A New Year, And A New Sweet Bitch of the Week

Hi internet! It's 2011 now. How is that working out for you? Mine is okay so far. I wore leopard print to a barbecue on New Year's Day but also my girlfriend and I had a fight over a pineapple, so as Robbie Williams would say: win some, lose some. Did you make any New Year's resolutions? I made a couple, but I like to call them New Year's aspirations. At best this sounds more encouraging, but I guess at worst it also makes me sound like a commitment-phobic flake. Case in point: Getting my learner driver license has been on the list of aspirations for the last seven years. While we're on the subject, how weird does it sound when you say learner driver license? I wrote "getting my learners" initially but then I realised that this might not make sense for my international readers. (Yes, I actually have some. This is not wishful thinking. A girl from Ireland even sent me an email once.) So while I might not know how to drive, at least I know how to comprehensively write about my experience of not knowing how to drive. Thank God for that. Thank you Bachelor of Arts degree!

Anyway, my aspirations. I made some. Some of them deliberately achievable (read at least twelve books) and some of them are hopeful (spend some time outside of New Zealand) and some of them are inane (spill less food on my clothes) and there is one that is worth writing about outside of parentheses. So, in 2011 I aspire (not resolve, mind you) to be more like Sady Doyle.

This is a photo of Sady Doyle, who come hell and high water, deserves the title of Sweet Bitch of the Week. This is a photo that I found here, where there is also an interview with Sady, so that's nice isn't it. More words! For you to read! On the internet!

Sady Doyle has been one of my blogging heroes for awhile now. She writes for the blog Tiger Beatdown; a blog which was once recommended to me as being "actually feminist" because I had been lamenting (read: complaining) at the downward spiral of Jezebel, a downward spiral where they now give me advice about how to keep my (non-existant) suede shoes clean and where they actually posted this. Sady writes electrically, and she has written things that have punched me in the gut, like this and this. I mean, she even writes compellingly about her dog, okay.

But (segue alert!) as well as being a really great writer, Sady Doyle started a twitter protest, using the hashtag #MooreAndMe, in response to comments made by Michael Moore and Keith Olbermn about the legitimacy of the sexual assault allegations made against Julian Assange. For the uninitiated, there is a brilliantly thorough recap of events over here, with lots of screen caps and links and documentation of the trolling that went down. For those who are under time pressure there is also a briefer recap here, published on the Guardian. I don't really want to write about the actual events of the protest, because the internet has done that. So if you want more background information, here Sady's initial post on #MooreAndMe, and here is a timeline of events written by Sady and here is the so-moving-I-cried-at-my-desk post that she wrote after Moore and Olberman eventually apologised. If you're interested in any further reading on I highly, highly recommend Kate Harding's fantastic explanation of her involvement with #MooreAndMe; Marianne Kirby's critique of comments made by Naomi Woolf and the commentary at Spilt Milk about rape talk and the WikiLeaks allegations. If I worked at Borders these three blog posts would be the books that I would stick little 'Staff Choice' stickers on, and write little notes about how they are important and about how they are worth your money or the click of your mouse or whatever. Jessica Valenti has also done a pretty great #MooreAndMe link round up here, and for any readers unfamiliar with the term 'rape culture' I give a similar Borders type endorsement to Rape Culture 101, published at Shakesville.

As well as not wanting to write about the actual protest, I'm also not interested in talking about whether Julian Assange is guilty or about how creepy he is or the stupid things he said about Sweden or about the substantial merits of WikiLeaks itself, because really, the internet has done this as well. Well and truly. My feelings on the subject can pretty much be summed up in this Conniptions comic:

And this tweet by Feminist Hulk:

I'm more interested in talking about the bravery and the tenacity and the dogged persistence that Sady showed in keeping that fucking hashtag going. Because Sady didn't just it, she fucking kept at it. For days and days, up against Michael Moore's silence and up against Naomi Of-All-People Wolf coming out and saying that it isn't rape if you penetrate an unconscious woman and up against some of the worst, vitriolic, triggering, slut shaming, victim blaming trolling that I had ever seen on the internet. And by talking about it, by lauding her efforts, I don't intend to minimize the harm or the considerable emotional distress that Sady incurred over the course of the protest and probably will continue to experience. Because she wrote about it, and she wrote about getting death threats because of it, and that shit is fucking terrifying and celebrating her as my feminist hero doesn't make it any less terrifying or upsetting.

The reason, though, that I apsire to be more like Sady Doyle this year is because I tweeted that fucking hash tag like three times and then I gave up. And one of those times, one out of those three fucking times, was a self-servicey tweet I sent yesterday (long after the hash tag had pretty much died) looking for the link to that comprehensive #MooreAndMe recap for this very blog. I mean, could I make this tweet more about me if I tried?

The main reason that I gave up tweeting to that hash tag was because of the trolls. Even my stupid, weeks-too-late, narcistic tweet looking for a link did not go un-trolled.

Yeah. Be careful trawling the internet this week folks, because when you are looking for a link it means you are having a cunt spasm. So like, be careful in public places or whatever.

Weeks later, there are still trolls hanging around that hash tag, looking to frighten and deter and silence those who believe that all rape allegations should be taken seriously, and if that isn't rape culture then I don't know what is. Before this, maybe about three days into the protest, back when Michael Moore still hadn't apologised and when things were looking dire I sent a tweet to Michael Moore (MMflint is his Twitter name) under the #MooreAndMe hashtag.

And this tweet was trolled as well:

And all of a sudden, I just couldn't fucking be bothered. So I didn't tweet to #MooreAndMe again, apart from when I needed a link, because I couldn't be bothered.. I couldn't be bothered tweeting to the hashtag anymore and I couldn't face dealing with rape apologism and mansplaining and a patronising cockwipe telling me that I needed to 'learn' about rape from Julian Assange and that because I am a woman and I felt passionate about something, I therefore must be having a cunt spasm. I didn't have the emotional strength to deal with it, even though I knew that GoldenScepter had ADMITTED to deliberately trolling the hashtag and even though I really wanted to support Sady Doyle and even though I really fucking care about giving rape/sexual assault victims a voice. And Assange and WikiLeaks and #MooreAndMe is inherently linked to giving those victims a voice, because in the words of Sady herself:

"No matter what the actual truth of the Assange case may be, the effect this has on women who are raped is profound, and profoundly terrible. Because it teaches them that, if enough people like your rapist, it is literally unsafe and unacceptable for you to report your own rape."

So the reason that this year I aspire to be more like Sady Doyle is because she kept going when I gave up. It isn't because she started the hash tag in the first place; it's because she didn't stop. And this year, I want to be more like Sady. I don't want to stop. And so, I end the first post of a new year through the immortal genius of not the Bay City Rollers, but of Sady Doyle.

"That’s the most important lesson of #MooreandMe, for me, the most important take-away: The next time something is this fucked up, and we feel like we have to fight it, we will. The next time we feel like we have to fight something, we will know fighting can make a difference. The chief thing #MooreandMe gave me, the girl who started out a week ago just writing an irritated Tweet and then eventually hearing a “thank you” from Michael Moore, was faith in the idea that activism can change things."

[Quoted from here.]

Eff You Peter Carlisle

There is a pro-choice rally in Wellington on Tuesday. I really wish that I could go. Partly because I want to feel like a proper days-of-yore feminist who goes to six protests before breakfast and then goes home to read the Beauty Myth. Partly because abortion is actually illegal in New Zealand and because getting an abortion requires already vulnerable women to jump through hoops like little sparkly-ruffed circus dogs. I'd like to go to the rally because for a woman to choose abortion in New Zealand she has to see two different doctors and she has to tell them that the continuation of her pregnancy will endanger her life, her mental health or her physical health. If she lives outside of Christchurch, Wellington or Auckland she will have to travel, often meaning many days away from work and away from her local support network. MP Steve Chadwick is currently proposing an Abortion Reform Bill to take abortion out of the Crimes Act, which surprisingly will be opposed by anti-abortion group Voice For Life. The life that they advocate for of course being that of unborn foetuses, rather than the full and healthy lives of women and their planned families. So I have a few pretty good reasons for wanting to go and protest.

But mostly, I'd like to go to the rally to say a big 'fuck you' to Peter Carlisle. I don't know who Peter Carlisle is, but he posted this on the Facebook event page for the No More Jumping Through Hoops Abortion Rights Protest and I instantly hated him:

Needless to say, I am more than a little offended by the dismissive, misogynist, homophobic, slut-shaming and inaccurate Peter Carlisle. So were a whole lot of other open legged lesbians on the event page. Nicola made this brilliant point:

Astute, although I often wish that we didn't have to use extreme situations like rape or incest to suggest that a woman should be entitled full control of her body. Hannah casually pointed out Peter's apparent lack of basic biological knowledge:

My friend Izzy, a she-wolf if there ever was one, eloquently put Peter in his place:

But Tessa possibly had the best argument of all:

And just quietly, Peter Carlisle is not only poorly informed about basic biology but also about the meaning of the word contraception. He should possibly get his facts right before posting on a Facebook event filled with slutty lesbians who also happen to be pedants. Contraception is something that is used to prevent conception, so I am guessing that most women who request abortion are a little past that point. And if Peter means that women are using abortion as a method of birth control, perhaps he should go and read this awesome blog post at the Curvature. Here is a snippet:

"Because do you understand the actual words you are speaking? Do you know what birth control is? It’s right there, in the name. It is something you use to control whether or not you give birth. That’s it. Ta-da. The end. When someone says “lots of women use abortion as a form of birth control!” what they mean is “lots of women use abortion.” The extra words are unnecessary. How the hell else are you going to use it?"

I would love to go to that protest to shove it to Peter Carlisle. I would like to shove it to all of the Peter Carlisles of the world; men who think they ought to have a say in what women do with their bodies. I would love to go because full equality depends upon women having full control over their fertility. I would love to show my support for Steve Chadwick's bill, because often it is not abortion that causes mental distress, it is the obstacles that women face. I would love to shove it to Peter Carlisle for suggesting that women who have abortions are sexually promiscuous and for even thinking that the amount of sex a woman has is something that can be used as an insult. It would be great to ask him about a pile of things, like why he thinks that my being a lesbian (or at least a woman who is in a same sex relationship) somehow seems to undermine my stance on reproductive rights or why he seems to think that women are solely responsible for planning when to have kids. I would like to take him up on why he thinks it is appropriate to tell another human being to just shut their legs. I would like to tell him about how no contraceptive is 100% effective and about how nobody is perfect and about the many women who have died in back alley procedures as a consequence of limited access to safe and legal abortion . I would like to tie him to a chair and make him watch Vera Drake. I would like to ask him why he feels so comfortable with the idea of forcing his moral beliefs onto others. I would like to politely suggest that if Peter Carlisle doesn't like abortions then maybe he doesn't have to get one, but he shouldn't rob others of their personal choice.

But I can't go to the protest. I will be sitting at my desk at work devoting eight hours of my day to typing, mediocrity and capitalism. But maybe you can. Go. Shove it to Peter Carlisle.

If you live in Wellington and you want to stick it to Peter Carlisle you should go to the No More Jumping Through Hoops: Abortion Rights Protest at the Court of Appeal tomorrow, on the 5th of October. Make a stand against Right to Life is taking the Abortion Supervisory Committee to court, to try and further restrict women's access to abortion in New Zealand.Meet on the corner of Aitken and Molesworth Street at 12.30pm and wear something red. I understand that organisers are also looking for volunteers to hand out fliers this afternoon at the train station and on Tuesday morning they need help blowing up balloons. Email actionforabortionrights@gmail.com for more information or go to the Facebook event page.

Rage On, My Babies: The Birth of "Your Rage, My Blog"

My dear readers, it has come to my attention that many of you are suffering from acute cases of rage. I don't hardly blame you, because we live in a time where our political representatives are either dead baby fraudsters or they see merit in banning the most vulnerable of sex workers from public vision. (Surprisingly, the Prostitutes Collective thinks that the Manakau City Bill might put prostitutes at risk. In other news, the world might remain spherical.) We live in a rage inducing time where everybody loves Christopher Nolan, which also happens to be a time where my UTI just will not fucking go away. So it is okay. I feel your rage. That is why I sit here, tip tapping at my keyboard. I needed a rage outlet or else my girlfriend was going to keep encouraging me to join a gym to deal with my aggression. So I made a blog instead, and now I just share my rage with the internet.

Basically, I've gotten an inkling about your rage recently because you've told me about it. You've sent me a whole lot of emails and Facebook messages and texts, and sometimes we have even talked face to face about how furious you are with all of the sizeist and racist and classist and ableist and transphobic and whorephobic and homophobic and misogynist and slut-shaming and xenophobic assholes that you know. So I was thinking, you guys should keep telling me about this stuff and then maybe I could actually blog about it. To do this, you should email me at alexandra.hazel.garrett@gmail.com and possibly screencap your examples of internet assholery. Examples which I can instantly and magically make anonymous through the use of Perez Hilton inspired MS Paint, and by the by, I really hope this is the first and last thing I do that is inspired by Perez Hilton. Then you guys will get to share your rage and you totally won't have to join a gym, unless you want to. And if you are going to join a gym, then you probably shouldn't join Contours, because my friend Erin told me this about it:

"Two of my workmates went to sign-up at a gym at lunch. During the fitness tests and sign-up thingy they had a weight check according to a chart on the wall. I shit you not this was the scale NORMAL > FATTER THAN NORMAL > FAT > OVER FAT"

As you probably know, I am all about using the word fat more often to try and take away some of the shame and stigma. But Contours, I'm not really sure if differentiating between 'fat' and 'normal' in such a specific and obnoxious does this. Maybe somebody could be both fat AND normal, Contours? Also, maybe not everybody wants to actually lose weight? Maybe they want to come to your gym to do this:

[Created by Susan Surface, who is selling merchandise at CafePress, and who almost makes me want to join a gym.]

So, in the first instance of Your Rage, My Blog I am going to post something here that was sent in by my friend M, a stone cold fox who makes amazing lasagna. M felt offended when this popped up on her Facebook:

Which yeah, that's offensive. Sure, I've never met C but this is probably just him making a little joke, because he's young and liberal and he can get away with it because obviously he's being ironic. He makes jokes like this but he's not actually sexist or anything. But actually, the things we joke about are the things we think about. And in the words of Bidisha from the Guardian, casual sexism is nothing but misogyny.

Is this supposed to be funny because equality has apparently been achieved? Because it isn't and because it hasn't. Women are still paid less than men. Abortion law in New Zealand is classified under the Crimes Act, not the Health Act, and I can't tell anyone that I'm making a play about womanhood in New Zealand without them asking if it is about periods. Which is another kind of intentionally-humorous-but-actually-derogatory statement, or in this case a question, because women are obviously so hysterical that we all couldn't hang out together without talking about menstruation. Which is actually just offensive in itself, because if we wanted to make a show about periods, or any-fucking-thing about the female body we should be able to do so without derision or even the subtlest of sneers. Because if we did, it might be fucking brilliant. Possibly somebody might even want to see it, what with the prevalence of menstrual bleeding among half the planet. But then again, every single review of the Vagina Monologues at the Basement prefaced itself with some kind of OH MY GOD HOW EMBARRASSING AND 90'S, A PLAY ABOUT VAGINAS, OH MY GOD HOW UNCOMFORTABLE commentary. But hey, I'm probably overreacting. What's the point in living, if you don't have a dick? LULZ!

Just quietly, C, was it nice when you were being kept alive inside the body of a woman for nine months? Was it good having a dick then? How about when your little minuscule baby dick was pushed through your mother's vagina and into the world, or when you emerged from the gaping hole in her stomach? A hole in the body of the woman who gave you life. I'm kind of loathe to place too much emphasis on motherhood here. Ladies shouldn't be defined by their ability to breed and there are a whole lot of women who can't have babies and who don't want to. Also because it is this kind of naturalisation of maternity and of women's work that means that stay at home parents don't get paid, and teachers and carers and nurses don't get paid very much, because it is natural and it is what women do and they are supposed to enjoy it, not get paid for it. And also, because there are people who neither have dicks nor are women, and people who have dicks but also consider themselves as female, and I don't want to get too gender binary up in here. So, C, I am aware that my argument is a little problematic, but maybe the next time you go to assert your masculinity through some casually misogynist joke, you should just remember that your mother actually gave you your dick. Maybe you should shake what your mama gave you and learn to treat women with some respect.

Would A Rose By Any Other Name Smell As Misogynist?

Okay, so. Rosie. We need to talk. On Facebook, you liked a group called Curvy girls do it better... only a dog wants a bone! By "needing to talk" I mean that I need write a blog post about this page that you clicked, probably mindlessly while you were at work or something. A blog post that you will most likely never read because we haven't talked since high school and because you have probably moved on to much loftier things in life than trawling your Facebook news feed like a pedant. But anyway.

Firstly, everybody 'wants a bone'. Or like, they want 206 bones because that is how many bones adult human beings have. If you want less bones than that, you might be a pedophile. If you don't want a bone at all, then you probably want to fuck an octopus. Yes, I realise that this group is actually just using the term 'bone' as an attack on thin women. We'll get to that. I just wanted to get my little quip about the octopus out of the way.

Secondly, curvy girls do WHAT better exactly? Write poetry? Swim triathlons? Make spinach and ricotta cannelloni? Oh. Right. I get it. They FUCK better. Because at the end of the day women are sexual objects. And the key word here is objects and not sexual, because this Facebook group is not about the innate power of female sexuality or even about masturbation. I wish it was, but it is about validating your body shape by your ability to fuck. Which is what counts, right, because women everywhere get paid less than men do and it doesn't even matter because a lady is always going to be defined by who and how and when and why and how often she fucks, and whether she gets paid for it and whether she is married and by what she does with the baby if she gets pregnant. And because the patriarchy hurts everyone, not just women, and if you are a straight man you best be putting on a show that you care most about the fucking and not about her poems or her cannelloni. This might be a generalisation, sure, but we have got to learn how to make positive statements about bodies without talking about how they are going to be shared by somebody else.

Thirdly, saying nasty things about thin women's bodies only justifies every single cruel thing that has ever been said about fat women. Loving your body does not have to be, and nor should it be, a competition. Because then nobody wins, apart from psychotherapists. And possibly Jenny Craig. Comparing thin women to 'bones' and the people who fuck them to 'dogs' just validates sizeism. It validates my being called a 'fat bitch' in the street that one time and it validates the pithy existence of the term 'chubby chaser'. Attacking men who like thin women just gives them the power to attack the sexual preferences of others, rather than something interesting like their political beliefs or whether or not they think Tony Soprano actually died at the end of the series. I know this is like the letter to James again, but there have got to be ways of being body positive without tearing other women down.This is not about whether or not it is okay to express your sexual preferences in a public forum, it is about body-fucking-solidarity. Fat acceptance is body acceptance. It is about accepting each and every body in its own right, no matter what it looks like or what gender it is or what colour or whether it fits into some kind of narrow societal mold of appropriate ability. Glorifying fat bodies through the vilification of thin ones only celebrates and cements a culture of body shame.

Va-Jesus Christ.

To be honest with you, lately I've been thinking quite a lot about vajazzling. Well, not really a lot a lot. It's not like I'm approaching my two year anniversary with my girlfriend and I have automatically developed an obsession with pussy decoration. I’ve just been thinking about it more often than usual. And like, it's normal that I've been thinking about it quite a bit, because it seems like you can't even move on the internet recently without bumping into someone talking about vajazzling, or possibly even making a joke about her lesser cousin, Clitter. Possibly it seems like I have been thinking about it more than usual because until like, May, I hadn’t thought about vajazzling at all, ever. And you know, the thought of vajazzling actually isn’t sitting that comfortably with me. Which is probably what it feels like to have tiny jewels glued all over your pubic area, but having never put on any kind of clam costume, I can't really comment. And as a don’t-knock-it-till-you’ve-tried-it kinda girl, maybe vajazzling is actually really great. (FYI, this approach to life also applies to beetroot, Vegemite and cream cheese on toast, as well as anal sex and handwriting analysis). But I still feel uncomfortable. About vajazzling, not anal sex.

Uncomfortable, offended. They’re all the same. I think I'm going to try and use this post to unwrap exactly what it is that is about vajazzling that is making me feel uncomfortable. If you don’t like disjointed self analysis and patchy feminist theory, stop reading now. Blogging; it's like psychotherapy but cheaper and more public.

To get started, here is that video where Jennifer Love Hewitt brought vajazzling into the public consciousness: (Link, in case my HTML doesn't work.)

And here is a YouTube of a lady called Bryce getting vajazzled: (Another link)

And here is a blog post (Title: I Vajazzled And I Liked It) where a woman from Crushable wrote about her experience getting decorated. In case you were wondering, she had sex and none of the crystals fell off.

Obviously, I’m uncomfortable that women feel they have to vajazzle in the first place. To explain my discomfort I was going to try and write something about the beauty myth and femininity and feminism and the associated health risks, but then I found this article by Amanda Hess, which I think you should probably just go and read instead. Here are some highlights:

In last week’s post, I floated the following equation:

Sexual Repression + Capitalism + Sexism =Vajazzling

I think it would be appropriate to add “Pseudo-Feminism” to the list of Vajazzling’s contributing societal factors. But first, let’s tackle the good old fashioned anti-feminism at play here: Capitalism will find a way to exploit any weaknesses in our society, and sexism is one of them. Take Liz Lemon’s analysis of Valentine’s Day from 30 Rock: “Valentine’s Day is a sham created by card companies to reinforce and exploit gender stereotypes.” You could say the same thing about the cosmetics industry, plastic surgeons, and Vajazzling technicians.

When it comes to personal appearance, it’s no coincidence that femininity is marked by performance, while masculinity is just as often defined by men not performing things. Shaving your body hair is feminine; not shaving is masculine. Plucking, waxing, or bleaching stray facial hairs is feminine; growing a few days of stubble is masculine. Applying makeup is feminine; not painting your face is masculine. Dying, styling, blow-drying, and curling your hair is feminine; keeping a low-maintenance hair cut is masculine.

I suspect that this is because women are encouraged to achieve societal power through their appearance and sexuality, while men are encouraged to achieve power from . . . reaching real positions of power, like running companies and governments. Sure, women who are very successful at performing femininity can gain some real power, too. Maybe there’s a two-year window there where women can translate their success in this field into posing for Playboy, or shaking in a music video, or stripping, all of which can translate into money in the bank—until they get a little bit older and fall out of favor in those industries. Maybe some women can aspire to be trophy wives and get their social validation by being married to a successful man. The majority of women won’t be able to make a career out of performing femininity. And yet, we’re still shaving and waxing and plucking and dieting and padding and inflating and cinching and painting and dyeing and surgically trimming our labia and, now, vajazzling like it’s our jobs—even as we have been successful in claiming real power as Senators and CEOs and lawyers and doctors and journalists.

And:

This is where the “a woman’s choice!” defenders come in. How could we possibly deny women the choice to engage in these behaviors, if that’s what they love? Look: I don’t begrudge women who make the choice to perform the behaviors of femininity. I perform many of them myself, on a daily basis! Resisting engaging in these things is almost impossible. But I don’t kid myself into thinking that I just love wearing lipstick because I was born that way, or that I shave my legs because I have somehow independently decided—without any influence from my culture!—that that’s the way I personally prefer my legs to look.

She's good, right?

Of course I am offended by vajazzling. Of course I am offended by the culture of pussy shame that we live in, a culture where talking about your genitalia is gross and waxing all the hair off it is normal and where we all say vagina and not vulva, because why would we even bother getting the anatomy right for something as disgusting as what is between our legs? Of course I will defend a woman's choice to vajazzle, until I am blue in the face, but I think there is something bigger here. I am offended that getting a Brazilian is considered to be an appropriate anniversary gift, because here baby, why don’t you have a little less of me. I am offended because so many of my friends have had a boyfriend who wouldn't go down on them unless they had showered in the last five minutes. I am offended by the dudes I have slept with who expected me to blow them every time but who wouldn’t eat me out because they didn't like the taste. I am offended by a world in which I was ever an 18 year old in spotty pyjama shorts and freshly washed hair, dry humping the knee of a guy with dreadlocks but knowing I wouldn't let him get any further, not because I didn't want to but because I hadn't shaved that day. I am offended that labioplasty even exists. I am offended that when gay American author Dan Savage was asked about vajazzling, he said:

[It's] like asking a vegan for her opinion on the wallpaper in a steak house. I'm simply too revolted by what's on the menu to take much notice of the decor.

How hilarious Mr. Savage. I know that you’re gay, but being revolted isn't the same as being disinterested. Also, not all vegans are female, you asshat. I am offended that the censorship of mainstream soft pornography has warped our perception of what a normal vagina looks like. I am offended that labioplasty even exists in the first place. I am offended that some girls are too grossed out by their pussies to masturbate and I am offended that some of my female friends don't want to hear about my lesbian sex life because they think it's gross, even though THEY HAVE THEIR OWN VAGINA THAT I ASSUME THEY MAY HAVE TOUCHED AT SOME POINT. Of course it is this stuff I am offended by. Look, I had to use caps lock. But I also think that when it comes to my vajazzling discomfort, there is a little more than this.

I think that something else I’m uncomfortable about is how people seem to think that vajazzling is HILARIOUS. I am uncomfortable because the mainstream media coverage on vajazzling doesn't talk about the beauty myth or the performance of femininity or the increasing popularity of labioplasty. Not in the Stuff article or the Courier Mail blog or the Guardian piece or Fox News (but actually the Sydney Morning Herald opinion piece was pretty good.) They didn't mention it because it’s a joke, right? I am offended by how Ann Aitken Worth wrote on her Stuff news site blog Are We There Yet? that it must be uncomfortable to ride a bike vajazzled, and that that is funny, but nobody is amused about how it would be uncomfortable to ride a bike with waxing burn or Spanx or in heels and a pencil skirt because that shit is normal. In the quest for beauty it's normal to be uncomfortable and to have trouble taking a piss. I am offended that it's funny that a lady is just trying to please someone, probably a dude, and it's funny to laugh at either her low self esteem, or her wealth of pussy confidence. Or maybe she is an adult entertainer, and that's not a joke, it's job. Or is it funny because vajazzling is something that only sluts would do, and they wouldn't buy the cow if they could get the milk for free? I am offended because of course it makes me think of that Margaret Atwood poem. I am offended because I think there might be some kind of subtext here that pussies are obviously so gross and disgusting and ugly that why would you even bother putting crystals on them. I am offended because vajazzling is hilarious but waxing off all of your pubes at sixty bucks and three ingrown hairs a pop is normal and barely funny at all and it is expected. I am offended because nobody found that Gucci advert funny, and getting a ‘T’ waxed into your pubic hair for your boyfriend Tim’s birthday is a romantic gesture. I am offended because women are supposed to look effortlessly beautiful, and maybe vajazzling is funny because obviously women are trying a little bit too hard. I am offended because reading all of this stuff somehow cheapens my love of lipstick and MAC cosmetics and low cut tops, but I'll still be putting them all on again tomorrow and I don't whether it's because I love it or I think I love it. I am uncomfortable because everyone is just having a laugh and in that Crushable blog, the woman said that getting vajazzled actually hurts.

I’m sure there are some jokes about vajazzling that are really good. A joke about scissoring with disco ball comes to mind. I can’t be bothered developing it but you get the idea. Or when Amanda Hess and her equally great feminist blogger counterpart Sady Doyle said that the male counterpart for vajazzling could be dickerating. Or when my friend Felicity found a sequin from Scarlett’s mini skirt on her inner thigh, and Di made a joke about vajazzling and it was funny because it was topical because there were already sparkles near a vagina. Or maybe a joke about the glowing vagina poster for the Real L Word. Merkins, also possibly topical. I feel like these are acceptable jokes about vajazzling. But when you make a joke about vajazzling and you have no punch line, I don’t think it’s that great. Because you are either making fun of the rare woman who thinks her pussy is so wonderful that it deserves to be decorated, or you are laughing at a girl who is so embarrassed by her own anatomy that she feels compelled to rip her hair out and cover herself in crystals. Neither of which are all that funny really.

(But, to be honest, if you had sex with the dude up there while he was in that costume I’d probably laugh. Even if he just kept the glasses on.)