[Trigger warning: Many of the responses to this question may be vague or explicit narratives of the rape culture.]
Maybe you were the child of a parent who substituted antiquated adages for serious discussions about dating and/or sex. Maybe you had awful religious instruction about dating and/or sex. Maybe you're gay/bi and constantly get heterocentrist dating advice from coworkers. Maybe you're someone who doesn't seem to have any friends who aren't fully indoctrinated defenders of the rape culture. Maybe everyone around you is smart enough to give good advice (or none at all), but you still hear shit advice like "you're only complete with a partner" in the movies.
Whoever you are and whatever your experiences, we've all gotten shitty messages on dating and/or sex. This thread is about the worst advice we've ever gotten.
What is the worst advice you've ever gotten about dating, romantic relationships, marriage, or sex?
Discussion Thread: Terrible Relationship/Sex Advice
Daily Dose of Cute
Video Description: Dudley will do anything for that kefir at the bottom of my glass, and uses his looooong tongue from every angle to get every last smidgen he can possibly reach.
As always, still pix of all the furry residents of Shakes Manor below the fold (on most browsers)...
Lady Olivia Pounceworthy
Sophs in Silhouette
Matilda, Long and Fuzzy
"Whatever it was, I didn't do it. I was on the moon. With Sophie!"
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, publishers of the upcoming DIY guide Deeky's Weatherproofing Wonderland.
Recommended Reading:
susiemaye: Crunk List 2010
Andy: New Hampshire Braces for Attempted Theft of Gay Marriage in 2011
Jaclyn: The (Nonexistent) Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Consequences of Enthusiastic Consent [TW for sexual violence]
Paddy: David Brooks Tells New Yorkers to "Suck It Up"
Dave: The World Is Socialist
Echidne: The Decline Effect
Leave your links in comments...
Adventures in Journalism
CNN is reporting that Dollar General is set to hire 6000 new employees in 2011:
"The news is part of what many economists believe is a brightening employment picture nationwide."
File under: Trying, Not Even.
Two Facts
[Trigger warning for discussion of adoption.]
1. The New York Times is still paying Ross Douthat to peddle conservative dogma in the guise of milquetoast garbage columns.
2. Douthat's primary audience is comprised of rocks, lamps, and other inanimate objects, because his garbage arguments don't pass even the most cursory scrutiny by sentient beings.
Example One:
[I]t was a victory for realism, at least, when MTV decided to supplement its hit reality shows "16 and Pregnant" and "Teen Mom" with last week's special, "No Easy Decision," which followed Markai Durham, a teen mother who got pregnant a second time and chose abortion.Now, I actually watched "No Easy Decision," and to assert that it was "resolutely pro-choice" is mendacious to the point of hilarity. Here are just some of the "resolutely pro-choice" moments to which viewers were witness: Durham sobbing while speaking to someone at the abortion clinic on the phone; Durham yelling at her boyfriend for referring to the embryo as a "thing" because it could become a baby like the one they already have; Durham talking about needing counseling following the abortion; another woman who had an abortion saying she had no regrets or guilt, then later bursting into tears while talking about her sister's son, born around the time of her abortion.
MTV being MTV, the special's attitude was resolutely pro-choice.
Granted, I'm just a cold-hearted steampunk abortion robot with a vast empty echo of tin where my soul should be, but I would argue that for anything to be described as "resolutely pro-choice," it has to show at least one of the millions of women for whom abortion was not a sorrowful choice, so it doesn't play into the resolutely anti-choice narrative that all women who have abortions are haunted by their decision. This is not the case.
Example Two:
In every era, there's been a tragic contrast between the burden of unwanted pregnancies and the burden of infertility. But this gap used to be bridged by adoption far more frequently than it is today.Leave it to a privileged conservative dude to talk about "tragedy" being bridged by adoption, carelessly eliding, willfully or ignorantly, the frequent tragedy of being a birth mother.
He complains that people on MTV's special "swaddle abortion in euphemism," but he, like so many other good "pro-lifers," renders birth mothers invisible, casually speaking about "lives that might have been welcomed into families [but were] cut short in utero instead," as if those hypothetical lives are born in vacuums, as if euphemizing a medical procedure is somehow more distasteful than tacitly reducing actual women to incubators for privileged families who want babies, preferably white ones.
It's feminists, pro-choicers, who are supposed to be the cold-hearted sociopaths who don't respect human life, but Douthat's column is, at its essence, little more than the bitter complaint of a market-revering conservative that legal abortion interferes with what ought to be a splendid business arrangement: There are women who can have babies they don't want, and women who want babies they can't have.
And like all good conservatives, who seek to deny opportunities to unprivileged people so that privileged people can get what they want (like soldiers to fight their wars, and maids to clean their toilets), Douthat imagines that if it weren't for Roe, and the opportunity it provides, everyone could be happy.
Where "everyone" equals People Like Him.
Photo of the Day
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, right, poses for a picture with newly sworn-in Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff at the Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, Brazil, Saturday Jan. 1, 2011. Rousseff was inaugurated as Brazil's first female president and sworn in Saturday. [AP Photo]
What the heck is going on in Arkansas?
Arkansas game officials probe mystery of falling birds:
Arkansas game officials hope testing scheduled to begin Monday will solve the mystery of why up to 5,000 birds fell from the sky just before midnight New Year's Eve.Arkansas game officials probe mystery of massive fish kill:
The birds -- most of which were dead -- were red-winged blackbirds and starlings, and they were found within a one-mile area of Beebe, about 40 miles northeast of Little Rock, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said. Birds fell over about a one-mile area, the commission said in a statement.
Arkansas officials are investigating the death of an estimated 100,000 fish in the state's northwest, but suspect disease was to blame, a state spokesman said Sunday.Disease is suspected in the fish deaths because only one species was affected. Officials speculate the birds were killed by a lightning strike(s), high-altitude hail, or New Year's Eve fireworks.
Dead drum fish floated in the water and lined the banks of a 20-mile stretch of the Arkansas River near Ozark, about 125 miles northwest of Little Rock, said Keith Stephens of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.
...Ozark is about 125 miles west of the town of Beebe, where game wardens are trying to find out why up to 5,000 blackbirds fell from the sky just before midnight New Year's Eve.
RIP birds and fishies.
Open Thread
Hosted by party poppers. Let the "poppers" jokes begin!
This week's open threads have been brought to you by New Years Eve.
Happy New Year!
Well, 2010 was a helluva year, wasn't it? I can't say I'm sad to see the back of it. But you know what I always say: Onward, Shakers! We must always remember that when our teaspooning arms start to hurt, it's just the muscles gettin' bigger!
The Radical Gay Secular Feminazi Cooter Agenda isn't going to promulgate itself, people.
The New Year's Eve Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
Thanks for a great year, Shakers.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days o' auld lang syne
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
And surely ye'll be your pint-stoup!
And surely I'll be mine!
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
We twa hae run about the braes,
and pou'd the gowans fine;
But we've wander'd mony a weary fit,
Sin' auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
We twa hae paidl'd in the burn,
frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar'd
Sin' auld lang syne.
And there's a hand, my trusty fiere!
And gies a hand o' thine!
And we'll tak a right gude-willie-waught,
for auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
Random YouTubery: CATS! And DOGS!
"Behind every great kitten, lies another kitten."
DOGS!
"Will be ridiculously cute for treats."
[Video Descriptions: 1. Three kittens lie in a heap taking a nap. A hand reaches in and removes the middle kitten revealing a hidden fourth kitten underneath, who's lying on hir back with paws in air, purring like a lawnmower. 2. A Pedigree dogfood commercial that features dogs jumping for treats and licking their lips in slow-motion. Note: Posting of this advert isn't an endorsement of Pedigree products, which I don't use and with which I'm not familiar.]
Daily Dose of Cute
Matilda, sunning.
Olivia, nose-licking.
Sophie, stretching.
Dudley, sitting.
Tweet of the Day
BaltimorePolice: 3:30pm today, 3201 Boston Street. Penny the dog will thank Officers from the Marine unit for rescuing her last night from the Harbor.
(More on the story here.)
Oh Dear
[Trigger warning for fat hatred, weight loss talk, heterocentrism.]
Behold an advert for the upcoming CW television series "Shedding for the Wedding," in which couples compete to lose weight for their nuptials. Hosted by recent loser-of-weight actress Sara Rue.
Voiceover (over images of couples competing in physical challenges like racing while carrying wedding cakes): Wednesday, February 23rd, from the executive producer of "The Biggest Loser"...It's when she announces her weight loss and holds up her ring. UGH. Love belongs to thin people! Gross.
Cut to Rue being interviewed: "Shedding for the Wedding" is about couples trying to get in shape for their fantasy dream wedding.
Cut to female contestant getting fitted for wedding gown: I feel really nice!
Cut back to Rue: I know what these contestants are gonna go through. I lost 50 pounds and (holds up hand to reveal diamond engagement ring) I'm engaged!
Cut to couple in matching costumes looking at each other. Him: Love you. Her: I love you.
Cut back to Rue: I can only imagine what a bond these couples are gonna have.
Voiceover (over graphic of scale with one pink footprint and one blue footprint, which morphs into wedding cake): "Shedding for the Wedding." Wednesday, February 23rd, on the CW.
The Porn King with a Heart of Gold
[Trigger warning for sexual coercion, exploitation, dehumanization.]
HistGeek_1 emails (which I am publishing with his permission):
I just found this article and it made me wretch and I thought this was something that the brilliant minds of Shakesville should discuss. In effect, Nadya Suleman (disappeared as "Octomom" in the title) may see her mortgage sold to "porn kingpin" Steve Hirsch. Here's the really sick part: "Hirsch told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he's not trying to pressure Suleman into porn, but he would use her housing woes to start a conversation that brings her to work for Vivid."For further perspective, Hirsch has already made repeated offers to Suleman, for as much as $1 million, to appear in one of his porn videos, and she has repeatedly declined. So this guy's already been harassing her to try to coerce her to do porn for him, and now he's trying to buy her mortgage for leverage.
Seriously, that is some fucked up shit right there.
Which, naturally, he denies: "There'd be no pressure on her. We're not looking to foreclose on the note, but if nothing else it would give us opportunity to meet with her. She's made it clear she doesn't want to do an adult movie. Maybe there are other things we could do that she would be interested in."
Sure. Just out of the goodness of the porn king's heart, I guess.
This is the culture in which we live: A woman is being publicly coerced to do pornography, and it's not a national outrage, but fodder for a casual wire item which culminates in a rehashing of her financial situation, thus implicitly suggesting the porn king is doing her a favor by offering her exploitative work she doesn't want in exchange for not foreclosing on her house.
Why, he's practically a hero.
[Commenting Guidelines: Nadya Suleman's reproductive choices are none of our business, not up for debate, and off-topic for this thread or any other.]
