I actually hate the abundance of cute little words to describe overweightness: plump, rounded, curvy, roly-poly, rubenesque, generous, BBW, padded, comfortable, chunky…adipose-enhanced? I despise them all. Having too many words for something is always a good clue that it’s a socially uncomfortable reality we don’t want to deal with.

I do not have the problem RG has with these words. I actually like and use them liberally. However, they are still problematic. Culturally words like ‘plump’ and ‘curvy’ are used to avoid the word ‘fat’ but in reality this just lends more negative power to it. The thing is, ‘fat’ is just a word, and one of the many things I adore about RG’s article is how many time she says ‘fat’. She doesn’t use it derogatorily, or in a complimentary way, she simply states it as truth. The word ‘fat’ is a descriptor and we need to stop endowing it with negative connotations. Let’s just call a spade a spade. I am fat.

And it is not just the thin police who give ‘fat’ a bad name. It is a word I have used many times to describe myself, and many times it has been answered with a chorus of “You’re not fat! You’re beautiful!” as though the two are mutually exclusive. They absolutely are not. ‘Fat’ is just a descriptor; it is not a value judgement. Or, at least, it shouldn’t be. Dawn French, Beth Ditto, Nikki Blonksy, all of these women are fat. All of these women are also gorgeous.

Having said that, I also want to say a word for people who won’t date fat girls – and I’m purposefully addressing overweight females because I believe the issue for males is a little different. There are, to my mind, two kinds of people who will reject you for your weight. The first are those who feel it would harm their social status to be seen dating an overweight person. This is high-school type prejudice and anyone who feels that insecure about their standing is, honestly, not someone you want to be around. So don’t sweat it. I actually mentioned being honest about your weight in my piece about filling out your OkCupid profile, and this is why. Consider these your lucky escapes. The second group are people who are simply not attracted to overweight girls. This is perfectly acceptable. Being honest about who you are attracted to is a good thing. I turn OkCupid messages down on a daily basis because they are from people who are too young for me. The simple truth is that I am not attracted to people who are under thirty, and that is just a fact. So if I approach someone and they kindly tell me they are simply not attracted to fat girls, I’ll take that as written and move along.

But I digress.

As for those other words – ‘plump, rounded, curvy, roly-poly, rubenesque, generous, BBW, padded, comfortable, chunky…’ – to my mind they are all fine. In fact, with the exception of BBW (which I think should probably be reserved for porn tags, as it is otherwise largely* unimaginative), I love a lot of these words. They are creative adjectives, and for me they all describe a different kind of fat. Plump is a warm, homely woman with rosy cheeks. Rubenesque has a sense of dim lighting and eroticism. Rounded is geometric. I would never discourage anyone from using these words creatively. But we seriously need to stop using them to avoid the word ‘fat’, because the more we do, the more we give power to all the negative, fat-shaming that is so pervasive in Western culture.

As for the word ‘obese’? It is medical and scientific, and belongs exclusively between you and your doctor.

*pun intended

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Almost every day I come across a writer who is struggling with writer’s block or irritated because they cannot find a new idea for a story; and almost every day I see someone tell them to “just write”. Despite the fact that we all seem openly accepting of the idea that everyone works in their own way, it appears that the majority of writers agree on this: whether you hate your writing or you can’t find a topic or you simply don’t want to put [fingers] to [keyboard], the answer is to just write something – anything! – and the words will eventually come back to you.

Well, I would like to free the writers who want to be freed from the bonds of this contract. Personally, if I cannot write, and I force myself to write something sub-standard, I come away feeling much worse than I did in the first place. Not only have I spent a good hour or so on a piece of writing I knew I was going to loathe from the outset, but I realise I have plenty of other things I could have achieved in that time.

In fact, sometimes writer’s block is a blessing in disguise. When I am in full flow, eager to write and full of ideas that simply seem to spill onto the page, other parts of my life invariably get neglected. The dishes stack up, or the carpet doesn’t get hoovered, or I don’t complete my course reading. Of course, ideally you find the balance, a place where you can hold onto and evolve ideas without letting your home go to wrack and ruin, but it is harder to do the daily chores when you are buzzing with ideas that want to escape through your fingertips. On the other hand, I’ve come across writers – myself included – who find the rhythm and mundanity of things like doing the washing up, or sweeping the floor, or gardening to be incredibly stimulating for their thoughts. Maybe it takes a few weeks of knitting to fully formulate an article, but eventually it is there, and so much better than it would have been had you strained to force it out. (I will add, however, that taking time off from writing for me does not mean sitting idly by and watching the seasons change. Nothing stimulates nothing. If I want to be at all productive in any areas of my life, I have to keep my mind and body stimulated. Perhaps all it takes is a good book followed by a long walk, but I have to do something. Taking a break from writing does not mean I am on holiday. Ever.)

Don’t get me wrong – if the advice to “just write” works for you, then go for it. If you’re the kind of person who feels that when you stop writing you will never start again, then perhaps getting on with it is the way forward for you – but it does not work for everyone; and it irritates me when I see people preaching, as though this is the one and only way to achieve something, that we all just need to put our heads down and get on with it. For some writers, this simply does not work. Furthermore, if you take a break from writing and it goes on and on, it does not mean you aren’t a writer. It probably means you need to focus on something else for a while. And if you never find your way back to your words, perhaps that is sad; but the chances are that you’ve drifted away because you’ve found a new passion – no less worthy, but simply more present at this time in your life.

As with almost everything in life, we each have our own ways, and the important thing is to find the one that works for you. Whilst the “just write” principle may be a noble one, it is remiss of us to assume it works for everyone. By all means try it; but if it doesn’t work, then it’s simply not for you. And if you’re very lucky, the time given by taking a break from writing is time you can put to equally good use.

The post The ‘Just Write’ Principle appeared first on (It Girl. Rag Doll).

Writing dating profiles is not an easy task, which is probably why, when you’re browsing dating sites, you come across so many half-arsed, haphazard profiles. Perhaps there’s also an air of ‘I don’t want to look like I’m trying too hard’, but truth be told, I don’t answer messages from content-less profiles, I rarely answer messages from profiles without pictures, and the content has to be pretty outstanding for me to reply if someone hasn’t taken the time to consider their grammar and spelling. So if you do actually want to meet someone, these things are more important than they might appear to be. Which makes writing dating profiles a pain in the ass.

And before all that, there’s the matter of choosing your sites! If you’re anything like me, you won’t want to maintain seven different profiles on seven different sites. I’ve tried a few – Plenty of Fish, Match dot com, Girls Date Free – and when considering layout, ease-of-use, and basic profile set up, I like OkCupid best. Also, it’s not exclusive: you can use it if you’re poly, or open, or if you’re kinky – the community there is quite accepting. Being a kinky person I also feel compelled to be on FetLife, although I don’t particularly think it’s a great place to meet people. However, I use it to remain connected with kinky friends, and I receive a fair amount of correspondance from interested strangers too, which, although largely disappointing, does occasionally bring me something good.

Funnily enough one of the main reasons I joined OkCupid was to test the theory of another blogger. Unfortunately I can no longer remember who it was, but this blogger did a series of posts about how to fill out each section of your OkCupid profile. The advice was interesting, so I wanted to test it. Obviously, over the time I’ve been on the site, I have changed my profile a few times, so I’m not sure how far I’ve transgressed from her original advice, but it was ceratinly a good starting point. I remember her suggesting that under the Favorite books, movies, shows, music, and food section you try not to just list all of your favourite things, but actually write a paragraph about your interests, with particular examples thrown in.

Without going into too much detail, my personal life has shifted somewhat recently, and whilst my profiles used to be very geared towards finding a long-term, monogamous relationship, I am so enjoying being single and (actually, although this is the first time I’ve used this label) a swinger that my profiles really need to be updated and rewritten. So that is what I am doing. In my 18 months of being active on OkCupid and FetLife, I have gathered some tips and advice of my own, so I thought, as I am in the process of rewriting my own profiles, I would share my advice.

When it comes to OkCupid – our site of discussion today, – I cannot stress, enough, the benefit of having a photograph of yourself. Generally speaking, it is nice to see someone’s face as early as possible. And well lit, friendly, welcoming headshots are more enticing than dark, red-eyed photographs of you drunk in a pub. Also, I wouldn’t particularly advise posting photographs of yourself with your exes, as it can be a bit off-putting, and I always wonder if those exes have consented to having their photograph on the site. If you’re non-monogamous, however, a photo of you and your partner(s) might be quite a good idea. But again – ask them first.

As for filling out your profile, well, this is the tricky part. On OKCupid, all the profiles have – on the right hand side – a bar titled My Details. It’s basically a list of all those little but essential details that can be tricky to work into your written profile: ethnicity, height, body type, smokes, religion, education, etc. – you get the idea. Try to fill this out as fully and as honestly as possible. The best way to think of it is as a filter system: if you’re a deeply religious feline-fan, you don’t want to accidentally end up on a dating a raging atheist with a bad cat allergy. I think the parts most people don’t answer are 1. body type, and 2. salary. I don’t think it’s all that important to put your salary down, particularly if you’re not looking for something life-long. But feel free to be honest about it if you’re willing. As for the weight thing: as an overweight girl myself, I can tell you openly and honestly that having ‘overweight’ on my page has meant that I receive much more promising messages than I did when it, somewhat coyly, said ‘a little extra’. It’s much better not to put yourself in a position where people can be surprised into giving you negative feedback. And I have never received any fat-shaming messages that I didn’t provoke by being a real bitch.

All in all, if someone has a very empty My Details panel, I get suspicious that this person is hiding something or just overly secretive about their habits and thus less likely to be open and honest with me further down the line.

When it comes to filling in the bulk of your profile, you are required to write under several different sub-titles. The first of these is My self-summary. This has always been the part I find toughest to write, because if you scroll down the page a little, you will find that everything you might want to put in this section is encompassed by what follows. However, if you’re the kind of person who really dislikes having their profile broken up into these categories, I have seen good profiles in which the person used the self-summary section to write about themselves in full, and left the other sections blank. I’m not sure how this affects searches and matches, – and you may want to check that before you disregared the other sections – but as a discerning member of the OkCupid community, it doesn’t bother me personally at all.

On the other hand, if – like me – you quite enjoy filling out sections and having someone else to guide you in structuring your profile, you might still be faced with the problem of how to fill out this first section. My advice? Keep it brief. If you’re not against using labels, then use them. For a long time, mine simply read ‘Curvy, kinky, submissive, English-rose type, literature student seeks creatively cruel gentleman sadist with good reading voice’ which provided me with some good responses. The point is not to go on for too long – as there are still ten other sections for your visitors to read, – to give some sense of who you are, and some idea of what you’re looking for. Although there is an I’m looking for section of the profile, it is filled out using drop boxes, and may not quite encompass what you want. Furthermore, the I’m looking for section is quite far down the page, and you might want to let people know, straight away, if you’re in a non-monogamous relationship, or if you are only looking for casual sex, etc. It just helps to be as upfront as possible so that you don’t have to deal with a lot of unwanted messages. Not everyone is going to read your entire profile.

I probably update my What I’m doing with my life section more often than I do any other section, and lately I’ve taken to using it as a little window into my life; how I do this is by writing a diverse, prose-style list of all the things I’ve done in the past week, or the main events of the past month. For example, my profile (up until now) has read ‘This week I: went to two lectures; presented a history of the word ‘moon’; carved Bane’s face into a pumpkin; took my little brother and sister to the Science Museum with my best friend; spent an evening listening to people read their erotic fiction at a book launch; began my fourth NaNoWriMo novel; had dinner with three sex-positive friends; cut down on my cigarette smoke intake; started rewatching The League of Gentleman; collected, rode amongst, and stole my brother’s A-level art for my bedroom wall; read book three of Troilus and Criseyde; made and drank a lot of tea; and watched The Blair Witch Project for the first time.’ This not only gives an insight into my activities and interests, but into how I live my life, and who I spend my time with. This is also the section that people mention most when they message me. They’ll ask me about something I’ve done, or share their own interest in the Science Musuem, for example. Most people use it to talk about their interests/work/hobbies, which works well too – but remember, you don’t need to go into great detail: you just need to put enough to spark a conversation. If you tell everything straight away, then there are no questions to be asked.

Moving into the I’m really good at section. I love this section. It allows you to be tongue-in-cheek arrogant, and show off just a little bit. I’d advise that you don’t write too much here; you don’t want to seem overly arrogant. But allow yourself to list a few of the skills you’re proud of. It seems to work well if you have a mixture of common talents – like cooking, or swimming, etc. – and something unusual, or quirky. Have fun with this section and try and think of a few of the odd things you seem to be really good at for no apparent reason. (E.g. – ‘I’m really good at tying cherry stems in knots with my tongue’. Useless but flirty and entertaining.)

I see a lot of people filling out their The first thing people usually notice about me in a really shy or coy manner, which can be a bit annoying to read. People blush enough in real life – I know I do – so doing it in awkward-word form seems like a bit of a waste of time. If you’re not sure what people notice about you, ask a friend. It’s probably something quite simple, and a good friend will frame it interestingly for you too. But keep it brief!

As I mentioned before, I tend to revert to the advice of that blogger, who’s name and blog escape me!, when it comes to the Favorite books, movies, shows, music, and food section. Don’t feel like you have to address all of these things, or that you need to seperate them into their own little sub-sections. Weave them together, and try not to just list. If you’re a fan of feel-good entertainment, then say that, and drop in a few examples that encompass all of the categories. For example: ‘I love happy-endings, laughter, and romance like Four Weddings and a Funeral, and New Girl, and Jane Austen’. It doesn’t have to be quite that brief, but this seems to be a good basic guideline.

Many people have a very personal, and deep relationship with music, so if you feel similarly, you might want to take a little more time over that. (I use iTunes to check my top 10 most recently played artists, which tends to be quite representative of my tastes.) But if you want to leave it in with the rest, you can do that too. The same goes for food. Either way, conveying a general sense of things, and then a few specific examples for people to pull out, seems to work well.

The six things I could never do without section is where you really get to take advantage of your inner list maker. Keep it to six items – it’s a good show of your attention to detail – and make it varied. And I don’t mean list all your various Apple products – ‘1. My iPhone, 2. My MacBook, 3. My iPad, etc.’ – as this would be quite dull and one-dimensional to read. My favourite profiles list something day-to-day (like a favourite brand of breakfast cereal, or the bike you ride to work), something cultural, and something a little bit naughty. This is a dating profile, after all – you are allowed, or in fact downright encouraged!, to flirt.

Another piece of advice that I still use from that aforementioned blogger – and now I’ve mentioned her so many times I’m beginning to think I should do more research and find you a link! – is on the I spend a lot of time thinking about section: her advice is to write it somewhat stream-of-consciousness. So you come up with one starting topic, and then write a paragraph that just follows your thought process. For example, if I took the topic of what to have for lunch, my paragraph might go something like this: What should I have for lunch? I think there’s some bacon in my fridge. Don’t you hate it when the fridge is empty? It’s so disappointing. Like when you have no Facebook notifications for a few days and you wonder WHERE ARE ALL THE PEOPLE?. Actually that’s what I thought at the beginning of 28 Days Later. It was so weird to see London all empty and creepy. I heard that they hired some really hot girls to divert the crowds whilst they filmed that. Or maybe that was some other film…’ and so on and so forth. Mind you, you need to know when to stop too. And it’s okay to insert a bit of cheekiness into it, I just get bored when this section is wholly about sex. It can come across as very one-dimensional.

The On a typical Friday night I am section is just as self-explanatory as it appears to be. Be honest, be playful. I’ve never read this section on anyone’s profile and felt it was miss-judged. If you’re usually out with your friends, say so. If you’re usually enjoying a relaxing night in, say so. If you’re usually engaged in a huge, hot, sweaty orgy – SAY SO. (Mind you, if what you’re usually doing on a Friday night seems particularly disappointing, maybe you can take it as an indication that you need to change your Friday night routine. Or maybe you should describe a different night!)

The section that most people both fill out and side-step is The most private thing I’m willing to admit. I would say that most people answer this with something along the lines of “You’ll have to get to know me a little before I’ll tell you that”. The problem with this answer is it is infuriating! because if it’s too private for you to admit on your profile, then it isn’t the most private thing you’re WILLING to admit – is it? You don’t have to divulge your deepest, darkest secret here. What it actually gives you is the opportunity to share a little-known fact or story about yourself. Admit to your love of children’s cartoons, or tell visitors to your profile about your odd sweet spot. It can be sexual, or dating-related, although I personally tend to prefer it when people are a bit more creative than that.

As I mentioned before, the I’m looking for section is filled out by using drop-down menues. Therefore the best advice I can give, is to fill it out as fully and honestly as possible.

Finally, we come to the You should message me if section. Again, this is a section I find works best when it encompasses some variety. Don’t be shy about spelling out any particular preferences you might have when considering a potential partner, but don’t be a twat about it. For example, I always have ‘good spelling and grammar’ in this section, because it’s important to me, and displays a certain amount of intelligence, but I don’t harp on about it – well, not in my profile anyway. As someone who is kinky, I also include something about that in this section. There’s no point in wading through messages from completely vanilla people if you need kink in your relationships. And again, be playful. Don’t be too serious about this section. Give people the opportunity to start conversations with you. Try to be inclusive rather than exclusive.

And there you have it. Overall, I think the best rules of thumb are to be honest, be welcoming, proofread what you’ve read, and give your profile the attention you’d like to see in the messages you receive. Along those lines, also don’t put anything in your profile that you don’t want people to mention. If you say out-right that you like to be spanked, don’t be surprised when people show an interest in spanking you. You don’t have to put up with people who are really rude or unthinking about it, but be aware that you are inviting some flirtatious comments.

Another rut that many girls fall into is to list all the things they don’t want. This, I’m sure, comes from the huge number of unthinking, negative, miss-judged messages girls open themselves up to online. I don’t want to make this a gender issue, but I can’t say I’ve ever heard similar complaints from men. It just seems to be the way it is. Nevertheless, if you are female, and you have online dating profiles, the best thing to do is to ignore the unsavoury messages, and keep the negatives out of your profile. Nothing is as off-putting as a profile that lists all the things you don’t want. And I say that as someone who has wanted to write that list many many times.

Ultimately, the more complete and friendly the profile, the more likely you are to receive interesting responses. And surely that’s why we’re all there to begin with.

I’ll try and write a companion piece to this one in the next week or so, discussing the far trickier task of filling out a FetLife profile. I can’t promise to have quite so much insight, but I certainly have some tales to tell. FetLife most definitely requires thicker skin…

The post Online Dating: Filling out an OkCupid profile appeared first on (It Girl. Rag Doll).

What is particularly striking about the time at which Gli Asolani was published is that Venice in 1505 was truly at the heart of the Renaissance, and the Renaissance was really the point at which our modern world and our modern way of thinking began. Before that, in the Middle Ages, we still had feudalism and chivalry: but with this rebirth came a kind of enlightenment and a desire for invention. So it is understandable that anything that was born or heralded during the Renaissance period was likely to have a long-lasting impact on the world that came after it.

With all of this in mind, it doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch to suggest that perhaps Gli Asolani may in some small way be responsibile for the way sex is blushed and smirked over in the modern world. It at least bears thinking about; and maybe some further investigation might be worthwhile.

This article is meandering a little as the topic of rebirth does not offer particular evidence to any argument I might want to make. However, it not only seems extremely poignant at this time of year, but also lends itself beautifully to a handful of things I’ve been meaning to mention. Furthermore, I am between two pieces of coursework this week so, for myself, a chance to let the reins loosen on form and structure is a welcome breath of fresh air. But don’t be alarmed! I will still tie this article up at the end by referring you back to Bembo. Never you fear.

Over the past two weeks I’ve read many articles about turning over new leaves and making resolutions; about reflecting on what has gone before and planning what is yet to come. Funnily enough I’ve probably read more articles pointing out that the author is “not the kind of person who makes resolutions”. But one thing seems clear: for the vast majority of us, whether we like it or not, the sense of rebirth, as 2013 begins, is in the air, and we are aware of it. As for myself, I actually love making resolutions, but have found that making them purely because it’s the beginning of the year is a surefire way to meet with failure. So I make resolutions as and when they feel necessary. For example, in May 2012 I decided to stop lying and began to make a concerted effort to always be open and honest, even if that meant being honest about the fact that I have some secrets I am not willing to tell. All in all, I succeeded, and will continue to endeavour to be honest because, on the most basic level, it makes life simpler.

To anyone who has known me for a year or more – me, Harper, that is; or Lady Grinning Soul, as I was formerly known, – it will come as no surprise that I thrive on the concept of rebirth. The very fact that I changed my name, and my website is proof enough. Making such a huge transition comes at a cost, but one I was willing to pay for the excitement of renewal. Add to that the fact that I more recently deleted all my short erotic fiction from this website and heavily edited the non-fiction content, and I’m sure you can see a pattern emerging. There is something extremely addictive about wiping the slate clean and starting again. Speaking of which, I will give a moment’s nod to the fact that I am now ‘out’ as a sex writer – my real name is Stella – and I’m hoping the effects of outing myself will provide some interesting topics later in the year. As yet I am still waiting for the fallout or, in fact, any reaction whatsoever from my family and school friends. Watch this space.

(Another point worth making, and worth researching: with the new year and (if you make them) new resolutions, come new projects. A handful of people have begun or renewed 365 projects – myself included – and others have taken on the more dramatic Day Zero challenge, so the new year also offers the opportunity for new inspiration and new projects to follow.)

But back to my starting point. The Renaissance was actually about the rebirth of antiquity; it was to do with retelling and recreating the stories of Ancient Gods, and great heroes. The idea that the common man is worth artistic attention is, in fact, a fairly recent one which, despite having some exposure in theatre beforehand, wasn’t really considered worthwhile until the birth of the novel in the eighteenth century. However, I think it would be fair to say that, despite its long-standing prevalance, our reverence of antiqutiy has not, actually, lasted until today. It has fallen a little short because of world-changing events like the second world war. Furthermore, if we look at rebirth on a smaller scale, and I’m talking, again, about those new year’s resolutions, they don’t seem to last either.

So – and here’s where I wrap it all up, ever so neatly and eloquently – perhaps Bembo isn’t really to blame for our outdated attitudes to sex, after all.

The post Prosa Sparse: On Rebirth appeared first on (It Girl. Rag Doll).

As 2012 draws to a close, the world is – once again – becoming reflective. Of course, the difference between channel 4 and I is that I am not so much considering the Olympics as I am considering Eroticon, and Radiohead at the O2; but basically the urge to summarise and evaluate the year is comparable. Still, I won’t bore you with the fine details of my year, or pretend to be an expert who listened to all the new albums over the past twelve months – no. In fact, the topic of this article is something that has only been brought to the forefront of my mind in the past few days.

Back in October, when Skyfall was released in UK cinemas, Simon Mayo read out a listener review  on Wittertainment in which the film was described as a roller coaster “with bits coming out of it like what James Bond’s parents were called!” I’m paraphrasing a little, but that was the measure of it. At the time I laughed and nodded in silent agreement. In theory I have no problem with this: there is certainly space for big, exciting blockbusters with pleasing addenda. There is a quiet kind of shared satisfaction when a film relates to the minutiae of characters’ lives, or subtly refers back to a prequel.

However, this kind of film making is not without fault. Taking a moment to think back over this year’s biggest films – Prometheus, Avengers Assemble, Skyfall, The Dark Knight Rises – none seem to be plot- or character-driven. Despite all its promotion and hype, I’m not really sure what Prometheus’ driving force was; I suppose you could argue that Avengers Assemble is character-driven, but only in the most cynical way; Skyfall seemed to be more about “rebooting Bond” and celebrating the 50th Anniversary; and whilst The Dark Knight Rises certainly had a tale to tell, it would be naïve to ignore the seven feature length Batman films that preceded it and how lucrative they may have been.¹ But, for me, things didn’t really come to a head until this Sunday just gone, when I made my way to the cinema to see The Hobbit.

As I’m sure is true for many people, Tolkien’s first novel was an important part of my childhood. Compared with The Lord of the Rings’ three, hefty volumes, The Hobbit is far easier for parents and children to cope with. Until The Fellowship of the Ring was released, as far as I was concerned, The Hobbit was the important part of Middle Earth. Don’t get me wrong, I love The Lord of the Rings, in all its grandeur and excess, but even then, at the age of eleven, I had a strong sense of how its many intertwined plot lines and complex enormity miss The Hobbit’s very particular charm. The Hobbit may lack the magnitude of the battle at Helm’s Deep, and compared with Frodo’s quest to destroy the ring, Bilbo’s adventure is a fairly light-hearted affair, but whilst The Lord of the Rings may be bigger, it is not, necessarily, better; and this is precisely what I feel is missing from modern film-making: the beautiful, fine, delicate art of constructing one, compact, exquisitely woven story. In less than three hours, thank you very much.

I had hoped, perhaps foolishly, that after three epic films, Peter Jackson might embrace the chance to take on something simpler; but no such luck. I am not even cynical enough to believe that the torturous lengthening of The Hobbit was a purely finance-based decision. From an interview with Jackson, I gleaned that this decision was based on a change in consciousness. Filmmakers no longer feel that audiences will be satisfied with something small or simple, and, on the whole, they are probably right.
In retrospect there is still a lot of appreciation for simpler films. Between cinema trips this year I also saw Black Narcissus, The Philadelphia Story, and Some Like it Hot. Each one is a perfect example of an entire story arc, beautifully constructed in one two-hour film. None of them play to the gimmick of having “bits coming out of” them. None of them have been stretched and decorated to create something longer. As I say, in its place, ornamentation and grandeur can be wonderful – The Lord of the Rings is, really, exactly what it ought to be – but in other cases films – such as the The Hobbit – have sorely suffered at the hands of this trend.

Of course, films are not restricted to these two forms. There is plenty of space in cinema for experimentation, character-driven plot lines, and stories that leave the viewer with an intangible sense of dissatisfaction. But, understandably although regrettably, I don’t think many people flocked to see Holy Motors this Autumn.

However, there is another genre of film that takes the simple story arc very seriously and uses it consistently: children’s cinema. Whatever else you might say about Disney, they know how to construct an engaging story and tie it all up neatly, and if you aren’t partial to supporting Walt’s legacy, Pixar do it very well too. But surely, when we think of Black Narcissus and Some Like It Hot, it’s clear that reserving this kind of cinematic film making for children is something of a waste. And letting stories like The Hobbit slip past this trick, is even more of a waste.

I don’t mean to preach and moan about change – although I’m also one of those people who despises 3D for being nothing more than a fast-selling gimmick – and I will proudly say that I really did enjoy The Dark Knight Rises and Skyfall; but I also miss the beauty of simple stories, immaculately executed. And I do think that amidst the clamour of films made to fulfill the desire for gimmick and effects, we are losing sight of story telling, not to mention generally good film making. Surely there is space enough in cinema for both fast-paced blockbusters, and precise art.

1. In addition to the films I have listed Breaking Dawn pt. 2 and The Hunger Games were also released this year. Since they are both based on popular books, it may be the case that they somewhat buck the trend of the others, being plot- and character-driven, although I do wonder if Breaking Dawn might have been undermined a little by being split into two parts. However, I have yet to see either of these films, so I am ill-equipped to comment on them.

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Chaucer’s take is a little different.

In Troilus and Criseyde Troilus is, in fact, rather passive in his actions. True, the drama of his feeling almost overwhelms the poetry of Book I, but he actually does very little. Meanwhile, Criseyde is continually resistant to any mention of his affection (and even when she gives into it, she is adamant that she wants to keep the independence she has as a widow).

But, of course, a passive hero and a resistant heroine are never going to come together of their own free will, and so Chaucer creates the character of Pandarus. Friend to Troilus, and uncle to Criseyde, Pandarus is a bizarre creature, who initially seems to genuinely care for both of the lovers, and even speaks some sensible words to Troilus. But as the narrative goes on, he becomes more and more manipulative, putting into action the things Troilus lacks the will to do.

By lying to her, Pandarus in fact takes over almost complete management of Criseyde’s physical being.

In Book III, for example, he uses lies to persuade Criseyde to come to his house, and then to stay the night, and then to take a room in a quieter, more intimate part of the house, and then to allow Troilus to visit her in her bedroom that night, and so on and so forth. Almost always, his final argument is that if she won’t do as he says, Troilus will surely die of heartache (and Pandarus will die from sorrow over the death of his friend).

Reading this, as the lies build and Pandarus becomes ever more manipulative, you can’t help but question Criseyde’s consent. At one point Pandarus practically strips Troilus and forces him into Criseyde’s bed. Criseyde often says no to things initially, but Pandarus always gets her consent in the end. However, the way he gets her consent is by lying to her, and whilst, to my mind, there is no question as to whether or not Criseyde is being coerced – she is! – this dynamic has brought to mind an entirely different question.

Can anyone give their consent if they are being lied to about their situation?

In the past I have been on all three sides of cheating; I have been cheated on, I have cheated on people, and I have slept with people who were cheating on their partners. I won’t ever deny this, and I still strive to withhold from judging those who do cheat – after all, every situation is unique – but I made a decision never to participate in cheating again. I wish I could say this was for moral reasons, but whilst I may have taken on some sense of morality, the main reasons I made this definitive decision were selfish: cheating made me feel bad, and I realised that I deserved more than half a partner.

Having given up the need to defend my own actions, I now have a different view of cheating, and, perhaps because I no longer have to deny it to myself, something about it really bothers me. Reading Troilus and Criseyde over the past five weeks, I have finally figured out what it is about cheating that makes me feel so uncomfortable, and it is this question of consent.

Let me give you an example:

John and Jane are married. Unbeknownst to Jane, John has been sleeping with somebody else. If Jane knew that he was cheating on her, she might withdraw her consent to sleep with John. But she doesn’t know, and so when they have sex, she is giving her consent based on the incorrect belief that John is being faithful.

Therefore, is there not a question as to the validity of Jane’s consent?

On the one hand, we as human beings have to take into account that at any given moment, we may be lied to. By being part of society, we accept that we may not always get the truth. Therefore, when anyone gives their consent to sleep with someone, they accept that there is a chance that the other person is lying to them, and that has to be taken into account as part of their decision.

But we all know how important trust is in relationships. There comes a point when consent may not be based on the individual’s own instinct, but on how much the individual trusts his/her partner. Therefore, if his/her partner is lying to the individual, the conditions of their consent may be undermined.

Really, what I wish to do here is to present uninformed consent as the grey area between informed consent, and non-consent.

There is no final answer to this problem: people cheat for a variety of reasons, and I have even come across cases – mostly where children are involved – in which cheating seemed to be the lesser of two evils. But still, this question of consent bothers me.

We can rarely be 100% sure that the conditions of our consent are being met, but there is most definitely a difference between the kind of knowledge we need in the early stages of dating, and the kind of trust we rely on in long term relationships in order to make an informed decision.

The only kind of conclusion I can come to is this: perhaps when we, as human beings, make the decision to sleep with someone, we ought to also take into account how that decision may affect the consent of the other people in our lives. Because in this world of sexual freedom, and BDSM, and polyamory, the importance of consent seems to be the one thing we all agree on. But are we really defining it honestly?

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Of course, this categorisation isn’t just picked at random. A learned gender is usually based on essentialism (your biological sex). However, as we are seeing more and more, a person’s biological sex may not always be his/her preferred gender. We are encouraged in certain activities based on our gender, but our bodies don’t tell us what to be like; our parents and our peers do.

(This, of course, also relates to the nature vs. nurture argument. Personally I come down on the side of nurture. Although I have observed amazing natural traits in adopted children where I have some knowledge of their biological parents, these instances seem to be quite rare, and the overwhelming effect of nurture is fairly day-to-day.)

In Bodies That Matter Judith Butler argues that gender is performative, saying that one does not become a gender once and for all; rather, it is something one does. Drag shows, for example, could be seen as undoing the connection between gender and sex. She writes:

Performativity cannot be understood outside of a process of iterability, a regularised and constrained repetition of norms. And this repetition is not performed by a subject; this repetition is what enables a subject and constitutes the temporal condition for the subject. This iterability implies that ‘performance’ is not a singular ‘act’ or event, but a ritualised production, a ritual reiterated under and through constraint, under and through the force of prohibition and taboo, with the threat of ostracism and even death controlling and compelling the shape of the production, but not, I will insist, determining it fully in advance.

So here’s my point: the fact that I was born with a vagina is not the direct reason that I, for example, like nail varnish. I was born with a vagina and was thus raised female – given dolls and dance classes – and I settled happily into my learned gender; which is precisely what happens to the vast majority of us. We are taught a gender, and we are happy in it. We rarely question it or push it, because we are content to be what we have been taught to be – male or female.

Of course, there is a reason that as a child I was given dolls, and a cooker, and aprons, and my brother was given cars, and catapults, and yo-yos, and funnily enough it is the same reason that we have feminism: it’s because for thousands of years we have lived in a patriarchal society that says “girls like to cook and take care of babies, and boys like to fight and work”. In fact, some people would argue that we still do live in a patriarchy – what with wage inequality, and the social assumption that when a couple have children the Mother will stay at home with them. No matter how much we may wish we had always had equality, and no matter how much we may want to believe that we have it now, whether you believe that or not, we are still subject to the patriarchy of our past.

And unfortunately (no matter how much it may enrage the kink community) a part of that patriarchy is the submission of women and the dominance of men. For thousands of years women have been taught to be submissive to men as part of their feminine gender; and the opposite is true of men. This is not the kind of social assumption that we can simply undo. We are subject to the social impact of our past. Therefore, if gender is learned, and submission is part of learning a feminine gender, then it follows – does it not? – that in so far as we perceive it, submission is feminine. Not female as we understand it biologically, but feminine.

However! we are increasingly aware of a) the duality of masculine and feminine that we all have within us, and b) our freedom to eschew learned gender roles. Whilst most of us may be content in what we have been raised to “perform”, there are still more people in the world identifying as transgender and gender-neutral than ever before. Although it may be a slow process, the pressure to conform to your learned gender due to “prohibition and taboo, with the threat of ostracism” is decreasing.

We cannot undo our past and therefore it seems unlikely that submission will ever stop being related to the feminine. But what is changing already – not changed, but changing – is how we relate feminine to female/male. With terms like ‘metrosexual’ on the rise, it is becoming more and more acceptable for men to be feminine. And vice versa; we rarely hear anyone complaining about tomboys today. Therefore, whilst we may not be detaching submission from the feminine, we are detaching it from the female.

It’s a work in progress, but my main point here is that denying the truths of our history, or believing that we have evolved far beyond them, may make us feel better about how we are living now, but the changes that can allow us to realise these freedoms must, certainly, come from a place of open-eyed understanding about our past.

The post Dominance and Submission As Informed By Gender Roles appeared first on (It Girl. Rag Doll).

With the US Presidential election in the offing, the political side of being female and, in fact, being human, is, I hope, weighing heavily on our minds. For those of us in the UK it is easy to sit idly by, our fingers crossed, hoping for a Democratic result on the other side of the pond. Meanwhile, we aren’t identifying, let alone dealing with, the problems we are facing.

When I consider the problems we face both as erotic artists/sex bloggers and as human beings, they are rarely limited to location. The state of ignorance about sex, about money, about politics, about climate change, whatever the issue of the day is, has become astronomical, and we appear to be quite content settling into this far from perfect world.

As I mentioned before, I know these issues seem far too large for us to handle when we have our own day-to-day lives to navigate. I can barely find time to visit my little brother and sister and see them grow up; how am I supposed to tackle the Republican manifesto?

But the more articles I read, and the more I hear about the frankly horrifying state of the world, the more I come back to one innate issue: education. I’ll admit that I don’t know as much about education in other countries as I perhaps should, but I know how bad it is in the UK, and I’ve heard/read dissatisfied accounts from the US as well.

According to a study done by researchers at Sheffield University and presented by the Guardian in 2010 “22% of 16- to 19-year-olds are functionally innumerate” and “17% […] functionally illiterate”. Those numbers alone are staggering and should stand as proof that our education system is in shambles. The government’s answer to this problem is to introduce more and more standardised testing, as though proving that 11-year-olds can’t write is a way of solving the problem and not just highlighting it. Pupils are now spending an inordinate amount of time learning how to take tests and exams, rather than being given the tools to develop into independent, thoughtful adults. Furthermore, the vast majority of people I meet would describe their school experience as “okay” at best, and many people from my parents’ generation seem to have decided that lower education is something to be endured.

I was very fortunate to have been given an education I felt enthusiastic about. I went to schools that inspired and – yes – educated me. I was sad to leave school, and I am now so proud to look around me and see how successful and intelligent my fellow classmates have become. But not everyone is afforded the opportunities that I had, and I find that deeply saddening.

In fact, whilst we can look at those aforementioned statistics and comment on the disgrace that is our education system, the ability to read, write and deal with numbers are the most basic skills. We should not be settling for a system that considers literacy and numeracy the benchmark of a good education. Those should be a given; we should not even have to discuss those issues. In this country the majority of children are in formal education for a minimum of twelve years. In twelve years I would hope that they are taught more than just how to do maths and how to read and write. They should be learning how to use their hands, how things are made; they should be studying philosophers and religions – not for indoctrination, but in order to orientate them in a world where these topics are the basis of society. They should be building houses and working with the earth and talking about the political and economical and social and religious and ecological world we live in today.

Without all of that and more, how can we expect anyone to fight for causes they don’t really know about, let alone know how to deal with? And of course, to link this back to the sexual discourse this site claims to deal in, how can we expect the next generation to understand and explore and accept sexuality in all its forms and variations? How can anyone take an interest in new things if they have never been enthused or given the opportunity to explore anything beyond what the best way to take an exam is?

If we want to the next generation to grow up as free-thinking individuals who are accepting of kinks and homosexuality and polyamory, then we need fight for an education system that will provide children with the tools and the knowledge they need, to first place themselves in the world, and then change it.

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Almost simultaneously with my decision to create a new OkCupid profile I went to stay with my artist grandmother and together we watched the first episode of In The Best Possible Taste, a program in which Grayson Perry explores the relationship between class and taste. The show was divided into three episodes – Working Class, Middle Class, Upper Class – and returning home I watched the other two and was reminded that although I might not be quite so cynical as some of the people in the program, I am most definitely middle class.

Whilst I would never purposefully exclude anyone from my life or veto someone as a potential romantic partner right off the bat just because of class, I have the wherewithal to recognise that there is definitely a correlation between class and who I am attracted to. When I mentioned to a few friends that I worried about class when online dating, I received some shock and a little outrage, the kind of which reminded of the backlash I have seen racism and sexism receive. Where I felt I was being honest about who I find attractive, they felt that I was being exclusive.

With the PC police ever biting at our heels it is becoming increasingly difficult to speak the truth. There are no hard and fast rules about attraction, but we should certainly be able to say “this does it for me; this doesn’t”. You cannot use sexual attraction as a measure of someone’s acceptance. I am not particularly attracted to girls; it doesn’t mean I think girls are less worthy or that I don’t get on with them in other dynamics, it just means the thought of sleeping with a girl doesn’t necessarily turn me on. There are exceptions to that rule, but it is a trend in my attraction none the less. Likewise, I am not particularly attracted to people of certain races. This is not a sign of racism; it is just a sign that I know myself.

When I started thinking about this, I realised that although we rarely talk about it, it is true that most people date within their own race and, back to my point, their own class. I doubt many people go out specifically looking for someone who is in the same social class as them, but from what I’ve observed, most end up with people similar to themselves. There is nothing wrong with that. So long as we aren’t persecuting people who do date outside of their apparent circles, then being honest about our own attraction is just that: honesty.

So, how does this apply to online dating? It can be hard to gauge someone’s social class via an online profile, and you might argue that it’s not important. And for many people it really isn’t important. But personally I have to be honest that the things I find attractive are predominantly middle class. I would never turn someone down because they weren’t middle class, but I would turn someone down if I didn’t like the sound of their voice, and the voices that I find most attractive tend to be middle class. This has nothing to do with me wanting to remain in my own social class, it is simply that for whatever culmination of reasons (probably my background and my education), something in me associates those middle class attributes with attractiveness. I’ll admit it is a tentative distinction, but it is not intended to be exclusive. I have no desire whatsoever to cut down the number of my potential romantic partners. But there you go.

I suppose, really, this somewhat aimless piece comes to two conclusions. One is slightly more superficial, so I’ll go with that first. If you are dating online and you find yourself a little too aware of your class and what you really are attracted to in that arena, make sure you talk to potential dates on the phone before you meet them. There is a huge amount you can learn about someone by hearing their voice. So many people adopt completely different tones when they are writing compared with when they are speaking.

But seriously, my real conclusion is this: being honest about what we are attracted to, be it race or age or class or body weight! – it is not shallow to say you won’t date someone who’s overweight if what you’re attracted to is really slim, slender bodies – is just good sense. The more truth we have in relationships and the world in general, the better. The more explicit we are about what we want and how our attraction works, the more likely we are to get it. And attraction is not something we manufacture for ourselves; it is something that becomes ingrained in us. Therefore no one should be penalised for being open about what does it for them, be it kinks or race or gender or class.

And perhaps most obviously, but also most importantly, we need to keep in mind that sexual attraction does not equate social acceptance.

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For those of you who still think ‘rinsing’ is something you do after lathering up your hair – and a part of me wishes it still was just that, – I’ll explain: rinsing is an act wherein (young), sexually attractive girls get as much money out of rich (older) men without offering anything more than conversation and company in return. And in some cases, not even that.

The show centered around glamour model Danica Thrall, experienced rinser Jeanette Worthington, and erotic dancer Hollie Capper (pictured). At the beginning of the show all three girls (but Hollie in particular) argued their rinsing pursuits as a necessary and easy way to pay their bills at a time of national financial difficulty. With this thought in mind I watched openly, trying to consider rinsing as a kind of re-distribution of wealth; the 1% vs. the 99%. But as the show continued, it seemed to raise numerous moral and ethical issues.

One of the first things that came to mind was a question of feminism. Although these women do not have sex with their wealthy benefactors, they are selling themselves as an aesthetic product. Make-up, sex appeal and flirtation all seem to be important factors in this. Danica in particular makes the most of her image, posting photographs and setting up her own site of glamour shots. On the one hand they are selling a very particular and almost idealised, Barbie-like image of women, which could be viewed as anti-feminist; it could be argued that these girls are selling a fantasy, pandering to assumed male expectations of beauty, which might be considered counterproductive to feminism as a movement for gender equality. However, there is also a good argument to be made for the view that these women are strengthened in their gender by using their femininity as a power.

This also raises a question of exploitation. Are these women being exploited for their appearance, or are they in fact using their looks to exploit rich men? If the rules of these transactions are clearly laid on the table before any money or gifts change hands, then perhaps everyone is simply in charge of their own well-being. Perhaps exploitation doesn’t even factor into it. Personally I couldn’t help but feel that these girls are exploiting a baser part of the men willing to give them money; although I felt more strongly that these girls are exploiting themselves.

What really left a sour taste in my mouth was what the girls got in return for their beauty. Although at the beginning of the show there was talk of bill-paying and a simple need to survive in a difficult world, the vast majority of what the girls asked for and received were designer handbags, shoes and jewelry, which the girls showed no sign of exchanging for that apparently much needed cash. (Except for Hollie, who asked her mother to put gifts she didn’t particularly like and which weren’t worth much, on eBay.) What became increasingly clear as the show proceeded was that these girls are not in it because they have children to take care of, or because the mortgage needs paying, they are in it because they want men to buy them expensive gifts. When asked what the ultimate gift would be, Hollie – who initially talked about her bills a lot – answered “a lot of surgery”. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions from that. Personally I have no problem with wealthy people buying beautiful things for those they deem worthy, particularly in cases where they want to give these gifts, but the pure amount of good these girls are being sent is a little sickening, and their attitude towards the men giving them gifts made me feel quite nauseous. Jeanette in particular seemed affronted when someone wouldn’t buy her something, as though it was her right to receive gifts from rich men simply because she was willing to spend time with them.

The other point to be made is that these girls are perpetuating not only a horrible and largely unrealistic ideal of beauty, but also an unhealthy consumer society. There is a huge difference between appreciating and purchasing beautiful things, allowing yourself some luxury, and being obsessed with the status certain labels and price tags apparently give. In a particularly disgusting moment Jeanette openly admitted that without these designer pieces she would feel “dead inside”.

In essence, rinsing is about making a commodity of conversation and company: both Hollie and Jeanette date men in order to receive the gifts and money they feel they are entitled to. Neither seems at all interested in the men she rinses. Danica deals with things a little differently. She never meets anyone, doing everything online. In the case of some of her benefactors she hasn’t even spoken to them, they simply shower her with gifts from her amazon wish-list. However, in the program there was a scene in which she used Skype to chat with someone who I assume was simply lonely and in need of some fun, flirtatious conversation to make him smile. Danica also has strict rules about never letting the conversation move into ‘adult content’. Unlike the other two girls, she was friendly, chatty and engaging with the other person. This seemed to me to be far more genuine. Although her approach is more businesslike, Danica actually seems to provide something worth paying for, whereas the other two were downright unappreciative of the benefits they received.

Despite my opening paragraph and my slight skepticism over the word “sex” in the title of the program, sex is something that must be discussed when it comes to this topic – despite the fact that the channel four show chose to ignore it, aside from mentioning the lack of sex numerous times. I was surprised to see the topic of financial domination come up on the show. As well as dating men who buy her gifts, Hollie is an online financial dominatrix. The concept of financial domination is one I was introduced to whilst listening to the Savage Lovecast; it is basically a kink wherein rich people (mostly men) get off on having people (mostly women) demand large sums of money from them. It links in with humiliation, where the person receiving the money will verbally degrade their benefactor by telling him/her how pathetic he/she is, having to pay someone for sex or for their company. Something about the fact that this is named and recognised as a kink or a fetish makes me feel better about it. Provided a person does not get into serious financial difficulty, this is a sexual act between two consenting adults who know the rules of the game. Everyone should be allowed the freedom to express their sexuality. And there is of course another side to that: I think we can say with almost complete certainty that there are men who find it sexually arousing to buy things for women. Whether it’s a status and power thing, or a matter of seeing girls wearing the beautiful things he has bought for her, it’s not hard to see why this would be appealing. And for this reason I’m finding it difficult to condemn rinsing.

The other sexual topic that simply has to be discussed is prostitution. Obviously, there is a difference between what these girls do and what prostitutes do, but I also think there is some line blurring. In the case of girls like Danica I think the line is very clear, because she doesn’t meet these people and because she says, outright, that sexual conversation is off the table. However, there is a place in between where girls will flirt and suggest sex in return for gifts, but then not deliver. This seems far more dishonest than either of the extremes. I suppose the main difference between rinsing and prostitution is the intention and the contract. When you hire a prostitute it is very clear what you want and price is something to be discussed as a business transaction. However, in places where prostitution is illegal, many people do not charge for sex but for the pleasure of their company, and sex is a fair assumption within that time. This is where the line blurs for me. This isn’t particularly a problem for me, as I am in favour of prostitution for many reasons, provided it is consensual, fair and safe – perhaps a topic for another article. But I do think these girls are kidding themselves if they believe they are above prostitutes simply because they do not have sex with their benefactors.

Overall what really bothered me about the program and about the act of ‘rinsing’ was the attitude of these girls towards the men, and the obsession with materialism. There have been times when I looked at my bank statement and my course reading list and wished against wish that someone would help me out financially or kindly offer to buy my books for me; or times when I considered publishing an amazon wish-list to people other than my friends and family, just on the off-chance that someone might want to indulge a part of me that is too poor to enjoy luxury; but I can’t imagine feeling okay accepting something from someone I have neither provided a service for nor someone I do not feel genuine affection for.

At the end of the day there are two different sides to the “art” of rinsing: on the one hand it is a business transaction, comparable with but dissimilar to prostitution, and for this reason I feel more comfortable with the way Danica conducts herself. On the other hand, and this is what really bothered me in the cases of Jeanette and Hollie, these girls are taking advantage of someone’s kindness. And with so little gratitude. In fact, they display an extremely distasteful sense of entitlement. And that is what really made me feel cold; the way ‘rinsing’ manipulates organic human interaction and distorts the idea of kindness.

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