every 1 and their dog e-mailed in to say either 'try this' or 'woof' (okay, no dogs e-mailed). i appreciate the tips but to be honest with you, i'd heard them all before. we're talking about cramping by the way. and tried them all. and yesterday elaine was full of 'do this' and 'try this' so don't think i'm saying anything about readers i wouldn't say about friends.
1 thing did actually work and it didn't come by e-mail. it came by special delivery. i called c.i. and asked, 'what is this crap?' it was preserves, organic. i don't eat preserves generally. i also don't eat raspberry preserves (or jelly). and c.i. prefers red plum preserves (and jelly). so i knew this wasn't just a gift-gift, but 1 that was supposed to 'help.'
'just try it' i was told in a patient voice. 'just try it' i was told 3 minutes later in a voice straining to be patient.
so i did. i don't like raspberries. i made some toast. spread it on the toast. took a bite. something fizzy was happening to the roof of my mouth. i noticed that right away. i wasn't as down on the taste as i thought i'd be. i went ahead and finished the toast.
within 20 minutes, i noticed the cramping was gone. i have no idea what's in it or how it worked, but the pain went from so bad i wanted to curl up in a ball and hold a pillow to my abdomen to no pain at all. that was this afternoon. about an hour ago, i could feel it start to return so i made some more toast and spread some more preserves on it. i'm fine right now.
i have no idea what's in it. it says organic. and that you 'must' refrigerate after opening.
i'd heard all of elaine's suggestions before and tried them before with no luck, ditto the e-mailed suggestions. if that's working for any of you, keep on it. but if not, you might want to look into trying some organic raspberry preserves because the ones c.i. sent did the trick.
crystal haidl didn't offer any suggestions for cramps but she did e-mail to note a project:
(Philadelphia, February 9, 2006) Sexual dialogue in America isn't getting the respect it deserves. Not on Valentines. Not on the airwaves, nor on the Internet-- and only with a little compromise at your local Kinko's. That, according to small press editor and publisher Crystal Syben Haidl, is why she’s challenging 333 Americans to discuss their sexual feelings in individual 33-minute phone conversations with her, beginning February 14. Haidl, whose non-fiction coffee table is about threesomes-- hence the campaign's "three-isms"-- is initiating the person-to person radio-appearance outreach to publicize the importance of sexual freedom of speech against the growing range of businesses-- like Internet behemoth EBay to independent US print shops-- that are choosing to not conduct transactions with sexually themed companies.
"There's a grave paradox and ironic insanity in America's handling of sexual discussion as a kind of contraband," says Haidl. At a time when the Pope recently surprised the world with his poetic embrace of Eros, or sexual love, as primordial and "rooted in man's very nature," America's blatant love affair with sex focuses on economic tease. Sexualizing high-tech, seducing food and beverages, and titillating porn have established flirtatious comfort zones for consumers and companies. But serious sexual discussion makes corporate America and the FCC squirm. Ducking under fears that adult content has high risk return rates (which the Adult industry denies) to citing the Supreme Court's ruling for "community standards"-- as a protection to employees, conservative clients and consumers, alike--sexual content is conveniently blanketed under a one-size- fits- all label. The porn industry can afford higher priced vending options to overcome the restrictive hurdles imposed by banking, corporate and FCC dictates. But less profitable sensual, educational products are left somewhere lost between the bed sheets.
Haidl's nude-imaged socio-erotic anthology III(Three) was banned by PayPal, had to be printed in Canada, and she endured a Kinko's employee's outburst upon seeing one of the book's faxed nudes (later apologized for by management). The majority of other e-commerce ban sexual content, too. Nonetheless, Haidl attests, "Before Janet Jackson's inspired FCC crack-down, radio listeners didn't hesitate to call-in during my interviews and they're still sharing their experiences in 2006. The difference is there are less shows allowing sexual themes. "
A forty-something brunette, who is neither sexologist nor health care professional, Haidl intends to start talking to people as soon as e-mails come in (phonesex@threesomebook.com).
"Talking about sex is as humanizing as you can get. It's both fun and intimidating, and in the end you get to know more about yourself and the world." She hopes her efforts encourage well-known sexologists and celebrities to continue the campaign, and anticipates another book in the making.
i think we're too uptight and prudish about sex. i don't know haidl but if you're interested in sharing your own thoughts, e-mail her. i'm happy to note her project and wish her luck with it.
a lot more honesty about sex would be a very good thing.
i'll give you an example of how we're too uptight. if you make a sex joke about a man and a woman, it's no big thing. if you make it about a man and a man or a woman and a woman, suddenly it's a bad thing. not in my mind because in my mind, sexuality between consenting adults is fine regardless of what the hook up is.
now if the joke is mocking some 1 for being gay or lesbian, then fine, object. but this whole idea of 'oh my god, you told a joke about tom cruise and it said he was gay' or whomever is just nonsense. there's nothing wrong with being gay. and being a celebrity means people will talk about your sex life. (considering some of the movies certain actors and actresses have released in the last few years, they should be glad anyone's talking about them in any way.)
it reminds me of all the 'anne heche and ellen kissed in front of clinton!' i don't believe they did. but if they had, so what? people kiss all the time in public and we rarely even think anything other than 'get a room' unless it's a same-sex couple then all the sudden we turn prudish.
i don't see gay or lesbian as an insult. but there are a lot of people who do. and it's sad when it comes from someone who thinks of themselves as 'advanced' in any sense of the word.
if a guy is acting in a manner we would stereotype as feminine or a woman is acting in a manner we would stereotype as masculine that's not really 'acting gay.' i know that's popular with the younger crowd weened on south park: that's so gay!
if you're talking longing looks or touching that can be read as something more than friendship, then there's nothing wrong with noting the homoerotic subtext.
but it bothers me that 'gay' or 'lesbian' is still by some as 'bad'. i don't mean the 'vangical voters. i'm talking about supposed progressive people. and i'm not talking about using slang terms even. i'm talking about a very basic effort to note the subtext.
i don't think i'm getting my point across here.
let's use an example that happened recently. t and i were eating lunch recently and this woman who knows t, i don't know the woman, comes up and starts talking. we were eating at the bar (yes, we were drinking) and the bartender knows t and knows me. the woman had her arm around t and the bartender asked if she was the new girlfriend (t had just started dating her current girlfriend but most people hadn't met the new girlfriend yet).
the woman was so offended and as soon as the bartender walked off, started insisting he was a homophobe. if so, he's a self-hating gay man because he is gay.
the woman was just convinced that this straight man (she thought he was straight) had just made a homophobic remark. as soon as he asked, she removed her arm from t.
there was nothing homophobic there except in the woman's mind. the bartender didn't mean the question to be insulting because he doesn't think 'lesbian' is an insult.
we had to get a table to calm the woman down. she kept insisting that he was homophobic and then started in on how he didn't assume i was a lesbian. well t and i go there all the time because it's near her salon and he knows we're friends and he's also met my ex-husband who sometimes tags along if it's in the evening.
but when she started bringing me into it, that told me that's what it really was about.
'why did the man think i was a lesbian and not rebecca?' the person was in a panic. she can be friends with t. she can laugh and joke with t. but if some 1 assumes that she and t are an item, her day is ruined because on some level she's not comfortable with her own sexuality. she can't take any 1 mistaking her for a lesbian.
we finally had her calm (though not convinced) when calvin comes in, walks over and says, 'oh so this is the new honey!' and once again the woman is in the midst of a panic. less so than before because calvin fits her stereotype of gay. (she never believed us about the bartender until she realized that calvin was the bartender's boyfriend. the bartender didn't fit her limited vision of what a gay man was.) so since calvin's gay, she's miffed but going to great strides to say she's not t's girlfriend and she's not gay and she's married and she has a child. she got all that out without taking a breath.
and then she kept harping on it. to the point that she was pulling out photos from her purse 'see here's my husband' and 'this is my baby.'
t only knows the woman from the salon and the gym they both work out at. when the woman finally left, announcing loudly that she had to get home before her husband did, t said the woman always introduces her at the gym as 'my gay friend.'
so the woman can take a tiny step and probably figures she deserves a gold star and a nobel peace prize for the effort. but if there's any confusion by someone, she goes into a panic.
before she left, when she was still freaking out and i was beyond bored with her and she'd said 't is just a friend' for about the 20th time, i interrupted her to say 'oh t and i are friends too and we make out all the time.' the woman glares at me and tells me i just made a homophobic joke.
so maybe that's explains what i'm talking about or trying to talk about.
there are plenty of times when some 1 will assume t and i are a couple if they know t and haven't met me before. it's never caused me to panic or to feel the need to say 'we're just friends! honest, we're just friends!'
i think the country needs to grow up. not 'a little' but a whole lot.
t said the woman's better than some who introduce her to their other friends as 'my black, gay friend.' i nearly spit out my drink when t said that. we laughed forever that some 1 could be so whatever that they'd need to say that. we started joking that maybe 'friends' like that were introducing her to people who were blind or had never before seen or heard of an african-american.
so maybe that explains what i'm trying to say better than my earlier attempt. but calvin was telling us about how he had made a 'don't drop the soap' joke once and a straight friend had told him he was making homophobic jokes.
last night on er, i just watched tv last night, i felt so sick. (tonight i'm listening to music, right now the hair album.) a male doctor had been in an bachelor auction and the winning bid had been by another male. so you had all these male nurses and doctors (has er ever had a gay male nurse among their characters?) making jokes that collectively and because of the attitudes of the character could be seen as homophobic.
i don't know the characters well enough to know, to be honest. i quit watching when george clooney left. but that did make me uncomfortable because it seemed that the assumption the guys were operating under was that gay is bad. (and probably the pack mentality added to my assumption, i don't know these characters, that they were assuming gay was bad.)
to assume that gay is wrong or less than straight is homophobic.
if calvin made those same jokes and he were on the show, i probably wouldn't have found them homophobic. if a male friend whom i knew had been 1 of the characters, i wouldn't have assumed his remarks were homophobic.
it's like the difference between the character will or woody harrelson's character on will & grace making a joke and the way the same lines would play on a cbs sitcom. on a cbs sitcom, it would come off homophobic. largely because they don't have gay characters on cbs but also because they're so busy trying to be hyper masculine that it's obvious that gay is a bad thing in the world of cbs.
i was talking to t when she called today (with yet more suggestions for my cramps) and she said she thinks it really depends upon where you're coming from. she said she makes jokes, her friends make jokes, but there's a difference between that and jokes that operate under the assumption of 'gay=bad.'
i don't think i've made my point very well at all tonight.
so let's just note that people need to become more comfortable with sexuality. virgin or experienced lover, sexuality effects us all. it is a part of who each of us are.
moronic mars fans, all 3 of them, had a fit the first time ava and c.i. reviewed that crappy show. 'you're homophobic' 3 of them wrote. why? because ava and c.i. had noted the very obvious homoerotic overtones of an episode of the show. which included an all male poker game that ended with the boys stripping down to their underwear. and included lines of breaking up with one another and lines about one guy not going to the prom with another. or when they reviewed freddie they made the very obvious point that freddie prinze jr and brian austin green weren't exactly the stereotypes of masculinity when they reviewed the episode that ended with freddie and green pretending to be a gay couple. it was an offensive episode and it was offensive because they immediately went to stereotype city.
i can only assume that the 4 people who had a problem with those reviews have a problem with gay men. (and that they can't read very well because in the moronic mars review, ava and c.i. noted that the homoerotic subtext was the only interesting thing about the show and that they wished there was more of it.) in moronic, it was a constant joke. in freddie it was an insulting 'gag' added at the end of a really lame episode (where green had already crossdressed).
ty mentioned those e-mails to me this afternoon when we were tossing around some ideas about things to write about for the third estate sunday review this weekend. and it just really blew my mind. maybe those people are so devoted to their shows that they took insult that very obvious things (like a character crossdressing and then pretending to be the stereotypical wife of the lead character) were noted in the reviews? or maybe in their worlds they're okay with gay as long as no 1 ever mentions it. that whole 'do what you want but don't do it in front of me.'
i've never bought that argument because most of the people i've heard make that argument in person have never said the same thing to straight friends.
so if you can figure out my point, great. i'm going to give up on this post because i don't think i'm getting it across.
