famished for meaning

i don’t know if any of you have come across this one yet:

drink ads ordered to use ugly men!

Drinks companies have been ordered to use uglier men in their advertising campaigns.The Advertising Standards Authority believes “balding” and “paunchy” men would be less likely to encourage women to drink to achieve social success.The new advertising code stresses that links must not be made between alcohol and seduction.

A campaign for popular sparkling drink Lambrini has become the first to fall foul of the new rules.

The Authority objected to a poster which showed three women “hooking” a slim, young man in a parody of a fairground game.

The industry regulator instructed the firm: “We would advise that the man in the picture should be unattractive - ie overweight, middle-aged, balding etc.

ridiculous, isn’t it?

first of all, ‘ugly’ is a horrible word (when used to describe the way someone looks). secondly, to then bracket someone who is MIDDLE AGED (since when did age have anything to do with looks??? and isn’t brad pitt over forty?) or overweight or balding as that is even worse!

this is so goddamn hypocritical - for as long as i can remember, beer ads (aimed at men) have been showing hot women. in fact, almost all advertising aimed at men shows a chick with big tits, long legs, big hair, red nails and mouth, going ga-ga over the man for using that particular brand. and you know, its all good since it’s just a woman, and she was always meant to be decorative anyway.

but now that we’re objectifying MEN and using the hotter ones in ads, to encourage women to do (bad, bad) things like drinking beer (i find their faith in the power of advertising quite misplaced, to begin with), it’s suddenly all wrong.

i can’t believe they are allowed to get away with this crap.

however, on the plus side, based on their stupid qualifications for ugly, my dad (and most of the adult male population) can finally star in a commercial!

(for the prologue, click here)

So, yeah. Apparently what I wrote hit home. Several times. I’d make a baseball analogy here, but then the little pink mafia would take away my rhinestone-encrusted tiara, and as we all know, a queen without a tiara is just a bitchy straight man. And that would be very bad.

I’m not advocating a ban on relationships, period. Nor am I encouraging people to stay single and content with their platonic friendships, because lets be honest here…no one’s actually really content with the idea of being single forever. There may certainly be acceptance of the possibility, as I’ve found in my own case, but sticking with the case study of Sin, I know that I’d happily prefer to die having been in a meaningful relationship with someone rather than without. But really…does it have to be an all-or-nothing game?

This is not game theory in Advanced Economics 101 people. It’s really much simpler than everyone thinks, and perhaps I can say that smugly from on top of my high horse (how high? It took a step-ladder to get up there!) because I’m not currently going through the ennui, but who says that you have to choose between friends and lovers? And more importantly, why can’t friends be lovers (and vice versa)? I’ve never believed that you can love someone without first being friends with them, and that view is one of the few in my life that hasn’t undergone a radical metamorphosis in the last decade or so.

Conversely though, it’s not necessary that a friend become a significant other. I think the biggest problem that gay men face in their lives is that even though we never want to admit it, we’re all secretly scuttled by the “Newer! Bigger! Better! Shinier!” plague. Who and what we have is perfect while it’s present, but we never seem to stop prowling and being on the lookout for something more, something that we’re convinced is lacking in our current straits, even though it may not be. And part of that, I’m convinced at the risk of generalising indiscriminately and carelessly, is because our own self-esteems are riddled with more holes than a particularly large hunk of Swiss cheese. I can count the number of gay men I know who had healthy, self-affirming childhoods on one hand, and I think that there are certain emotional and intellectual scars that never fade, no matter how much they may scab over. Scar tissue is still ugly, even though it may cover gaping wounds. Most of us remain convinced that there’s something wrong with us, something terribly, drastically, horribly unheimlich, and that no matter how good our lives become, we’ll always be the outcasts, the children who were different, the people who didn’t make sense or seem quite right. And convinced of our own fallibility, we project a combination of ideals and our own insecurities onto those people whom we adore, maybe subconsciously, but mostly with a sense of guilt that comes from deep inside, those dark corners of our minds and souls that we don’t like to acknowledge. Friends, lovers, family…we hope that they’re not perfect, because we’re certainly not. We hold them up to impossible standards that we don’t want to admit are impossible, or at best highly improbable, and in some ways they turn out to be dark mirrors of who we are. All of our failings, our dirty little habits, imperfections, secrets and lies, we pre-emptively start to accuse the other people in our lives of them because it’s easier to denigrate shortcomings when people other than ourselves display them.

This is turning into one of those “I’ve not slept for three days and am roaringly drunk during my college days, so come on, we’ll have an intellectual conversation at two a.m.” passages, isn’t it?

But I think it’s true. I don’t think any of us like to think of it that way, but come on…isn’t there always that tiny part of you screaming “It’s never going to work out!” each time someone new (especially in the romantic context) enters your life? Sure, it’s easier with friends: the demands and obligations, not to mention expectations aren’t quite as intense or as omnipresent as they are with boy/girlfriends, but who hasn’t had a knock-down, drag-out, hair-pulling fight with the people they’re closest to at least once? And the forgiveness is always a bit easier, because the whole thing humanises friendships, turning them into comfortable zones where you know that the other person will never have the ability to walk away from you unless you do something truly unforgivable. Because hey! They’re not infallible and ergo, can’t expect you to be either!

There are, of course, the lucky few who do manage to live happily ever after. But we all hate them, don’t we? Or at least we envy their ability to wade through the maelstrom and come out standing, in one piece and largely undamaged.

But mostly, we (and by “we”, I mean “I”) hate them. In a loving, tender way, of course.

(courtesy of the sexiest, smartest, wittiest blogger on earth)

i am not sure what sort of a hole in my soul i’m trying to fill. it’s not even one that i consciously feel. just a sort of emptiness, which in all honesty, i have gotten used to. no matter what happens in my life, i often go through phases of just feeling slightly dead, slightly disgusted by everything, and to make things worse, i then do things i would otherwise bitch about or despise (like shopping too much or being a brand whore or partying or drinking). all that is supposed to make the dullness, boredom and emptiness go away but it doesn’t.

i know someone who shags too much to fill her hole (the one in her SOUL, you gutter minded cows!). i sat with her the other day and tried explaining to her that her promiscuity was the reason why she didn’t have any real friends (because men can’t look at her as anything but an easy lay and women feel threatened by her willingness to put out within two hours and her massive boobs!). i told her she wouldn’t find true love this way. i told her that it wont make her problems go away. i told her that she needs to deal with her emptiness, her issues. i told her a lot of crap and then i went out and shopped and filled the hole in MY soul.

i wonder how we can be so judgmental, yet feel so pious.

i sometimes make myself sick.

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i went down to one of my favorite clubs on last week - its been renovated and renamed - i like it because although the people behind it are the most pretentious, snobbish lot in this city, the club is extremely basic. i LOVE the way it looks (i’ll take a few pictures the next time i go - this time, i had had one too many vodka redbulls to be much good with a camera!).

anyway, i had the BEST time - i sat around and just watched the queens - dressed in super tight jeans, tucked into their mid calf length white boots with big white or gold studded belts, dancing to ‘billie jean’. i watched them get mad because my male friends were talking to me (and not to them), i watched them shake that booty to ‘don’t stop till you get enough’ and grind, much to the chagrin of some of the homophobic men out there. i laughed as an ex said that he would have shagged one of the queens (who was HOT!) if only he had boobs and i replied that that had never stopped him before!

the only thing was that it all seemed slightly depressing, slightly desperate. i felt bad that the straight lot (including me) just sat around and watched with fascination and bemusement as men grinded and got it on. i can not imagine what a pain in the ass it must be to be judged solely on your sexual preferences and to be alienated because of them.

i get sickened by arguments against homosexuality, i get pissed off when it is referred to as an aberration or an illness. i feel sorry for the gays going mad in clubs because it appears that they’ve been let out of a cage…all week they are stuck in heterosexual environments, possibly forced to ogle at women because they don’t want to let on who they really are, given the homophobia, and finally, on a drunken thursday night, they can be themselves. and even then, people stare (and admittedly, i was one of them on this occasion).

they do their nails, their eyebrows, cleanse, tone and moisturize…they wear mascara and liner and lip gloss…and we figure that this can’t be right, no matter how much we advocate freedom of choice.

the next day, we were over at a friend’s place, talking about our night out, and most of the guys made horrified sounds (OH NO!!! REALLY? THANK GOD I DIDN’T GO!).

why are straight men so scared of gays? i understand you don’t fancy taking it up the arse and no one is really asking you to, you know. but if that’s how someone likes it, what the fuck is YOUR problem (i know there is a lot more to homosexuality than just the sex, but that bit is usually what makes most straight men extremely uncomfortable)?

if i could, if i had the power, i would eradicate hypocrisy and our tendency to judge. it is beginning to piss me off more than anything on earth.

but i wont (in all likelihood) ever have a such a power…besides, if i were to have it, i would need to first start with the most difficult place: myself.

may be i’ll just continue to shop instead.

p.s: since we are, or at least i am, talking of shopping - i have to share that i am terribly excited about getting the horny maids outfit (fishnet stockings, garters, super sexy bra, etc) from agent provocateur. i haven’t felt so excited about a purchase since i got the godfather dvd set! the boyfriend will become a slave for life after this outfit is unleashed on him (mwaahahahaha)!!

Three out of four voters in california believe medical marijuana should be legalized. They have passed the measure at the polls in opposition to existing American laws. I was recently talking to an otherwise young and healthy friend who also happens to be a strong supporter of the californian position on medical marijuana. He kept on pointing out the various opiates, barbiturates, steroids, and whatnots that are legally prescribed by doctors. Possession of such drugs without a prescription is illegal. Similarly, possession of marijuana would remain illegal without a prescription. The only reason why common sense wasn’t prevailing, he believes, was because of Big Pharma influence. For somebody with an impressively broad knowledge of various drugs, he just couldn’t understand the difference between a controlled substance and an illegal drug. You can beg your friend who went to the dentist for some leftover oxycontin or you can hand over a mini fortune on the street. But you can’t grow it in your backyard. Pot, you can grow in a pot in your studio apartment. Kids on street corners will hook you up for 10 bucks. Morphine is controlled in vaults. It is administered in controlled doses in controlled environments. Once you put such controls on medical marijuana its cost will shoot up and everyone will be looking for stronger stuff at similar prices. Or they will still get it on the street. The californian voters in favor of medical marijuana are not in favor of legalizing drugs. Or maybe they are. Damn hippie spawn. The american govt. stance against such measures is not trying to punish those already in pain. Or maybe it is.

Laws follow attitudes. If you are angry about the one verse in koran that allows hitting a wife, get angrier because there are many more verses that allow taking slaves. In wars past muslim warriors were even allowed to take the women of their enemies as slaves. But so did everyone else those days. There is still slavery going on in the world, even when it is universally illegal. No one is using religious texts or cultural norms to defend or justify them. There is a clear understanding those who engage in such business are doing it for the profits.

There are over 6300 verses in the Koran. Search for “wife beating islam” and Google spits out thousands of pages repeating the same single verse that allows hitting a wife. One could say even one verse is one too many. But there are many more verses that tell us to cherish and treat women with respect and equity. Those are not paid any attention either. I am not going to say that hitting a woman is not allowed in Islam. It is. But women are not hit because one verse in the koran allows it. I have never seen, heard, or read of any instance where a man has justifies his violent behavior by bringing up the Koran. They are hit because the men feel they have no other avenue left in the confrontation. Some men take that street at the first instance. Some men don’t know that street is even on the map.

Domestic violence in islamistan is not inspired by that singular verse. It is a cultural thing like every other culture. And at the heart of the matter, it is a personal thing. It needs to change but the change is not going to come out of questioning the Koran. The muslim mind becomes completely unreceptive at the first hint of questioning the authenticity of the text. The change has to come out of the culture. Every second Bollywood film has the male lead or other good guys slapping the woman when she gets out of hand. Watch old hollywood movies and the women are getting slapped around like nothing. Different cultures and different rates of change. One day soon one would be able to pick up a blunt OTC at the corner sav-on-drugs, and people will stop beating up their women. Or maybe not.