Fuck Politeness

I don’t know why I did it to myself, but I opened my sister’s issue of this month’s Cleo. Perhaps it’s because my youngest sister had been flicking through and rating ” She’s SOOooo hot” , and ‘She’s UGLY, she’s so gap-toothed’ etc.

It was the usual parade – a blur of fashion ads, ads for “Girls Night In” (a breast cancer awareness fundraiser, which CLEO suggests you spend sitting around in your underwear with your female friends…cos that’s what we do, us females, we enjoy hanging out in our undies together), and snaps of celebrities with fake tans, anorexia and cosmetic surgery – after a while you start to think you’ve found some account of some eternally youthful and nubile Aryan race with an ever changing wardrobe. (Top piece of hilarity? CLEO is cranky cos there are starving kids in the world and J-Lo dresses her kid in a new designer outfit each day..this coming from CLEO with it’s ” Shoes you MUST HAVE” ethos).

Anyway, same old dross. And then I get to a page on ways to tell if a guy loves you even though he doesn’t/won’t say it. OH DEAR!

So apparently men are all emotionally dysfunctional morons who couldn’t possibly genuinely display or communicate their own emotions (Cleo FACT!)

So: you know he loves you when he jerks it thinking about you and not other women – a/ how WOULD you ever know??? I mean really? Are you gonna stalk him, then wait for climax, pop out of a bush near the window and scream Are you thinking about ME??? Ask him? Bwahahaha! “Honey, when you wank, are you thinking of me?”, “Um…yeah…sure”. b/ Please. How about a little perspective? Masturbation and who/what you think about has FUCK ALL to do with your love for/devotion to your significant other, or really to do with anything at all. Do YOU always masturbate thinking about HIM? OH NOES!!! YOU DON”T LOVE HIM!!!!!

What is the DEAL with this shit!?? It just seems like more food for paranoia – Girls, you need to stress over this, and wonder, and fret, and maybe ask and make things really uncomfortable. Here’s an idea girls. Instead of lying awake wondering if he’s masturbating and if so who is he thinking about and what it means for your relationship? Stop wasting your time. Get to know your own body! How’s about you spend that time constructively: why don’t YOU masturbate instead of lying around working on developing crippling emotional issues. After all, you’re going to feel a whole lot better afterwards. (Yeah, I know, Cleo doesn’t actually admit that women wank! We’re dainty and a-sexual and have sex as a favour).

What were the others (I’ve left this post half finished a while). Oh yeah, you know your fella loves you when he holds your hand in public BECAUSE this lets people know he’s clean and getting laid regularly. So…not *really* about you and how much he loves you so much as the social acceptance holding your hand grants him? Well done Cleo! I know I’ll be subscribing to your magazine for answers to all life’s questions.

Oh another was ‘if he ‘jokes around’ a lot’. So right, if you ask him “How long will you love me” (cos Cleo encourages emotional codependancy and the asking of ludicrous and unanswerable questions the answers to which are to build our egos or crush our souls because women have no existence except that a man loves them) and he says “I dunno…how long does a blow job last for” you should bask in warm happy feelings of love, rather than roundly kick his balls, because THAT means he loves you. EXCUSE ME FUCKING WHAT????

Ok. Do NOT ask the damned question, you know it’s insanity, go home and have a fucking sleep, write in your diary, do what you need to to NOT ask the question. Second, if you DO actually ask…and he comes back with that I suggest you say “Not very long in your case dickwad”, dump his arse and get a new boyfriend. Men putting you down/reducing you to a sexual service centre/being self absorbed pricks/hurting you for their amusement is NOT AFFIRMATION OF LOVE.

Men are NOT emotionally *incapable* of expressing themselves maturely except that they choose to be/choose not to sort their shit out. So fucking expect better or don’t give him the time of day (let alone a blow job). Find a man where you know how he feels because he tells you/shows you, where he treats you with respect and holds your hand for the sake of affection rather than “See, I washed today people!”, where his jokes actually make you laugh rather than cry and for fuck’s sake…when you find him then DO NOT lay awake wondering who he thinks about when he’s masturbating. Get cracking on your own solo activities!

Oh and HEY, guess what? You can choose the GENDER of your partner too. I hate that in responding to CLEO/COSMO crap *my* posts end up being either heteronormative in the attempt to address all the propaganda about men being adorably fucked up, OR making lesbian relationships sound like the second/lesser option for “if you’re sick of men”. Fucking hell. Regardless of who you choose to love/sleep with you don’t HAVE to pine away the way CLEO insists you do, agonising over men, how mean and horrid they are, what their words and actions “mean”, and ways to cope when they make you miserable. Men are not “damaged” or “incapable”, they can fucking take responsibility when they want to and if they don’t, get the hell out. ALSO there’s this whole thing CLEO and Cosmo won’t tell you: You ARE allowed to try relationships with women! YES, even if you’ve never thought about that properly, even if you don’t identify as gay, even if you are not some crap-arsed teen-pop try hard pashing a ‘hot chick’ to give the boys something to toss over. YOU KNOW WHAT? You make your own rules and life is too fucking short to let people make you miserable. BURN YOUR FUCKING CLEOS GIRLS!

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