rest of what is now called the "white British" population, that the claims of the Scot who yelled at me for speaking Polish that he had a Polish ancestor were not risible.
Ah, you had to have been there. There I was in the local polski sklep, flirting with the nice Polish shopkeeper behind the counter, and a young man who was rather drunk for that hour of the afternoon, popped in and shouted, "You're in Scotland--speak English!"
We turned and stared. I felt rather protective of the Polish shopkeeper, which was stupid, as the Polish shopkeeper was bigger than the drunken youth. Really, the person in most danger of violence from the drunken youth was little me if I talked back. So I didn't talk back. Instead the youth went on about how he was not racist, and had a Polish ancestor, and he eventually admitted he was drunk and took himself off. And, frankly, he seemed to me almost as much a victim of history as a modern-day Mohawk Indian sitting on the corner of Toronto's Bathurst and Queen Streets yelling at "white people."
Which brings me to my next point, which is that post-1950 mass migration has exacerbated old and invented new ethnic and racial tensions in the UK. Migrants come to the UK, and sometimes we are homesick or disillusioned, and sometimes we resent the native population, either because they resent us or because we find their social habits disgusting or amusingly stupid.* Rather in the way some horrible white men in western Canada have exploited and hurt First Nations girls, a newsworthy number of Pakistani and other Muslim men have exploited and hurt "white British" girls. Don't get me started on my inner ideological warfare whenever I look for a cab.
The UK is now in a rather US-like situation when it comes to race, only here "race" means "ethnicity" or even "country of origin" and if some drunken Scotswoman called me a "Canadian cow" I could conceivably report this to the police and they would have to take it seriously. If I ever shoot a German national, I may have to prove in court it was not because he was a German national.
Which brings me to the Zimmerman case, not that Zimmerman is a German national. First of all, he is an American, and second, he apparently self-identifies as Hispanic. His mother was born in Peru, and as far as I know what Peruvian looks like, George Zimmerman looks Peruvian to me. I bet he looks Peruvian to my average American reader because I lived in the USA and I think only apartheid-era South Africa could have been as obsessed with race as the USA. Of course, in Toronto, too, the worst thing you can call someone is a "racist." You can get a lot of power over someone if you can prove he or she is a "racist."
But this is not power like the power in your right arm or, to get to my central point, the right arm of a man who wants to hurt you or steal something from you. When I was in the Polish deli, I may have had a lot of "social privilege", being English-speaking, well-educated and even reasonably well-connected, but I was the weakest person there. The strongest person there, despite being a recent immigrant, was the big Polish shopkeeper. Had the drunken Scottish kid started smashing stuff or me, the Polish immigrant would have jumped over the counter and squashed him. So much for all my social privilege.
The President of the United States identifies as an African-American, and was televised last night speaking with sadness of how often people fear young African-American men. And I can see how this is sad. I would be sad if every time I got on an elevator and everyone smaller and/or weaker than me took a firmer hold of their purse. But it would be sad, not scary. It would not be a patch on the terror of a woman who is afraid, for whatever reason, that a man might hurt her or take her purse away.
In short, I say once again that, when it comes to the politics of victimhood, woman trumps race. Whatever you think of the George Zimmerman trial, I hope my young female readers have not imbibed a message that they must ignore their fears or remain in what seems to them a dangerous situation for fear of seeming racist or making President Obama sad. George Zimmerman is a man; what people have to say about him and what he did has nothing to do with your lives as women.
Men have a lot of physical power. Really, they do. And some of them--of any race or ethnicity--are perfectly willing to use it against you, and at the moment a man does, none of whatever "social privilege" you have will be of any use to you. What will count will be your ability to get away or, if you can, enlist the help of those around you.
*I have a serious problem with grown women being reeling drunk in public. Bridget Jones is not as funny now that I know what a British "High Street" is like at closing time. Being "off your face" is not Girl Power; it's Girl Vulnerability to men who despise Girl Drunkenness and take advantage of Girl Weakness. As an educated colonial woman, I know perfectly well that not all British women go out to clubs to pick up men or to get smashed. Nor do I think a promiscuous or a reeling drunk woman "deserves" ill-treatment (like rape). However, the minicabs and the chip shops of the UK are not staffed entirely with educated, colonial women who have had "No means No" drummed into their heads their whole lives.
I mention this because when I wrote my "Living in the UK" test, the study guide was very keen that I think of the United Kingdom as a nation of immigrants (like me). But as a matter of fact, until the 20th century, people migrated to the UK in such small numbers, or over such a long period of time, that it was easy for them (or, at any rate, their UK-born children) to blend in and become English, Scottish, Welsh, or Irish.. Arguably it was tougher for the Jews, but many of them became absolutely establishment figures, some having become Christians (like Prime Minister Disraeli), but others not (like Lord Rothschild).
Still, there was a lot of anti-Jewish feeling in the UK even before more Central European Jewish refugees turned up in the 1930s, and I suspect this had as much to do with their comparatively large numbers as with plain old anti-Semitism. A good book about this is George Eliot's Daniel Deronda. Nowadays a London Jew is as English and as stereotypically "London" as the Tower or a pearly king strutting about. There are 263, 346 Jews listed on the 2011 census. (Gracious! What a small rise since 1900.)
In contrast, there are 1,200,000 Pakistanis in the UK today, and 521,000 Poles who were actually born in Poland. There were 15,000 Pakistanis in the UK in 1951, and about 162, 339 Poles. Many of these Poles had British-born children who are so indistinguishable from the rest of what is now called the "white British" population, that the claims of the Scot who yelled at me for speaking Polish that he had a Polish ancestor were not risible.
Ah, you had to have been there. There I was in the local polski sklep, flirting with the nice Polish shopkeeper behind the counter, and a young man who was rather drunk for that hour of the afternoon, popped in and shouted, "You're in Scotland--speak English!"
We turned and stared. I felt rather protective of the Polish shopkeeper, which was stupid, as the Polish shopkeeper was bigger than the drunken youth. Really, the person in most danger of violence from the drunken youth was little me if I talked back. So I didn't talk back. Instead the youth went on about how he was not racist, and had a Polish ancestor, and he eventually admitted he was drunk and took himself off. And, frankly, he seemed to me almost as much a victim of history as a modern-day Mohawk Indian sitting on the corner of Toronto's Bathurst and Queen Streets yelling at "white people."
Which brings me to my next point, which is that post-1950 mass migration has exacerbated old and invented new ethnic and racial tensions in the UK. Migrants come to the UK, and sometimes we are homesick or disillusioned, and sometimes we resent the native population, either because they resent us or because we find their social habits disgusting or amusingly stupid.* Rather in the way some horrible white men in western Canada have exploited and hurt First Nations girls, a newsworthy number of Pakistani and other Muslim men have exploited and hurt "white British" girls. Don't get me started on my inner ideological warfare whenever I look for a cab.
The UK is now in a rather US-like situation when it comes to race, only here "race" means "ethnicity" or even "country of origin" and if some drunken Scotswoman called me a "Canadian cow" I could conceivably report this to the police and they would have to take it seriously. If I ever shoot a German national, I may have to prove in court it was not because he was a German national.
Which brings me to the Zimmerman case, not that Zimmerman is a German national. First of all, he is an American, and second, he apparently self-identifies as Hispanic. His mother was born in Peru, and as far as I know what Peruvian looks like, George Zimmerman looks Peruvian to me. I bet he looks Peruvian to my average American reader because I lived in the USA and I think only apartheid-era South Africa could have been as obsessed with race as the USA. Of course, in Toronto, too, the worst thing you can call someone is a "racist." You can get a lot of power over someone if you can prove he or she is a "racist."
But this is not power like the power in your right arm or, to get to my central point, the right arm of a man who wants to hurt you or steal something from you. When I was in the Polish deli, I may have had a lot of "social privilege", being English-speaking, well-educated and even reasonably well-connected, but I was the weakest person there. The strongest person there, despite being a recent immigrant, was the big Polish shopkeeper. Had the drunken Scottish kid started smashing stuff or me, the Polish immigrant would have jumped over the counter and squashed him. So much for all my social privilege.
The President of the United States identifies as an African-American, and was televised last night speaking with sadness of how often people fear young African-American men. And I can see how this is sad. I would be sad if every time I got on an elevator and everyone smaller and/or weaker than me took a firmer hold of their purse. But it would be sad, not scary. It would not be a patch on the terror of a woman who is afraid, for whatever reason, that a man might hurt her or take her purse away.
In short, I say once again that, when it comes to the politics of victimhood, woman trumps race. Whatever you think of the George Zimmerman trial, I hope my young female readers have not imbibed a message that they must ignore their fears or remain in what seems to them a dangerous situation for fear of seeming racist or making President Obama sad. George Zimmerman is a man; what people have to say about him and what he did has nothing to do with your lives as women.
Men have a lot of physical power. Really, they do. And some of them--of any race or ethnicity--are perfectly willing to use it against you, and at the moment a man does, none of whatever "social privilege" you have will be of any use to you. What will count will be your ability to get away or, if you can, enlist the help of those around you.
*I have a serious problem with grown women being reeling drunk in public. Bridget Jones is not as funny now that I know what a British "High Street" is like at closing time. Being "off your face" is not Girl Power; it's Girl Vulnerability to men who despise Girl Drunkenness and take advantage of Girl Weakness. As an educated colonial woman, I know perfectly well that not all British women go out to clubs to pick up men or to get smashed. Nor do I think a promiscuous or a reeling drunk woman "deserves" ill-treatment (like rape). However, the minicabs and the chip shops of the UK are not staffed entirely with educated, colonial women who have had "No means No" drummed into their heads their whole lives.
Friday, 10 May 2013
Gut versus Self-Doubt
I've been thinking a lot about my controversial advice to the nineteen year old reader whose first impulse, when approached for friendship by a stranger a few older than she when she was on a family outing, was to ask her father. She was embarrassed that she had done this--and perhaps that her father had given his opinion not only to her but to the stranger--and wondered what else she might have done.
I said she had done the right thing, and she could do it again in future. But this is not because I am a huge fan of the patriarchy. I do not think adult women should have to consult their fathers every time an adult man asks them on a date. It is because I think women should trust our gut instincts and not second-guess our snap decisions about men.
My usual example is the elevator. You are about to get on an almost-empty elevator. You see a man who instantly makes you feel uncomfortable. He looks at you. You look at him. And then either you get on or you let the elevator doors slide shut. I recommend you let the elevator doors slide shut. Who cares what he thinks? You should care what you think, and so should he, if he wants women not to avoid getting on an elevator with him. ("Wow! Maybe my four-hours-a-night internet porn habit is starting to show on my face!")
I've also been thinking a lot about the Cleveland kidnap victims. A lot. Maybe too much. It creeps me out that Gina DeJesus was the best friend of Ariel Castro's daughter Arlene. Did it ever occur to Gina that Arlene's dad was kind of creepy? And, when he offered her a ride, did she dismiss her feelings that he was kind of creepy by thinking, "Well, you know, he's Arlene's dad, and I don't want to be disrespectful"?
And I think this because once upon a time when I was a kid in Toronto, a bearded stranger in car stopped beside me and offered me a lift. Now, I had been brought up always to be polite to grown-ups, but also never EVER to get into a car with a stranger. So naturally I said, "No, thank you."
The next day at school, one of the boys in my class told me with disgust that his dad had mocked me at their dinner table. He had offered me a lift, and I had looked at him as if he were "some kind of pervert." In short, this boy tried to make me feel deeply ashamed, and no doubt he succeeded for, behold, I still remember this incident thirty years later. (Oh nooos! I had hurt the feelings of a Grown-Up I ought to have RESPECTED!)
But for all I know his dad was a pervert. Even if I had recognized him, even if I had remembered he was my classmate's father, that would have been absolutely no reason to trust him.
Sadly, we don't need external voices like my classmate's to make us feel dumb about snap decisions we make about our safety. Many of us have an internal voice that says, over and against our gut, "Oh, such-and-such, don't be so silly" or "Oh, such-and-such, how can you be so uncharitable?" I don't know where this voice comes from. It could be the result of an unfortunate psychic accident that occurred when we were four or five and our mothers lost their tempers. "Oh, such-and-such, don't be so SILLY," they said, having no idea this would stick in our heads on a repeating loop for years.
At any rate, this voice needs to be replaced and overcome by a trust in your gut, especially before you become the victim of your own wishful thinking.
As an adult woman, I went on a date with a guy who confused me. I had met him years before when I was a lot more confident about my importance in the world, and barely gave guys like him the time of day. However, I was going through a bad patch of "Why am I Single?" and "Wow, my male religious friends are so much more supported and confident in their futures than I am!" So I went on this date, and the guy behaved in a really weird way. He kept losing his train of thought, and telling me it was because of me. He said I was queenly and that I frightened him. It was kind of flattering but also kind of weird.
It was also kind of Game. The point of Game is to unsettle a woman so that she feels like she will go crazy if she doesn't figure out what is going on and therefore looks to the Gamer for the answer. And that sure worked on me. I sat by the phone for days (at least, I hope it was days), wondering how I had simultaneously attracted and frightened this guy. And why, since he said I had really knocked him for a loop, had he not called me? So, I am sorry to say, I called him.
And so began a particularly nasty relationship featuring a lot of screaming from him and a lot of frightened apology from me. My goodness, I would sit under the phone in the kitchen with tears streaming down my face while an impassioned voice shrieked dramatic and alliterative insults in my ear. What a contrast his screams were to his little gifts, his avowals of love, the candle-lit dinners, etc., etc.
At the time, I had not heard of Game, and indeed I did not find out about it until some time later, when I recognized some of the lines and techniques and the name of one of its local experts, once referenced by Mr Screamer in one of his abusive post-relationship pseudonymous communiques. But Game works on me, which is sad, but I am indeed one of those women who scrambles to make sense of the absurd. As I told my spiritual director, I am attracted to men who behave in crazy ways, and we came up with a deal that from then on that I was going to avoid men who act in crazy ways.
I'm not sure I lived up to that since, you know, I ended up with B.A. But, actually, I never got a "Well, THAT was weird" feeling from B.A. When B.A. proposed after ten days, it felt happy and hilarious (I giggled all the way through), but never crazy or weird. And since them B.A.'s impulsiveness has mostly manifests itself in unexpected funny remarks and puns. An inherently relaxed individual, having made a huge effort to get what he wants, he lapses back into cheerful plodding along. My gut always knew that B.A. was good.
I said she had done the right thing, and she could do it again in future. But this is not because I am a huge fan of the patriarchy. I do not think adult women should have to consult their fathers every time an adult man asks them on a date. It is because I think women should trust our gut instincts and not second-guess our snap decisions about men.
My usual example is the elevator. You are about to get on an almost-empty elevator. You see a man who instantly makes you feel uncomfortable. He looks at you. You look at him. And then either you get on or you let the elevator doors slide shut. I recommend you let the elevator doors slide shut. Who cares what he thinks? You should care what you think, and so should he, if he wants women not to avoid getting on an elevator with him. ("Wow! Maybe my four-hours-a-night internet porn habit is starting to show on my face!")
I've also been thinking a lot about the Cleveland kidnap victims. A lot. Maybe too much. It creeps me out that Gina DeJesus was the best friend of Ariel Castro's daughter Arlene. Did it ever occur to Gina that Arlene's dad was kind of creepy? And, when he offered her a ride, did she dismiss her feelings that he was kind of creepy by thinking, "Well, you know, he's Arlene's dad, and I don't want to be disrespectful"?
And I think this because once upon a time when I was a kid in Toronto, a bearded stranger in car stopped beside me and offered me a lift. Now, I had been brought up always to be polite to grown-ups, but also never EVER to get into a car with a stranger. So naturally I said, "No, thank you."
The next day at school, one of the boys in my class told me with disgust that his dad had mocked me at their dinner table. He had offered me a lift, and I had looked at him as if he were "some kind of pervert." In short, this boy tried to make me feel deeply ashamed, and no doubt he succeeded for, behold, I still remember this incident thirty years later. (Oh nooos! I had hurt the feelings of a Grown-Up I ought to have RESPECTED!)
But for all I know his dad was a pervert. Even if I had recognized him, even if I had remembered he was my classmate's father, that would have been absolutely no reason to trust him.
Sadly, we don't need external voices like my classmate's to make us feel dumb about snap decisions we make about our safety. Many of us have an internal voice that says, over and against our gut, "Oh, such-and-such, don't be so silly" or "Oh, such-and-such, how can you be so uncharitable?" I don't know where this voice comes from. It could be the result of an unfortunate psychic accident that occurred when we were four or five and our mothers lost their tempers. "Oh, such-and-such, don't be so SILLY," they said, having no idea this would stick in our heads on a repeating loop for years.
At any rate, this voice needs to be replaced and overcome by a trust in your gut, especially before you become the victim of your own wishful thinking.
As an adult woman, I went on a date with a guy who confused me. I had met him years before when I was a lot more confident about my importance in the world, and barely gave guys like him the time of day. However, I was going through a bad patch of "Why am I Single?" and "Wow, my male religious friends are so much more supported and confident in their futures than I am!" So I went on this date, and the guy behaved in a really weird way. He kept losing his train of thought, and telling me it was because of me. He said I was queenly and that I frightened him. It was kind of flattering but also kind of weird.
It was also kind of Game. The point of Game is to unsettle a woman so that she feels like she will go crazy if she doesn't figure out what is going on and therefore looks to the Gamer for the answer. And that sure worked on me. I sat by the phone for days (at least, I hope it was days), wondering how I had simultaneously attracted and frightened this guy. And why, since he said I had really knocked him for a loop, had he not called me? So, I am sorry to say, I called him.
And so began a particularly nasty relationship featuring a lot of screaming from him and a lot of frightened apology from me. My goodness, I would sit under the phone in the kitchen with tears streaming down my face while an impassioned voice shrieked dramatic and alliterative insults in my ear. What a contrast his screams were to his little gifts, his avowals of love, the candle-lit dinners, etc., etc.
At the time, I had not heard of Game, and indeed I did not find out about it until some time later, when I recognized some of the lines and techniques and the name of one of its local experts, once referenced by Mr Screamer in one of his abusive post-relationship pseudonymous communiques. But Game works on me, which is sad, but I am indeed one of those women who scrambles to make sense of the absurd. As I told my spiritual director, I am attracted to men who behave in crazy ways, and we came up with a deal that from then on that I was going to avoid men who act in crazy ways.
I'm not sure I lived up to that since, you know, I ended up with B.A. But, actually, I never got a "Well, THAT was weird" feeling from B.A. When B.A. proposed after ten days, it felt happy and hilarious (I giggled all the way through), but never crazy or weird. And since them B.A.'s impulsiveness has mostly manifests itself in unexpected funny remarks and puns. An inherently relaxed individual, having made a huge effort to get what he wants, he lapses back into cheerful plodding along. My gut always knew that B.A. was good.
Saturday, 2 March 2013
Another Glimpse into Hell
I want to get this over with as soon as possible. In short, a reader sent me a link into the black heart of the manosphere to read a post on seducing virgins. It was simply the most disgusting thing I have read for a very long time. It was like listening to the chuckling of demons.
My response was to thank God that, so far as I know, I know only decent men, good men who would never target, trick, hurt, exploit and discard young, inexperienced women and then brag about it online.
Your fellow reader thought someone should expose the tactics of these freaks, which work along the same lines as negging. Frankly, I don't even want to think about them, but I'll do it because it fills me with horror that such men exist and of course they get away with such things. One of the men in the combox claimed he was operating in Poland. He was amazed at how many 20 year old virgins there are in Poland. I hope he is caught by Polish guys and beaten within an inch of his life.
So here are the tactics. (I'm certainly not linking to the post!) By the way, I would like to remind you for about the twelfth time that you should not tell anyone except your mother, doctor, confessor (if necessary) and your fiance, if you have one, if you are a virgin or not. Do not bring it up in conversation with your female friends because there is a strong chance they will talk about it later, perhaps around male friends, who will tell their male friends...
The Demons' Tactics:
1. Express disappointment that the girl is a virgin. The freak author goes on and on to his victim about how he's only into "fun sex" and how sex with virgins is such a drag. (I assume this is to shock and confuse her if hitherto everyone has been telling her what a special thing virginity is. This is also to insult her and make her feel less valuable.)
2. Tease her about it. He says things like "How can you have lived twenty percent of your life without experiencing the greatest thing on earth?"
3. Tell her he would not want to have sex with a virgin. In a caring way, he tells his victims that they should find someone who will do it in a caring way. He simply doesn't want the responsibility, blah, blah, blah, blah.
4. Put up with the initial awkwardness and physical suffering of the girl as an investment in the (short-term) future. This was the most disgusting part, so be warned. In short, the demon disguised as a human being knows perfectly well that sex is a learned skill. It is not necessarily enjoyable the first time or the second. However, said the DDAHB, if you plan to keep the girl around for at least a month, after the boredom and the hassle of early sex you will be able to get her to do all kinds of sex acts that more experienced women wouldn't do because she is too inexperienced to know what is normal. She will be eager to please, etc., etc.
The reader sent me to this post because guys have tried these tactics on her, although at the time she did not know they were tactics. She says she would have been devastated if she had succumbed to them and read this post later, so I hope anyone who has succumbed to these things and is feeling wretched will now go and talk to a good friend or good priest about it.
The reader also wanted to know what I would say to this post, so here is what I have to say.
1. "Game" tactics work on some women and not on others, and this doesn't seem to have anything to do with how smart, educated, religious, high-earning, kindly or beautiful they are. Some women fall for them, and others do not. End of.
I believe they work because they are confusing. They mess with a woman's expectations so that her brain scurries around trying to sort everything out and putting everything back into order, as in Tetris. Lots of women got almost addicted to Tetris.
It is confusing and unsettling when a guy talks casually and flippantly about such a personal thing as a girl's virginity. It is confusing and unsettling when a guy says it is a bad thing a guy should run from, not a precious thing he (like Don Giovanni) covets or (like a man who loves you) honours. It is confusing and unsettling when a man tells you he's a bad guy, not a good guy, because would a really bad guy tell you that he was a bad guy?
Yes. A bad guy will tell you anything to get laid. ANYTHING. Anything they think will work, and thanks to Game and the internet, the kind of men who think women are living sex dolls share their miserable store of magic words.
3. And this is one of the reasons why I am adamant that teenagers and young women should not tell anyone other than your mothers, your doctors, your confessors (if necessary) and your fiances (should you have one) that you are still virgins. The subject should just not come up. Ever. If the subject does come up in casual conversation, you should consider keeping the guy who brought it up at arm's length.
I realize that by saying this I am standing up against a lot of professional chastity educators, purity rings, and the whole "I'm a Virgin and Proud" movement. Yes. I think they are moronic. If you put your head over a parapet, expect it to be shot at. It's okay one thing for married old toughies like me to be attacked; it's another for inexperienced, innocent and sweet teenage and twenty-something girls who just want to be loved. Old married ladies have a lot of armour; young Single girls, not so much.
4. You should also--this was mentioned at Seraphapalooza--keep away from occasions for sin. A cute funny guy whom you still like and think is cool and funny even after he has told you he would never have sex with a virgin because he prefers "fun sex" is a walking occasion for sin.
As we are all sexual beings, we all have to be humble. No matter how good and pure others tell us we are, we are all subject to sexual temptation, and the reason why we are not tempted, if we aren't, is not because we are all that and a bag of chips but because a serious occasion for sin hasn't arrived yet. So when one does, get out of there.
5. Meanwhile, don't chase men. Game tactics are all about a man chasing a woman while pretending not to, creating just enough interest so that the woman, craving his approval, will chase him. If you train yourself not to chase men, not to pick up the phone, not to send him the text, you will be safer from the tactics of the demons of the post I hope soon to expunge from my memory.
At theology school we were warned against seeing demons in human beings. However, community standards rule that I can't use bad language. And believe me, whoever the guys on that post are, Satan is definitely calling the shots in their lives.
Monday, 7 January 2013
1. Don't Anticipate, 2. Love and Do What You Will
Poppets, today I am so busy, I do not have time to answer letters--just to read them. I will get to them in a more leisurely hour. And I have only a few words to say here.
The first is "Don't Anticipate." I get so many emails about leading a guy on by going out with him, when the guy hasn't actually asked out the reader yet.
I wonder what it is that readers think they are leading a guy to? "So you want to have coffee sometime?" is never ever a marriage proposal. Nor is it a request that you become known as his girlfriend. Nor it it a suggestion you snog on the couch. Or worse. Unless the "sometime" is 1 AM after he has walked you home from wherever and baby, it's cold outside. In that case, inviting him up for a coffee may indeed be construed as leading him on, so don't.
The second is "Love, and Do What You Will." In this context, it means to respond to an invitation exactly according to your feelings, while keeping in mind the immediate (not future, not imaginary) feelings of the person across from you. So if you would like to have a coffee with a man and he asks you if you do, say "Yes, I would. When?" But if you would not like to have a coffee with a man and he asks you if you do, which is unlikely if you have been scowling at him, etc., say "No, thank you."
That's it. No excuse. No "I'm really busy right now" because men are so darned literal they might ask you when you will stop being busy. It really is not the end of his world if you do not want to have coffee with some guy. And it will not be the end of his world if you have coffee with him and then, if (IF) he asks if you'd like to go out for dinner, you truthfully say "No, thank you."
If pressed for a reason, I have it on the authority of the great living novelist Julian Barnes that men cannot argue with "It just doesn't feel right." This may be because men are a bit helpless before feelings. They love tough, hard things like opinions, which they can wrestle with. But they can't really argue with feelings, so there you go.
The first is "Don't Anticipate." I get so many emails about leading a guy on by going out with him, when the guy hasn't actually asked out the reader yet.
I wonder what it is that readers think they are leading a guy to? "So you want to have coffee sometime?" is never ever a marriage proposal. Nor is it a request that you become known as his girlfriend. Nor it it a suggestion you snog on the couch. Or worse. Unless the "sometime" is 1 AM after he has walked you home from wherever and baby, it's cold outside. In that case, inviting him up for a coffee may indeed be construed as leading him on, so don't.
The second is "Love, and Do What You Will." In this context, it means to respond to an invitation exactly according to your feelings, while keeping in mind the immediate (not future, not imaginary) feelings of the person across from you. So if you would like to have a coffee with a man and he asks you if you do, say "Yes, I would. When?" But if you would not like to have a coffee with a man and he asks you if you do, which is unlikely if you have been scowling at him, etc., say "No, thank you."
That's it. No excuse. No "I'm really busy right now" because men are so darned literal they might ask you when you will stop being busy. It really is not the end of his world if you do not want to have coffee with some guy. And it will not be the end of his world if you have coffee with him and then, if (IF) he asks if you'd like to go out for dinner, you truthfully say "No, thank you."
If pressed for a reason, I have it on the authority of the great living novelist Julian Barnes that men cannot argue with "It just doesn't feel right." This may be because men are a bit helpless before feelings. They love tough, hard things like opinions, which they can wrestle with. But they can't really argue with feelings, so there you go.
Wednesday, 24 October 2012
Seraphic Takes a Holiday
Well, my dears, I am going on holiday tomorrow. Benedict Ambrose and I are going to Poland, and I will not have any internet access. I'm going to rest my wrists and just enjoy life without pontificating or giving any advice, except perhaps on Saturday, when I appear at the Kraków bookfair and on Sunday, when I meet the Brave Women in Kraków.
So from Thursday to Monday, we will be in Kraków. From Monday to Tuesday night, we will be in Wrocław. Then on Wednesday we will go from Kraków to Częstochowa, where I will pray for you all, and on Thursday--All Saints' Day--B.A. and I will go with a friend to visit the graves of parents of John Paul II.
There is no Hallowe'en in Poland; the Poles find it shockingly unchristian, which I suppose it is. I never really thought about it before, since it always seemed to me so obviously secular and a harmless tribute to the Celtic heritage of so many Americans and Canadians, including me. At any rate, there are many important traditions in Poland around All Saints' and All Souls', and I am glad to have the opportunity to find out about them.
As usual before I get on a plane, I am thinking about my own death and what I would have to say for myself if death arrived mid-flight. Obviously I'm not going to share that with you, but as I ate my morning porridge, I wondered what I would want my last words to you to be. What would be the absolute best advice I could give to Single women, particularly the Single women who don't want to be Single?
And this may make you laugh, but what I thought was "Be clean and don't talk too much."
We live in public, and the number one law of life in public seems to be to present a pleasant appearance. And this does not mean looking like the next Cindy Crawford, but simply not looking or smelling dirty. I'm sorry if this seems so obvious, but it is so excruciating to discover that one has been unknowingly breaking this prime rule of social life, that if you have been, your friends are very unlikely to tell you. So always make sure you are scrubbed and maybe you should not wear that shirt for the third day in a row and maybe mouthwash is not an expensive frill.
Also, quit smoking if you can. Unless you are a non-smoker, you probably do not know how awful it is to be in a small enclosed space with an elderly lifelong smoker--unless it's your grandma. Somehow I never minded Grandma, and when I first smell cigarette smoke I always think of my grandma. Cooped up in a small car with an elderly man who is oozing tar from every pore, I think only of death and how sweet it might be and whether or not I will throw up before we reach our destination.
Younger smokers don't seem to present so much of a problem for me, but you never know about others. If you aren't ready to give up smoking, consider how best to eradicate the smell.
But however scrubbed and sweet-smelling you are, you will lose friends and not influence people if you talk non-stop. It is a sad fact of life that not everyone is as interested as you are in your life, your family and your interests. And, generally speaking, men are not as interested in some subjects that women find infinitely fascinating, like the feminist movement, natural family planning, child psychology and ballet.
I write as a reformed chatterbox myself. If I did not blog, I would probably talk as much as I blog now, and that would be disastrous to my social life. I love a good conversation as much as anyone, but I have discovered that less is more, unless I am deliberately trying to shut someone up. Occasionally I slip and deliver a monologue that is basically a verbal blogpost, but for the most part I try not to do that, because it is a terrible sin to bore people. If you bore someone enough, he will want to kill himself or you, and thus you are tempting him to indulge in sinful thoughts.
If you are worried, now, that you talk to much, go and ask your bluntest, most honest friend (the one who thinks telling white lies a confession-worthy sin, as did St. Augustine) if you do. If she says "Yes", that might be painful, but not as painful as having an older female friend, who desperately wants you to get married, shout "Let HIM talk!" when you tell her you have a coffee date.
There are many reasons why you might talk too much, if you do. There is nervousness, or discomfort with silence, or an unfortunate idea that men prefer child-like women who prattle like children, or that a man who does not interject his own thoughts is admiring your wit rather than planning his escape. Whatever it is, you might want to consider how to get over it. You might even want to (all together now!) talk to a therapist.
This is not a "Woman know your limits" type lecture. In my experience, men talk just as much as women do, if not more, when they are in company. There are studies showing that men in Britain talk more in groups than women do. B.A. certainly talks more than I do, and when he is not talking, he is singing or whistling or coughing or generally making a noise, unless he is reading, in which case a deathly silence must reign. And I have given enough dinner parties to marvel at much how much men can talk compared to supposedly chatty womenfolk. Fortunately, my loquacious guests are not usually boring; no one voice dominates.
And, as we say in Scotland, that's me. Have a lovely week, and if I am spared I'll be back in early November.
--Seraphic
So from Thursday to Monday, we will be in Kraków. From Monday to Tuesday night, we will be in Wrocław. Then on Wednesday we will go from Kraków to Częstochowa, where I will pray for you all, and on Thursday--All Saints' Day--B.A. and I will go with a friend to visit the graves of parents of John Paul II.
There is no Hallowe'en in Poland; the Poles find it shockingly unchristian, which I suppose it is. I never really thought about it before, since it always seemed to me so obviously secular and a harmless tribute to the Celtic heritage of so many Americans and Canadians, including me. At any rate, there are many important traditions in Poland around All Saints' and All Souls', and I am glad to have the opportunity to find out about them.
As usual before I get on a plane, I am thinking about my own death and what I would have to say for myself if death arrived mid-flight. Obviously I'm not going to share that with you, but as I ate my morning porridge, I wondered what I would want my last words to you to be. What would be the absolute best advice I could give to Single women, particularly the Single women who don't want to be Single?
And this may make you laugh, but what I thought was "Be clean and don't talk too much."
We live in public, and the number one law of life in public seems to be to present a pleasant appearance. And this does not mean looking like the next Cindy Crawford, but simply not looking or smelling dirty. I'm sorry if this seems so obvious, but it is so excruciating to discover that one has been unknowingly breaking this prime rule of social life, that if you have been, your friends are very unlikely to tell you. So always make sure you are scrubbed and maybe you should not wear that shirt for the third day in a row and maybe mouthwash is not an expensive frill.
Also, quit smoking if you can. Unless you are a non-smoker, you probably do not know how awful it is to be in a small enclosed space with an elderly lifelong smoker--unless it's your grandma. Somehow I never minded Grandma, and when I first smell cigarette smoke I always think of my grandma. Cooped up in a small car with an elderly man who is oozing tar from every pore, I think only of death and how sweet it might be and whether or not I will throw up before we reach our destination.
Younger smokers don't seem to present so much of a problem for me, but you never know about others. If you aren't ready to give up smoking, consider how best to eradicate the smell.
But however scrubbed and sweet-smelling you are, you will lose friends and not influence people if you talk non-stop. It is a sad fact of life that not everyone is as interested as you are in your life, your family and your interests. And, generally speaking, men are not as interested in some subjects that women find infinitely fascinating, like the feminist movement, natural family planning, child psychology and ballet.
I write as a reformed chatterbox myself. If I did not blog, I would probably talk as much as I blog now, and that would be disastrous to my social life. I love a good conversation as much as anyone, but I have discovered that less is more, unless I am deliberately trying to shut someone up. Occasionally I slip and deliver a monologue that is basically a verbal blogpost, but for the most part I try not to do that, because it is a terrible sin to bore people. If you bore someone enough, he will want to kill himself or you, and thus you are tempting him to indulge in sinful thoughts.
If you are worried, now, that you talk to much, go and ask your bluntest, most honest friend (the one who thinks telling white lies a confession-worthy sin, as did St. Augustine) if you do. If she says "Yes", that might be painful, but not as painful as having an older female friend, who desperately wants you to get married, shout "Let HIM talk!" when you tell her you have a coffee date.
There are many reasons why you might talk too much, if you do. There is nervousness, or discomfort with silence, or an unfortunate idea that men prefer child-like women who prattle like children, or that a man who does not interject his own thoughts is admiring your wit rather than planning his escape. Whatever it is, you might want to consider how to get over it. You might even want to (all together now!) talk to a therapist.
This is not a "Woman know your limits" type lecture. In my experience, men talk just as much as women do, if not more, when they are in company. There are studies showing that men in Britain talk more in groups than women do. B.A. certainly talks more than I do, and when he is not talking, he is singing or whistling or coughing or generally making a noise, unless he is reading, in which case a deathly silence must reign. And I have given enough dinner parties to marvel at much how much men can talk compared to supposedly chatty womenfolk. Fortunately, my loquacious guests are not usually boring; no one voice dominates.
And, as we say in Scotland, that's me. Have a lovely week, and if I am spared I'll be back in early November.
--Seraphic
Friday, 14 September 2012
I am not Elizabeth Bennett
And neither are you.
My mother read me most of Jane Austen's novels when I was growing up. It was an evening ritual. She would read, and I would rug-hook. The stories soaked into me, and when I went to university, I was delighted when an Austen novel appeared in a course. I took courses specifically on 18th century novels, so as to read what Austen read. The first draft of Pride and Prejudice was, in fact, written in 1797.
My love for the work of Jane Austen took a bruise from a chap who had decided that in some mystical way I was Elizabeth Bennett, and he was Mr Darcy, and my mother was Mrs Bennett, and my father was Mr Bennett. There was very little evidence for his decision, but that's what he thought. He wrote me rather eighteenth century letters exhorting me to live up to the Elizabeth Bennett standard.
There was something rather flattering, when I was 22, to be assured that I was all Austenian perfection when "so many other girls are sluts." Had I known then what I know now, I would have taken a student loan and finished my degree abroad. But I did not.
The funny thing is that I now live in the ruins of Jane Austen's world. This is to say, I live in a 17th-18th century home once owned by a baronet. One of my professors discoursed on the "ha-ha" Catherine Morland of Northanger Abbey might have fallen into. I can see our ha-ha (a trench that separates a cow pasture from one's manicured lawn) from the kitchen window.
Occasionally I even meet a baronet, although not often because there are not a lot of baronets in my social circle. One of life's little realities is that baronets tend to hang with other baronets, or at least with people as rich as, or richer than, they.
Austen was a realist who wrote with great wit and confidence about the society in which she lived. Her family was in--says wiki, and really this is the best way of putting it--"the lower ranks of the landed gentry."
It's always tricky being in the lower ranks of anything, if you ask me. You're perpetually worried about the easy slide down and longing for the tantalizing prizes just a rank up.
Not to be crass, but the family that owned this house was a rank or two up from Austen, and indeed I have checked with B.A. and by 1775 the heir was in the "Mr Darcy" class. A real-life Mrs Bennett would have indeed been pleased if her daughter could have married him, and a real-life Elizabeth Bennett, someone whose father was wealthy enough to run a country house with servants, would have felt comfortable here. (N.B. That heir's "Pemberley" is somewhere else; I write from one of the more minor properties.)
All this preamble is to impress upon you that I know what I am talking about when I tell you that I am not Elizabeth Bennett and neither are you.
And I think it important to say this because I have met both men and women who view life through the prism of Pride and Prejudice, and adjust their beliefs and behaviour accordingly. One woman misquoted to me one of Elizabeth Bennett's spirited remarks to Mr Darcy with such enthusiasm that I was seized by a fear that she had said it herself to some crush object or other.
Let's get this straight. We do not have much in common with Elizabeth Bennett. She did not have the vote. She could not get a job without losing her place in society (which means all of her friends). She automatically lost the right to own property when she married. She certainly did not go to university. She could not go for a morning jog. Her exercise was restricted to walking, dancing, horseback riding (sidesaddle) and, if the owner of the vehicle agreed, driving. She could not travel farther than the nearest town by herself.
If this sounds to you restful rather than restrictive, consider that if she had not married, upon her father's death Elizabeth would have had to become a governess or schoolteacher--from lady to upper servant or employee in one fell swoop. It is hard to express in contemporary terms how humiliating this would have been. Jane Eyre did not have Elizabeth's upbringing, and represents the horror of the third option: being completely dependent on wealthier relations.
Being female was a serious, serious handicap in 1800, and all that kept a woman from perpetual risk of sexual exploitation was her rank in the class system and the goodwill of the men around her.
(If you think the lovely manners the men of Austen's novels show the women were universal in Austen's day, you can think again. Working women were propositioned day and night, and prostitution was rife. Song-sellers stood in the city streets singing lewd songs. There were city guides to brothels. It was not considered a horrific scandal if a man of Austen's class had a child out of wedlock, as long as he paid something towards his/her support. The opposite, of course, was true of women of Austen's class. Dear heaven. And the politeness shown by "gentlemen" to "ladies" was as much about the ladies' gentlemen relations as about the ladies themselves.)
So when Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy confront each other, and when Elizabeth Bennett sends Mr Darcy packing, we have a situation in which an almost powerless person stands up to an almost omnipotent person and says, "Despite the vast disadvantages life has handed me, I know I am a human being worthy of your respect."
The social inequalities between the daughter of a rich man and a rich man have since been swept away. Look around and take note. It is true that some men still take sexual advantage of women and some are more ready to sexually insult women they think socially "beneath" them than of women they perceive to be "above" them. However, men simply do not have the social privileges over women they had in 1800.
I once witnessed a young Austen fan being coquettishly rude to a younger man. It was not pretty, and I suspect that she had picked up this technique from the works of Miss J.A.
To put the situation in context, the Austen fan had a university education, a career and a mortgage. The young man was still in university and, I'm guessing, dependent on his parents for food, etc. Physically he had the advantage as he could have, had he chosen, beaten her to death with a hardcover copy of Pride and Prejudice. But, otherwise, no.
And that is what Austen fans, and other fans of "spirited heroines" have got to get into their heads. Elizabeth Bennett cannot be our guide to life because she was not our equal. She was not our equal because she was not, in law, men's equal. She lived under social and legal restrictions few of us know anything about. And Mr Darcy had powers and privileges beyond most modern men's wildest fantasies.
Thus, if at parties we sound like spirited Elizabeth Bennetts, trying to get ordinary 21st century men to acknowledge an equality that they already know we possess, then we are only going to look and sound silly and rude. This will be especially true if we are richer and more glamorously employed than they.
The war for equality under the law and in polite society has been won. What we need now is a mop-up action against sexual assault, sexist rudeness and crudeness. And Elizabeth cannot be a guide to this either, for the crumb her society tossed her, as the daughter of landed gentry, was never having to deal with this stuff.
My mother read me most of Jane Austen's novels when I was growing up. It was an evening ritual. She would read, and I would rug-hook. The stories soaked into me, and when I went to university, I was delighted when an Austen novel appeared in a course. I took courses specifically on 18th century novels, so as to read what Austen read. The first draft of Pride and Prejudice was, in fact, written in 1797.
My love for the work of Jane Austen took a bruise from a chap who had decided that in some mystical way I was Elizabeth Bennett, and he was Mr Darcy, and my mother was Mrs Bennett, and my father was Mr Bennett. There was very little evidence for his decision, but that's what he thought. He wrote me rather eighteenth century letters exhorting me to live up to the Elizabeth Bennett standard.
There was something rather flattering, when I was 22, to be assured that I was all Austenian perfection when "so many other girls are sluts." Had I known then what I know now, I would have taken a student loan and finished my degree abroad. But I did not.
The funny thing is that I now live in the ruins of Jane Austen's world. This is to say, I live in a 17th-18th century home once owned by a baronet. One of my professors discoursed on the "ha-ha" Catherine Morland of Northanger Abbey might have fallen into. I can see our ha-ha (a trench that separates a cow pasture from one's manicured lawn) from the kitchen window.
Occasionally I even meet a baronet, although not often because there are not a lot of baronets in my social circle. One of life's little realities is that baronets tend to hang with other baronets, or at least with people as rich as, or richer than, they.
Austen was a realist who wrote with great wit and confidence about the society in which she lived. Her family was in--says wiki, and really this is the best way of putting it--"the lower ranks of the landed gentry."
It's always tricky being in the lower ranks of anything, if you ask me. You're perpetually worried about the easy slide down and longing for the tantalizing prizes just a rank up.
Not to be crass, but the family that owned this house was a rank or two up from Austen, and indeed I have checked with B.A. and by 1775 the heir was in the "Mr Darcy" class. A real-life Mrs Bennett would have indeed been pleased if her daughter could have married him, and a real-life Elizabeth Bennett, someone whose father was wealthy enough to run a country house with servants, would have felt comfortable here. (N.B. That heir's "Pemberley" is somewhere else; I write from one of the more minor properties.)
All this preamble is to impress upon you that I know what I am talking about when I tell you that I am not Elizabeth Bennett and neither are you.
And I think it important to say this because I have met both men and women who view life through the prism of Pride and Prejudice, and adjust their beliefs and behaviour accordingly. One woman misquoted to me one of Elizabeth Bennett's spirited remarks to Mr Darcy with such enthusiasm that I was seized by a fear that she had said it herself to some crush object or other.
Let's get this straight. We do not have much in common with Elizabeth Bennett. She did not have the vote. She could not get a job without losing her place in society (which means all of her friends). She automatically lost the right to own property when she married. She certainly did not go to university. She could not go for a morning jog. Her exercise was restricted to walking, dancing, horseback riding (sidesaddle) and, if the owner of the vehicle agreed, driving. She could not travel farther than the nearest town by herself.
If this sounds to you restful rather than restrictive, consider that if she had not married, upon her father's death Elizabeth would have had to become a governess or schoolteacher--from lady to upper servant or employee in one fell swoop. It is hard to express in contemporary terms how humiliating this would have been. Jane Eyre did not have Elizabeth's upbringing, and represents the horror of the third option: being completely dependent on wealthier relations.
Being female was a serious, serious handicap in 1800, and all that kept a woman from perpetual risk of sexual exploitation was her rank in the class system and the goodwill of the men around her.
(If you think the lovely manners the men of Austen's novels show the women were universal in Austen's day, you can think again. Working women were propositioned day and night, and prostitution was rife. Song-sellers stood in the city streets singing lewd songs. There were city guides to brothels. It was not considered a horrific scandal if a man of Austen's class had a child out of wedlock, as long as he paid something towards his/her support. The opposite, of course, was true of women of Austen's class. Dear heaven. And the politeness shown by "gentlemen" to "ladies" was as much about the ladies' gentlemen relations as about the ladies themselves.)
So when Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy confront each other, and when Elizabeth Bennett sends Mr Darcy packing, we have a situation in which an almost powerless person stands up to an almost omnipotent person and says, "Despite the vast disadvantages life has handed me, I know I am a human being worthy of your respect."
The social inequalities between the daughter of a rich man and a rich man have since been swept away. Look around and take note. It is true that some men still take sexual advantage of women and some are more ready to sexually insult women they think socially "beneath" them than of women they perceive to be "above" them. However, men simply do not have the social privileges over women they had in 1800.
I once witnessed a young Austen fan being coquettishly rude to a younger man. It was not pretty, and I suspect that she had picked up this technique from the works of Miss J.A.
To put the situation in context, the Austen fan had a university education, a career and a mortgage. The young man was still in university and, I'm guessing, dependent on his parents for food, etc. Physically he had the advantage as he could have, had he chosen, beaten her to death with a hardcover copy of Pride and Prejudice. But, otherwise, no.
And that is what Austen fans, and other fans of "spirited heroines" have got to get into their heads. Elizabeth Bennett cannot be our guide to life because she was not our equal. She was not our equal because she was not, in law, men's equal. She lived under social and legal restrictions few of us know anything about. And Mr Darcy had powers and privileges beyond most modern men's wildest fantasies.
Thus, if at parties we sound like spirited Elizabeth Bennetts, trying to get ordinary 21st century men to acknowledge an equality that they already know we possess, then we are only going to look and sound silly and rude. This will be especially true if we are richer and more glamorously employed than they.
The war for equality under the law and in polite society has been won. What we need now is a mop-up action against sexual assault, sexist rudeness and crudeness. And Elizabeth cannot be a guide to this either, for the crumb her society tossed her, as the daughter of landed gentry, was never having to deal with this stuff.
Saturday, 25 August 2012
Seraphic Also Trashes Teddies as Outerwear
Cherubs. Oh cherubs. Cherubs, cherubs, cherubs.
Cherubs.
I have seen the new worst look in Edinburgh. And that is saying something.
It is the translucent, silk/rayon playsuit, quite obviously worn with a thong and a dark bra. And with tennis shoes and socks.
I call it a playsuit because I don't think it is actually sold as a teddy (loose, one-piece undergarment perhaps better known in the UK as camiknickers) although that is what it looks like.
And that is what one of the waitresses in the cocktail bar I was in last night was wearing. She seemed absolutely oblivious to her bad taste. And although her hair was loose and flowing--not really a good idea in a restaurant--her make-up was tasteful and her tan natural. So what was going on in her head?
She did not look sexy. There's a lot of artifice in sexy. She looked natural, animal, like a squirrel or a Highland cow. She looked like she had just gotten out of bed, done her hair, put on her nice make-up and had absentmindedly put her sleepwear back on over her bra.
All the men around looked at her, of course. When she bent over a table the already short "shorts" part of her playsuit clung to her ample--not fat, but ample--womanly behind. Did I mention it was see-through?
Across my table my friend moaned something about these men underscoring her need to find a man who was really decent. I pointed out that I, no less than the men, was peering through this woman's outfit. As far as I could tell, we were all thinking the same thing, which was "Whoa. How totally inappropriate."
Another waitress was wearing the black-tights-tight-shorts look so prominent in Edinburgh right now, but she didn't give off the same air of loucheness. I think if there had been two waitresses in clinging, see-through playsuits, we would have left. The thought crossed my mind anyway. I, the customer, the semi-regular, felt that uncomfortable.
In contrast was a young woman diner dressed according to the height of fashion in 1941. I know it was 1941 because my friend asked her. This young woman had dark hair--possibly dyed darker than it naturally is--carefully rolled and pinned and adorned with pink flowers. She was wearing a brown dress that was obviously a very well preserved relic of the 1940s and beautiful 1940s-style shoes. She had exquisitely groomed 1940s eyebrows and bright red lipstick. She was slim and looked fantastic, if a tad startling. (She really could have walked in right out of 1941; there was the slightest whiff of the supernatural.) And I tried to imagine how the cocktail bar--which is itself a beautiful Art Nouveau space--would look if all the women dressed rather like her. It would have looked incredibly elegant.
This is the second time I have seen a vintage fanatic in Edinburgh, and I must say that I hope hers is a sub-culture that becomes a little less sub. If people can feel comfortable dressing as 19th century vampires, then certainly just as many can feel comfortable dressing as 1940s damsels. It is intensely superior to dressing as if you had been suddenly awakened from slumber.
To repeat my theme of midnight, what women read, buy and do matters to the culture around us. My CR detractor, a man, scolded me to "Trust women for a change." This suggests that he has some sort of Rousseauian ideal "Woman" in mind, and has not reflected that saying "Trust women for a change" is as nonsensical as saying "Trust men for a change."
There are over three billion women alive right now. We are a mix of good and bad, and what we do has no less of an impact on society--and sometimes more--than what men do.
Speaking of men, men who buy good old-fashioned hats should know that they should TAKE THEM OFF indoors. There were a surprising number of young men around with hats, but unfortunately they were on their heads. None of the Young Fogeys I know would make a slip like this.
What's that? No, darlings. I am not being judgmental of people. I am being judgmental of actions. My waitress seemed perfectly nice. I just wish she had been wearing clothing that didn't make me, the customer, the customer who has developed an attachment to that establishment, feel so uncomfortable.
Cherubs.
I have seen the new worst look in Edinburgh. And that is saying something.
It is the translucent, silk/rayon playsuit, quite obviously worn with a thong and a dark bra. And with tennis shoes and socks.
I call it a playsuit because I don't think it is actually sold as a teddy (loose, one-piece undergarment perhaps better known in the UK as camiknickers) although that is what it looks like.
And that is what one of the waitresses in the cocktail bar I was in last night was wearing. She seemed absolutely oblivious to her bad taste. And although her hair was loose and flowing--not really a good idea in a restaurant--her make-up was tasteful and her tan natural. So what was going on in her head?
She did not look sexy. There's a lot of artifice in sexy. She looked natural, animal, like a squirrel or a Highland cow. She looked like she had just gotten out of bed, done her hair, put on her nice make-up and had absentmindedly put her sleepwear back on over her bra.
All the men around looked at her, of course. When she bent over a table the already short "shorts" part of her playsuit clung to her ample--not fat, but ample--womanly behind. Did I mention it was see-through?
Across my table my friend moaned something about these men underscoring her need to find a man who was really decent. I pointed out that I, no less than the men, was peering through this woman's outfit. As far as I could tell, we were all thinking the same thing, which was "Whoa. How totally inappropriate."
Another waitress was wearing the black-tights-tight-shorts look so prominent in Edinburgh right now, but she didn't give off the same air of loucheness. I think if there had been two waitresses in clinging, see-through playsuits, we would have left. The thought crossed my mind anyway. I, the customer, the semi-regular, felt that uncomfortable.
In contrast was a young woman diner dressed according to the height of fashion in 1941. I know it was 1941 because my friend asked her. This young woman had dark hair--possibly dyed darker than it naturally is--carefully rolled and pinned and adorned with pink flowers. She was wearing a brown dress that was obviously a very well preserved relic of the 1940s and beautiful 1940s-style shoes. She had exquisitely groomed 1940s eyebrows and bright red lipstick. She was slim and looked fantastic, if a tad startling. (She really could have walked in right out of 1941; there was the slightest whiff of the supernatural.) And I tried to imagine how the cocktail bar--which is itself a beautiful Art Nouveau space--would look if all the women dressed rather like her. It would have looked incredibly elegant.
This is the second time I have seen a vintage fanatic in Edinburgh, and I must say that I hope hers is a sub-culture that becomes a little less sub. If people can feel comfortable dressing as 19th century vampires, then certainly just as many can feel comfortable dressing as 1940s damsels. It is intensely superior to dressing as if you had been suddenly awakened from slumber.
To repeat my theme of midnight, what women read, buy and do matters to the culture around us. My CR detractor, a man, scolded me to "Trust women for a change." This suggests that he has some sort of Rousseauian ideal "Woman" in mind, and has not reflected that saying "Trust women for a change" is as nonsensical as saying "Trust men for a change."
There are over three billion women alive right now. We are a mix of good and bad, and what we do has no less of an impact on society--and sometimes more--than what men do.
Speaking of men, men who buy good old-fashioned hats should know that they should TAKE THEM OFF indoors. There were a surprising number of young men around with hats, but unfortunately they were on their heads. None of the Young Fogeys I know would make a slip like this.
What's that? No, darlings. I am not being judgmental of people. I am being judgmental of actions. My waitress seemed perfectly nice. I just wish she had been wearing clothing that didn't make me, the customer, the customer who has developed an attachment to that establishment, feel so uncomfortable.
Seraphic Trashes P*rn
Here's my latest Toronto Catholic Register article. Note the two comments already posted by men who totally don't get it. I will recap in caps:
WHAT WE READ AND WHAT WE BUY MATTERS TO THE CULTURE AROUND US. WOMEN, TOO, ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE MORAL HEALTH OF WESTERN CULTURE. WHAT WE DO AND WHAT WE BUY AFFECTS OTHER PEOPLE, including children and men.
WHAT WE READ AND WHAT WE BUY MATTERS TO THE CULTURE AROUND US. WOMEN, TOO, ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE MORAL HEALTH OF WESTERN CULTURE. WHAT WE DO AND WHAT WE BUY AFFECTS OTHER PEOPLE, including children and men.
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