The "Why Women Have Sex" articles and the Save-your-life bra

WWW--Because they're horny? Both the Guardian and Newsweek have been writing puff pieces on some very unimportant books and studies on this, so it must have been a slow news week, meaning there are important stories to do a news white-out on. That means pulling a story out of your ass and wracking your brains to remember something from your High School science class, then wrapping it in a lot of inflated verbiage to keep your whorish, dumbass job at Newsweek to feed some equally banal lifestyle because you're entitled.

At the age of 41, I can honestly say that I don't give-a-shit why women have sex. It's usually obvious anyway, and probably akin to "Why do people itch themselves?" and "Why did so-and-so just sneeze?" I could go into scatological examples, but I'm sure at least 10% of my readership (and that's a magic number) already raced to them like me, and sadly, it's just as valid as these stupid articles that don't even rise above this or many other blog postings. You get a dumbbell system out of dumbbell people.

Has Newsweek ever heard of the Kinsey Institute here in pansexual Indiana? Indeed they had, feeling the need to cover their asses at the end of the piece and the gaping-maw of a fact that their article says nothing new and that the study they were covering is hardly epic-in-scope (1,000 online-participants) or even very scientific. In other words, like Michael Moore, they were telling us (and selling us) what we already knew. What turns women on? Sigmund Freud (who was right about far more than most feminists care to admit, hence why they quote him so much) couldn't figure it out, and neither can most women come down to it, not that I care. I should add that with more women employed right now, and with the economy in the shitter, feminism just doesn't resonate that strongly these days. "But why? Why do you women have sex?" they ask us, the readers, making me wonder what their informational role is. They should, especially the ladies, since one would assume they have all the answers to this burning, itching question.

It could be: Money; power over a mate in a relationship; ego-boosting; material items; that stunning posture and moves of the insensate and cocksure beefcake; a man in uniform; a woman in uniform; someone they feel "sorry" for (pity fucks); a well-told joke; the tie someone was wearing that day; someone's personality; a good day; a bad day; frustration; naivete; a confluence of events; a rush of hormones or drugs; a bad childhood; a good childhood--gimme a break. The most galling thing about the Newsweek piece is their offhand contention that most studies haven't ever asked women what makes women want to have sex. Again, didn't the Kinsey Institute cover that ground decades ago? Here's a suggestion: try doing actual research for your article before it goes to press. Women are people, and people are complicated and not easily quantified or understood by science.

More importantly, this week, a Ukrainian-born woman in Chicago invented a bra that can also act as a gas mask, something I consider both genius and uproariously funny. But...but, why did she invent it? Luckily, this won't require any grants or lab time:

Elena Bodnar, who lives in Chicago, got her start as a scientist in Ukraine, when she witnessed the devastating effects of the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster in 1986. She noticed, among other things, that women were wearing bras that may have been lacy but were certainly not life-saving.

At the ceremony, Bodnar demonstrated her invention, which she said could have prevented people from breathing in Iodine-131 in the wake of Chernobyl. She graciously gave pink bras (each of which can turn into two gas masks) to actual Nobel laureates (yes, even the men, who now have the option to enjoy the bras without shame--not to mention any likely real effect--in the privacy of their own homes).

That's right, men can wear them too. Well yeah! What would the Kinsey Institute say about that one?

My real question is this: would it be appropriate for men with pot-tits to wear them in public, and where can I get a grant to study the phenomena?

"Introducing the bra that is meant to be taken off," CNET, 10.02.2009: http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-10366730-247.html

Dalai Lama states that "sex leads to trouble"

"I may now add that civilization is a process in the service of Eros, whose purpose is to combine single human individuals, and after that families, then races, peoples and nations, into one great unity, the unity of mankind. Why this has to happen, we do not know; the work of Eros is precisely this. These collections of men are to be libidinally bound to one another. Necessity alone, the advantages of work in common, will not hold them together. But man's natural aggressive instinct, the hostility of each against all and of all against each, opposes this programme of civilization. This aggressive instinct is the derivative and the main representative of the death instinct which we have found alongside of Eros and which shares world-dominion within it." --Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents, P. 119, 1930.


WWW--The Dalai Lama's right, you know. There's a gal who I see when I go out who's interested in me, and I think she's all that, cute, etc. . But I don't want any part of it. This isn't to say that I don't believe there are those magical folks among us who can handle love and intimacy, but they're a tiny minority of humanity who don't let it get to them and who can control themselves. It's also not because I don't want to see humanity perpetuate--it's that I know there are too many of us, and we're not all that.

The Lama stated some of the unholy truth this week:

Sexual pressure, sexual desire, actually I think is short period satisfaction and often, that leads to more complication. ...[There] are too [many] ups and downs. ...Naturally as a human being ... some kind of desire for sex comes, but then you use human intelligence to make [the] comprehension that those couples [are] always full of trouble. And in some cases there is suicide [and] murder cases. (AFP, 11.28.2008)

What? The Buddhists are cynics? Uh, yeah, that's a big part of Buddhism, a renunciation of this world. Most Buddhists view the world as being a place of futility, a trap for the soul, something very transitory, and brimming with evil. Correct, and it's how I view the world. Are all relationships futile? No, I don't believe this. But it's close, very close to being that way given the predictability of people's behavior in a relationship.

Freud was right once again. Sex binds us, even when it shouldn't. There would be no point whatsoever to any of this without some carrots (go wild with the symbolism of that, I know you will). The most horrible truth is that when one partner loves another more than the other, they're the inevitable victim in the equation. Almost no one is capable of coping with the responsibility of someone who loves you more than you love them. Being a restless species, we try perversely to make things worse. Not content to leave intimacy despoiled, we inject crass materialism into-the-mix, then blame each other when we fail to meet our mutual expectations.

The worst aspects of humanity have been nurtured under the capitalist order we've all inhabited in our lives, not that it's the only system or order to ruin love and sex. Women in West are especially guilty of promoting this convenient commercialism, wrapped-up as it were in "gifts" that are a mandatory prerequisite for things to be "romantic." Even worse is the female-fixation on the blustering mate who shows constant certainty that they have "things under control," the "Mr. Fix-it" syndrome, when they most definitely have nothing under control.

"Lie to me," she said, "Tell me what I want to hear, not the truth, not ever."

"If you insist," he said. You could just as easily rearrange the genders here, it doesn't matter. We just want to get laid. Men, women, regardless of sexual orientation or how raging our libidos might be. At some point, the flesh needs servicing, empty notions of "romance" aside. Lies are crucial in a culture where the lines between instinct and the repressive conditioning of civilization have blurred.

Self-interest and false sentimentality have been used to keep us buying garbage we never wanted or needed, distracting us away from what's important--each other. We bought it, literally. The Lama goes further than I ever would, Buddhism not being an entirely "humanist" religion and philosophy. He says that we shouldn't get too attached to anyone--not even our loved ones or our children.

This is where I would draw-the-line, and I believe we all need focus on empathy towards others.

There are many sects of Buddhism, so you can tell that they don't agree on such issues either. Yet, he's right about sex. That spells trouble and the over-complication of our lives, it means unnecessary drama and irrational compromise. Men and women are going to have to live separately for a long time before we're all ready for sustainable cohabitation...if that's even possible or desirable.

Hats go off to the lucky few who've already achieved it.

The basic difference between the East and the West is geographical location. The cultural sources are the same. Men and women--and individuals-in-general--are much farther apart than mere cultures in the modern world.

Freud was also right that we're always going to be in conflict with our animal side. Sometimes, a cigar really is just a cigar (why do some feminists use Freudian imagery so much?)...and you can keep it anyway. "Let's do it" might be about the most intellectually and morally honest greeting, but honesty is the last thing anyone cares about. It's enough to turn anyone off. Trouble? Brother, you don't know the meaning of "trouble."