A huge problem with being sexyfun as this great blog post calls it is that when they branch out beyond their right to be conventionally attractive, and sexually performative, they are going to get the same push back that the rest of us get. It's easy for patriarchal and so called liberal men to be supportive of their feminism when it's about laying back and getting a hummer, but when they hear demands for them to provide childcare, support poor women or hold other men accountable, they may not push back by calling our sexyfun pals hairy(although I think it's silly to base your feminism around fear of being called hairy. Most people in this world are 'hairy' by our beauty standards. Basically, they call us hairy or frigid or whatever not because we are those things, but because we'll shut up and run around trying to prove we're cute and sexually fun if they call us that), but they'll be considered shrill harpies as much as the nonsexyfun.

And contrasting oneself as not like those bad other women who refuse or are unable to take part in the patriarchal sexuality games doesn't seem to be very effective or very feminist, so watch it,folks!

Well, I'm glad the pendulum is starting to swing back. Years after Seligman's insights, while correct and helpful in their way, were watered down into a list of 'shoulds' about how we 'should' feel, and how we are doomed, doomed, doomed, if we're unhappy. My moods, like many people's, are not completely under my conscious control, and I do resent being morally judged for it.

I don't think people are just trying to score points. People are truly hurt by our words and by being overlooked. No one's hands are clean, but I think the wounds are real. I'm reading Lost Christianities, and these bruising arguments, these virulent debates on what real Christianity is, went on for centuries, and in fact, are still going on today. I'm not saying feminism is a religion- what I'm saying is that forming an ideology is a painful, emotionally heated thing. We can't all fall in line. Our pains and our qualms, they are real. They aren't just 'scoring points'.

I learned that people who aren't cheery optimists aren't just thought criminals, we're emotional criminals as well, thanks to this super useful Oprah magazine article.


This is too stupid to parse every single dumb fuck paragraph, but suffice it to say that normal behavior such as wanting emotional support from your sister or having a bad day and snapping at someone is converted into a sign of emotional depravity. If your mom makes a comment about you having to work harder for success- it's a dagger. If your sister is sad and wants support, she's a cannibal. A lady made fun of your speech? She is just like a rapist. (BTW: it's not normal to check your husbands emails. Like wtf?)

Really, I'm going to have to quote the whole damn thing:

. Dementors
The woman who publicly shamed Pamela after her speech was the most destructive kind of emotional mugger, the equivalent of a rapist: someone who gets off on causing pain. In Harry Potter's world, such beings are called dementors. They are endlessly unhappy, addicted to the sense of control they get from violating others. They don't care whom they hurt, as long as they hurt someone.

Emo-Do Defense: If someone attacks with no provocation and seems intent on inflicting maximum harm, you may be dealing with a truly disturbed person. First, eat some chocolate (any Harry Potter fan can tell you that). Then distance yourself in any way you can. This wasn't a problem for Pamela—she was easily able to avoid her attacker—but may be daunting if you've got a dementor in the family or at work. If you can't remove yourself from the relationship, at least keep your emotional distance. Don't trust a dementor with your private thoughts.

Staying away from dementors allows them to socially self-destruct—and they always do. Though onlookers may at first be too horror-stricken to come to your rescue, most people are appalled by dementors' behavior. This is why cruel conversationalists ultimately end up friendless, and—on a much larger scale—why evils like prejudice and discrimination have slowly but surely become less acceptable in almost every human society.


She just doesn't think Pamela's speech is stupid and has a rude way of expressing it- she's endlessly unhappy and addicted to control! That's a lot to read into one instance of dickish behavior. I also like the demonization of unhappiness- people aren't rude because they are rude, they are UNHAPPY- HOW AWFUL.


And of course, how this lady is encouraging people to treat their families. She encourages people to blow off their sisters who are in trouble, and ignore their mom's sensible(although oh noes pessimistic- you know that pessimism is the biggest thought crime!) advice by blowing it off as well. When these self centered happy faces get into real problems and someone blows them off, they'll whine about 'emotional mugging' but who is going to be there to support them?

The self centered emphasis on keeping in a good mood is silly. Oftentimes, life isn't about putting on a happy face. It's about connecting to others even if they are having a hard time. It's about accepting criticism, even if it's rude. It's about accepting that things may be harder than you thought. It may even involve respecting your husband's privacy. By focusing on keeping in a good mood, we can never truly grow up, and learn to work with people as they are and the world as it is.

I want to laugh at this writer's naive faith in marriage. If only those girls got married, and adhered to my personal mortality... he doesn't exactly tell us what would happen. Would these unfinished boys magically become good fathers or would they still hand their children back to their mothers with cuts on their heads? Would the mothers end up not working nights somehow if they were married?

And I'm not seeing how shame would help at all. Maybe it would make us feel good about ourselves; we're such big and wise adults that we made teenage girls feel bad about themselves. A great feat that only maybe a zit or some brat at their school could do. Yea, that'll show them for having the sex! Oh, you say that shame would keep them from getting pregnant? Shame's not birth control. In fact, it can impede it if you're so ashamed for having sex without marriage that you don't take proper precautions thinking "Oh, we won't go all the way. I'm a good girl." or "I'm a slut anyway for having sex the first time. It's not like I can say no when Sleazy McSleaze wants it again". Shame can cut our teenage girl away from good options from reaching out to trusted adults if say, her sleazy boyfriend is making her uncomfortable and poking holes in the condoms or even from getting a ride someplace where she can get the condoms and the birth control.

And marriage? It's not fricking fucking magic. If we all married the first person we boinked, I get the feeling that the children wouldn't see much benefit after the eventual divorce. Instead of wanking off to fantasies of shaming teenagers into virginity, maybe a little birth control, real sex ed and support for mothers would go a long way? Nah! Better make them write essays! That's real helpful,man.

I just get the feeling that it's not possible to have a company made completely of top performers. People's performance also shifts from day to day, week to week, year to year. We all say we want only the top people, but I wonder if it might be more effective to rely on a deep bench of people who are average instead of using up the 9s and 10s until they are 1s and 2s.

It also seems like a big waste of people to constantly fire everyone, make their lives hell....

I admit that I like memoirs of ordinary undistinguished lives. Reading them I feel part of a sisterhood of plain janes. Some have been addicts, and I sympathize with their horrors, some are ordinarily quirky people, and I laugh with their foibles. Yes, the latest "I had a life that was filled with interesting horrors/ amusing detours" book may not shake civilization to its core, but that's not what I read them for. OK, I admit it- to me, they are the written equivalent of television. I read, I'm briefly entertained and I move on.

Not every book has to be a deathless literary feat.

This article about being an escort is interesting. Whenever a woman is seen trying to achieve something, there always seems to be an added question- is she fuckable? It seems half the criticism of feminists is that we don't try hard enough to be fuckable, since you know, that's what we should worry about most.

People who say that if you have time to complain, you have time to change things are idiots. Why? It took me 20 seconds to type the first sentence of the post. Now, if I was to tackle a common problem- 'losing ten pounds' or 'being more organized', at least a week would be required. Losing ten pounds would require planning out exercise- "should I wake up at 5:30 to run three miles?", a meal plan (which includes figuring out what exactly is healthy), and then actually doing the cooking and running. This is hours of effort. And of course, this is not easy either- there will be times where I eat tons of delicious foods, and times in which I sleep in. So losing ten pounds may in fact take months, or even a year.

I get the feeling that people who say things like this just don't think about what they are saying, but they should. When people say things like that, they make light of change, which is brutally hard work.