Xx + Xx =Y?

Thankyou David Smiedt, well-known author and betrayer of his own Gender! The following is a reaction to his short story 'Hit and Myth' published in the volume entitled 'Girls Night In 2; Gentlemen by Invitation' Penguin 2001.

As the man himself says (pp 635) 'So here's to playing it straight when it comes to the greatest myths surrounding men's sexual desires plus the experiences we genuinely crave. What you are about to read ain't gonna be pretty....And we're going to uncover new ground in territories of his mind you thought you knew, while exploring the shadowy terrain he'd prefer you didn't wander around in'. Enough for me,-all you have to do is tell me I shouldn't or worse, I'm 'not allowed' and I'm in for a penny/pound/whole goddam bank.

Sub-Heading 'The Threesome Myth' (for interested parties other sub-headings include 'The Myth of the Male G-Spot, The faking orgasm myth, The purely physical myth, The Male wish list, Sorry there's someone in here, Teacher's pet, Penny Pelvis and others...).

Quote: 'As simplistic as it may sound, this means that when there are two naked female bodies together, the combined erotic power is not merely doubled but somehow squared'.
Ok, so men, despite being quite renowned for mathematic and logical reasoning, have been putting up a front all this time. Squared?

Quote: 'The concept of mutual satisfaction is crucial -men always satisfy the women in our fantasies with a deadly mixture of panache, stamina and the type of agility usually reserved for seven-year-old Soviet gymnasts and Shaolin monks'.
Hm, I suspect this is where male and female fantasies part ways. Men like to imagine themselves as greater than their physical limitations in fantasy, women get off on the idea that their pre-existing physical limitations are actually valued and adored in fantasy. i.e. the woman who worries about her fat thighs daily probably fantasises NOT that she has slim and perfect thighs but that her fantasy man LOVES big thighs and sees her as the fulfillment of his own fantasies.

Quote: 'many a man would also stake his claim on a fantasy where he and a woman are making love, but unbeknown to them are being watched by another woman who becomes so filled with lust that she can't help but make more than her presence felt'.
The thing I love about this one is that the male mind can actually believe for the time this fantasy is in play that the women he is making love to will actually be pleased that she now has competition for his attention. Further, that although he is all and everything she could ever desire, she has a little reservoir of lesbian lust that she wants him to witness. The real clanger is the idea that the original woman will be turned on watching her ideal man screwing some other woman in front of her. Newsflash: most women would call this 'betrayal' and run out of the room crying their hearts out.

Quote: 'The, ahem, pulling power is heightened because women are still apparently the more sexually demure gender, and the blatant flaunting of such rule-breaking is powerfully erotic. Especially if the guy involved believes that it's because the female participants want him so badly that they are willing to share him -and each other. This is an ego trip. Pathetic? Yes. Fact? Certainly.'
Want him so badly that we are willing to share him? You mean, have so little sense of our own self-worth and loveability that in order to hold onto the love of this man-among-men, we will give ourselves the equivalent of emotional Bamboo slivers under the nails? Just to make him happy? -I question the emotional viability of a man who wishes this (on any level) to come true. It worries me that a man can know that this behaviour would be an indicator of serious emotional pain for his partner and indulge the fantasy anyway. Are men thinking 'I know this shouldn't happen, and I wouldn't ever want to hurt her, but if I just fantasise about it, she'll never know?'. I guess that's wherethe Christian concept regarding 'thought' sins being as bad as 'actual' sins comes into play. Maybe I'm a closet Christian?-now that's scarier than anything I've written so far...

Wow. Head spin. So, actually, the man standing up there at the altar promising to love you with all his heart till death do you part blah blah, means 'only with the bit of my head I'm gonna tell you about baby, -the rest of me's gonna betray and hurt you again and again and again,-Why? 'cos I'm a man.'
Ok, now Psycho/med babble persona should say 'Fantasy is a normal and healthy part of any sexual relationship'.
I buy that (mostly) but I still wonder why men's fantasies often revolve around dominance and, let's face it, humiliation, either of their actual partners or of other 'actors' (women). I wonder why this induces powerful orgasm. I wonder if there's actually much to love in the shadowy male psyche at all, -or should we all run away screaming?....

'Feel it-make it work'

For those who are not aware of my world-I am, among other things, a trained actor. I am also a very vocal and viruperative opponent to 'method' acting.
For those unaware of the term, it basically describes a process in which the actor's feelings are used as a primary tool both for character building (during the rehearsal process) and for that little bit of 'chutzpah' during performance. i.e. actors feeling an intense emotional state during perfoemance will 'translate' more powerfully to the audience.
I have this to say: actors, it is not your job to 'feel', it is your job to make the audience feel. This often involves a vast amount of crafting and false angles to provide the best 'image' to the v

iewing public.

In addition, what happens when you do a love scene? Do you 'feel' it? How dangerous would that be if you were in a partnership outside of the stage or film relationship? Please, PLEASE consider your craft people. They don't put you through 3 years of training so you can go off on an emotional orgy of self-indulgent 'feeling'. Craft, I suspect, exists because generations of actors had to find a way to keep themselves sane throughout the process.

Ask this question,-would you be as emotionally indulgent if you were playing a murderer? a paedophile? Is it not a matter of choice?

That's my rant. It's a thesis subject, not really suited to the limited space of a blog, but someone's got to say it.

Middle Management; lightweight IQ & PR

OK, so I work at a BP service station to supplement my income while I am studying. This is not a line of work that I particularly enjoy or am especially proud of, but it is convenient to my home and provides the all-important $$ I need to complete my course.

Without blowing my own trumpet, I think that I'm a reliable and hard worker, and I put a great deal of effort into amusing/entertaining and providing great customer service. All would be reasonably peachy were it not for a certain individual-let's just call him Cecil, that struts in once a month or so to make everyone's lives miserable.

Every time this 'person' (and I use the word advisedly) visits, he lets fly an exhausting barrage of everything that is wrong with the lay-out, uniforms, application to the work at hand, and anything else his vicious brain can get a hold of at the time. In fact, his ability to see only negatives is quite awesome in it's own pathetic way.

Did he miss 'Human Resource Management 101'? You know, the one that espouses the nutty idea that people will work harder and better for you if you don't consistently treat them like cockroaches? I guess he was ill the day that they were told that a consistent string of insults is unlikely to elicit better performances from erm...ANYONE, EVER.

I know he missed the memo that stated that all console operators and sundry part-time workers are not flaming morons. I would suggest that he looked up his transcript and tried 'Manners for beginners' and 'Smiling-it only hurts when you don't do it' as extension courses that would improve his chances of not being mauled to death by a lowly sales-person who has had just about enough of this tripe -thankyou very much.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Cecil probably spends his weekends in B&D dens, decked out with leathers whips and chains and a perky little pvc hat insisting that people call him 'General' or 'Mein Fuhrer'. Actually, it is far more likely that he is utterly whipped by his unfortunate partner in life and only gets to be a Big Man when he's at work.

I also love the jaw-dropping hypocrisy that states that the company is an environmentally aware structure that is obsessed with 'Great customer service' while making fat profits from errr PETROLEUM (oh, that was in 'Unsustainable resources 101') and charging people triple mark-ups with a smile and a 'Have a nice day'. Look, sometimes we all have to listen to some company by-line that everyone in the room knows is pure bollocks (especially the poor monkey having to try and convince everyone else) but it is too rich to expect them to actually believe this crud on a minimal (err, sorry 'competitive') wage structure.

And while I'm at it,-a competitive wage structure? There are sweat-shop workers in Borneo that get paid less and treated worse,-certainly. And I'm sure they all have their own 'Cecil's' in on the bargain. Yes, I am fortunate in comparison to many, but right now I'm genuinely peeved and not a little unhappy with my fiscal arrangements. Cecil, I genuinely wish you to slip on a banana peel in a board meeting sometime soon. -That, or I hope some nasty little roach snaps your leather G-string to hard this weekend....