breast implants (and other enhancements): get the judgment face in check

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Last week, I was getting my hair cut at Salon 241 in Northampton. I've been seeing the same stylist there for a while, and I relish getting my hair done: someone rubbing my head and neck and making me feel pretty and listening to my problems? Hell yes. But this time, our conversation took an interesting turn.

As you can imagine based on this blog's contents, I'm not one to censor myself and was complaining to her about wanting to run more often but hating the actual running part because I'm large-of-boob and my sports bra is great at containing my chest but it hurts after a while. She said without hesitation,"Oh, I'd kill for your size! After I have another kid, I'm getting implants."

I was a little shocked by this for several reasons, but managed to reason through most of my questions. Why would anyone want bigger boobs (it's hard for me to wrap my head around as I've had a huge rack seemingly since birth, but I know that some people truly feel they'd have better self-image, a better silhouette, whatever it may be with more titties)? How could someone in crunchy, love-yourself-even-without-a-shower Northampton fixate on something superficial like this (because they're a human and exposed to media images of beauty that involve big tits and work in the beauty industry)?

But I was mostly surprised by my knee-jerk reaction: I was disappointed by her. I didn't want her to be the type of woman to get implants, to be that shallow. And that's wrong of me. I fear the same judgment for occasionally going tanning  in the depths of winter (even now, I want to justify it: it's just nice to be warm once in a while when New England is negative degrees from November to March!) and being worried that I'll be cast as "one of those girls" who goes tanning.

Part of this, for me, comes from the fact that it just feels unfair for these women to accrue the social capital that comes from having socially-approved looks without having to "work" for it. As Courtney Martin writes in Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters, "A hot bod and sultry sophistication are immediately powerful. The rest  is slow redemption." The power and the privilege that come wrapped up with what our society deems attractive (usually white, young, thin, able-bodied, wealthy to maintain it, etc) are instantaneous, and if I'm being honest, the feedback feels great. Working hard for As and trying to find a meaningful job and saving the world hold gratification too, of course. But it's delayed, making the power of appearance that much more potent in comparison.

Furthermore, there's an association that goes with certain beauty-related procedures that means that women who chooses to get a fake tan or implants or lip or bleach her hair or or lose weight for their wedding or get long acrylic nails are stupid and lacking in depth. And guys? That ain't fair or accurate.


What do you think? Do you ever find yourself judging and put it in check? Or do you continue to judge since some of these acts are dangerous?


Much love,
The Sheriff

herd mentality

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Between the gang rape of an 11-year old girl by 18 young men in Texas (and its despicably poor coverage by the New York Times) and this horrifying email from a frat (though updates from USC claim that it did not originate there) explaining how to be a "cocksman," it has undeniably been a horrific week for women at the hands of men with a herd mentality.

I've bitched before to Meatball about this, but one of the main obstacles to women being treated as true equals to men in every sense of the word is not individual men: it's men as a group. It helps institutionalize oppression even in informal channels. One man by himself absolutely has the capacity to be respectful and to listen to the word "no" and to keep himself from ogling unnecessarily. Add in one or two bros, or worse yet a whole sports team or fraternity, and that demeanor of being a civilized individual is out the fucking window.  I've seen it with my brother, my dad, and absolutely reflected in American culture.

As Tommy Lee Jones said in Men in Black, "A person is smart. People are stupid." Maybe one of those frat brothers alone would never have said or thought anything so crude about another fucking human being, but add in social pressures, ego, the need to demonstrate manliness (whatever that is), and you've got an incredibly offensive and sexist set of beliefs and statements that group identity helps enforce (surprise!). You feel the need to assert your ability to belong to a group based on what you assume that means, and more often than not for men seeking to illustrate just how manly they are, this is demonstrated vis-a-vis women and their bodies.

And I'm fucking sick of it.

Men, we expect better of you. Period. Talk to each other about how this shit is not okay, and not just the nice guys you know will agree: take on the task of talking to your teenage brother brimming with hormones or before a night out, mention to your crude bros that non-consent and rape are in fact the same thing. Activism and changing the world don't have to be protests and marches and petitions (though these are well and good). It can be as simple as a conversation or sharing an article and I challenge you to do something towards that end this week.

What do you think? Is herd mentality that bad/dangerous?

Much love,
The Sheriff

link time

Group offers scholarships to the needy...white men. Ain't that something?

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Why you're not married. Favorite part: "Love is an opportunity that whispers at your doorstep, but most people don’t hear it, because they’re too busy talking about themselves loudly."

You can add your stories/important women in your life into this archive! SUPER cool. 

Research confirms what I've been sayin' forever: go easy on yourself.

These diptychs are so interesting!

Everything you wanted to know about dino sex!

Much love,
The Sheriff

lady magazine ads: the good and the bad

Perhaps it's not the most intellectual thing I do, but I love reading women's magazine (thought I do generally draw the line at Cosmo). I might mockingly recite the horoscopes out loud but I genuinely enjoy reading them. However, even in my lighthearted fun reading time, it's hard not to notice the split between their rhetoric of "love yourself! Your body is great!" and their articles about the latest scary celebrity trends in weight loss (such as this one from Marie Claire!). 

Of course, the cynic in me crows that these magazines are clearly smart and sustaining their sales by giving women enough of the self-esteem boosting good stuff to make them happy but reminding them of their room for improvement and ever-evolving list of bodily flaws/solutions to worry about through advertisements and articles to keep them buying again and again (they've absolutely got me hooked). Consider Cosmo: every month features at least one diet ad in the back pages (ZANTREX is a popular one), along with workout advice supplied by Tracy Anderson (a celebrity trainer whose uber-rich clientele includes Gwyneth Paltrow) who believes/brags about her skills in helping women of any body type fit into the small definition of perfection (the damn subtitle of her book promises as much: the Weight-Loss Kick-Start That Makes Perfection Possible), along with tips on how to be more confident (or at least fake it in the bedroom. For his fragile ego, of course).

But nowhere is this dichotomy better captured than in their ad content.

Marie Claire (often diet obsessed, but balanced out with a decent focus on global women's experiences) this month has the two page ad by Essie, fancy ass nail polish company, shown below.

the sheriff's own photography. and warped bright blue table.

Wicked. That's a strong fucking word. And kind of uncalled for in reference to the dessert pictured. Guilt over food? Unnecessary. Small fudge sundae (without toppings, I might add)? NOT WICKED.

But Glamour's ad from Makeup Forever gave the beauty industry's efforts a bit of redemption.

please forgive the glare

Yes, it's an ad featuring a young, white, blond, thin female with perfectly done makeup. BUT! It's an unretouched ad (certified by a public notary, according to the fine print), which means that although she may fit into a very specific and small definition of beautiful, at least this is her and her beauty, not some fake even more perfect version (granted, this is her with special lighting and makeup done by a professional, but still!).

Is this progress? What do you think about the moves to more "realistic" ads and fashion pages in magazines, especially the use of plus-size models?

Much love,
The Sheriff

the Sheriff's first film review: Orgasm Inc.

Last week, the Sheriff went to Smith's screening of Orgasm Inc., director Liz Canning's film about the pharmaceutical industry's attempts to capitalize on women's sexual insecurities and more. She was offered a job by Vivus to edit together an erotic video to be tried in conjunction with creams intended to increase a woman's chance of orgasm by increasing bloodflow, and this documentary began to take shape. She noted that she didn't intend to make a expose of the pharmaceutical industry, but it fell into place as she learned more of how medicine and science conceive of women, sex, and sexual response. The results are pretty hilarious, so I wanted to share some informative tidbits with ya'll.

Vivus was one of the first companies to get FDA approval to treat erectile dysfunction with a pill, and as the founder (an extremely ol'd dude with a vibrant bowtie) put it, the company's riches were made "bringing life back into dead penises," so they eagerly entered the race to find the female Viagra, the "cure" for female sexua dysfunction (FSD). Characterized by a lack of desire, lack of pleasure, and inability to reach orgasm the interesting thing about this "disease" is that no new medical discoveries were made regarding female sexuality to prompt the medicalization of this loose category of traits By creating a disease, the FDA crated a market, prompting women who see sex in the movies (which usually goes: two minutes of kissings, rip clothes off, penetration, INSTANT ORGASM) and wonder what's wrong with them that they don't cum in that way to begin to feel abnormal.

An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association launched the statistic (which was touted heavily on the news and Oprah) that 43% of women suffer from FSD based on a survey from the 90s in which a group of women responded to questions about if they had experienced any of the following symptoms within the last 12 months for a period of several months: pain during sex, no climax, climaxing too fast, no interest and several other traits that could all be perfectly reasonable responses to stress (except for pain, pain during sex=go straight to gyno, do not collect $200). A yes to any of these listed above yielded a diagnosis of FSD, turning healthy normal women into patients. As Canning put it it shifts the meaning of sexuality into a commodified way of being, and if you don't experience if that way, you need help (which, as you may have guessed, flies in the face of everything the Sheriff believes about sex).


One of the facts that he film revealed that I was familiar with (but not enough people, especially men) are is that 70% of women need direct clitoral stimulation to climax. This Hollywood/porn way of sex of just thrust-thrust-thrust-CUM is just unrealistic and impossible and downright unpleasant for most women. Carol Queen put it thusly when asked if a prescription could help women climax "maybe it'll help if they put a map of clitoris on the box." Word.

The big takeaway? Sex drive is an incredibly individual, unique thing and often relies on social context (had a baby lately? Sleeping badly? Body image worries? Happy with your partner? Stressed out of your mind?), not just blood flow or hormones, for most women.

Much love,
The Sheriff

PS-The film overall was great! Funny, informative, and provocative in a good way, and it included a lot more information than I'm including here, but I didn't want this post to be too enormous....and I'm saving stuff to mine for future posts!

friday links

A letter to Lil Wayne: I love these girls. 

The Trouble with Bright Girls: this rang SUPER true for me, and raises great questions about how we praise kids/what that tells them about themselves.

Sheen, Beck, or Qaddafi? Surprisingly difficult.

Why does this shit even still happen? Why.

Weightless's beef with women's "health" magazines. 

White House declares March Women's History Month!

Fetus to testify in Ohio about abortion bill that would outlaw the procedure after the first heartbeat can be detected.


True story: I have herpes. A good piece that makes STIs less of a "dirty stupid slut" problem and more of a "this could be your problem" problem.


Men: how do you talk to your daughter about beauty?

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Much love,
The Sheriff

UPDATE ON THE PRIVATIZATION!

Hey everyone,
As one of my clearly more intelligent friends pointed out, I could just make a google account and add that to the private list and then EVERYONE can read the blog!
If you gave me your email/google account, I will still be adding it to the list (we just reached 100).

But here is the log-in info--PLEASE remember this! It keeps the blog accessible to more folks, which makes me happy!

email: reader.ff@gmail.com
password: fornicating

Much love,
The Sheriff