Good & bad things I've seen lately...
The Good:
Am giggling at a TV play called Psycho Bitches, which is a (usually) smutty send-up of various historical figures being psychoanalysed (by a therapist played very straight by Rebecca Front). I like their version of Mary Whitehouse, who they write as so innocent of homoerotic subtext that she likes the 'healthy outdoorsy' art of Tom of Finland (giggle).
And Edith Piaf deciding she does regrette quelques choses (more giggling).
There is a version of Frida Kahlo which will only serve to confuse most people, because it appears to be a one-joke setup about facial hair.
It's a bit of a blunt instrument, more based on people's mythology or mental images about historical figures than knowledge about them, but it is actually funny.
There is a lovely soft fluffy cat next to me. He has done his best to destroy my computer case with his claws, then settled down on it and gone to sleep (it's been the Cat Bed for the last few months). Unaccountably my Dad doesn't think it's a sensible use of money to get another computer case so I can leave that one for feline use.
The Less Good:
Have been reading a blog-book created by police officers writing in. Before reading it, I had a generally positive view of the police, as public service officers struggling with difficult tasks like dealing with mentally-ill people, scraping drunk people off the pavement, and being the last port of call whenever anything involves weapons. After reading the splenetic outpourings of many serving officers, I am uncomfortable at how many of them seem to think the educated middle-classes are 'the enemy', and how many of them think that their real job is duffing up crims, as an enjoyable paid alternative to rugby. I feel uncomfortable at having been taken to mental hospital when I was unwell -- I wouldn't really have noticed it, but was this something they felt as being beneath them?
And there was a real doozy of a rape-culture bit in it. One officer expressed in no uncertain terms how annoyed he was that there was a reported rape attempt from a woman who'd gone home happily with a man, making sure to collect a condom from her friend first, made a fuss about nothing which he had to write up, and then completely forgot about it. The idea that sexual willingness is a contract that can be negotiated while both partners are vertical, dressed and in a public place, somehow proved by having a condom, and then cannot be un-consented from or re-negotiated, is disturbing. I suppose the officer may have meant that because all the evidence he saw/heard about in public previously (from the woman and her friend) was consensual, and the woman then didn't make a fuss later, everything was fine because if she had been raped she'd have made a fuss the next day, but the Unfortunate Implication that the woman doesn't seem to be within her rights to change her mind once consent has been given seems to shine through the murky depths. There must be lots of occasions where people have gone out more-or-less looking for sexual contact and then decided not to. Some of them were even men. They don't need a better reason than 'no', 'not feeling it now', 'gone off it', or 'maybe another time' (if they do want to try later), because they Don't Have To Justify It. It no doubt sucks to be the other person, but all you're 'owed' is to wait until you're alone at home (muttering imprecations if the other person was inconveniently late in deciding) and masturbate or wait for your bits to cool down, according to taste.
(feels irritable and goes to look at kitten pictures)
Well, that was a vent, mostly, except for the TV and cat bits. But it's time I posted something, and those were the things I was thinking about today.
Am giggling at a TV play called Psycho Bitches, which is a (usually) smutty send-up of various historical figures being psychoanalysed (by a therapist played very straight by Rebecca Front). I like their version of Mary Whitehouse, who they write as so innocent of homoerotic subtext that she likes the 'healthy outdoorsy' art of Tom of Finland (giggle).
And Edith Piaf deciding she does regrette quelques choses (more giggling).
There is a version of Frida Kahlo which will only serve to confuse most people, because it appears to be a one-joke setup about facial hair.
It's a bit of a blunt instrument, more based on people's mythology or mental images about historical figures than knowledge about them, but it is actually funny.
There is a lovely soft fluffy cat next to me. He has done his best to destroy my computer case with his claws, then settled down on it and gone to sleep (it's been the Cat Bed for the last few months). Unaccountably my Dad doesn't think it's a sensible use of money to get another computer case so I can leave that one for feline use.
The Less Good:
Have been reading a blog-book created by police officers writing in. Before reading it, I had a generally positive view of the police, as public service officers struggling with difficult tasks like dealing with mentally-ill people, scraping drunk people off the pavement, and being the last port of call whenever anything involves weapons. After reading the splenetic outpourings of many serving officers, I am uncomfortable at how many of them seem to think the educated middle-classes are 'the enemy', and how many of them think that their real job is duffing up crims, as an enjoyable paid alternative to rugby. I feel uncomfortable at having been taken to mental hospital when I was unwell -- I wouldn't really have noticed it, but was this something they felt as being beneath them?
And there was a real doozy of a rape-culture bit in it. One officer expressed in no uncertain terms how annoyed he was that there was a reported rape attempt from a woman who'd gone home happily with a man, making sure to collect a condom from her friend first, made a fuss about nothing which he had to write up, and then completely forgot about it. The idea that sexual willingness is a contract that can be negotiated while both partners are vertical, dressed and in a public place, somehow proved by having a condom, and then cannot be un-consented from or re-negotiated, is disturbing. I suppose the officer may have meant that because all the evidence he saw/heard about in public previously (from the woman and her friend) was consensual, and the woman then didn't make a fuss later, everything was fine because if she had been raped she'd have made a fuss the next day, but the Unfortunate Implication that the woman doesn't seem to be within her rights to change her mind once consent has been given seems to shine through the murky depths. There must be lots of occasions where people have gone out more-or-less looking for sexual contact and then decided not to. Some of them were even men. They don't need a better reason than 'no', 'not feeling it now', 'gone off it', or 'maybe another time' (if they do want to try later), because they Don't Have To Justify It. It no doubt sucks to be the other person, but all you're 'owed' is to wait until you're alone at home (muttering imprecations if the other person was inconveniently late in deciding) and masturbate or wait for your bits to cool down, according to taste.
(feels irritable and goes to look at kitten pictures)
Well, that was a vent, mostly, except for the TV and cat bits. But it's time I posted something, and those were the things I was thinking about today.