A Man's Call of Duty

Ye olde debate: the toilet seat. Up or down?

The heat is on at work as new men gain employment at the Southeast school. The one adult bathroom has now been impeded by heartless souls who leave the seat up, leaving pee driplets for all to see on the rim.

Nevermind the fact that it's the RIM OF A TOILET. You ever going to sit on that? No? Just . . . you just don't want to look at it, right? Three drops of yellow? O-okay, just clarifying, crossing t's and dotting i's, is all.

What's the cleanest part of the toilet? Sure as hell ain't the rim, amirite? The seat. Yeah, the seat's the cleanest. Ass cheeks don't really pick up too much in terms of germs, I could be wrong, though. So, we're all making a fit about reaching down and bringing a basically germless piece of porcelain onto the rim of the toilet.

Here's the thing. I have it ingrained within my skull to put the toilet seat down at all times. Growing up, I had a dog who had an obsessive pension to drink toilet water in obscene amounts to the point of pukage. So yeah, we always put the seat down to save ourselves a cleanup. Now I persist on putting the seat down by habit, only slightly aware of my honorable duty to help my fellow females out.

Here's the thing: it's not that we leave the seat up on purpose. It's because we forget. We couldn't give a shit either way. We reach down and put the seat up all the time. We look at the pubic hair ridden rim as we let 'er rip. We put the seat down . . . usually, as we flush.

There's always that one time, though. You forget. Whoops.

It's not our fault the rim is usually our making. It's not our fault we have to put the seat up and down. We're trying to get by with what we have. We look at the rim every day, doesn't bother us. Most of us have the courtesy to put the seat down for y'all.

There is the man who constantly persists on leaving the seat up. Personally, I hope to sometimes go into the bathroom right after and find that GASP! I don't have to reach down and put the seat up! I win! A little stress off my day! Even when I go in on these post-forgetful sessions to take a full out dump, I don't mind if I have to put the seat down.

For women, you don't need to concern yourselves with the seat. As far as you're concerned, the pubic hair rim doesn't exist. Bathroom ignorance. Alright. Don't you think a visual reminder is always healthy? Like taking a shower before you go swimming, it prepares you for when you have to clean the rim at your house. It exists, you can't hide from it forever.

Think of it as a service to you. Our petty forgetfulness and unfortunate tuneout of chivalry could be your pre-pool shower for when cleaning day is right around the corner, and it's your turn to clean the commode.

In other words: lighten up.

Florence and the Machine -- "Dog Days Are Over"

Tig Ol' Bitties

In my world . . .

. . . as referenced recently in my ongoing gender war rants . . .

Strip clubs, with female dancers, are now more frequented by women than by men. Or at least, the request to go to a strip club is emitted out of the mouths of women moreso than by men.

In my world, the men oblige their lady friends. We tag along, oogle and smile. But are we the ones getting the lap dances? No. It's the ladies.

In the stripper world, the dancers love it when women come to partake in their lap dances, moreso than the most respectful gentleman. Hands can be used, the customer can grasp the stripper, nevermind whether or not the customer gets off on it as much as the next male customer. Both can bump and grind together. It's kosher.

The man's world is now a woman's world. Not that I'm complaining. I don't get off on going to the strip club. But it's interesting to see the feminine movement of ownership and entitlement overshadowing the most male vs. "female as object" battleground. They're sad places when only men are present. When women are present the place lights up. This aspect of takeover, I think, is also in part of the recent burlesque resurgence of the past ten years. It's no longer about what the audience wants. It's about the performer, and that's what the audience wants to see. Ownership and entitlement over one's sexuality and aura. Both sexes of all orientations get off on seeing someone use their body, regardless of the individual's sex, to its fullest potential in a totally committed act, no matter what the activity.

Tonight, at 1:00am, all the guys wanted to leave. We were sober, we were done. All the gals wanted to stay.

In my world, I'm baffled. Yet amused.

*It ain't like it used to be . . .


Lovage -- "Sex (I'm A)"

Misogyny and Ivory

The other night I got into a sliiiiight argument dealing with Quentin Tarantino and his treatment of women in his movies. Basically, I'm of the belief that Quentin not only worships women but that they've been his main protagonists, rivaling Ripley in the "Alien" series. They are some of the strongest female characters in cinema history, and anybody who claims different has to have a REAL good case to make me think otherwise.

The scene in question had to deal with a rape racket that a certain nurse had been running in a hospital in "Kill Bill". It's not a huge spoiler if you haven't seen the flick, so don't feel like I'm giving too much away by stating the intricacies of the plotline as it pertains to this certain scene.

The greatest warrior who has ever lived (Uma Thurman) has been in a coma for four years due to a gunshot to the head. During the time of her stay in the hospital, a crooked nurse runs a pimping business, using Uma as one of his "comatose" prostitutes for creepy, horny truckers. It's a disgusting scene when we realize that he's been running this ordeal for some time (he drives a truck called the "Pussy Wagon", his name is Buck and he's "here to fuck".). Well, after Uma wakes up, she fakes sleep, overhearing Buck go over the rules of the $75 fuck. Buck leaves his client at the whims of his lust, to whom Uma bites the lower lip clean off of in a bloody mess. Buck discovers this massacre, and is then tortured by Uma by way of a slit Achilles and a number of head bashings between a door and a door frame. He gets his "just desserts" by way of "revenge movie" logic. She even takes his car as her main means of transportation afterward, turning a belittling term into a source of feminine power and ownership.

Now, given that Uma has been taken advantage of for the past four years, having been solicited to untold amounts of unconsented rape, one could hear of this scene and be shocked to find it glorified in an action/comedy. But if only they went so far as to then focus on the brutality Uma forces upon her rapist pimp. I think this is less a case of a misogynist director than it is a case of an insecure critic playing the gender card as an outlet for their insecurities.

"Death Proof" is another example of women triumphing over crooked male antagonists. Without giving anything away, you basically leave the movie thinking "God, women kick fucking ass!" Watch this clip of a "Death Proof" premiere in Glasgow where a non violence against women association shouts "SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!" over and over again at Quentin as he walks into the movie.



There is another clip online of the same situation in Glasgow. In this one you hear Quentin say "You obviously haven't seen the movie," before doing his own "Shame" fingering toward the group.

"Jackie Brown"? Jackie kicks ass! She makes a ton of men pawns in her get rich scheme to make off with a million dollars.

To the person I argued with two days ago: sorry if I'm making this a bigger ordeal than it was. I'm merely just stating something that was on my mind these last couple of days. We talked about this for maybe two seconds and moved on.

But it strikes a dischord whenever I feel like pro-feminist males get called out for seemingly anti-feminist behavior when it's potentially not. I am not a Women's Studies major, but I have dabbled in my Feminist lore, namely for my Burlesque project a few years back (I've touched on this a few times in the blog). I am a Feminist, but I feel like some of you female Feminists make it damn hard for us male Feminists to even discuss things we agree on with you. I've been told that cocks are arbitrary, women don't need them. Men in pop culture are idiots (name a modern sitcom where a woman is portrayed as a complete idiot opposite an all knowing male prodigy. I state "Married With Children" as the only red flag in this debate, but I also state that Al Bundy is the bigger idiot between the Al and Peg comparison. The whole Bundy family is a raging bundle of idiocy. The Simpsons, The World According to Jim, The King of Queens, Everybody Loves Raymond, etc. All of the dad figures and main characters are complete buffoons with their wives acting as teachers.).

I work in a female world as a teacher. There aren't a lot of guys in the field. I'm privy to the corporate world's salary unfairness only in literature, and I am aware that it continues to persist. And that's one of the areas where the Feminist in me is fighting for equality. I'm talking about the art world, I'm talking about my world. The world where women are treated equal.

The world where Bi-curiosity reigns and all is accepted. Yet why do I feel like I'm still an antagonist to the cause of Feminism? Am I threatened at the prospect that the Other is trampling all over my male aura and cause? Not at all. Men in the past and present have and are pigs. But not all men.

So when it's kosher in a society for women to say things like "men aren't needed" or "men are idiots" even in jest . . . why do I feel like it's not okay to say that I'm offended?

Bikini Kill -- "Rebel Girl"

Unpopular Native American Name #1: Little Turds

I forgot when, but the roomies and I had a talk about a gender anomaly: there are a number of things guys put into their minds pertaining to certain aspects of life that women never meddle with. For instance, there are a certain number of women who don't poop. It just doesn't seem possible. There are a few women that I've met where I've gone "I bet she takes huge shits. Every day. In every way." Others: "Little turds." Others still: "Void of a waste system."

Another aspect: You never see women making explosion noises with their mouths. You might see them making airplane noises with kids, driving a car, something with a motor, but you never see them shooting guns and saying "PEEOOOOWWWWW!!!" (unless it's in a cute way, like Tina Fey doing Sarah Palin shooting guns in a high pitched squeal "Pew pew pew!")

If it wasn't for me making these noises, I don't think Patch would be what it is. Honestly. Listen to "Trachomanic" and most of those sounds came from my mouth. That's how I write music, too. I scat. I can't picture female artists doing this.

My ideal woman: someone who is on the cusp of "Little Turds" to "Void". Heaven help me if they make "PEWWWWWWCCHHHH" noises. I really would like to see a woman do that. My heart will melt. Well, in this case, I'll shit a brick.

Saul Williams -- "PG"