As pouty Chrissy* screeched, ‘it’s a fine line between pleasure and pain’.
I’m a single 36 yr-old woman who lives alone, does her own housework, cooks her own dinner and works non-stop for a multinational mega-company. The pleasures of my life are few and far between. They usually involve eating some kind of cheese or downing a bottle of perfectly chilled Rosé. Meanwhile the pains, in my legs from running, in my brain from working, in my heart from just being me and in my soul from being perpetually misunderstood, are like my freckles; increasingly visible as I age but covered relatively easily with a layer of heavy-duty make up.
This week, profiting from the national holiday in France, the Sainte Marie or the day the Angel Gabriel told Mary she was going to give birth to Jesus but have no sex, I took a mid-week mini-break to London. Louis XIV has quit the Kingdom of France in an effort to colonise Great Britain. He will no doubt teach them the ways of his land; gilded luxury, bacchanalian excess and sensual pleasure are his order du jour. I decided to take Louis’ lead and spend two days doing exactly as I pleased. I wandered the streets of Belgravia, I shopped for myself, I sat in cafes for hours reading trash magazines and I watched a movie about male strippers.
Yes, I’ve now seen Magic Mike. Much like my last experience with a naked human male, I was really disappointed. Steven Soderburgh directs the film so I had very high expectations. I imagined it would be some kind of witty take on what a man who dances naked for a living thinks about women in 2012, or maybe how he does it because he was damaged by his mother as a child, or maybe like a reverse Pretty Woman he would be paid by someone dominatrix-y like Angelina to dance on command and be at her beck and call.
It wasn’t, it was a story based loosely around some very handsome men dancing around in G-Strings. Call me crazy, I think men are very handsome in all manner of get-up. I like them sweaty in their gym gear, dashingly Bond-y in a Tom Ford tux, Ralph Lauren-y weekend casual in Bermudas with boat shoes or just out of the shower with a towel slung low over their hips. I think men are sexy in their Y-Front undies, I think they are sexy in boxers but I have never, not once, ever, even when I was very drunk, looked at a man in a Stars and Stripes G-string and thought, wow, give me some of that! Men in G-strings look like one of two things, obsessive steroid munching Body Builders or just-off-the-parade-float Gays. Whilst I have I have the utmost respect for the lifestyle choices of both, I have no plans to shag either, so I prefer my men to be wearing pants that cover their bum cheeks thank you very much.
The glossy magazines will tell you that Magic Mike is part of the 2012 phenomenon that is the rise of women’s erotica, mummy porn or the age of the Christian Grey. However you choose to brand it, I am not so sure…
Just in case you are one of the 3 people on earth who has not yet read the Fifty Shades trilogy, here is a basic plot summary. Girl meets very wealthy Man, Man ties virgin girl to a couch and shags her senseless, de-flowered Girl comes loudly every single time Man touches/whips/shackles her, Man falls in love with miraculous-orgasm Girl and they live happily ever after in a very big house filled with whips, chains, servants and bags of cash.
After I overcame the shock of reading three novels that recounted the exact events of my life (said no one ever), I got back to thinking about why these books have become the fastest selling paperback novels ever. Yes they’ve now outsold that other magic man with a big wand, Harry Potter, and they haven’t even been translated into languages other than English.
There are blogs and articles all over the Internet and traditional media crediting the success of Grey to us gals are taking back our sexuality at the same time as we hold down full time jobs and in most cases care for children, husbands and homes. Aren’t we women just amazing, having it all, showing our poor old 20th century suffragette ancestresses just how it can be done.
Well no, we aren’t. The women of the 21st century don’t have it all. We are all more than a little bit insane, we are increasingly dying of breast/ovarian/lung cancer, we’re quaffing Sav Blanc with every meal to stave off the workplace stress and popping pills to control the manic and/or chronic depression.
Perhaps you are lucky enough not to be suffering simultaneously from all three of the above, but we are most definitely not having it all. If we are, please feel free to share your tale. My guess is there is a fair amount of money involved, or alternatively absolutely no sex.
Since the 1960’s men have been freely permitted to escape their daily grind into a Hefner-ised world where women have mounds of blonde hair dripping from their scalps, a permanently open come-hither mouth, perfectly sculpted silicone breasts and a rather unfortunate habit of lounging back on a chair with their legs splayed exposing their naked labia. This must really be discouraged should a rogue wasp be flying by…Men have always been able to wander into the bathrooms of their world and shake out the syrup of their stress into the shower, the toilet or an errant tube sock.
So maybe we are taking our cue from them?
I don’t think women have become more comfortable with porn, I don’t think we’ve taken back our sexuality – if we had done Anastasia Steele, the leading female in the Grey trilogy, would not be a sulky wimp who only opens her mouth to squeal in ecstasy. She would instead be someone who has a job she got all by herself, who washes up dirty dishes, who meets her friends on the weekend and who has opinions she sticks with, even in the face of the horsewhipping hunk of Grey.
No, I just think us gals have become increasingly anxious and stressed. Instead of staring at the bathroom mirror sobbing through mascara stained cheeks at the harsh cards we’ve been dealt, we are taking a lesson from our fapping men friends and indulging in a wee bit of soft-core porn before bedtime; a moment’s pleasure easing the burden of a lifetime of pain.
*Chrissy Amplett is the lead singer of the Australian group The Divinyls. She is first most famous for singing the Number One hit; I Touch Myself, which was banned in America. She is second most famous for playing Judy Garland in the musical The Boy from Oz which made Hugh Jackman famous on Broadway…
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