Oh Laurel

I have an illness, an illness I say! This androgyny obsession has gone too far. Want proof? Well, I'm watching The Incredible Adventures of Two Girls in Love, and I'm finding Laurel Holloman cute. Yeah? Told ya? Too far.

I don't know what else to say. You're right Fran, it's not a good movie, but it was cuter and more entertaining than I thought it would be. And yes, I am sort of ashamed to say that.




[Edit: Realized that it must seem as if I think Laurel Holloman is really ugly etc., that's not at all what I meant. I guess it's somewhat an inside joke, I just don't usually like her characters much, and people who know me know that her "2 girls in love"-character is not normally someone I'd find attractive.]

Strawberry Panic

I love subtext as much as the next sick-of-heteronormative-movies-y lesbian, I really do. But sometimes it's nice when something actually happens.

I'm not talking about nude sex scenes or even heavy make out sessions (though I guess I wouldn't complain about the last one), but at least crushes that aren't only subtext but actually outspoken? Kissing? I dunno maybe some romantic drama?

Yeah. I like Strawberry Panic. Mhm.

Lesbian paradise?

So I've started watching Strawberry Panic. And even though people have told me it sucks (*cough* mire *cough*), I am really starting to love it.

We've got three all girls boarding schools, where the girls from all three schools sleep in the same dorms. The characters aren't super original, neither are the storylines really, some relationships are kinda weird etc.

BUT.

There are only female characters in this show, they barely even ever mention boys and it's all about relationships/crushes/etc. What this leads to is that lesbianism becomes the norm. All the characters we meet have crushes on the other girls, and they don't even mention that it's girl/girl love and relationships.

Like I said, in this show and at these school lesbianism seems to be the norm (at least so far, I haven't seen the whole show). They don't even mention homosexuality – or heterosexuality for that matter – and we seem to be living in a world with only girls. Or, I suppose, a world without gender.

(I just wish Amane Ohtori would be promoted to a regular on the show...)

Hakura my love

I do love androgyny – right now more than ever. I've never had a very feminine body, but I've always looked/acted very "girly" and I really hate it. I should cut my hair but I dunno if it'd work. I should get taller and get muscles. Hm. Fuck.

I have a new major crush. Hakura aka Sailor Uranus. Seriously. And her and Michiru (Neptune), how cute aren't they as a couple? Seriously.

Hakura/Michiru - Androgyny - I'm not a fan of fan videos, especially ship ones, but hey

Faith – if you ever read this – isn't she the kind of girl you'd have a character crush on as well? Do you watch Sailor Moon?

What can I say, I want to watch Sailor Moon season 3 forever and all the time. Thank you Susanna and Jenni :)

The right and necessity to objectify

They might be oh so realistic, but I wouldn't miss the sexist remarks on women if they were removed. I love black comedy, especially of the high school kind. I love exaggeration and parody – to a certain extend. Both Mean Girls and the incredible TV show Popular do it, for example. And I love the extreme relationships between all the girls. I love the backstabbing, the bitching and the popularity wars – between the girls. I love everything but the obsession with looking supersexy for the guys.

What I especially don't love is the guys, and the constant commenting on the girls. Why do even female writers feel the need to add small sexist remarks the whole fucking time in TV shows? The She's a hottie-type of comments. The constant looks, them turning their heads, forgetting about everything but the oh so sexy girl for a few seconds. The turning men into fucking hormone monsters. Do all males on TV have to be testosterone OD-ing? How is it possible that that's accepted, and even the norm?

Sure, most TV-show chicks are oversexed, stereotypically perfect babes. Who wouldn't look? Right? No. Wrong. Female characters on film and TV have to be prettygirls. Prettygirls are supposed to be on TV for everyone to look at, sureness. That's not today's topic. That does also not make objectifying them a necessity. It does not make it funny, "normal" or alright.

It does not bother me – anymore cause hello product of oversexed pop culture society – that the super clever and brainy Veronica Mars is cute as a button. She has to be, it's TV. What bothers me is that every male character on the show who lays an eye on her – no matter how nice, cool, smart they are – look like they're getting an erection right there and then. Is that necessary?

Again. Girls on TV are generally pretty, those are "the rules", and that's a subject for another rant, one that I'll never write. But that does not make objectification funny, and what is both scary and frustrating to me is that we almost expect it. In our own lives we shudder and walk faster when we – once in a lifetime unless you look like those TV show girls – get those comments. But on TV we expect it 'cause they are the prettygirls. They are the babes. They are there to be looked at, and they deserve the objectification.

Sure. Do turn all male characters into animals who crave sex with everything they lay eyes on with a pair of boobs. And you wonder why I prefer shows and movies with only female characters? The idea of men – that both men and women have – that they can't control their thoughts and actions 'cause of their dick, is demeaning and insane. Hormones and prettygirls do not give men the right to be assholes.

TV shows are not usually feminist, and quite often sexist. But this is absurd. This is not entertaining or okay. So please please please, tell me, are the constant sexist remarks a necessity?

Not enough man loving, not enough man hating

Well. We all know that it's a problem when something happens to not at all be about men – or even for men really.

As lesbians who never reference their oppression or even their sexuality, Tegan and Sara don't have men to lash out at, put up with or gripe about. This may be why their uncommonly detailed love songs are so short on drama - a riddle worth pondering, because their keyboard-heavy, New Wave-ish music is also uncommonly catchy. When Sara changes up a chorus with a melodically climactic "But I promise this/I won't go my whole life/Telling you I don't need," or Tegan caps a verse with a hook that goes, "All I need to hear is that you're not mine," your musical impulse is to empathize, if not identify. But the objects of their romantic ambivalence remain distant - the focus is the singer's feelings, examined rather than indulged. Tune seekers will admire many of these songs - "The Con," "Nineteen," "Back in Your Head," "Like O, Like H." But that doesn't mean they'll fully connect with them.

Source: Rolling Stone

Viagra, my love

"[Viagra] doesn’t make men into good lovers. For many women, it has merely highlighted the incompetence of their lovers. More crucially, it has laid bare a female secret that many men never knew. Penetrative sex does not necessarily give women the best orgasms – and, depending on which study you read, anything from a third to 52% of women never have orgasms in this way."

How is it possible that it is 2007, and people have presumably had sex since like forever – don't ask me why – and they are only now starting to [officially] realise what women like when it comes to sex. Not to mention that they do, and that it isn't actually depending on a penis. (How many friends haven't asked me if I – being a lesbian – don't feel like there is something missing? "No, my friend", I tell them, "you just haven't realised yet that there is just something in the way.")

"We are realising there are important differences in sexual arousal and responsiveness between men and women, and considerable variation between individual women – more than there is in men – in their sexual responsiveness."

"The sexual-dysfunction industry [says that] there must be something wrong with the clitorises of these women. A recent paper in the US Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology described an earnest effort to investigate “pudendal nerve integrity” after discovering 48.2% of its sample had “desire disorder, arousal, orgasmic or pain disorders”. Not great if you are selling a drug that gives men urgent erections."

Only yesterday I was listening to the news on the radio, and there was a new report that many young women experience pain when having sex (I'm assuming they're talking about penetration here, but I obviously couldn't ask them – them being on the radio and all). Now, they think it might be their birth control pills 'causing it. Considering how many problems related to sex are connected to those pills – loss of sexual appetite (gotta love that phrase), pain, not being able to orgasm, hey the list goes on – you'd really think they'd come up with something better, no? Apparently not – it is still the birth control recommended to young women. But pain? Hello. This girl was talking about how it hurt every time for years and years – and no one asked her if she ever considered not having penetrative sex. (Sweetie, you know, he doesn't have to put it there if you don't like it.)

"Katherine Angel, a Cambridge philosopher researching cultural attitudes to sexual problems, thinks [most women are uninterested in penetrative sex], whatever their age. “Women are being told they must have a male attitude to sex. It is becoming procedural and technical, and if you are not having lots of penetrative sex and reaching a climax, you are dysfunctional. The majority of women fail to reach orgasm during penetrative sex, which must mean the majority of women have a disease. The drive to narrow the definition of what sex is about is very worrying.”"

Source: Link
(All quotes are from this article, but I didn't quote even a third of it, read on though, it's interesting.)

Melaka Fray

I have finally made the decision. I want two kids.

Today I got to open another piece of Bible.
    In the last few weeks, I have found my way back to God, so many times. Today was one of those times. God just melted my tired and fucking annoyed heart, and told me there is still goodness in the world. There is still awesomeness. And there is still geekiness.
    God – according to me and those I hold dearly – being Joss Whedon. Joss Whedon did of course write the Bible, aka Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the [insert something that accompanies the Bible, I'm not great with religious texts] that is Angel, and the... Well...

Seriously I could go on forever listing all the awesome things Joss Whedon has done for me – and well humanity – but I'm just gonna make things simple and link you here so you won't have to listen to me rambling on all day like the crazy fundamental religious person that I am. [That'll give you a general idea of his awesomeness.]

But Joss Whedon – aka God – also wrote Fray.

I read Fray once, and it was awesome, duh. I read Fray once and ever since I have been wanting to re-read it. I have been wanting to take, have – but being one of those who buy, I have failed failed failed cause of poorness.

So yeah this girl right, she said "hey let's get you a birthday present" and there was Fray. And here is me happy. Like finally. Or something slightly more awesome-sounding.

Right.


[As they always say...] Joss Whedon once wrote: My visions of the future are always pretty much the standard issue: The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and there are flying cars.

[Actually, I didn't have a point there, I just wanted to post that quote. 'Cause it's awesome.]



So yeah. I need two kids. I need a daughter called Melaka.

Kissing Jessica Stein - wtf?

Fuck. Around the wedding scene I was thinking the movie would be a little bit too sugar sweet if it ended right there right then. But hell I would have prefered that – cause fuck...!
    Ok, you know how on Amazon they have all these lists that members have made, with – for example – "my favourite musicals", "greatest TV series boxsets" and "looking for lesbian films to watch?". Yeah, there are quite many lists with lesbian movies, and there are a few movies that tend to show up on most of them. One of these – and one of the only ones I hadn't seen to this morning – is Kissing Jessica Stein.
    Now, I always expected this one to be rather corny – probably one of those movies where you sit through two hours of waiting for the two girls to kiss, and finally in the last scene, they do. That's what I expected, and I honestly didn't feel like Kissing Jessica Stein was a movie I had to see. Well, I expected wrong – and this I realised almost immediately as I started watching. The characters where a lot more interesting than I thought they would be – actually, Jessica herself reminded me a lot of a girl I dated for a few months a while back – and the story wasn't quite so much an i-love-you-but-i-don't-wan't-to-be-gay story as I had imagined.
    So, I was happy with what I found. Girl hasn't dated in a while, doesn't like the men she does date, meets girl, likes girl, is a bit awkward but hey it's all cute and it all goes relatively well. Pretty much all through the movie. Yayness – right? Personally, I didn't use to be into the whole sweet-love-story-with-a-happy-ending thing, I don't really see myself as that person – but to be honest, I completely adore movies like But I'm A Cheerleader and Imagine Me & You. I need those unrealistic tales to give me hope yet make me feel depressed and lonely – and I trusted Kissing Jessica Stein to do that same thing for me! But oh my Joss did it disappoint me.
    When I say disappoint, I am obviously not talking about the actual movie as much as the ending. Turning Jessica straight was a bad idea – bad bad bad. And the ending just didn't make sense – what were they trying to say with this? This certainly wasn't the simplest way to end the movie, so they must have had some kind of point in doing so. Not only does the couple we have wooted for the entire movie not end up together – but our main character falls for the man she has been not interested in for years and years and years? Uh uh, bad decision.
    Again, I would have prefered it if they ended it after Jessica's brother's wedding – when everything was almost annoyingly sweet – 'cause basically... this was no fun.
    Yes I am being childish, but I really expected this to be a silly lesbian happy ending story – that's what I wanted to see... Ah well, I guess I'll have to rewatch Imagine Me & You for the tenth time then. See ya babes. Mhm.

We just never stop being fucking hilarious, do we?

I just never stops being funny, does it? I could mention something about kindergarten-behaviour and childishness, but it's not even that simple. We're doing a film course, and I've got 20 year old boys – uh, yes boys – in my class who can't stop giggling over words like "homodiegetisk" and "analeptisk" (Swedish words, mind you, but you get the associations).
    I know what you're going to say – they're insecure about their all sexuality, right? But no, it's not even that simple. They keep making gay-related joke after gay-related joke, and can't stop associating every single word to gay things, making every sentence "homo erotic" – but they keep stressing the fact that there's nothing wrong with being gay, and they aren't afraid to act in a way they themself think seems gay. If they were acting in an at all homophobic way, I would be offended and confront them about it, but they're just being kids. Though I can't but wonder – when will they stop?
    It is all fun up until some point. Hey even I can laugh about that stuff – even I? It's not like what they're talking about has got anything to do with me, I'm not a gay man, and they hardly ever mention gay girls, guess that's a whole different thing for guys.
    Yeah, as I said, it's all fun – or at least ok – up until a point. Then it just stops being fun. Or so I thought – apparently they don't think so though. At some point it starts becoming lame, at another point it's just pointless, and then, at the third point, it's just annoying. Come one, is this what it's going to be like all year? 'Cause in the end, this will be too much, and I'll just have to decide on ignoring the whole bunch of guys all together.
    I guess my conclusion is that, even though my classmates are all nice, funny and "gayfriendly" people – and even though I certainly am no gay man and their words don't hurt me the least – it will always bother me when people I normally like turn gays into something to laugh at. It can be funny, sure, everything is at times – but when gay people and "the gay lifestyle" become the only things you actually laugh at...? Nah, it just ain't cool no more, sorry guys...