...I Don't Get It.

            Greetings, merry wanderers of the net. A strange sore throat, voice losing incident has taken me out of work early today, so I can finally write a damn blog post! Woohoo!

            …don’t think too much about that whole sore throat incident…it’s not what it sounds like…probably…what up!

            Working full time at Booky Wooks has made me do something I haven’t done at length since the Boyfriend and I moved to Columbus: interact with people. And being thrust into the public, in a retail facility especially, for eight hours a day gives me the opportunity to see the current obsessions and discussions of our time. And I have to say, there are some things that people today are guzzling down that I just don’t get. Some I despise and others just confound me. Once again calling upon my love for list making, here are some current obsessions/discussions/themes/ideas that are extremely popular right now that I simply don’t get.

This is right up on the list.

            You know what, I’m going to broaden this and just make it about things that are popular, period, that I don’t get, not just about the present, because there are some things out there that others love that I can’t comprehend.

            Alrighty, andiamo!

50 Shades of Grey: 

I hate...that...tie.

Not to jump out of the gate with something I despise…but fuck this simplistic, two-dimensional, discriminatory mommy porn horseshit. This series is terrible all around: Terrible story, terrible premise, terrible prose, terrible sex. Wait, no, not terrible sex, boring sex. Dumbass harlequin romance shit with constant simultaneous orgasms and zip ties (which, for the record, are unsafe for bondage play.) When asked and not at work, I’ve described 50 Shades as BDSM for vanilla housewives. This hot mess of a trilogy started out as Twilight fanfiction…yeah, I know, it all makes sense now, doesn’t it? I can’t fathom why this shit is so popular, except that Twilight helped lower the fucking bar for what many people consider a good read nowadays. Before this turns into a totally nonsensical rant, let me break down the problems I have with this series:

a.      The craft is horrendous. You can tell it started out as a fanfic. In the genre of fan fiction, there are gems…but you spend most of your time wading through sewage to find them, if you ever do. Any fourteen year old with dreams of Edward fingering her can post it online, and kudos for people flexing their writing muscles, as always, but it doesn’t always end well. “E.L James” is a terrible writer on a craft level. I know I’m arrogant about craft. In situations like this I always remind myself of Plankton screaming “I went to college!” in Spongebob Squarepants. No, you don’t have to be college educated to become a writer, you definitely don’t, just like you don’t have to be college educated to become an artist, an actor, a director, or anything else we have pointless degrees for (degrees are supposed to get you jobs, but with artistic degrees based largely on talent instead of, say, a tech degree, which are more learned skills…but that’s a rant for another day) but dammit, you should be able to construct a simple sentence or have the smidgeon of talent it takes to create a viable emotion in order to be a freaking writer. The protagonist (read: passive, two dimensional Bella bitch) in 50 Shades illustrates her own arousal by saying “Holy crap.” Or equally corny phrases rather than describing what it feels like to her. Right. This is shit I want to read.

b.     It makes extremely discriminatory assumptions about those who are into BDSM…namely, that you have to have had a fucked up childhood in order to be into anything other than dull vanilla sex. And as the rich, handsome billionare (come on!) love interest Mr. Grey falls more deeply for his naïve, innocent little bit of fluff and boobs, his “perverse” sexual desires start to disappear and he becomes more “normal.”

….......

fuck fuck fucking motherfucking fuck!

Are you fucking serious? Just like not every gay person was sexually molested as a child, not everyone who likes to be whipped or gets off on causing a little pain has a damaged past. Who are you, fucking Freud, thinking that every woman with any psychological symptom is suffering from hysteria and that masturbation is bad for your health? Jesus tap-dancing Christ!

To bring this to a calmer level: No, BDSM is not for everyone. But again, no, people into BDSM are not fucked up or damaged, just like gay people aren’t fucked up or damaged, and fuck this book for leaning on that stereotype.

For a less ranty consensus on that same subject in far more eloquent and informative terms, read this and this.

And at the risk of pushing this into TMI territory…squeamish friends and family members skip this now…I am a strong, independent, formidable (that’s right, dammit) woman who most definitely enjoys being dominated in bed. Another stereotype broken, fuck you Bella and Anastasia and all other passive bits of nothing like you.

c.      The series has a profound misunderstanding of the dynamic between dominants and submissives in relationships and the mechanics of BDSM. In other words, this was very obviously written by an individual who didn’t do her homework. She leans heavily on stereotypes, as I mentioned before, and she makes huge fact errors. For instance, the zip tie thing. Zip ties are terrible for bondage play because they’re extremely damaging. The only people who use zip ties are serial killers, rapists, *kidnappers, idiots, or newbies to bondage play who don’t know any better. Anyway, in short, this “writer” has broken a cardinal rule of writing: Write what you know. Or, as I like to call it, Research, Research, Research. 50 Shades is not about BDSM. It’s about what vanilla people think BDSM is. Kind of like the way slave owners thought black men were sexual maniacs. It’s a stereotype built on prejudice. Fuck E.L James.

Twilight: This series has been ranted about so often that I’m not going to get into it. Basically, what everyone else says, A. from my 50 Shades rant, and what it’s done to Vampires, a subject so near and dear to me that my first tattoo was dedicated to it.

Ohhh, if only.

The Lives of Actors: I seriously don’t understand people’s fascination with the personal lives of their favourite actors. I understand if they’re your favourite politician or leader in some other sense, but actors and maybe writers…I don’t give a shit so long as they keep making movies and characters I love. I won’t lie, there are some actors whose lives I’ve looked into a bit…Heath Ledger being one (duh), and Angelina Jolie being another…but those were for very specific reasons. With Heath Ledger, I wanted to know more about the man who died so suddenly, so young, leaving such a talented legacy behind. With Angelina Jolie, I don’t really consider her a fantastic actress…I mean, I’ll watch her movies, she’s good…but she’s probably the closest thing to a non-family-member mentor that I have. For me she’s like Lord Byron; her life is far more fascinating than her work.

            Hm…I think I just answered my own confusion here. I’m sure that’s about exactly what everyone else does, too.  But still…with actors like Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson, I don’t give a shit about their lives or beliefs. In fact, I don’t want to know, because I love their movies and I don’t need their unmedicated bipolar fits or anti-semitism ruining the fantastic image of Lestat or the storyline of The Patriot (oh, Christ, Heath Ledger dies in that movie…I’m going to cry…) I don’t give a shit if Daniel Ratcliffe fancies himself a sexaholic or if Sean Connery is a misogynist….just shut the fuck up and let me watch 007.

Shoes: Sorry, girls. I just don’t get the shoe obsession so many seem to have. They go on your feet. You walk in them. You find some appropriate for certain outfits. You might even get a pair just because you like them (oh, hi, Joker shoes in my closet!) But why do you have closets full of them, especially when they’re obscenely expensive? Jesus Christ, pay a bill instead. I’ll leave the shoe obsessing to my lovely friend GG.

Celebrities Who Have No Talent or Real Use in the World: The Kardashians. Snookie. Paris Hilton (though I loved her in Repo!) Why do we care? Get the fuck off magazine covers.

Complete with night vision camera, six hits of ecstasy and loseable cell phone!

Vegan Stuff: Vegan cookbooks sell like crack. I get it if you have dietary needs, but veganism is such a huge fad right now, and one that misunderstands the human diet. I don’t get it. Eat healthier, yeah, sure, but leaping to extremes is just…silly.

The Little Mermaid: Why, why, why, why is no one else annoyed by this movie? It is by far one of the worst Disney films on the planet in my opinion. Let me break down the plot for you, if I haven't already: Bratty little teenager has everything handed to her on a silver platter. She wants more. She gets it. The end. I HATE IT! There are three reasons to watch this movie: Sebastian, Ursula, and King Triton. If you cut Ariel and her princely plot devise out of it, you'd actually have a viable movie.

Men Falling Over the Little Girl Act

I'm with Robin on this one.

 I know it sounds strange coming from a girl with the Harley Quinn diamonds tattooed on her hip, but I can give you many reasons why Harley Quinn doesn’t fall into the “little girl” category…and then this post would be ninety pages long. But yeah, I don’t get it. At all. I was totally on board when they discussed this in How I Met Your Mother. I have a guy friend whose girlfriend talks and acts like a little girl to the point where it makes you sick. It’s so forced and it’s totally pathetic. I actually like my friend’s girlfriend when she gets drunk and drops that obnoxious baby voice and idiotic little girl mannerisms. She’s smart and fun to talk to. Why the act? Why does it turn men on? It makes no sense!

Manscaping: Along the exact same vein as the above. I don’t get manscaping. I mean, I love it and often insist upon it, but I don’t get it. This is one instance where I’m definitely drinking the Cool-Aid but I don’t really understand it. As human beings, we’re wired to be attracted to full grown men and women (er, most of us), and with our species, that includes body hair and beards. So why do we love hairless boy-like men? I’m legitimately asking this. This bitch loves a man in eyeliner. My biggest pseudo-celebrity crush wears full on makeup, so my tastes are obviously unconventional, but the manscaping trend persists in popular culture and I don’t know why.

Though I’m most definitely happy for it.

Trying to Sag Skinny Jeans like Gangsta-style:…I don’t really need to elaborate on this one, do I?

Honey Boo Boo and Child Beauty Pageants: I cannot fathom why this crap even exists, let alone having TV shows made about them and people watching those TV shows. Even if you watch them because you find them disgusting, you're still giving ratings to these idiots and this horrible exploitation shit continues because of it. What the hell...has TV really stooped so low that we're following an obese white trash family parade their obese white trash child around in beauty pageants while feeding her Red Bull and Mountain Dew? Jesus Christ.

            And that’s about all I can think of to rant about. I’m sure this might turn into a regular installment in this blog as things continue to confound me. But for now, my throat hurts, I have no voice, and I have work early in the morning. I need some serious tea.

            Good night all!

*Because my own project, Demetrius and Chloe, runs down a bit of the bondage vein, I will say this: Demetrius uses zip ties to hold his captives in the early stages of their training. Why? Because he fucking kidnapped them. Demetrius and Chloe isn’t about a boyfriend and girlfriend in a BDSM relationship where they care about one another. He is her fucking captor, she is his fucking prisoner. Then zip ties are appropriate. But not in 50 Shades, where everything is consensual. Rant over.