Wednesday 19 January 2011

It's all bloddy dysfunctional anyway, so let's make it more fun for ourselves while we wait for some mental breakthrough

Sip of coffee, click, click, sip of coffee. I gave up thinking some of my procrastination time as real procrastination. I love art, and pretty pictures, and landscapes, and design. This is all so great! This is life. This is how I want to live mine. From time to time I open my image bookmarking sites like http://piccsy.com/, http://weheartit.com/, http://ffffound.com/ or http://www.tumblr.com/ and spend some time taking in the Zeitgeist, savouring the colours, shapes and great ideas, trying to escape this focking sea of skinny women.

The main thing is, huge part of the people that bookmark girls, 100 in a row, is composed by… women! What’s up girls? Cool! Yeah, girls are pretty too, I agree, but where are the men? I don’t get it! And I want answers! Why do you collaborate? Why don’t you post some men too?

I get sick of it and decide to grab a bite at the supermarket, where I’m once again bombarded by the female image. Almost ALL magazines have females on their covers. The very few ones with males on their covers are mostly talking about the male brain, or some sort of male accomplishment. Girls… girls don’t need accomplishments! They look good, innit? Says you.

Here are my questions. Do you think the female body is so amazingly prettier to justify this imbalance? My opinion is: no. The male body is, for me, prettier, and much much more so. It is strong, agile, square, daring, yang, super nice. Women are pretty too, but most of the time they remind me of stages of life and their functionality. The female body is kinda round, a bit wobblier, and it definitely looks better when wrapped in clothes. As I said, it is functional. That’s my personal, subjective view and I don’t really want to convince you of anything at this stage. If the female and male bodies cause you to feel differently, go for it.

Another question: ok, ok, I hear you saying, “oh, this is all about sex. Sex sells”. Right. So, if this is all about sex, I find myself once again short of stimulation. You want me to buy something, so you trigger the sex thing in my brain. No you don’t. C’mon, girls. I know some of you like men. If sex sells then we should be treated as valid consumers (sic). It seems marketing people are only targeting men!


Ah! I hear a few of you answering my next question before I even write it! Nice one. This is really interactive. I like it. Yes, they make us compete with these female images, roughly speaking. Ok. Who are they, by the way? Hmm… Let’s not get into the details of each and every aspect of this complex issue ‘cos every sentence here could branch out into a whole new post of its own. What we could do is realise there is some manipulation going on, of course, but there is also a little bit of communication between our desires and impulses and the marketing people’s plans. If we are aware of how things are being used, we could present them with a new face of desire. We could make this century truly the century of women, for women, but without the stress of having to fit in some stupid skinny mould that doesn’t come any close to what real men want.

So yeah, the plan is, to slowly shift the stereotype of female consumer, from a jealous, competitive, neurotic, superficial bitch, to a cultured, well informed sex bomb (or not) demanding to be catered for in a way that aids sexual expression/satisfaction. All that assuming voyeurism brings satisfaction. Sometimes it does.

When this slow process reaches our desired peak state, we will have all types of men on magazines, posters, all around the internet, in all sorts of poses. Builders, teachers, personal trainers, chefs, mostly young and fresh (hmmmmmmm). Men will have to work their arses off/out at the gym and fill their shelves with the latest technology in creams and peelers while we, women, walk around making noises and stimulating our creative/sexual centres. We would hysterically invent new things, spend our evenings making music together, without competition, talking about this young boy that just moved in 2 floors below, just for fun, ‘cos we all have our own well built hubbies, but they are out. Shopping.

What do you reckon, girls? More men everywhere?