Monday, April 25, 2011

The Oldest Profession

So the theme of my week seems to be prostitution. The world's oldest profession, the thing women have been doing since the dawn of time to get more buck for their bang. You gimme a little somethin somethin, I'll do the same for you. You know how it goes. Recently, I went on a trip to Amsterdam, home of the famous Red Light District. While there, I found out many things that I didn't know before. For example, did you know that the infamous prostitutes that you see in the windows displaying themselves shamelessly so that you'll spend your hard-earned euro for just a meer 15 minutes in heaven, have their own political party? Neither did I. If anything goes wrong for these women, or they feel like they are not being treated fairly, they can have a say. They can lobby for more money, for better treatment, anything they want really, and somebody will listen, because they have to. I mean I have to be honest here, its hard not to see the upside of legalizing/controlling something which people will do anyway, undoubtedly, and making it safer, better, and... more accessible?

That, of course, as people will argue, might be the downside to all of this liberal-minded thinking. The reason that people have been selling their bodies since the dawn of time is three-fold: it's their property to sell, it's always in demand, and it's relatively easy (though perhaps not emotionally) to do. Sounds perfect, right? So why don't more people do it? I mean I have to be honest here, seeing those girls up there in all their glory, taunting the men from their red-lit windows, I thought for a moment what it would be like. But everyone has their reasons for not selling themselves, and most of them boil down to one thing: respect. Women want to feel respected, it's human nature to feel joy at being respected. So once you let go of that, what are you left with? An emptiness. And if you never really let go? The pain of knowing that these people are only using you for your body, which has nothing to do with you, really, because you didn't choose to be born with large breasts or a nice ass. Sounds bad, but its true. We want something more, and we always have.

So at the end of the day, there remain a few all-important questions. Is legalizing the world's oldest profession only making it more accessible as a career choice for these women? More accessible for the men that want it, but wouldn't otherwise do it for fear of judgment by society? We always think there's something sad about the fact that someone would sell their chance at respect for some money. But can we really judge them/guess at their reasons? And is it any of our business? I'm not sure, but if it were me, I would say no, it's none of your business. It's my body, and I'll do what I want with it.

At the end of the day, there are various forms of prostitution, of which we all take part in. And those of us that don't, on any given day? Well, we're just voyeurs in disguise. I could be the girl, or I could be the one watching her, wandering what it would be like to be her, as I was that night in the Red Light District in Amsterdam. Are we really that different?

Monday, March 21, 2011

Hey Baby, How YOU Doin'?!

So lately I've been hit with a lot of the same old. It's an age old tale: man walks into a bar, sees a cute girl that looks like she wants it, they talk for awhile, discover they actually have a lot in common (despite all the booze they've consumed), and they go home together. Only to discover there's something standing in their way (he lives in Madrid, for example). At least, this is what it, the situation, looks like from the girls point of view. Now I have no idea what men are thinking and that has become more and more evident to me over the years. I operate under two pretenses: that if we talk all night and he invites me to come visit him for a week, wherever that is, he's already established in his mind that he likes me, and the second is that if he didn't like me, he would call me or something or we would talk about it, and that would be it. We can be friends. Simple as that. Or is it?

Now, I don't wanna jump to conclusions about men. There are great men out there. I live with two of them. But ever since I got to the old country, I've been tossed around like a chef salad only to be ignored five seconds later. So the question stands, is it machismo or something else? What is going on over here? I date (have dated) a LOT of people in my day. Some were just for fun, others were more serious, but I have always tried to be honest with people. Not talking to someone doesn't erase all the unsaid things left between you. More on machismo later... I'm spent.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Biology Revisited

So I realize I said that everything is based on biology and blah blah blah. But upon discussing this with a few of my friends, they made me see that reexamining my theories, or just looking at them in a different way, could shed some light on a few things. You see, a few weeks back I read an article, and in that article was a list of reasons that men and women get together. It was called "6 Factors that Secretly Influence Who You Have Sex With." Let's just say it left me feeling more than ever that biology was always the culprit. As it's name suggests, it wasn't very romantic. If I remember correctly one of the factors said that men and women are pretty much attracted to each other right when they kiss and here's why: all of us have a cluster of chromosomes in our bodies called MHC which controls part of our immune system. When you kiss someone, your body takes immediate note of how strong the other person's immune system is. So, what does that mean exactly? That within the first few seconds of spit-swapping fun, you're really giving the other person a taste/scent test to see if their pheromones and/or saliva contain the coveted levels of MHC. Ya know, so the immune systems of your children will be more diverse! Yay.

Having said all that, I realized that I failed to consider the one thing that human beings have that other animals don't: the ability to reason and have logical thought. I mean granted, it fails us more often than not, but it's there. So here's what I've been thinking: of all the factors the influence our choices in who to sleep with, could one of them possibly be choice based on logical thought? I mean, there must be an attraction, I get that. But can we override the rules of attraction and copulate with someone completely out of our own personal norm? I'm talking guys without beards here people. I'm talking the nice guy, the guy who's children wouldn't have the ideal immune system. And if we did this, could it also not have an expiration date? Could we marry these people? I think out of all of the jerks that I've dated, and out of some of the nice ones as well, only a handful of these logical choices have lasted more than a few months. But maybe they weren't logical choices to begin with? The point is I have no idea. And I'm not sure there is a way, given all these factors, to really know. I'm sure there are a large amount of people who would say that these relationships are doomed to fail, that the factors are just too stacked against it ever working. There are also a lot of optimists out there. I'd have to say, right now, that science still wins for me. The evidence is just too strong to deny. If we do try to override all or most of these factors, the odds of it working out in the long run are still slim.

But they do happen. I know they do. So what do you think?

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Like, OMG!

"Mother i can tell what you've been thinking
staring at the stars on your ceiling
thinking once there was a power that you were wielding"

-Passion Pit

Mujeres tontas. You see them everywhere. I live with them. The thing is, you know that they're not stupid. You know that if they wanted to, they could be capable of an intelligent thought. It's just that, in the world they live in, they have never been taught to ask the questions that really matter, or they've never been taught to care about the answers they might receive if they did. Maybe they're pretty, maybe they were (or weren't) daddy's girls. Whatever the case is, I'm perpetually confused, and frustrated, by these women. We've all seen 'em grocery shopping, driving, out with their friends at night, or ya know, stripping.

I'm not saying that I'm not proud to be a woman, I'm just saying that maybe for some reason, they're not. Take my mother for instance. There is literally no opportunity that I don't take to ask her questions that I think matter. Why she does the stupid shit she does for instance. Why she believes in God, why she votes the way she does, why she imposes the rules that she does, etc. And, as her child, as her daughter, I expect a well-thought out response. I mean for God's sake if you're gonna tell me to do something, or heaven forbid, give me rules that don't make sense to me, have enough respect for me to think about why you're doing it. You should also, as a woman in a world where our opinions don't always matter so much, have enough respect for yourself to defend your choices, defend your vote, defend yourself at all times. It's a responsibility that we have to our kind, the way I see it. Don't be just another mindless woman smiling in a douche commercial from the 70s, giving me advice about how to feel "fresh". What I need are the types of role-model women that teach me how to be strong, how to defend myself, how to be a respectable person, the kind of women that like to learn and impart wisdom. Which, through no fault of my mother's, is the kind of woman I strive to be every day, the kind of woman I think I might be...

Now let's face it folks, whether you're a man or a woman, you've at some point experienced the feeling of being thrown against the wind, defenseless and without the means to get through the tough parts of life. I know I have. And I know why. Because my mother wanted to get married, and have babies. And she's proud of it. If you ask her, she'll tell you something like, "oh yeah, of course. All I wanted to do was get married and have babies, why would I have gone to college." I love my mother, but I'm not quite sure at what point she decided that was a good idea. If all you're gonna do is have me, you better consider raising a PERSON, not a baby, a PERSON, your damn JOB. Everyone in this world, man or woman, must utilize the tools that they have been given to defend themselves, defend what's theirs by right: knowledge, a place to sleep, food, posterity. You cannot rely on anyone. You can trust people, but trusting is not the same thing as relying on someone to support you. I don't begrudge her the lesson she's learned, it's been a good one, and one she needed to learn.

But after all that, after all the shit that she (and I) have been through, I still see her acting like a complete ditz. It's utterly perplexing, it's flabbergasting, it's the ultimate enigma. How can a person with so much time to think, so much life experience, be willing to purposely degrade herself in front of other people?! And you know, it's not in any one act in particular. It's in the little flips of hair that they think are cute, the little questions they ask that they already know the answer to, that you know they know the answer to. It's these mannerisms which say to the world, "I need a man to answer these easy questions for me, because I can't do it by myself. I need someone to rescue me from the big bad questions!"

But damn, damn am I cute.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

I like yer beard

Good evening bloggers. As I'm sure you all know, today is Woman's day, or El Dia Internacional de la Mujer," or "Feminism Day" as my friend referred to it. I didn't create this blog in honor of the day, but I hope that in the end it will have fulfilled some sort of womanly purpose.

I can't claim to know what it's like to be a woman. Simply because, I am not, nor could I ever begin to understand, every woman. The fact that I am a woman doesn't completely define me as an individual, but in many ways it defines what directions my life will take; where I will go, what I will say, who I will hang out with, and how my relationships will go. Yet, no matter what I do, or try to do, I will never ever be able to ignore the fact that I am a woman. So what does being a woman mean? Well all I can tell you is what it means to me. And today that is: that I really like beards.

Now, if there's one thing I know, it's that everything is biological. Maybe not everything, but everything that I can understand, and that's all that matters to me right now. As a person, I don't like to assume things that I can't know for sure or study and form my own opinion.

As a woman, I realize my biological failings. I know that if I love a good beard, it is only because of the following: I was born a blonde so blonde that it was almost albino-ish. My uterus wants a strong baby to be implanted into it, and strong babies are made by breeding with people that have things that you don't. Namely, dark hair, dark eyes, bigger nose, etc. If you see someone that you desire, it's because you have an egg in those ovaries of yours just waiting to create a hot baby. Or at least, one that's slightly more attractive than you. Basically being a woman to me right now means that I'm realizing how picky I'm being (unconsciously) in my quest to impregnate myself with the perfect sperm, and thus giving myself very little choice in men. So, men with beards, take note. Or ya know, even men capable of growing beards. And yes, I can tell.

Goddamn are beards sexy. I mean, have you ever really looked at one? Look at one. What does it say to you? To me it says: "I want to tickle the inside of your thighs." I mean seriously, I wants on that pile of hair on your chin, and I wants on it NOW. Do you see what this does to me? I mean as a woman, it's making me feel kind of weak right? Like, I see a boy with big brown eyes, and nice lips, framed by the most perfect beard of all time and a little part of my womanhood is automatically given away to him. But, I suspect we're not the only ones...

Also, this boy really exists. But more on that later.

Cheers to you and to great beards everywhere.