people
Feminism and femininity
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010 | analysis, life, people | 2 Comments
Following the wonderfully inspiring speech that Isabel Allende gave a while ago at TED, I spent some time thinking of what feminism is, and of what it means. What its initial purpose was, and how it diverged.
I find it perfectly fair and democratic that women can vote, work and support themselves, make their own decisions and have each and every right a human being is entitled to. This is a great thing Modern Times have done for women, and this moral achievement was both necessary and liberating. In some contemporary societies there still are many, many women for which these rights are nothing but a distant dream, and fighting to impose them is simply vital. I also have all the respect in the world for the works of Simone de Beauvoir or Virginia Woolf.
The Western World, however, is going too far on this. As I’ve been recently travelling by train, carrying quite a heavy suitcase, I found myself struggling to put my luggage up in the luggage rack, while my western male friends were simply watching. Since we’re equal, we’re equal, right? Even if, as a woman, I have a significantly inferior muscular strength and I could use some help. One could argue this is an isolate case, but no, I’ve met numerous similar situations in Western Europe. It’s a behavioural trend.
I’ve been watching Sex and The City with my female friends, and I guess no one would disagree with me on it being a good expression of the mainstream feminism in our society. Let us now remember one thing from the movie: Samantha leaves her handsome, much younger boyfriend, who loved her truly and had morally supported her through chemotherapy, and she does that because of his busy schedule. Like seriously, that’s all you can do, right? When a relationship faces some challenge, you have to think of your own happiness and move on, since a little effort on reviving it, a little well-deserved devotion would be so uncool, right?
What I’m trying to say here, by these examples, is that we are heading towards extremism. When feminists such as Marlene Dixon say that marriage leads to the oppression of women, or when neofeminist groups opinion against vibrators reproducing the shape of the penis and thus perpetuating phallocracy, well… it sounds like it’s time to stop and take a deep breath.
Femininity, my dear friends, is also weakness, and we have to accept that, since it’s biologically built-in. Is seduction and devotion towards our male fellows, and it is also need for love. It is a precious gift that is part of our identity, and, also, is a feature we just wanna waste, since our attractivity is closely related to our femininity. Therefore, while the core values of feminism and femininity go hand in hand, everything is fine and perfectly sane. When contradictions appear, it is a sign that feminism has gone too far, heading towards misandry and its values have turned weird and distorted.
The Home Fire
Monday, June 14th, 2010 | analysis, life, people, sex | 53 Comments
As I am having my ice tea – read normal tea with some ice in it – in this torrid summer day, I just can’t take my mind from some survey I’ve came across this weekend here .
It seems that only about 40% of married couples have sex at least once a week, while around 15% of married people, both male and female, are basically chaste. Of course, this is an average value, and people in the age group 18-35 are expected to be above this estimation when it comes to sexual activity. My question is, however, why? Why does this happen?
We know people neglect their sexual lives due to stress related issues, relationship troubles or even health problems. If health-stuff is a no-way-out kind of situation, it is also only temporary in most cases, and probably the least frequent of the three. When it comes to relationship issues, the question is why staying in a relationship with someone that doesn’t inspire you to have sex with? Why quarreling and why getting bored? Why wasting your time and stamina in such a limbo? If
you’ve got good stuff there, do something about it, fight to revive it. Otherwise, just go ahead and break the tie. You’ll probably find someone else to be happy with, or maybe not, but if you stay in a bad relationship you’re just giving up this chance for good.
But there are also a lot great relationships out there, that just struggle with the real world-love conflict of interests. That suffer from today’s speed of living because their “involved ones” just put affairs less stringent aside.
Why don’t we *do* it? Because we are so often forgetting how important it is. When your job is very demanding, little energy is left for hot bedroom delights, but, just as you make time to have lunch/dinner, or go grocery shopping, you can spare a couple of hours for lovemaking. It takes some planning effort maybe, but it’ll be the best spent hours of the week, it’ll relax and rejuvenate you, and will do wonders for your mood and your relationship. Because there’s no way your career can match the importance of your loved one – or something is very, very wrong.
You can wake one hour earlier in the morning, and just be spontaneous about it – it’ll be worthed, and who could imagine a better, more shining start for your day? Or you can give up once in a while those extra-office hours, leave the rest of the work for tomorrow, and spend a relaxing evening in the hot tube, with your loved one. Or you can arrange short getaways at the end of the week. These are the little things that will keep the fire burning in your yard, and you won’t have to blame yourselves, years later, for growing apart. It really matters. And no, getting old doesn’t count as an excuse: studies have shown that couples in their 50s and 60s can have fulfilling sexual lives, if they have been actively maintaining them so.
To prove or not to prove
Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 | analysis, life, people | 104 Comments
“Proving your love”
God, I’ve heard this phrase a million times or more. I’ve heard it from my family, I’ve heard it from my friends, I’ve heard it from close or distant relatives, and, of course, I’ve heard it from lovers up to a point where I had to say: “OK… now I’m feeling a little bit abused.”
What does it actually mean “proving it”, anyway? Of course I would gladly offer my support to my loved ones when they are in trouble, and of course I wouldn’t mind doing it, but I wouldn’t call this “proving my love”, because it’s actually something different, it’s like acting on an impulse: you want that person to be safe and sound, ’cause whatever it hurts her it would also hurt you. You just have to do it. It’s organic. It happens because, whatever it is that is bounding you to the other, is or has grown so strong that it somehow enlarged your self in that person’s direction, assimilating her. She is now contained in your extended self, enriching your life with things you wouldn’t know before. And making you feel each and every of her pains.
This is what they mean when they say: “You are a part of me”. It describes a wonderful, natural process that characterizes close human relationships. When it happens you would do anything that could legitimately help the other, out of impulse. And I guess this is prone to be interpreted as a proof of love.
However, when someone is asking you to “prove” your attachment… well, that brings me an emotional black-mailing flavour. Usually it won’t involve things that are absolutely necessary, things that you would instantly have done for him or her. Usually it’s all about caprices, extravagances, insecurities, lack of understanding that you do have a life beyond them, lack of respect for you as a person, as a free and free-willed individual, and, ultimately, lack of love. Because when you really love someone you would never ask them something that would go against their values, against their inner world or against their possibilities.
Therefore, love-proving? It’s in impulsive acts, in small gestures, in one’s eyes or in one’s kiss. It is never in one’s black-mail or one’s response to it.
Us, the world and its problems
Monday, March 9th, 2009 | analysis, life, people | No Comments
Ever wondered what’s wrong with the world? Lately?
“Oh, not the voices again!” I hear you crying. “Not another financial-crisis article, pleeease. Cool down, relax, and just give us a speech of sex, luxury and refinement, ’cause that’s the way we want it.”
Trouble is this crisis seems to be ruining our lives more than just economically. First, it is excessively mediatised, over discussed, and so goddamn annoying. Secondly, it is basically everywhere and it’s affecting us all. Its main evilness: does not only produce inflation, debt and unemployment, but it also produces a large amount of stress and anxiety. We can live with inflation: we’ll simply cut some of our expenses and limit spending our cash on basic items. We can live with debt. We can live with unemployment, too: there are various ways to earn money and with some smarts and some little bit of creativity one can always make a living. However, living with the stress and anxiety produced by this conjecture is the worse part of it.
Worrying kills, they say. Truth is worrying kills everything. The uncertainty of tomorrow is making us less open to life. We just don’t seem to enjoy things the way we used to, and we don’t get the same courage and energy out of our leisures and hobbies. We don’t love less but we less express it and, also, less savor it. Because we are not free to, we are too busy worrying and worry has already taken us for good. Our relationships grow colder because of it, when it is in times of trouble we should lay more on others and others on us. Our mind starts producing risk-free solutions and scenarios, working for safety and stability, when one should think and fight for his own, sacred, personal development. When risk-free actually means freedom-free, slave to the stronger ones, their mechanisms and their laws.
Lets keep ourselves out of this, dear friends, for the love and sake of all beautiful things out there, for the true marvels the world and the human spirit so genuinely contain. Let us hope for better us. Let us love and let us not forget our friends, our sweethearts, our spirit and our happiness. Let us not work for a safer future, but for one that is richer in good will and humanity. Let us allow ourselves to forget stocks and to never forget or underestimate intimacy, in its deepest, most fulfilling sense. Let us be free and human despite everything, ’cause if there is a reason we were born for, it is love.
Courtship… again
Sunday, October 26th, 2008 | analysis, people, style | No Comments
Here we are, back to the courtship theme and all its marvelous issues. Because, dear friends, there are some things we find unacceptable in our tiny little world, that may be lacking innocence, but not charm, not daydreaming, not elegance. So, let us share to you all the very phrase that arouse our indignation: Am I courting you?
Sans Innocence is not the kind of narcissistic freak committed to believe all men should be courting her, and she did not receive this rather ingrate response from some random friend/acquaintance/guy on the street or someone else’s man. No. Sans Innocence got the aforementioned phrase from her boyfriend, with whom she manages to share a one-year-pretty-nice-relationship. And, in his defense, one must say he is really charming, graceful, polite and truly loves our main character here.
Further developments of The Phrase: Oh, yes, indeed, I was courting you at the beginning, when we started dating. This translates to me as: Well, we’re only using that very pleasing romantic ritual at the beginning, when we don’t know the girl very well and want to impress her, but after we reach some intimacy level with that lovely creature we just don’t see the point of courting her anymore, ’cause the relationship would go on anyway. Really? I mean, most successful couples I know have reached a certain number of years together because they actually kept dating. (Note: of course, each other, not other people…). How can you keep your butterflies in your stomach for longer if you stop regarding your significant other as some fascinating, mysterious stranger? How can you avoid taking his/hers love for granted? How not to be slipping into a boring routine?
To cut a long story short, my point is this: one should never get to think of The Other as a private possession, a part of him/herself or anything else one might dare to neglect. The Other is a wonderful and desirable fortress which is never truly ours, and which must be conquered again, every dawn. Therefore courtship, as you may see, is a must.
PS: the photo above is our way of recommending www.michaelfairchild.com for those of you interested in wild life photography and not only.
The Erotics of Edvard Munch
Monday, September 22nd, 2008 | arts, people | No Comments
There is no such a thing as peace in Edvard Munch’s art. The Norwegian painter, well known as a precursor of the Expressionism, succeeded in establishing new aesthetic boundaries in a time when the 19th century was slowly dying, and the 20th was not even born. His passionate lines, his anxiety, his tortured, struggling characters mixed in order to create a deeply symbolical imagery, abstractive of fears, love, obsessions and mysticism alike. The woman, as Munch sees it, is either pure, angelical, high above all materialism, or the very embodiment of sin and decay. As the Madonna painting so strongly reveals us, sensuality and religious matters are forever entangled in artist’s vision, who won’t dissociate between mystical and sexual ecstasy: the beloved one is on love’s highest heights, and that gives her the very transfiguration of sacred suffering. The ultimate intensity is the path to ultimate truth. When lovers are lost in their union, love itself increases their delirious concupiscence, love itself becomes a devouring force, melting their individualities into one, center-absorbed spiral. And when love is gone, there’s nothing else left but despair and despair alone.
A Tale of Fate and Saudade
Friday, September 19th, 2008 | arts, mythical, people | No Comments
Ladies and gentlemen, may I humbly bow and talk to you about one of the world’s most melancholic and passionate musical genres. It is called Fado (a Portuguese word normally translated as Fate) and it miraculously emerged, under its nowadays shape, from Mouraria, one of the oldest Moorish neighbourhoods of Lisboa. Its mysterious birth dates from the very begining of the 19th century, although earlier, deeper roots are generally admitted. It seems to have been the astonishing, heartbreaking result of a powerful multicultural combination: the black rhythms of African slaves, the traditional music of old Portugal, the Moorish vocal inflexions and the Brazilian modihna.
Fado talks of loss and longing, talks of people’s lives and talks of people’s soul. It has in it the sea and its tenderness. It is mostly made of desires and their stories, desires that are not meant for fulfillment, but for singing and sublime renouncement. It is the ultimate strength of the human soul: to escape and overcome reality. It is poetry and poetry only. And so is the love it describes. Defined mostly by the untranslatable word “saudade” – which counts for infinite longing for someone or something, a form of nostalgia that is bigger than life and more profound than the Atlantic ocean – love in fado’s short stories is built out of poetry and tragic passion, it forever breaks the tide of ordinary to melt itself into its own flame.
This beautiful world of sounds and feeling is my gift for today. Hope you’ll enjoy it. The gorgeous lady in the above movie is Amalia Rodrigues, Portugal’s greatest modern days fadistas and one of Europe’s “grand dames”.
Global Warming, Human Cooling?
Thursday, September 18th, 2008 | analysis, people, style | No Comments
As the long, hot summer we’ve been through has finally ended, leaving room for some more refreshing times down here, we started taking serious concerns less seriously, and that involves the global warming issue, that we had previously been haunted by for weeks. I mean, it is bad… but Sans Innocence just had some huge amounts of white tea, lying in that old, cozy armchair and wishing the world would give her a break. With the catastrophes, at least.
Besides, there are other phenomenons related to the post-industrial era that sadden us in a similar degree. Phenomenons referring to people, interactions, relationships, communication. It’s like we’d be dealing with some kind of compensation’s law here: the earth is getting warmer, the people are getting colder. Yeah, thermodynamics… (surely, man is giving heat away to his environment, remember some physics principles here?).
However, it’s ironic that in the glorious times of email, instant messenger and micro-blogging people are more and more keen on growing apart from each other. How many truly significant relationships are you currently having? Or ever had? How high would you rate them, as for the quality of closure and of sharing them all? The fast, instant communication our modern stuff is offering us was designed to suit our fast, terribly fast way of living. Jobs, businesses, meetings, studies, trips are on the run. Live itself is on the run. Friendship. Love. Instant communicating offers us the sheer illusion we are somehow keeping in touch with people, and even establish a whole net of new connections – social networking, they say -, but the reality is those quick pings are nothing but life support to old friendships, while newly born ones get to have a development that reminds me of artificially nurtured fruits: no matter how big and pretty might seem, they’re absolutely tasteless. It takes time, lots of time, sincere involvement, honesty, mutual respect and confidence, and many other things in order to build a reliable friendship. You can’t put your eggs in IM’s basket, it takes real, face-to-face interaction. And same goes for love. The Internet abounds nowadays with dating and meeting-people networking, but ties grown here usually lead only to short flirtations and empty affairs, and that has a huge success because is exactly what everybody wants: having it fast and easy, and nevermind any quality concerns.
We run from place to place in our cars, spreading CO2 all over and rising global temperature, while in the same run we manage to cool down what was supposed to be our oasis of peace and well-being – our personal relationships. Bad choice, this speed of living. It is my ferm belief that we don’t actually need it (How many hours have lately you wasted in front of the TV? Or randomly surfing the net?) and that we really can take our time, make things right and give our social/romantic self the best it deserves. It is also my ferm, irrevocable belief and all we have to do is try, and let ourselves seduced by how great it gets. After all, it is our choice whether we want to submit to society’s self-destroying habits or stand up and dare to be free. Isn’t it?