A First-Hand Account of Objectification By a Woman

The theme of objectification is one of the main ones in contemporary feminism. A common criticism of media is that it objectified women. Rape isn’t just an act of violence, but an act of objectification. While it may not be explicitly implied, since this term appears mainly in feminist discourse you may decide that this experience is unique to female. The problem is, once we decide a problem is uniquely-female we become blind to the errors.

I’ll first define ‘objectification’ both in the arts and in personal interactions, and what I mean by ‘uniquely-female’. Criticism of feminism has sadly been dominated by people like those from A Voice For Men, who view the whole thing as a sort-of conspiracy to ruin males’ lives. I don’t believe their perfectly-ordered universe. Rather, it’s just possible that some feminists – like all humans – err.

Defining Objectification:

Wikipedia has Martha Nussbaum’s criteria for objectification, which is excellent in understanding what it is. Coped directly:

Instrumentality – treating the person as a tool for another’s purposes
Denial of autonomy – treating the person as lacking in autonomy or self-determination
Inertness – treating the person as lacking in agency or activity
Fungibility – treating the person as interchangeable with (other) objects
Violability – treating the person as lacking in boundary integrity and violable, “as something that it is permissible to break up, smash, break into.”
Ownership – treating the person as though they can be owned, bought, or sold
Denial of subjectivity – treating the person as though there is no need for concern for their experiences or feelings

In the media/fiction, objectification occurs when a character doesn’t have agency. By that, it means it doesn’t have personal drives or wants or needs. Instead, they have a very specific, narrow role. Often, ‘objectified’ characters will supposed to be central to the story. For example, a cashier who appears for one scene isn’t objectified since they appear only in one scene. Interchangability and having a minor role isn’t a sign of objectification.

What makes a character feel real and interesting is their interior – wants, needs, personality and actions/reactions derived from these. Objectification reduces a character for some specific use that makes them interchangeable with an object. It is the removing/ignoring of the interior of a character. An objectified character cannot drive the story and is dependent on the external world.

Better to be a dildo in use than a discarded dildo

Examples include the female characters whose role is to be pretty. Their role is no different than that of a picture or of a potted plant. Notice how this doesn’t say women can’t be pretty in media. Rather, when a female character contributes nothing but her looks she becomes an object. She has no interior. Another example is the ‘strong female character’ archetype, when a female character’s only role is to kill people and do stuff to advance the plot. Rey from Star Wars: The Force Awakens is an excellent example. Such a character is a tool for the writers to move the plot, but the character doesn’t add anything else besides advancement – she has no unique reactions or worldview or desires.

Objectified characters are objectified by storytellers, not their traits. A character can be dependent and ‘weak’, like Yuno Gasai from Future Diary yet she’s not an object. That’s because while she depends on a male for emotional stability, her role isn’t to move the plot. She exists on her own, has her desires and personality which translates into such toxic love.

Notice the difference in roles and how central they are. It is not about how the character will act in real life – Rey is clearly ‘stronger’. What’s important is their role in the story, whether they do a single thing, whether they’re a storytelling tool or are themselves the source of the story.

In real life, objectifying people is on a scale. You can treat people like tools to achieve certain objectives. For example, being friends with someone only because they give you free rides. Here, the friend becomes an object who doesn’t exist and has value in and of itself, but for the objectifier exists for a specific purpose – free rides. This is classic Deontology. Overall, thinking someone is good only for sex and raping them are two things on the same scale. Both deny the agency of the person and see them only as a means of achieving a specific purpose. The rape only adds violence.

Objectifying people in personal interactions is treating them as means instead of ends.

Uniquely Female:

In feminist discourse, people either talk about problems as experienced by females or discuss problems as if only females experience them. It’s a blurry line. In general, the latter form shows how men and women experiences the same thing, differently. For example, due to rape statistics, women experience the fear of rape far more commonly than men. Discussing a problem this way doesn’t mean men don’t get raped – only highlights how differenlty women have it.

I want to puke

In general, this is an excellent tool to explain why we need feminism. While men and women can suffer from the same things, they don’t suffer in the same way. Both genders suffer from the beauty standards, but beauty for women means something more than just being sexy. Most of their social value depends on that. Notice how a lot of female actors are young and beautiful while there is more variety in male looks. Notice how comments about female artists keep returning to their beauty.

The problem with the former style – ‘only females experience this’, is that it causes an erasure of other individuals’ experience. I specifically chose that word, because the problem with this erasure is not that it hurts men – but it that it hurts people and writes off their suffering. This article in Elite Daily is an excellent example discussing a problem as if only females experience it. I will critique it in another time.

A First-Hand Account of Objectification By a Female

The purpose of this is mainly self-therapy. Also, opening this wound is partly to encourage others to open theirs. This isn’t a ‘we don’t need feminism’ statement at all. My experience doesn’t cancel the high rape statistics, slut-shaming, constant objectification of women in the media and other issues.

The reason I present this story, except for my own sake, is that in a discourse that constantly frames men and male heterosexuality as aggressive we forget there are people behind it. We move from discussing the problems of high rape statistics to saying we should approach every stranger as if he’s a potential rapist. Put yourself in the position of the victim and you don’t have to justify yourself. Yet, without you seeing it, you cause great suffering. All the supposed structural oppression means nothing at this point.

How me and my ex met doesn’t matter. The important details is that I was 3 years older than her. She was in school. I was in the first year (or second?) of my military service. Both of us were weirdos. Look at this from outside, and it seems as though I’m in power. As the stereotype goes, I was the big man who found a girl with zero self-esteem. I’m older and was male, so supposedly I had more privilege.

Only this isn’t exactly what happened. The black dog bit me in the military and my depression was severe. I nearly comitted suicide and self-harmed almost on a daily basis. Sex was a hard thing to do. I could do some of it, but I needed more time to maintain erection. What this meant is that while we could do various activities, I had to be a little numb through it all. Remember, I was on the brink of killing myself and I had guns to do it.

After some months of this, my ex decided to dump me. This is objectification and no celebration of bodily autonomy can make it any different. My ex couldn’t see the difference between a vibrator and a person. You throw away a vibrator when it doesn’t function and doesn’t get you an orgasm. You don’t do this to a person. I was reduced to only my sexual function and my ability to maintain an erection.

When I hear complaining about being looked at, about being approached to because you look good and therefore objectification, I laugh. No one wrote you off. No one reduced you. People only acted because they found you attractive, but there was no active reduction of your other traits. If anything, approaching and getting to know a woman because she looks good is the opposite of objectification. In this scenario, the male wants to enjoy other traits of the person besides how they look. In my case, my sexual function was the reason I was erased.

At this point, any discussion of my male privilege are irrelevant and not helpful. The privilege of being male didn’t help me, since nothing after this actually helped me this. The end result was trauma – suicide, military service, sexual objectification, abandonment, self harm all come in the same package. I had no way to heal.

This isn’t a call to arms to defeat feminism. I wouldn’t be able to open this wound unless I soaked the idea that the patriarchy is also rigid on us males. Rather, I want to encourage males to open up their wounds and make interiors visible. We cannot only talk about women as victims when they can cause trauma. We cannot dismantle ‘toxic masculinity’ unless we let males actually deviate from it – which includes opening of wounds, some of which are caused by females. In truth, if you want to get rid of ‘toxic masculinity’, you’ll have to look at these wounds and not write them off so quickly.

I still hold this depression. It’s not as strong, but it’s there. It left me with a gaping wound and my already messed sexuality is even more messed than now. If the narratives I got were that true, that females were so powerless such a thing couldn’t happen but it did. Clearly, we need to move on from the absolution of male privilege. Reality, once again, proved itself more chaotic than our ideas.

Nowadays I’m not too angry. I’m too far gone with my damaged sexuality. All I can do is help others.

Ernest Hemingway – Men Without Women

Hemingway is a fascinating character. Many tell stories, but Hemingway lived in an epic poem. He traveled the worlds, participated in wars, hunted, fished, went through four marriages only to commit suicide. If I needed source material for an epic tragedy, I wouldn’t need to look further. I wouldn’t even need to add themes – masculinity, romance and war are constant themes in Hemingway’s life. This fascinating Hemingway is the only good thing about Men Without Women.

Nowadays, Hemingway’s prose reads more like a parody of realism. He didn’t understand the purpose of it. When he talks about his Iceberg Theory, he talks about hiding things from the reader. Yet holding back information isn’t good storytelling. It’s how cheap thrillers keep us hooked by hinting that if we invest more time, a revelation will come. The purpose of minimalism is to reveal using few words.

Carver came years later and saw it through. When you read Carver, you don’t need to dig deep to find buried ideas. Rather, Carver’s bare prose makes everything float up to the surface. If something is hidden or implied, it means that the mere fact of it being hidden is important. At the end of “One More Thing”, Carver tells us the man doesn’t know what to say. That’s enough to show us how confused, how broken that man is. If Hemingway wrote that story, it would end with “The Man said.”, as if not telling the reader what he said is somehow more profound than showing the man is at loss for words.

These aren’t stories of beginnings, middles and conclusions. They’re snapshots of life, which is fine. “In Another Country” is a story that goes nowhere, but it’s so lifelike. That story must be close to him since it deals with war wounds. He’s not worried about being obvious there, but just let the images stand on their own. In it, there are machines that are supposed to cure body problems. Despite being the first of their kind, there are images of before-and-after. It’s not a complex image and perhaps not a very subtle one, but it’s more powerful than anything here.

“Hills Like White Elephants”, perhaps the most famous story here both shows where the style works and where it generally fails. It’s routinely praised for only implying it’s about abortion instead of saying it, but what’s the point? If you insert the word ‘abortion’ there, would it change the story drastically? Often that word dies to appear on the page, especially if you read an analysis of it. Hemingway writes it while struggling not to mention it for fear of being obvious. It’s like a band who stumbles upon a great melody, but repeats it only once in fear of being ‘poppy’ or ‘mainstream’.

This isn’t being concerned with literary quality, but with literary image. A story that aims for critically-approved traits like subtlety and depth misses the whole point. Even if you do switch the word ‘operation’ with ‘abortion’, the story would remain excellent. It’s really about a couple who reached a stumbling block in their relationship and don’t know where to go. There’s a reason they spend the whole story in a train station.

If you found his dialogue stiff and repetitive before, it’s even more so here. Some stories have sections like a broken record. “The Killers”, an otherwise excellent expression of fear of organized crime, has at least a page worth of unnecessary dialogue. Whenever Hemingway slips into this, you can feel him dying to say something but too afraid of ruining his image. He’s not completely awful in his style of omission. He said he left out the whole Chicago thing from the story and that’s a wise decision since namedropping the city wouldn’t add anything. Organized crime is scary regardless of where you’re at, but killers who repeat the same words ad nausam just don’t make sense.

Across his books, Hemingway’s flaws are as repetitive as the dialogue. Yet I keep reading because there’s something beating here. Discovering Hemingway lead an epic life isn’t surprising once you read a few pieces of prose by him. There’s distress, a desire for more, an obsession with concepts that fuels great people. It’s also not surprising Hemingway killed himself. Literature was an outlet for his troubles, but he couldn’t let it out.

Again, his Iceberg Theory stabs him in the back. Being a stereotypical man means bottling up your emotions and going fishing. Men are supposed to be tough and invulnerable. A vulnerable man can’t protect your children, after all. The stories try to dig into these masculine troubles, but end up conforming to stereotypes instead of breaking them.

The troubles are distinctly masculine. Violence and heartbreak often plague our characters. The violence is either for glory or for survival. As for women, their role is to provide a respite from this life. Perhaps that’s why the man in “Hills Like White Elephants” is so vague, anxious both to make the abortion and telling her she should choose. He’s afraid of losing her because if she’s gone, all he will have left is bullfighting and war. There’s glory in bullfighting and connection when you’re at war with your buddies, but these things can also be your downfall. Then again, in Hemingway’s stories women can also be the downfall.

Downfall is always around the corner, but the sense of dread which the characters feel never surfaces. Hemingway wants to imply so much that the stories feel like a person opening up about his break-up, only to shut up once he talks about the real reason. You, as a listener, is being teased and your curiosity isn’t satisfied. The person who needs a good talk is too afraid to speak, so he doesn’t get any help. The best stories here are “In Another Country” and “Now I Lay Me”. Hemingway lets himself go in these. There’s a bit more telling, but the emotional punch of them is powerful. Both can slot nicely into a Carver collection without a change in quality. The worst story is “The Undefeated”, where Hemingway flexes his jargon and ruins what could’ve been a beautiful story.

Don’t read Hemingway to say you’re reading the canon. Read Hemingway because you’re interested in his personality. None of his books that I’ve read are truly great (I’m yet to reach Bell though) but they each expand on his unique personality. If you find Hemingway an interesting enough person, read this. It’s not good, but like anything else he wrote it’s an essential piece of the puzzle.

2.5 men out of 5 women

The Friendzone! Or: The Demonization of Desire

Unless you’ve been blessed with asexuality, you’ve had a close brush with the Friendzone. I’m sure it also happens to gays’n’lesbians, but I’m not among you. I’m in the hetero majority and so I can only speak about that experience. Also, I refuse to gender the friendzone. Since the dating scene is rigged against men by nature (Controversial statement? Different discussion), we mostly hear about how men are friendzoned. It can happen to women, too. Nothing about being a female protects you from rejection. So for the rest of this post I will refer to the parties as Rejector and Rejected.

All the narratives you hear about the friendzone revolve around one principle. It’s the demonization of desire. Both parties refuse to acknowledge the other party’s humanity, needs and existence. Both can’t imagine someone exists with different wants. So they demonize them.

The Rejected’s narrative:
“I was a great person. I was kind and nice. They didn’t choose me because I was good enough. They only like assholes. They deserve to be with such assholes for not choosing me. The fact I was nice and kind and worked hard means I deserve romance. I know what’s good for you because…?”

The Rejector’s narrative:
“You didn’t want me! You only want sex! If you really loved me, you’d sit there and be happy for being rejected and that I found someone else! Besides, it’s impossible that you really love me. You can only want sex and that’s why I didn’t choose you. I know what you really want because…?”

Notice the pattern?

Rejection hurts our pride. It tells us that we’re simply not good enough. Sadly, romance and sexuality don’t make sense. They’re not a meritocracy with clear guidelines and ways of improvement. Getting thinner or funnier or more confident won’t necessarily win you the person you want. Rejection is a failure you cannot learn from.

So the only way to deal with this fog is to deny it. It’s always easier to deny failure, to deny other people’s success. When you’re in a system that has no set rules what can you do? You can’t quit on sexuality, so you simply distort it for your own advantage. You say to yourself that you’re actually good. You didn’t win the person because the person was at fault. They weren’t good enough to realize how amazing you are. You end up removing their desires and wants from the equation. Their desire is considered invalid simply because you are not what they desire.

Notice the language I ended up using. ‘Winning the person’, as if it’s a prize.

Of course, nobody owes us romance or sex. Even if we could control attraction, we wouldn’t owe anyone these. These aren’t things you give someone. Romance is something you create together. Sex is something you do together. You cannot remove the other person’s wants from the equation. The moment you do, you’re no longer interested in a relationship.

Another thing the Rejected forget is that the world is full of people they don’t want. They’re so invested in their “I am rejected” position, they cannot see all these people they wouldn’t be in a relationship with. Take a walk outside and you’ll see at least 20 people. How many of these attract you? In your school, how many of the attracting sex you wanted a romance with? There are plenty people you’d reject too. You simply don’t have the opportunity yet.

Now, let’s move on to the other side.

All things being equal, it’s better to reject than be rejected. You haven’t put in any effort. The main thing you get from rejecting someone is that at least one person wanted to. Overall, you’re in the position of power. You’re given a door and you can decide whether to enter it or not.

But a person who wants a relationship with you isn’t an offer you can refuse with no consequences. You’re not offered an object, but a person. Nevertheless, we don’t really like to reject people. Hurting other people is no fun. If those who rejected were good friends of ours it hurts even worse. Guilt is no fun. If hurting those we love was easy, people would commit suicide more often.

One way of dealing with guilt is to sweep it under the rug. If rejecting someone weighs too much on your consciousness, just write the person off as not serious. They only wanted sex, after all. That doesn’t count (Sex isn’t a psychological need, remember. Only SmartPhone apps make people happy). All the effort they put into courting you was just a scheme! It’s also impossible for a person who only wants sex to have good intentions. They must only care about their own pleasure and be selfish in bed.

See what’s happening here? You turn the Rejected into a demon, a person who’s out to hurt you. You spin-doctor their desires as if their invalid. When was the last time you were rejected and took it like this? What makes the desire of the Rejected so invalid?

It’s easier to reject someone once we minimize and dehumanize them. They’re already not sexually attractive. So we just think that they only care about themselves, that they only treat us as a reward and we are the victim. Someone dared to want us sexually! If wanting sex is so bad, why do Rejectors later have sex? Could it be the desire of a sexy person counts more than the desire of a non-sexy one?

The same desire we demonize in the Rejected we have, too. You will also only want sex from some people, or put effort into being liked by those you’re romantically attracted to. If your feelings are valid enough that you’ll act on them, why is the Rejected’s wants invalid?

There’s irony in the tough-guy talk of “Get over it! Nobody owes you sex! I thought you were my friend!”. Just as nobody owes you sex, nobody owes you friendship. If a person doesn’t want friendship – if they’re interested only in romance or sex – they’re allowed to quit. After all, you would break off a relationship you wouldn’t want, either.

There is a solution to this that’s simple in theory but difficult in practice. The solution is to not pick sides. We should accept that both desires are valid. It’s okay to only want sex. It’s okay to not want a friendship and only a romance. It’s okay to only want a friendship with romance.

Sometimes, how we view people isn’t how they view us. When two people want different things from a relationship, it doesn’t work and it’s time to rethink it. Love confessions are such a moment. The two parties should first off recognize nobody is being immoral by wanting something. Then, if both aren’t willing to settle just walk away.

Yes, rejection hurts. Yes, it hurts to lose a friend who wanted more. It’s okay to get angry and listen to a lot of loud music. You need to be aware there’s something a little beyond your anger. We should find ways of overcoming rejection and the guilt not by pointing guns at the other party. Relationships don’t always fail because of one party.

It’s difficult, but not impossible. I stayed good friends with a woman who rejected me and I don’t regret a second of it. It was difficult, but even through the anger I knew that it was her choice and there wasn’t nothing morally wrong about it. That’s life. Rejection happens, but we cannot move from it unless we acknowledge that it hurts, and that it’s done out of malice.

 

Taylor Swift – 1989

How brilliant is “Blank Space”?

When I was with my girlfriend, I couldn’t listen to it. It was a laughing warning sign, taunting me that all this happiness is bound to end. When she dumped me, I still couldn’t listen to it. It laughed harder and bragged how it told me so. It’s more than a take on Taylor’s ‘serial dating’. It’s a song that acknowledge the futility of the Pursuit of Love.

We all know that most relationships won’t last. Marriage is just a fancy ceremony. Yet we keep going, still trying to find that person. Taylor takes a look from above and laughs how repetitive it all is. There’s hope that it might be worth all the work (“You can tell me when it’s over/if the high was worth the pain”) but that’s it. Taylor doesn’t even consider the possibility that this time it might work.

You’d think that in the age when science and atheism are popular, people would be more cynical. I’m surrounded by people who have a strong faith in love and that we will all find The One. “Blank Space” is a rarity in a world whose view of romance is almost cult-ish.

That song is a towering achievement in an album where nothing tries to match it.

Taylor made a career out of singing about heartbreak. That’s not unique, but to her credit she always had some insight to add to that never-ending subject. On 1989, it sounds like the subject is no longer important to her.

There are a lot of songs about relationships that failed, but there is no sorrow here. The reason we sing about heartbreak and listen to those songs is because we can’t just get over it. Someone in the world has it worse, but heartbreak is a painful experience even when it’s boring. We’re afraid of taking chances because every hurt makes it worse.

Taylor sounds like she can afford to get hurt. It fell apart on about 5 songs here, but Swift just shrugs it off. These are not anthems of resilience. These are songs about heartbreak where the singer moves on after a week. It’s like Ed Sheeran, only less creepy.

Maybe this is how reality works now. I know 3 girls who exited relationships and immidiately found new suitors. Taylor is a beautiful and successful singer, so I’m sure she has plenty of hot guys at the door. When you can get so many hot and famous guys, does it really matter when it falls apart? A replacement is on the way. It’s better than Ed Sheerans’ attempt at having one night stands with girls dying for romance, but it still misses the point.

The hotness of the guys is important. Taylor discovers sexuality on 1989. When young Pop stars discover sexuality. it’s scary. Many try to use sex as a form of rebellion. They dress half-naked in the music videos and we’re supposed to think they’re unique for having sex (like everyone else does?).

Taylor’s sexuality is different. She’s closer to Tove Lo than Nicki Minaj. She doesn’t brag about how many guys stare at her ass. She’s simply enjoying being found attractive by attractive guys, and being attracted to them. There are no explicit songs about sex, but the delivary is very sensual. “Style” sounds like Kylie Minogue, only more tame. “Wildest Dreams” is all about sex. She doesn’t throw herself at the subject like Tove Lo or Minogue, but it’s her first steps towards it and they’re great. If Taylor made an album that’s all about sex, it will turn out great. The way she sings ‘a tight little skirt’ is sexier than anything Minaj or Lady Gaga will ever do.

Speaking of “Wildest Dreams”, it’s the song that symbolizes the main problem. Everyone said it sounds like Lana Del Rey. Why it’s not as good as Lana is what’s interesting. Lana Del Rey made songs about being attracted to Hot Bad Guys and about all the fun and tragedy it involved. She put the excitement right next to the fall and asked us if it was worth it.

There is danger in “Off to the Races”. There is tragedy in “Born to Die”. There’s nothing like that in Taylor’s song. The guy she’s into is tall, handsome and is good at being bad. She doesn’t address how it affects her. The relationship doesn’t last, obviously, but where’s the heartbreak and the pain? Where is the grieving? Taylor sounds invincible. She wishes that the guy would remember her and that’s it. That’s not the brave-face act that made Smiths’ “I Know It’s Over” so good. That one had cracks in the surface.

Taylor was never an outsider. She tried to paint herself as such in songs like “You Belong to Me”, but it’s hard to be a beautiful outcast in a society where female beauty is worshipped. 1989 is a step in admitting that she’s one of the Beautiful People. That’s why “Style” sounds so honest. That’s why on “Shake It Off” she doesn’t diss her haters or prove to us she’s strong but celebrates herself. Both of these are a lot of fun.

The rest of the songs sound like weird celebrations of being attracted to Hot Bad Guys who know how to get the girl. I’m happy for Taylor she can now afford to jump from relationship to relationship without suffering heartbreak, but it’s not good material for heartbreak music. At worst, she sounds smug and unpleasant, disconnected from How People Feel. El-P’s frustration over “Welcome to New York” makes sense. New York must seem great when you’re a beautiful successful singer, but all these underground rappers have a different perspective. Hot Bad Guys aren’t a problem when you’re attractive, but when suitors are less common then every one matters and every one hurts.

There are few songs that sound like leftover from a different era. “Out of the Woods” is Midwest Emo lyrics in a Pop song. It uses imagery over spelling out how the narrator feels, and Taylor sounds vulnerable and unsure in the chorus. Although she abandoned country completely, the narration of the song makes you wonder whether there’s a Bluegrass demo of it. “Clean” also helps conclude the album with the realization that Taylor is strong, she left the heartbreaks behind and she can move on. Does that mean we get her sex album now?

At least Taylor’s talent for hooks isn’t gone. 1989 doesn’t fail like most Pop albums do. There are no shortage of good hooks here. Despite Taylor’s detatchment, “I Wish You Would”, “Wildest Dreams” and “Bad Blood” all have poppin’ melodies. She also saved the melodies for the best lyrics, so the result is overall a pleasant, but disappointing album. At least Taylor doesn’t sound out of steam. She’s probably just not out of the woods yet.

3 blank spaces out of 5

Sadistik x Kno – Phantom Limbs

At this point, Sadistik is just coasting on talent alone. This may sound good at first that he can knock out great music in his sleep, but it doesn’t. Sadistik isn’t that type of artist.

He’s the man behind Flowers for My Father. There aren’t lot of records that are this emotionally devastating. It’s a record that can only come from a desire to exorcise your emotional demons. Expecting another album like this means hoping something bad will happen to him. I’m too thankful for that album to wish him something bad.

I can be fine with an album like Ultraviolet. It saw him moving towards more abstract raps. It doesn’t sound like he was pouring his heart out. He was using his subject matter of heartbreak and self-loathing to create beautiful poetry and music. So even if “Into the Night” doesn’t have the vulnerability of “Palmreader”, it still has catchy lines and passionate rapping.

There’s no artist I want to hear a song called “To Be in Love” more from than Sadistik. No one will write about how the excitement of love is more sad than beautiful like Sadistik. The song is anemic, though. There’s a nice, slightly gothic beat and a good sample in the chorus. All Sadistik can come up for that is calling his loved Mecca.

That’s it? I kept waiting for something like “Fist-fight just to feel the touch”, or even something that looks silly on paper like “Cracked ribs from the hugs that you gave me”. Sometimes I think I’m hearing him praising her while lowering himself. Again, it’s a concept Sadistik excels at. There aren’t enough songs that connect passionate love with self-loathing, and Sadistik misses the oppurtunity.

All the songs have the same problems. It’s always nice to hear Sadistik rap. His flow is still good, although not as complex. It can’t help but reeks of lines that didn’t make it to Ultraviolet, though. That one already sounds like half of it didn’t make it to Flowers for My Father anyway. The only reason to hear these songs is if you overplay Sadistik’s other material. That’s not something that will happen often, because he has a lot of material and most of it is great.

The production doesn’t help much. There are some beats that sound like maybe Gothic Rock and Hip-Hop can go together. There are also weird forays into Trap. This isn’t an attempt to combine melancholy lyrics with tough guy music for contrasts. These are just snare rolls with a depressed rapper over them. I’m all for sampling Eraserhead (Sadly, the song doesn’t revolve around the film like it could) but what do the snares contribute? This is the man who made “Blue Sunshine”, “Into the Night” and “Petrichor”. Why is he rapping over such generic beats? Is he trying to appeal to the same people who filled the rap canon with borin Boom Bap?

It’s Sadistik being Sadistik, so I can’t call it bad. He’s too talented, and this will get the occasional spin. Nothing here deserves to reach his Best Of though. This is only good for keeping you busy until Sadistik’s next project. It does it well, but there isn’t longevity here.

2.5 limbs out of 5

Women Have the Absolute Right to Have Sex

We’re at a bar. I might hate myself, but not that much. So I’m drinking a beer that resembles soda less than others – it was Guinness or Weinshtephen, can’t remember. I wasn’t that drunk. Anyway, a girl a (gay) friend of mine knows is there. The world “revealing” doesn’t describe well her clothing. Her whole back’s exposed. She flirts with every guy there. She dances with the bartenders and the waiters. She gets free shots. The lead singer of the band calls her by name and tell her to leave the poor guy next to her alone.

To her credit, they were whiskey shots instead of vodka. The guy she was all over was also pretty big. Most girls I know prefer the skinny.

That’s going off-topic. The reaction to her from my friends is slut. There’s no depth to it. She’s a slut. She’s an idiot. She flirts with everyone and that’s disgusting. I’m supposed to not want to have sex with her because “the whole town was in her”. Gay man talks and jokes with her, but when we meet a few weeks later in someone’s house he talks about how stupid she is.

The exact same thing happened to me a year or two back. There was a time when every second or third week there was a house party. A certain girl came to most of them and she also flirted with everyone. She made out with a friend’s friend who came from overseas. Her outfit was meant to emphasize the shape of her body. My friends wanted her. They also went on and on, angrily, about how a slut she is.

What’s wrong with that?

I once got into a debate with some people on this topic. This is the main arguement. If it doesn’t make sense to you, it’s just a difference of personal experience.

The girl is passive and the guy is active. The girl works hard on her looks, but she’s not active in the interaction. The guy’s role is to flirt, to start conversation, to lead. He’s supposed to ‘get’ her. She’s supposed to not ‘give up’ easily. The harder the guy works, the more valueable she is. It also means that if you can get a hard to get girl, you’re therefore much more valueable. The girl is the reward.

There is so much wrong with this narrative that I’m not sure where to begin.

First off, if this narrative is true and that’s how it’s supposed to be, what is rape? After all, rape is when the guy ‘gets’ the girl, only his method is force. Since rape is awful and part of why it’s wrong is the lack of consent, it means we need consent in this narrative. However, this narrative doesn’t include it.

What actually happens in real life is not that the guy ‘gets’ the girl, but that the girl agrees to have sex, or go out for coffe, or to an Incubus live show. The girl is an actual active agent who does more than just look good. The girl also filters out the guys she doesn’t want, just as the guy filters the girls he won’t chase after.

There is no ‘hard to get’ because the girl is not something you get. Sex is not something you get. Sex is a shared activity that’s supposed to be fun for both sides, in the same way going out for drinks or to see a movie is. We may have a higher standard for sex. We will have sex with less people than people we go to watch movies with, but it’s supposed to be a shared activity. The girl also wants to enjoy this.

This narrative is also harsh on guys. It puts a death sentence on socially inept guys. If you’re not good at initiating conversations and flirting, you will never enjoy sex or the company of women. Now, I don’t mind that there may a lot of guys who will be forever alone. It’ll be right if it’s because they’re just not attractive, not because of a social mindset that views their behavior as wrong.

If a guy is forever alone because no girl was ever attracted to him, that’s okay. If he’s forever alone because he’s afraid to initiate, and girls who are attracted to him won’t talk to him because ‘it’s the guy’s job’ then it’s society that makes us against our will.

Another important thing that the narrative doesn’t touch is morality. Is there any moral reason not to have sex? Is having sex with a random person hurts anyone? I’m leaving off bad sex – rape, people who have sex just to cope with loneliness and the like. I’m talking about a situation with two people just want to have sex and there’s nothing hidden.

I don’t see how this hurts anybody. It could be I’m missing something. Until then, I will hold that just as it’s okay for a woman to meet me as friends, it’s okay for her to have sex with me as friends.

Sadly, I have this cached thought often. I see these girls and ‘slut’ comes to my mind. There’s a much stronger thought there, though. I love to see girls who flirt with every guy and aren’t afraid to show their sexuality. It’s not just because I’m socially inept and it’s good for me. I wish we could all be this social. I wish we could enjoy our sexuality without guilt. Sadly, even women thing it’s wrong for other women to have sex. I hope the future will be better.