♥ single and bitter seeks same ♥

Would you write, let alone answer, a dating ad like that? No? Well how about spending most evenings saying exactly that, albeit not in so many words? There's been a bit of a strop thrown recently by some idiot over on Feminazery about the blog's supposedly unforgivable attack on some whingefest about howwid wimmins not giving poor ickle menz sex even when they've worked hard to come across as normal human beings and everything. I can't be bothered to trudge through all the blindingly obvious reasons these sorts of Nice Guys (a breed entirely distinct, as one sage commenter opined, from Good Men) don't get and don't deserve sex with their blow-up dolls let alone real women, but the whole thing's got me thinking about another pissy phenomenon; Love Hate.

I don't mean that Heathcliff/Catherine, Colleen-Rooney-melodramatically-chucking-her-ring-in-a-forest-and-then-trying-to-retrieve-it-when-they'd-made-up, thing. I mean actually hating love because you're a miserable git. I don't know if I attract more of it by mere virtue of being single myself, but I am getting increasingly puzzled sick of it.

In the interests of full disclosure, I am 24, female, straight, and single. I am single for a fairly typical variety of reasons; I'm very independent, I'm very picky, I just haven't met the right man yet, etc. Basically, I don't need a generic rent-a-boyfriend to survive so I'm happy to be single, but I would also very happily take up with a wonderful man and have joyous, riotous sex with him were such a specimen to materialise at a party any time soon. So yes, of course it would be wicked to have a great relationship in my life, as it is to have the great interests and hobbies and work and friends already in it. The only problem is, that includes all my friends - single, married, and everywhere in between - and that's apparently some kind of treason against all my fellow singletons.

It happened again last night. "Pff! Couples", muttered Rob, Anna nodding in agreement, as our flat sat down to dinner. We are a flat of four; two boys, two girls, all single, all leading perfectly normal lives - except, apparently, me. "Urgh, at the train station the other day there was this fucking couple being all lovey-dovey, I wanted to slap them!" "Yeah, it's like, 'No, I don't care that he did that really sweet thing for you, bla bla bla'." "They're so annoying, aren't they?"

And then I committed the schoolgirl error: "But why?"

Why? WHY? Was I out of my mind? Everyone knows couples are annoying, just going around looking so fucking happy all the time, kissing at bus stops and holding hands and eating out sometimes and dancing together on nights out - I mean how do those bastards have the nerve to, when you're single?!

Except, erm, I clearly didn't get that memo from the broken-hearted. I mean yes, exhibitionist chavteens dry-humping across the aisle from you on the bus are irritating, in the same way all smelly or crap-music-blaring fellow passengers are. I'm sure we've all been pissed off with friends who drop off the social radar completely as soon as a new boyfriend or girlfriend appears, and yeah it can twist a recently dumped knife to see a couple getting lovey-dovey at the traffic lights if you've just split up with someone that week. But other than that, I seem to be the only single person in London who thinks "aww" rather than "aargh!" when they pass a clearly loved-up couple with the temerity to be attached when you're not.

But the only way the latter popular attitude can possibly make sense is by genuinely believing that all couples are happy and all singletons are sad, and that all those happy couples are somehow responsible for all singletons' non-coupledom, and therefore sadness. Or, as Mr Webb put it, "There's only so much happiness in the world... and they're hoarding it all." Except, oh wait, that line in the script was a JOKE. Being single (being anything for that matter - tall, short, thin, fat, weak, strong, "foreign", "native") is not a reason to resent people that aren't.

Men and women falling in lust or love not only have no case to answer for others' failure to, but ironically also embody what most of us are hoping for ourselves somewhere along the line. So why on earth has couple-bashing (not to mention men-bashing and women-bashing) become so vociferously normal? Maybe it's singledom, and not relationships, that needs the most getting over. I mean really, where is the love?!

Nicked from Femin-Ally:

Sexual Assault Prevention Tips Guaranteed to Work!

1. Don’t put drugs in people’s drinks in order to control their behavior.

2. When you see someone walking by themselves, leave them alone!

3. If you pull over to help someone with car problems, remember not to assault them!

4. NEVER open an unlocked door or window uninvited.

5. If you are in an elevator and someone else gets in, DON’T ASSAULT THEM!

6. Remember, people go to laundry to do their laundry, do not attempt to molest someone who is alone in a laundry room.

7. USE THE BUDDY SYSTEM! If you are not able to stop yourself from assaulting people, ask a friend to stay with you while you are in public.

8. Always be honest with people! Don’t pretend to be a caring friend in order to gain the trust of someone you want to assault. Consider telling them you plan to assault them. If you don’t communicate your intentions, the other person may take that as a sign that you do not plan to rape them.

9. Don’t forget: you can’t have sex with someone unless they are awake!

10. Carry a whistle! If you are worried you might assault someone “on accident” you can hand it to the person you are with, so they can blow it if you do.

And, ALWAYS REMEMBER: if you didn’t ask permission and then respect the answer the first time, you are commiting a crime- no matter how “into it” others appear to be.

www.blogger.com hates women

Does that sound melodramatic? Well boo-fucking-hoo, because once again, one of cyberspace's most prominent websites is effectively sanctioning hate speech against one group that, were it directed at any other community, would be smacked down faster than a cock-ring at a Silver Ring convention. Because, y'know, it's not really an -ism to have a go at... women, right?

Actually, wrong. But despite repeated reporting from various groups, the veritable oevre that is I Hate White Women (tagline: "WHY I HATE AMERICAN AND WESTERN WOMEN", in case the anyone was feeling left out) remains online in all its deluded, embittered glory. Of course, any woman of any ethnicity would greet this idiot's "boycott" of their person with relief and revelry, but that does not render his rantings harmless or their continued hosting by Blogger acceptable. Nazism is a joke too, but the Holocaust sure as hell wasn't funny.

So, to abandon reason and broach the moronic inferno for a moment, let's have a closer look at what this angry young man has to say for himself...

I am a white American male (good to know he's far away!) and I hate white women. In a nutshell ("nut" being the operative word), white women are the most likely (any research? Nah, didn't think so) to cheat on you (I smell misogynist heartache!), to divorce you (wouldn't you?), to get fat (again, stats?), to steal half of your money (has he informed the Police? Oh wait, he means getting married - has anyone ever accepted his proposal?), don't know how to cook (my two-year-old niece can feed herself, why can't he?), etc (yeah, ETC, like, that's totally fucking definitive, dude). Therefore, what intelligent man (yes, WHAT intelligent man? Oh wait, he means... aww, bless) would want to get involved with a bitchy white woman?

White women are generally immature (unlike a supposedly grown man who dedicates an entire blog to his peculiar bitterness), selfish, and extremely arrogant and self-centered (whine, whine, whine, WHINE...). The behavior of most white women is utterly disgusting, to say the least (yeah, rejection is, like, so mean).

This blog is my (failed) attempt to explain why I feel white women are inferior to all other groups of women, such as Asians, Middle Easterners, Mexicans, Blacks, etc (because, it's, like, totally not racist or patronising or unsound to lump people -oops, sorry, women- together like that. And, er, you can be any of those ethnicities while also being American and Western).

BOYCOTT AMERICAN WOMEN! (Women: they're just like South African grapes, really).

Pfffft, like the lazy, entitled, hellish Western women that I am, I can't be bothered to wade through any more of his inarticulate idiocy. I wonder which is smaller, his penis or his brain? What glory is there supposed to be in whining about a group of people who have already pre-empted any kind of victory by rejecting you to start with?

So yes, he's a joke. But it's not funny. And Blogger should realise that.

Oh wisevid.com, why do you bother asking me if I'm alright to view the "mature content" of middle-of-the-road cop shows while simultaneously bombarding me with pop-ups of naked women? Is it, perchance, because you are a pile of sexist wank?

Yes. Yes, that's probably it.

love music, hate sexism

I like bands; proper bands. The actual Misfits rather than them three off X-Factor. But I also like being a girl.

I remember quite vividly the first time it occurred to me that these two things could be incompatible. I was fourteen, we'd just got the internet, and a whole new world of fandom was opening before me. And then there it was; a scan of Kerrang magazine, Davey Havok and Dexter Holland sharing the cover with the headline, "ROCK IN THE DOCK: is rock music sexist?" I never did track down the article, but I even neverer forgot its title.

Those words have come back to me a lot over the years, most times I've read about Courtney Love or Brody Dalle, and every time I've flicked past yet another male-targeted advert in a music magazine. (Yes, I sometimes read the NME; no, that does not mean I aspire to style my manly hair into so improbable a quiff that women will dance on tables in its honour thus allowing me to look up their skirts, Shockwaves haircare). But this week really took the balls-up biscuit. Shipped out to Marylebone because Euston thought it might perhaps possibly be on fire and with a four-hour train journey ahead of me, I trudged into WHSmiths for something to read. Oh look, a new Q! But oh wait, it's shrink-wrapped to FHM.

Er, what the fuck? I stared at it for a moment, processed the fact that one of my favourite magazines had just turned to shit before my very eyes, and walked out of the shop.

I don't care how much it comes down to publishers' alliances, I don't care what snivelling little marketing strategy is behind it, I don't care if some girl whose face has started popping up in the London Lite has taken her "hippy chic" clothes off, but I am fucking livid that a magazine I really respected precisely because it was so much more interesting, well-written, and generally grown-up than its peers has done that for which every successful band risks crucifixion in the music media; sold out.

Well, I'm not buying it. I'm not sure what I'll buy instead (the NME's too flimsy, no-one at Artrocker can spell... maybe Clash will fill the gap) but Q can stick it; I'm sure FHM can tell them where.

"alright, darlin'?"

This post was going to be about bitching, but life was the proverbial and got in the way, in the form of new work. I have recently started volunteering at a Women's Centre which deals, amongst others, with prostitutes - but now I come to think of it, maybe this won't be too far off the original topic after all.

Prostitution is, undeniably, a feminist issue. But that's where it gets bitchy, isn't it? I have always been of the opinion that we should all try and stick to the dictionary definition of feminism as much as possible; however we may each interpret "advocacy of the rights of women (based on the theory of equality of the sexes)", to quote the OED, any feminist position must be justified in reference to this most basic premise.

A lot of the time, in the West at least, we do, and most arguments you hear about feminism follow the tawdry "feminism means hating men"/"no it doesn't, it means wanting equality" binary. If you are lucky, your interlocutor might accept this fact; if you are not, they will most likely bang on about what feminism "really" means, unbeknownst to either actual real live feminists or indeed the Denizens of Dictionaries. But what of feminist factionism?

Let's say we're all reasonable dictionary-abiding feminists who don't want to round up All Teh Menz and shoot them in the penis. Surely we should, by and large, be able to agree on general principles? Not when it comes to sex, we can't. I am not about to essay a treatise on the entire prostitution debate - for one, it's been done a million times before, and for another, I really need to pack for a festival tomorrow - but rather a plea for peace concerning an issue that has played increasingly on my mind in recent weeks.

For many of us, female and male, sex work is an unpalatable concept. But whether one finds it immoral or simply unimaginable, the fact remains that many women do it. Whether they're Happy Hookers™, Crack Whores™ or the "single moms" moronically featured on many a T-shirt, they do it. And while they're doing it, they risk abuse from their punters to the public and everyone in between. So what do we do about it?

And this is where it gets bitchy again. There is a sizeable and vocal mainstream feminist movement against sex work - and I can perfectly see why. Popular culture already sees (or perhaps rather, resolutely depicts) women as a sexual commodity. Women sell everything from cars to deodorants to ourselves, and the everyday effects of this range from the dumb to the disturbing; from endless media commentary on Michelle Obama's arms to my flatmate being followed home by the man who asked, "How much? 50? Come on, you and me, how much?" when we were 19. In fact, Natalie wasn't a prostitute. She was wearning jeans and Converse (you try unlacing them in hurry!) and a jumper, she was walking briskly through a safe part of town nowhere near a red light district, and she must have repeated, "No, I'm not for sale", a hundred times.

What freaked her out the most was that this was not some macho-muppet showing off in front of his friends or trying to intimidate her, but a smart, otherwise polite, man in his 20s genuinely trying to broker a mutually agreeable fee. You can't help feeling in situations like that, that if so many other bloody women weren't for sale, men wouldn't assume you were. Certainly my main problem with the sex industry is not its commodity, but its connotations; what I dislike most about the idea of such transactions is not the (already somewhat alienating) concept of one human being selling their body to another, but the fact that it is so utterly culturally one-sided. Intellectually, I know that prostitution is about much more than "letting the side down", but emotionally, in our current society, that is how I feel. In that sense, prostitution does indeed impinge on any progress towards the "rights of women" as a whole.

But what about the rights of women, to puerilely plagiarise Pegg, as a hole? A woman's rights are inseparable from women's rights, and sometime the twain must meet. A prostitute lets down the side by perpetuating the perception that women are sexual commodities; a campaigner against her local brothel lets down the side by forcing its staff out onto the street, where they run a tenfold higher risk of attack. Ideologically, they are both right; practically, they are both right and wrong.

I personally have no desire (rather the attavistic opposite) to prostitute myself; nor do I believe that it is always or even often a genuine career choice (especially if you happen to be a genuine crack-whore looking to fund your next rock). But nevertheless, the broader, louder, better-funded campaign for Women's rights with a capital "w" cannot afford to... ride? tramp? - sorry - roughshod over women's rights in lower-caste lower-case. It is not enough to dislike prostitution; what we should dislike is the culture that creates it, that empowers it, that requires it. Like countless other feminists, I would love to live in a world where no woman ever had to rent her body out to her landlord in lieu of rent - but that can only happen in a world in which the very wheeze never crosses the landlord's mind. If prostitution is to end, it must do so organically, as part of wider (more important) social change; try to stamp it out, and you're only trampling its agents.

If it is not, I can only hope it will evolve, with society, greater gender equality (it has always struck me as somewhat anti-feminist to campaign for equality through an assumption that equality can never exist in some areas, such as sex work). In any case, there are no easy answers - yet, at least. Meaningful change will take time, perhaps longer than I will live to see. But if we are to make any progress, for Women capitalised and disenfranchised, we must work around, if not across, our differences. For sex workers' and non-sex-workers' sakes alike - as long as they still get it on, can't we all just get along?

what

If the pen is mightier than the sword, I well deserved my teenage moniker of Xena (Warrior Princess™) cooked up by my best friend for reasons best forgotten. I have Written with a capital "w" ever since I could write with a small one; no primary school book corner was safe from my hand-made offerings, the creativity of my writing second only to the creativity of my spelling. I have always known I have something to say, if not always what. Daisy Steiner 2.0, I don't quite live in Tuffnel Park or own a typewriter, but I know I'm a good writer - all I need is a place to prove it. (I'd quite like a Brian renting downstairs as well, but I digress).

Awkwardly enough, I have never seriously wanted to be a journalist in any more than an I-could-do-better-than-that sort of way. My pubescent love affair with J-17 ended shortly after they featured an article (I use the term loosely) by a young Peaches Geldof about wearing yellow wellies to school on a no-uniform day, and Orla Guerin generally frightened me more than the tragedy she invariably reported. The older I got, the less I liked about the media, especially as a young woman; I laughed at The Devil Wears Prada, but only because it confirmed what I already knew - that I would never want to work anywhere like that anyway.

Anyone who knows about bands and can write (or thinks they do and can, at any rate) probably considers music journalism. Anyone who reads the NME and frequents any "scene" long enough probably also decides it might not be all they had who's-got-the-cracked it up to be; I certainly did. I like listening to music and I like writing about some of it (especially when it means free gig tickets) but I don't like the idea of pretending my opinon is the be-all and end-all just because I've got the right kind of bona fide fringe. I like being able to get drunk and not having to worry about remembering how to write it up. I like being able to giggle about it all instead of trying to be it. I like being able to write, however unprofessionally or languishingly, about everything else that matters to me as well.

To whit; life. Friendship, feminism, family, fear, fate, fashion... other things that don't start with the letter "f". This will not be a particularly political blog, however much the personal always is, but it will be about things I can muster the passion to write well about. I think, therefore I write; I write, therefore I think; I write to find out what I think, to quote Joan Didion. I won't pretend it wouldn't be nice to find out what other people think of my writing too - but nor will I pretend to care if no-one ever reads it.