How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Porn (And My Own Body)

By vanessa | Published: January 27, 2012

The first time I watched porn I was twelve. It was a grainy video of some German couples in lingerie and during the extended closeups of their genitalia I remember thinking it looked like lunch meat. Being twelve years old I did not masturbate during the videos, I had no fucking idea how. Instead I ate a sandwich, squinted, and felt incredibly confused. Was this ‘sexy’? What was ‘sexy’? When I finished the sandwich I turned the video off and did some homework. Life immediately went back to normal.

As the internet took off porn stopped being about videos found in salubrious locations, and suddenly was being shot at me from every angle. Even on dial up I can remember surreptitiously clicking onto porn sites, peeking at pixelated boobs, and then shutting down the window and deleting my computer’s history in a fit of terror.

Obviously, being female I had both a whole host of body and eating issues as a teenager. Convinced my body was repulsive I found it hard to believe anyone could ever fancy me. How could they? The girls that you fancied didn’t have thighs that touched, they didn’t have frizzy hair, or spots, or pale skin, and they certainly didn’t have small boobs. Every time I watched TV, read a magazine, or passed an advert in the street these skinny silky haired tan girls grinned at me with their pneumatic perky boobs and perennially sunny nature. One afternoon in a fit of tearful depression I took a marker pen and drew balaclavas on everyone in Just 17. Even then their lithe limbs jangled at me. Fuckers.

While the bodies I saw in magazines were uniformly oppressive the ones I saw in porn weren’t. There were of course legions of women with breasts bigger than my head, held up by hope and complicated feats of engineering, but they were flanked by women skinny snake like women with S-bend curves in their backs, middle aged women with crepe like lips, and chubbier girls who wobbled all over to everyone on screen’s delight.

The mainstream media was telling me, constantly, that the key to being loved, to having any value at all, was by being thin. Not healthy, not fit: thin. And that only by being thin could I maybe be considered as being pretty, and therefore have any worth to any society. However of course I couldn’t have any worth if I was slut. How dare I enjoy sex? How dare I enjoy kinky sex? Ew. Ew. Ew. Shut your legs and eat a rice cracker already.

While porn is fraught with problems, problems so enormous it would take legislation, a lot of therapy, and some frank and honest sex ed classes to solve, not just a simple blog post, it is not the body fascist hell hole that it is assumed to be. If you want to see women with shaved heads, pear shaped hips, who aren’t a size zero (whatever that means anymore…), that aren’t white, and dudes who not only want to eat you out but also care about your feelings, then seriously: try porn.

Finding Alexis Texas*, who’s measurements differ from mine by barely an inch in places, made me realise that the body I have can be seen as beautiful. That having a big arse doesn’t mean I need to dress to hide my ‘faults’, as so many women’s magazines had told me, but that this wiggly jiggly thing was capable of being beautiful, adored, and obsessed over. And while I don’t want to refer to myself as Buttwoman and become the sum of my parts, there is nothing wrong with wearing a tight skirt and shaking my hips every now and then.

 

Still from Prince’s Kiss video, and self-portrait by the amazing Sam Haskins.
*This is the one NSFW link in this whole post, promise! Except for maybe the ‘shaved head’ one, I dunno, it depends how liberal your workplace is. Shouldn’t you be working anyway? 

Lastly: I’m swimming 2.5k for Marie Curie’s Swimathon, in April. I am not an amazing swimmer and this is totally going to be a huge challenge, so please do sponsor me, it’d mean the world to me!

Posted in Outfits | Leave a comment

Ten Stupid Things I’ve Done To Try And Get Someone To Go Out With Me

By vanessa | Published: January 10, 2012

10. Pretended I liked Cro-Mags

9. Was told by a minor celebrity that they fancied my date. Later in the evening told my date that the reason minor celebrity was staring at him was because she thought he was noisy and obnoxious.

8. Pretended I wasn’t scared of fish, until I broke down and cried next to a pond.

7. Developed a really bad Lancashire accent*

6. Told him the reason I’d eaten an entire box of Jumbo size popcorn alone was because I hadn’t had dinner. The real reason was because popcorn is delicious.

5. Got a loan, then spent 75% of it on a new dress.

4. Demanded to borrow a book I had no interest in just so I could return it to them at some point.

3. Carried a copy of Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal (in French) in my bag for a year and pretended to read it on the bus in the hope that someone would see me and be terribly impressed.

2. Pretended I wasn’t bothered by the fact that he had another girlfriend in America.

1. Cut my hair like his ex-girlfriend’s. Thankfully it was very flattering.

 

Picture of my 2nd favourite model ever ever Lindsey Wixson by unknown! 

*I was fourteen, it was summer camp. Let’s not talk about it anymore.

Posted in Not So Sexy Times | 5 Comments

Solar Powered Hijinks

By vanessa | Published: December 21, 2011

Those of you who’ve used vibrators will be aware that there is what I term a ‘burn your clit off’ setting on each one. Most of the time this is a last resort option, an “I’ve been going at this for over half an hour” option, or the “I’m on drugs and need to kick this into overdrive.” or even the “Seriously I just need to get this done.” option. However recently I found that even the top setting on my vibrator was doing nothing. It wasn’t even getting me halfway there. I was thinking about laundry and having a nap, and all the chores I had to do. I started to wonder if my clit was broken, and whether that could happen. And then I realised: the fucking batteries were dying.

Fumbling around in the middle of the night, by the light of a desk lamp I searched for batteries everywhere. Eventually I slumped back in my bed and cursed batteries. Those evil little things that never biodegrade and that litter every desk drawer I have with their half spent carcasses, not quite dead but no longer of any use in my camera or vibrators. Rechargeable batteries are obviously an option but they last for such a short time that they’re hardly worth the effort for high drain devices, and my vibrator is definitely high drain.

The next morning, in a tired, sleepless fog, I contacted Sh! the wonderful sex toy store, asking them if they had any rechargeable vibrators and lo and behold they did! A few days later I found myself tripping up the stairs exciteably holding a new package which contained a Solar Power Bullet Vibrator. First of all, calm your tits, you don’t leave a vibrator on your windowsill for all to see. You actually leave a very innocuous small battery pack, there, but you can always leave it under a lamp, if you’re at all worried about people asking awkward questions. After a few hours you’ve got a fully charged battery, ready to plug in and go.

And bloody hell does it go. Who knew something so tiny and so strangely powered could be so strong? While bullet vibes are reknowned for being rather powerful, this one sets the bar a little higher, as you control the power with a small sliding switch on the battery pack. Those of you are familiar with multi-speed vibrators will know of the frustration of having to go through each flipping setting to get back to the start. Incredibly annoying when you accidentally click ‘next’ in the throes of an intense moment, and even more annoying when you can’t decide what setting to go on, and find yourself going through each one half a dozen or so times. None of that nonsense here: a nice slider that goes from low to high and back again, quickly and easily. Bliss!

If there were any issues with it was simply that the bullet can get a little hot in your hand, which at first rather scared me as I worried it would overheat, but it didn’t, and no-one was injured, so never fear. Overall I was deeply impressed that something so small and solar powered could pack such a punch, in a good way! I will definitely be retiring my battery powered vibes in order to not only get off but feel ecologically virtuous at the same time.

 

Product provided for review by Sh! Women’s Erotic Emporium

Posted in Review | 3 Comments

Take A Hint: Bitches Leave

By vanessa | Published: December 14, 2011

A friend of mine is a nice guy, in fact I’d say he’s one of the most caring, thoughtful people I know. Spending time with him is always one the highlights of my week since he is as hilarious as he is lovely. When it comes to romance though, he’s a dick. For the last few years he’s been in an on off relationship with a girl who is crazy about him and yet who he couldn’t care less about. He doesn’t fancy her, will never call her his girlfriend, and doesn’t see any long term future for them. She on the other hand thinks the sun shines out of his arse, and evidently thinks if she keeps hanging around eventually he’ll realise how wonderful she is, and they’ll dance off into the sunset together.

I didn’t used to think that the way someone acted while they were in a relationship was any of my business. What they did or didn’t do with their partner was something I tried not to get involved with. In fact it wasn’t until I read the following quote from a Dr Phil column in last month’s Oprah magazine that the lightbulb went on over my head. “I have a friend who’s been looking for a job… a position opened up at my company and I recommended her… [however] recently I discovered she slept with our mutual friend’s boyfriend which makes her seem like an unethical person… What should I do?” At first I laughed, “What the hell does that have to do with their suitability to do a job?” But later I found myself returning to the piece, over and over again.

“I’d never judge someone for how they act in a relationship.” I told myself piously. Then I thought about my friend, and how I hadn’t seen him for months. Clicking around on Facebook I saw reference to their relationship and closed the browser window in a huff. Dr Phil’s moonface was staring at me next to my laptop. “Damnit.” I threw the magazine across the room, “Damnit, you’re right.”

No-one’s perfect in a relationship, everyone hurts someone’s feelings one way or another, I’m not a total idiot. But the people who’ve hurt me the most, the cheaters, the liars, the dick-er around-ers, have always turned out to be be asshats through and through. It takes a certain kind of person to go out and treat someone else like crap and feel only marginally guilty about it. Does that spill over into the rest of their life? How can it not?

For those of you pointing out that it is those without sin that can cast the first stone, obviously I am not innocent. I once dated a guy who had a girlfriend, I’ve slept with a married man, and on a less dramatic note I’ve broken up with the odd fling by just ignoring them, all things I think are despicable. So what makes me worthy of friendship? What if I were to tell you that I’ve changed? That I’ve realised the error of my ways? That since starting this blog and constantly evaluating my relationships and sex life I’ve realised there are a lot of negative habits I am guilty of. Like I said, no-one is perfect, least of all myself, but those people who don’t care, who won’t change, the serial cheaters and abusers among us, deserve to be friendless, regardless of how fun they are at parties.

 

Illustration from Hollyhocks and Tulips, photo of Courtney Love and Drew Barrymore from Nikki Lipstick
Blog Title from Bitches Leave by Be Your Own Pet

Posted in Questions | 3 Comments

I Would Die 4 U or How To Send a Message On A Dating Site

By vanessa | Published: December 7, 2011

You look intelligent but your writing is pretty dumb. Your second photo doesn’t look too bad. Are your lips real? You look utterly fuckable. Want to swap dirty pics? Are you down to fuck? No, these aren’t the ramblings of a madman, or a drunk guy at 3am, but some the messages I have received since reactivating my dating profile earlier this month. On the rare occasions I’ve clicked through to these charmer’s profiles, out of morbid curiosity, these people have seemed to be well rounded individuals with hobbies and jobs. They have photos which contain people I assume are their friends or exes, and yet, this is the way they decide to start a conversation. The scariest thing is, these aren’t the exceptions, these make up about 80% of the messages I receive. 10% are total nonsense, 5% are either people inviting me to their band’s show/latest exhibition as if this is Facebook, and the final 5% are well composed messages from decent well meaning people.

As someone who hates whining, I thought rather than sitting back and being a silent part of the problem, I would be part of the solution. And so here we have an easy peasy guide to sending the first message on a dating site, and hopefully getting a response. I say hopefully because you know I really can’t guarantee that, sorry!

1. Read their fucking profile!
Your first message should show that you made an effort to learn something about them. That you took 3 minutes out of your furious fapping to stop and see whether they’re a reader, a Muslim, a burlesque performer, a vegan, or all four. Notice what kind of tone their writing takes: is it playful or serious? Are they looking for a fling or a life partner? Finally think to yourself: now looked at all their photos, read their profile and put both hands on the keyboard, do I want to message this person? Think hard, friend. Think hard.

2. Pick one interesting point from their profile and ask them a pertinent question about it.
Hell, share an anecdote if it’s relevant and interesting! Just show an interest in something they deemed important enough to type into a text box and share with a bunch of horny/lonely strangers. It makes you look like you care and everyone loves people who care. If you choose something beyond the first paragraph you get extra points for the effort you put in. The question is really just there to help them reply without feeling awkward. Remember asking questions like “You’re a girl and you like comics?” or “Why do you eat meat? Don’t you realise how cruel it is?” is both rude and patronising. Do you want to date this person or get them to click the block button?

3. Compliments should be sparing and courteous.
Here’s an example of a good compliment: “Your profile was hilarious! I couldn’t stop giggling, and I’m so glad I’ve found another Jason King fan in this world!” Here’s an example of an inappropriate compliment: “You look like a filthy bitch who’d love a good spanking.”
Remember: this is a first email, not a comment shouted from a moving van.

4. This is not the time for ‘tips’ or criticism.
That girl with short hair doesn’t care if you think she’d look better with long hair. That guy who is wearing a jacket two sizes too big doesn’t want you to go Gok Wan on his ass. That cute girl who really hates Belle and Sebastian doesn’t want to hear about how you cried yourself to sleep listening to this every night for 4 years. And the Baptist stud doesn’t care that you think he’s an idiot for believing in God. No matter how wrong you think someone is, take a deep breath and move on. Your exclamation mark laced ‘humorous’ tirade is not going to change anyone’s mind.

5. Unless someone’s profile entirely revolves around sex and has photos of them in a state of undress do not proposition them.
There is nothing worse than someone treating you like an extension of their wank hand.

 

Read this, print it, laminate it, stick it next to your computer screen, and stop sending people messages that make you look like an asshat. Ok?

Posted in Online Dating | 9 Comments

How To Ruin Your Favourite Buzzband

By vanessa | Published: December 5, 2011

A few summers ago I got super into that drone thing. I bought a tie-dye dress, spent most of my time listening to Pocahaunted, and got stoned way way too often. Sadly, no-one I knew really got into the whole drone thing. I tried, I really tried! But no matter how many times I played Wavves’ second album to my friends they just weren’t into it. Which is how, one warm summer evening, I found myself in The Old Blue Last, watching a guy play the cello, while he made gurgling noises through a microphone strapped to his neck.

That, I have to say, was horrible. Eventually he finished and a band came out. As the crowd began to pogo in time I found myself swept over to the merch table where a good looking boy sat alone.”This is terrible.” He whispered. We snuck off for a cigarette and got chatting. We’ll call him Holden, as that was nothing like his actual name. He was American so we had a sort of cute but awkward conversation about New York “I don’t live there.” London “It’s warmer than I thought it’d be.” and tonight “That guy with the cello was really bad.”. Eventually we decided it was ‘time’ to go back upstairs.

As we reached the merch table he asked me why I’d come alone.
“Well I really like the headline band and I couldn’t find anyone to come with.”
He stared at me as he shuffled CDs around. “You like [name redacted]?” He raised an eyebrow, and now, retelling this I am mortified I didn’t realise what was going on.
“Why?”
A silence so long you could have parked an SUV in it. “I am [name redacted].”

After some very English babbling about how the promo photos were fuzzy, and really I don’t look at the photos of bands I like, because like if I like the music, what do I have to care what they look like? I mean unless it’s Girls Aloud, and then that’s different, and then as I took a breath after 2 solid minutes of talking, he put his arm on mine and said “I have to go onstage.” The next half hour was alternately brilliant and pure torture. The problem was that no matter how hard I tried it was impossible not to look like a moonfaced groupie dazzled by the spotlights. When he came off stage I shuffled to the bar, bought myself a stiff drink and necked half of it before he came over. “Are you ok? You looked confused during the show.” He paused. “Or ill.”

An hour later Holden, Holden’s stoner friend, and I were sat on the fire escape out back of the pub smoking weed and talking expansively. Suddenly I realised I was totally blitzed and Holden realised his friends had left for the night and he had no idea where he was staying. The last tube had been and gone. “Let’s explore the city!” I waved my arms around like a Manic Pixie Dream Girl and for once it didn’t seem weird. Holden and I began wondering around, and soon we were holding hands and sitting outside the bagel shop. “I live nearby, do you want to stay the night, since you can’t get home?” I made it sound like it was my idea and I think I thought it was.

We made out on the bike rack outside the bagel shop, and in the alley way that smells of pee, and in the park where junkies sleep, the edge of the playground on the block before my flat, and then while walking crablike up my stairs and into my bedroom. Which was where things got odd. I was wearing white lace underwear, which somehow Holden thought were part of me, and he began rutting against me listlessly. After a few minutes I suggested I take them off. He seemed confused. “I thought you were naked.” It didn’t get much better from there on.

The next morning on the tube we held hands and in a foggy haze I kissed him goodbye and went to work. It was the summer, I was probably wearing something else tie-dye, everything felt lovely, I had a braid in my hair and Best Coast on my ipod. I thought I’d never see him again, that like every American dude who comes to London once for a gig, he’d never come again. He’d do an ipod advert maybe, maybe support Block Party.

And then he did well, his other band began doing well, he befriended a bunch of my friends in New York, and now he’s making amazing music and playing awesome gigs and I can’t enjoy any of it because every time I listen to his music I cringe from my head to my toes. I’m listening to the music of someone I had a stoned, scrappy, one night stand with. I wish I could enjoy it for the blissed out haze that it is, but I can’t stop thinking of those lace pants, and his smeary glasses.

 

Photos by Elizabeth Mahoney and Gudny Ros

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

It’s Like My Heart Is Getting Hard

By vanessa | Published: December 2, 2011

Only a few weeks ago I was talking about how awesome it is to date a handful of people at once. I extolled the virtues of flitting from one tangle to another, and now here I am, about to tell you all that, well, I’m not dating anyone. I’m not fucking anyone. I haven’t even got a crush on anyone. That isn’t to say that previous post was a lie, it’s just that I wrote it a month or so ago, forgot to post it, and then while sifting through my drafts found it, and popped it up on the site.

As someone who writes about sex and relationships being utterly dateless is an odd thing to be. I reactivated my OkCupid profile to see if that would throw out any good chances, but the only messages I got said stuff like “R U DTF?” and “You have a surprisingly sexy top lip.” which hardly inspired me to reply. I rifled through my contacts to see if there was anyone who would want to have a tumble, but since having a purge of ‘people I might call while drunk’ it is was horribly bare. There was even a long night where I tried to think if I fancied anyone I followed on Twitter, but even then I came up with a blank.

I guess, if I wanted a one night stand, I could get one of those: I know how that whole rigmarole works. And despite what I said about my contacts book being a little bare there are always a few people I know would be up for a casual bit of sex on the side, but I don’t want it. I’m sure we’ve all had that feeling after coming out of a long term relationship when we suddenly think of all the mouths and genitals out there that are for the taking, and that wild abandon with which we finally re-enter the dating pool, well imagine that in reverse. I’ve been single for long enough to be a little bored of it. I still love the chase, that delicious time between locking eyes with someone attractive across a room, to the moment you’re alone and ripping each other’s clothes off, but after that it all gets a little rote.

Adding to this feeling is the fact that I’ve been rather ill lately, and while friends and family do what they can, I am loathe to call on them when what I really want is someone to feed me cake, rub my sore joints, and spoon with me. Fuck buddies are great, they scratch an itch you can’t reach yourself, but sometimes what you need is a bowl of soup, and they just can’t provide that without things moving to another level. I appreciate everything they do but if I’d wanted to step things up a bit, I would have done that already.

Now I’m faced with a dilemma? Do I want a relationship? Maybe? A relationship is work, effort, time, money; all things I am rather scarce of lately. A relationship is scary, there’s that feeling of putting myself out there in someone else’s hands and saying “Be careful with me!”. There are things I can and can’t do when I’m with someone else, compromises to be made. This is all sounding so mercenary, and of course I believe in the transformative power of love which makes all of this seem bathed in golden light and as fun as playing on the swings, but I don’t think I can hunt out a relationship in the aggressive way that my age and women’s magazines dictate I should when these kinds of feelings arise.

What I want, more than a relationship, is the ability to be ill, get through being ill, and being ill making me miserable, and being miserable making me want a partner to magically make things better, and get through these things alone, so that I can one day appreciate that piece of cake and two hours of spooning, in full.

 

Photo by Leslie Kirchhoff and screencap from Twin Peaks. 

Title taken from an exchange on Arrested Development:
GOB: My God, what is this feeling?
Michael: Well, you know the-the feeling that you’re… that you’re feeling is-is what many of us call ‘a feeling.’
GOB: But it’s not like envy, or even hungry.
Michael: Could it be love?
GOB: I know what an erection feels like, Michael. No, it’s the opposite. It’s… it’s like my heart is getting hard.

Posted in Relationships | 3 Comments

Adventures in Contraception

By vanessa | Published: November 29, 2011

As a teenager I had bad skin. Not just bad, but “What the hell is up with that girl, is she ill?” bad. I tried everything from drinking 3l of water a day, through smearing perfume on my face, to Chinese herbal medicine. Nothing seemed to work and being a vain teenager I was becoming increasingly depressed. Then my doctor suggested going on the pill. If my parents had any objections to it, I don’t remember them, although I do remember reassuring my mother that “Like, there’s no way this is going to mean I’m going to have sex now. I mean who’s going to do it with me?” And so began my odyssey into contraception.

I’ve talked about it before, as I’m sure you remember, but don’t worry, this isn’t a re-run, this is an exciting new post about an exciting new method of birth control I’ve been trying : the Nuvaring. That’s right Nuvaring. Doesn’t it sound futuristic? It is! Now, normally, I wouldn’t write about a method of birth control, as that’s kinda boring, and what can I say that hasn’t been said before? The pill has been around for over fifty years, and has spawned article after article, blog posts, videos on Youtube, and (taken correctly) only a couple of babies. The Nuvaring isn’t entirely different (it’s a hormonal form of birth control) but it’s method of delivery is a little different. Instead of taking a pill every day, you take a plastic ring and put it up your vagina. Isn’t that kind of amazing? Aren’t you both excited and a little scared? Sh, it’s ok. Come with me.

At first I was afraid of the size of the Nuvaring box. I thought about the size of my vagina, and worried how this would tally up. the friend who I was with when I picked up the prescription was worried too. We looked inside to see how this was going to work out.

Not so bad after all really. Somewhere between a condom packet and a sweet wrapper. It could have been a lot worse, I figured. Having spent the entire day watching multiple videos and reading dozens and dozens of Nuvaring testimonies (including one random post on “Texts from Last Night” wherein a girl’s partner thought it was a glow-stick), I decided to unwrap the package and give it a go.

As you can see in this picture I am holding the ring, and a coin. The coin will never go inside me, the ring will. The coin is simply for visual identification purposes. Let’s stop talking about the coin…. So, there it is, a piece of plastic, that sits inside me all day, but yet isn’t a part of me, like an implant or coil is. I can take it out, have a look, give it a poke with my fingers, anything I like, which I have done. I was worried, for some reason, that it being in my vagina would mean that it would change colour, or start to go a bit odd, because apparently I think my vagina secretes a corrosive substance, but nothing has happened. It is as clear and well shaped as the day I put it in. So far I haven’t felt sick, angry, weepy, or put on any weight. I can’t feel it, at all, and it hasn’t fallen out, in fact it hasn’t come anywhere near falling out.

This is all academic though as I’m yet to have sex while wearing it. The ring’s website says I can take it out beforehand, and I’d imagine that most times I would, because it being in there might be a bit of a shock to whoever’s going down there, but equally, I’m intrigued by the stories of finding it ’round their penis like a ring toss’ and that it can be ‘pleasurable’ during sex for both of us. So as excited as I am not to have to remember to take a pill out every day or have a patch stuck to me that’s constantly collecting fluff in a scum line ring on my hip, I’m reserving my full judgement for that fateful, sexy, encounter.

 

Important: Nuvaring is a prescribed medicine, and it may not be suitable for everyone. You should talk to your doctor and see if it suits you. As with all forms of hormonal birth control there are various risks and side-effects, which can be extremely detrimental to your health. While I am currently not suffering any side-effects, this does not mean that my experience is necessarily indicative of what yours will be like. Again, talk to your doctor, read up on the risks, and decide what is right for you.

All photos mine, please do not re-use them without permission, obviously.

Posted in Advice | 5 Comments

Feminism, Sex, Abortion, and Twilight’s Breaking Dawn

By vanessa | Published: November 24, 2011

This blog post gives away major plot points from both the Breaking Dawn film and book, do not read on if that bothers you!

Last night I went to see Breaking Dawn, the penultimate instalment in the Twilight saga. While I’m sure you would love me to bore the crap out of you with a detailed breakdown of the plot and all it’s failings, but that has been done to death, and by much better sources than myself. What I’m here to talk to you about is the way sex is handled in the final film, Breaking Dawn (Part 1).

Here is a quick summary of what has happened so far: Bella met Edward, a vampire, and fell in love with him. Over two or so years they engage in a relationship which mainly revolves around a lack of any physical intimacy beyond closed-mouth kissing, and Edward emotionally manipulating Bella. Eventually to the excitement of no-one but Edward’s vampire family, Bella and Edward get married. On their honeymoon they have sex for the first time, and Bella instantly gets pregnant.

Having, unfortunately, read the Twilight books I can’t claim that the question of whether Bella should keep her baby is handled particularly sensitively, but where the film’s adaptation’s directors have in the past smoothed over the more strident Mormon propaganda, this installment took the issue and ran with it. Let me break it down for you…

There is the ‘pro-abortion’ team, consisting of basically everyone besides Bella and Edward’s childless ‘sister’ Rosalie, and then the ‘anti-abortion’ team of, well, Bella and Rosalie. Here metaphors, even stinkingly obvious ones, are thrown out of the window, and every time Edward’s other sister Alice refers to it as a ‘foetus’ Rosalie bellows ‘baby’ at her. As the pregnancy progresses Bella’s pregnancy begins to become detrimental to her health. With some rather nifty CGI tricks Bella begins to lose weight, soon resembling nothing more than a pallid, pregnant, skeleton.

For all the pro-abortion characters have Bella’s best interests at heart, things like ‘not wanting her to die’, they express it in increasingly aggressive ways. Edward uses the phrase ‘get rid of it’ more than once, and Jacob and his werewolf friends basically call it everything short of ‘half-breed’. Their exhortations do nothing however, and weakened by the pregnancy Bella becomes a statue which the characters entire lives revolve around. She lies, half dead, on a sofa, being tended to by everyone, kept warm at one point by nothing more than werewolf Jacob’s body heat. As the film’s score tried to nudge me in the direction of pity and empathy towards Bella, I fumed. So I was supposed to be impressed by someone who was giving up their life for a baby that was probably going to be either a maniacal killer, unable to survive in the real world, and definitely not wanted by her father. High five Bella, oh wait, you’re too weak, you can’t reach it.

The entire third act of the film was taken up with this tiresome pregnancy arc, and so in between watching Bella drink blood through a straw from a styrofoam cup I began to think about what Breaking Dawn was saying to impressionable teenagers about pregnancy. After much deliberation, all accompanied by emo music and Edward’s mournful eyes, I decided there were two main messages. The first was that sex, all sex, sexy, sex sex sex sex is evil. If you have it, even within the confines of a loving, happy, marriage, bad things will happen. For all Twilight bangs on about not having sex, it can all be summed up with this stellar Mean Girls quote: “Don’t have sex, because you will get pregnant and die! Don’t have sex in the missionary position, don’t have sex standing up, just don’t do it, OK, promise? OK, now everybody take some rubbers.”

Scary as that ludicrous statement is, it’s exactly what the film is saying to us. Minus the rubbers bit. However, scarier still is the overarching message of the film, which is:

That’s right ladies! Foolishly putting yourself at the risk of death, is a brave, noble thing to do. You are no more than a vessel for a baby, and if you can’t fulfill that role (Rosalie, the other pro-baby character, is notably childless and broody) then your life is hollow and meaningless. For some reason Stephenie Meyer seems to think that making Bella pregnant, and almost sacrificing herself to have a baby, redeems her, and makes her a fully functioning character, with depth, internal struggles, and chutzpah.

But wait, before I put words into Meyer’s mouth, let us see what she has to say about the idea that Bella is an anti-feminist character:

“In my own opinion (key word), the foundation of feminism is this: being able to choose. The core of anti-feminism is, conversely, telling a woman she can’t do something solely because she’s a woman—taking any choice away from her specifically because of her gender…. One of the weird things about modern feminism is that some feminists seem to be putting their own limits on women’s choices. That feels backward to me. It’s as if you can’t choose a family on your own terms and still be considered a strong woman. How is that empowering? Are there rules about if, when, and how we love or marry and if, when, and how we have kids? Are there jobs we can and can’t have in order to be a “real” feminist? To me, those limitations seem anti-feminist in basic principle.”

What Meyer forgets here is that she wrote Bella as a character who never considers the alternatives: not once does she give any genuine thought to aborting her baby, graduating from high school, getting a job, or having a life outside of her relationship to Edward. In fact those alternatives do not even exist in the book. The only other lifestyle choice Bella is presented with is ‘be in a relationship with Jacob’, which is hardly liberating. Rosalie, the childless sister of Edward, is portrayed as almost terminally depressed and fanatically obsessed with Bella’s pregnancy because she can’t have children herself, ignoring the fact, one assumes, that she has lived a hundred or so years up until this point without one, and reducing her to a baby hungry husk of a woman.

How can Meyer claim that Bella has chosen her choice when she gave her no other? When her husband is an emotionally abusive manipulator? When the world around her simply acquiesces to each of her decisions without providing any alternate options? While Meyer may kick back on her pile of dollar bills, happy that she has created a modern woman who chose her choice without rocking the boat, the rest of us can’t rest so easy. And so, before you encourage your tween or teen daughter, sister, cousin, friend, whatever, to see or read Breaking Dawn, think about what it is saying to them about sex, and what this means for their emotional future, and then put on Ferris Bueller’s Day Off instead. You can thank me later.

 

My feelings exactly RPattz.

Further, more insightful reading on this topic can be found at Ms Magazine, The Atlantic, and Moviefone. 

Posted in Off Topic | 6 Comments

Happy Birthday To Me!

By vanessa | Published: November 22, 2011

It is traditional to make New Years Resolutions around January, what with it being a ‘new year’ and what not, I’ve decided that today, my birthday, is my personal New Year’s Day. The last year has been such a hurly burly rush of ups and downs, new friends, and work work work, that it feels redundant to wait all the way till January to make a list of ways I want to improve in the next twelve months. That said, I have standards. I will never ever ever vow to lose weight as I am learning to love my body as it is. I will never give myself a deadline to be in a relationship, because that is just ludicrous and setting myself up for failure. And lastly, I will never as long as I live, vow to change something fundamental about my personality to get a partner, not even my grating laugh. These things, I promise you, dear reader.

5. I vow to take at least one photo of myself every day for the next year.
While this might sound incredibly vain and utterly pointless, there is a method behind this madness. As a child I adored having my photo taken, my Dad has boxes of prints of me mugging for the camera, until I reach my teenage years. Suddenly the photos drop off, and it’s only got worse the older I get. In the last year I have been tagged in precisely 3 photos of Facebook. It’s partly because I can’t stand the kind of person who starts taking photos at any old event, and partly because the second a camera comes out, I find myself stood shoulder to shoulder with the photographer giving them ‘tips’ in order to stay out of frame. On the rare occasion someone does manage to snap a photo of me I am horrified; that is not my face, my jaw is not that square, am I really that misshapen? I don’t seem to know what face to pull or how to stand, and look alternately like a fat angry baby or someone with a cardboard box jaw. Hopefully taking a picture of myself (or allowing someone else to) every day for the next year will force me to get over it. Should you be a stalker/interested in that kind of thing, I’ll be blogging it here, as I find it’s a good motivator.

4. I vow to do some ‘work’ every day, whether it be writing my novel, blogging, working on the radio show, or writing in any other form. 
Much like Wale I need to be on my ‘no days off shit’ and crack on with the hard work. I must not waste entire days watching Seinfeld and funnelling nuts into my mouth while lying in bed. Not that I did that before now, ahem.

3. I vow to remind myself that each person someone is a complete ass to me that this reflects on their personality, and that I am in control of the way I deal with this situation. The right thing to do is always to be the bigger person. 
That goes for when douchebags dump me and my first instinct is to go mental and tell them they’re going to die alone in a hole, people who are infuriatingly difficult to have adult discussions yet who I still have to interact with on a daily basis, and my family.

2. I vow to try and focus, at least once a week, on all the awesome excellent stuff that has happened to me, and all the wonderful people who are in my life.
It is so easy to think everything is doom and gloom, and that my life is a sad sitcom about a girl who doesn’t get dressed till 3pm most days and eats a lot of cereal. However when I compare my life now, to what it was life last year, I have come so far. My friends are amazing, some of the most supportive, brilliant people I’ve ever met, and I’m doing so many fun, exciting things, that I wouldn’t go back for all the money in the world.

1. Finally, I vow, at least once a day, to do something that makes me truly, deeply, happy.
Whether that’s eating courgette fries, dancing manically to Kanye West, or watching Blade Runner for the 900000th time, whatever it is, it’s ok to have a good time, in fact it’s mandatory.

 

Now don’t mind me, I’m off to waft some joss sticks around and meditate with some crystals.

Posted in Off Topic | 2 Comments