What New Zealanders Think...

I've been in New Zealand for a little over four months now, and though Bill Maher's comment this morning that "every year 20,000 Americans die because of insufficient healthcare" falls on my ears similar to the way that "do you want fries with that?" it hits my New Zealand boyfriend's ears with the intended effect: horror, disbelief, outrage.

Over time he's asked me to verify a number of the things that he'd heard about America because he'd assumed were made up (or at least exaggerated) by the Simpsons CNN, or Fox News.. things like what churches teach children about Noah being real and Jesus rising from the dead for real, about Monster Trucks (I believe he said "wait, so big trucks run over smaller trucks and people watch?"), 64 ounce cups of Coca Colas, super-sizing, slurpees, healthcare, Ho-Hos. All of which I confirmed.

Now that we're looking into either his moving to the US or my moving to NZ, the fear that every other developed nation has universal healthcare and the US doesn't is something that factors into our decision because he needs to take certain medications and have access to someone who can prescribe them.

On trips I've taken, I've spoken to other travelers (almost always non-Americans no matter where I go.. which I think speaks volumes to differences in standards of living. Maybe it's elitist of me, but I consider the ability to travel a standard of living issue), and their incredulity isn't much different from Sam's.

Every New Zealander I've told of my California residency express jealousy or dreams of someday visiting, but this is in stark contrast to their opinions about our politics, which, frankly, seem to strike them as barbaric.

And - despite my love of saying in GWeese "these colors don't run" - I can't disagree with them.

Lysistrata 2009: Kenyan Women on Sex Strike

If you want to skip out on my savvy commentary, click here for article. Those of you good people who stayed...

In 12th grade, I played Lysistrata, the main character in an Aristohpones play by the same name. Clever Lysistrata gets her fellow Greek women to withold pussy privileges in hopes of ending the Peloponnesian War. And it works. Random detail: I asked if I could read her character with a Brooklyn accent, which gave the whole production a uniquely fabu edge, I thought.

I too now wonder how this was allowed to be part of the curriculum. But this play only provided the stage with a tale we know all too well in our personal sex lives. Who among us hasn't witheld head or a rim job in hopes of accomplishing some greater good? I know for a fact that Sam didn't give me head on my birthday (he says) because he was trying to show me that temper tantrums aren't sexy (I'd just had one). And I'm trying to get him to quit smoking, so I've been witholding head.

In Kenya, at the beginning of the month, thousands of women took a vow to withold sex from their husbands for a week to protest Kenya's "bickering leaderhip," stating they didn't want a repeat of the post-election violence of 2008. The article says that the coalition has asked sex workers to take up the cause too, and that they were willing to pick up the tab.

According to a CNN article, a man tried to sue for damages and mental anguish. But beside this guy, the boycott was successful in prompting leaders to meet. The pussy wins... AGAIN! If only the abstinence-only people could harness the vaginas of their constituents for the greater good of better American politics. Sigh...

New Smut: Part 1 (a pussy story)

The window displayed every kind of delicacy, but all he could see were vaginas. He saw them wherever he went. He saw them in the obvious places - the tight swirl of young rose petals - but also in the sheen of some women's shoes, the frothy cream atop children's hot drinks, and, when he narrowed his eyes, he could see turgid clitorises in the craggy mountain tops of his town.

His sense of smell was maddeningly sensitive. Though as a young man he refused to believe his nose - which told him that this woman had just orgasmed or that woman had just been ejaculated into - now, at 50 years old, he knew that he could pick out phases of ovulation the way that perfumiers could tell gardenia from frangipane.

He loved nothing more than to have his face engulfed, up to the nose, between a woman's thighs. When he hired a woman, he loved to do this very thing. When she arrived, he'd begin with soft-spoken questions. What did her vagina look like? Was it a shell, a filled coin purse, a tiny fringed mouth? What did her vagina feel like? How old was she when she first grew hair on her vagina? Had she masturbated as a child? Did she languish for long hours on her bed putting 1 and then 2 and then 3 fingers into her vagina? Or was she a flurried, fast clitoris rubber? And he would repeat words like vagina, clitoris, masturbation with a crescendoing relish. Each word acted as the click of a projector, bringing to mind a new image that accompanied the word. And he preferred the precise, medical terms for there was a word for every part of a woman in medicine.

He preferred one above others. She was a giggling, chubby girl, and though he knew what her vagina looked like - indeed, he knew the exact taste and texture of her cervix - he loved the way that her dimple would appear as she slumped down in her chair, pulled up her skirt, opened her legs, and asked, "What does it look like to you?" His pulse would rise slowly; blood would begin to pump so loudly he could hear it in the silences between words.

He'd ask her to stand up and he'd make his way onto the floor. On all fours, he would crawl to her feet and then lie on his back and ask her to open her legs. She would and once she'd taken a step forward he would see her hose, her garters scrunched just above the knee, and the soft skin. Then, he would begin to stare at the shell or purse or mouth.

Hers was an overstuffed purse, chubby as her naughtily angelic face. Though she was sun-kissed, her thighs were pale. And the sparse, dark hairs on her inner thighs stood out like small, shiny wires. He continued his gaze up to her mons, the plumpest part. And he traced a line in his mind's eye along the border of hair that separated her soft stomach from her most private and delectable parts. He breathed in deeply. Below her skirt, he was as in another world. A world that smelled like her, and her alone. Almost unbeknownst to him, he had grabbed hold of her ankles in a fit of desperate arousal. He asked her to spread her legs further. And as she did, he felt himself stiffen uncomfortably, her pink insides exposed just barely. The sight of the color filled his mouth with saliva. It ignited his sense of smell. His eyes dilated with lust as he fought to focus them on her.

Oh, the places you'll go...

Gosh, I love travel. The problem with loving travel is that it really sort of puts a dent in your finances and your love life and any desire to "settle down" or "make something of yourself" and buy a home or a car or furniture that can't be deflated.

Since 18, I've been a traveling fiend. I lived in Italy that year, and turned 19 while at the Cannes Film Festival. I saw Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia for the first time, where I discovered Dubrovnik, one of my favorite cities. The next year I was living in Oaxaca, and studying ethnobotany and indigenous peoples. Then, Barcelona when I was 21 - that was the year I became obsessed with Dali's wife, Gala, and I saw the running of the bulls in Pamplona. At 22, I moved to New York for about half a year. NY is still the sort of love of my life.

23 saw Dublin, London and Paris, where the pastries were just as amazing as they looked and came in every color, even green. At 23 I returned to Spain, but this time to Madrid and discovered one of the most beautiful cities in the world, Toledo - about an hour outside of the capitol. At 25, I went to the southern hemisphere for the first time and visited Auckland in New Zealand. And 26 (and love) brought me to New Zealand again - and NZ led me to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, Sydney and Bangkok, where I saw ping pongs shooting out of vaginas and where I learned that I could pass as Thai. That brings me to 27, which I just turned on May 19. It snowed on my birthday.

I mean, when you think of it, most people's dreams are of traveling. They spend their whole lives saving up and getting decrepit so they can finally have time to see the world. But - having noted that most travelers are wrinkly Germans - by the time one retires, they end up avoiding the mountain hikes (because of bad knees) and the humid climates (because of heat exhaustion) and the crazy tuk-tuk or cab drivers (don't want to have a heart attack) and the hostels where you can become best friends with an Australian overnight and the subways (all those stairs) and the 6 hour bus rides (hip replacement) and the long city walks (it's hard doing that with a walker). I actually like seeing older folks getting out and living, but why doesn't living start a lot earlier than 60? Aren't we entitled to more than 5 or 10 days off a year? Americans are unique in that we work harder than any other people in the West and we get the least vacation time, almost no job security and the worst healthcare benefits. And what about the people like my grandparents - who have worked all their lives, are in their 70s, and who still don't feel like they can spare the money to travel? Only something around 25% of Americans even have a passport. And that isn't right. Everyone deserves to see the world they're a part of, and the US is not a third world nation whose citizens should be living like paupers. Oooh. I need to deeply exhale.

You might wonder how I do all this traveling. It's a simple financial plan: 1. Work for 1 or 1.5 years. 2. Save as much as possible by living in the least-posh neighborhood of the closest still-savvy, big city (you'll save on commuting and entertainment. Bigger cities have more free entertainment, like book readings, free film screenings, gallery openings, and free mueseum days). 3. Quit your job. 4. Spend all that money on crazy adventures! Fall in love and possibly get food poisoning. Anywho.. here are some photos from my travels in the past few months. Hope you lik-ee. Pic 5: Cook Islands: my hand on a starfish in lagoon. Pic 4: Cook Islands lagoon, Pic 3: Bangkok breakfast of dragonfruit and lychees, Pic 2: baby tiger on my lap at Tiger Temple outside of Bangkok. Pic 1: Marlborough Sounds in NZ

Preggo-ness

It really irks me the way that my ma has begun bringing up the baby thing. I'm officially living in sin, so I'm not sure whether our baby would find itself on the end of Satan's marshmallow stick anyway, but I don't like that just because I have a uterus means I have to use it.

And I know I'm not alone on this one. The industralized world is facing a declining birth rate (the US - whose OK-ish birth rate is due almost entirely to the immigrant population - is an exception). Denial isn't just a river in Africa for countries like Japan and Germany, whose incredible xenophobia + low birthrates have made their future look pretty bleak unless they start letting more immigrants in or they pay women to stop giving head and start putting that sperm in its rightful place!

A couple must make 2.5 babies in order to sustain its biological weight in the circle of life. And though I don't mind the idea of Mexican and African babies overrunning the gene pool, some people do.

What I'm getting at is the why. Why aren't women willingly putting their pussies on the chopping block for little bundles of therapy-inspiring, sex-life-killing, marriage-ending joy? I can't quite put my finger on it. Some say it's the internet (and all the masturbating that goes along with the internet! Again, put that sperm somewhere useful, not your keyboard). Some say its feminism, careerism, the fact that GW ruined the world, lack of healthcare, smaller apartments in bigger cities. I would add the fact that hamsters die sooner and definitely won't spend half their life blaming you for that time you didn't hug them after they didn't get a date to the prom.

Ok, so maybe I sort of hate kids. So what? I've seen what kids turn into... and I want to be able to tell my house full of cats one day that they're damn lucky that mommy was smart enough to swallow.

the Politics of Nipples

For a long time, nipple was a dirty word. It's sort of onomatopoetic. The double p reminds me of the sound a nipple makes when it pops out of a mouth or maybe the little bounce it makes as it exits. I think most words that begin with "ni" have a bit of a taboo. And then there's the combination of letters "pple" that sounds like "pull," which is a great thing to do with a nipple.

In any event, for a long, long time, I was very embarrassed of having brown nipples! I know, this sounds crazy, but I truly did find the mention of their tint to be blush-inspiring. I even wrote a whole monologue once about how I had learned early on that pink nipples were the thing to have. In the naughty movies I snuck as a kid, all the women were white and all of them had pink nipples. Pink nipples were (and are) omnipresent. So, imagine little 7-year-old breast fetishist me soaking up all these nipple images and quickly cataloguing what "sexy boobies" looked like. You can probably understand why I thought pink nipples ruled.

Just last week (again, while in Thailand) I went into Boots (a UK owned drugstore/toiletries place), and found on their shelf a cream that makes your nipples pink. Now, as you may or may not know, most people who aren't white have brown nipples.. some are cinnamony and some are almost purple-black, ranging from milk chocolate to dark chocolate. Yumm! This cream promised a "healthy" way to pink nipples: that pesky dark nipple skin would painlessly flake off revealing new "healthy" pink skin. Needless to say, I found this anthropologically fascinating but the breast activist side of me sighed a little sigh of sadness.

Thankfully, in talking to my friends about my brown nipples and in having brown-nipple loving fiends as partners, I got over my embarrassment. But what about Thai women who buy pink-nipple-making cream? Well, if they can read this, I say "love your brown nipples the way they are! They're hot!" And the next time you see a pair of chocolaty nips, take a moment to tell their owner that such a fine pair brings you closer to Jesus.

Condoms are Revolutionary!

First, I want to say that I have no problem wearing a shirt with little anthropomorphic condoms on it because condoms are amazing. Second, the pope is a masticated tampon head and the Catholic church can shove their tongue way up my ass and wiggle it around while I masturbate.

Pope Ratzinger (former Hitler youth; no, not kidding) just a few months back insisted that the AIDS epidemic in Africa would not be ameliorated by condom use... in fact, he said that condom use would make it WORSE.

Just a few days ago a 9 year old Columbian girl who had been raped by her step-father, become pregnant and managed to get an abortion. The response of the Catholic church? To excommunicate everyone involved except the girl's step-father.

Does anyone else feel like we're in an episode of a 14th century mini-series?

Speaking of AIDS, the only successful policy in countries dealing with an AIDS problem has been the implementation of a 100% condom use policy (more on what this is in a second). Which brings me to: Cabbages and Condoms. On my recent visit to Bangkok, I visited C&C, a restaurant with fabulous condom decor, where they give you condoms instead of after-dinner mints and Santa Claus is made of rubbers!

In the late 1980s, Thailand was the first Southeast Asian country to admit that they had an AIDS problem. They started their 100% condom use plan in one province, among sex workers and sex work establishments. Then - with incredible success in lowering rates of STDs and AIDS - they moved it to the national level, providing millions of free condoms and conducting media campaigns. Studies found a tenfold reduction in STD incidence and a five fold reduction in HIV incidence among young Thai men between 1991 and 1993. You can read the full report here.

In conclusion, the pope is an asshole, the church expects us to fuck like it's 1949, and I think condoms are pretty effin hot (especially when they're used as decor and to prevent AIDS).

Fucking in the time of recession

Just reading an article in the New Zealand Listener about how the bedroom is taking a hit because of the recession. Odd, since sex is technically free (but, if you're a single man, you know that just isn't true). According to said article, "1 in 4 women and 1 in 5 men believe financial stress is having a detrimental effect on their love life."

But why? Hold on. Let me put my theory hat on.

As mentioned parenthetically above, if you're single this makes sense:
Man with less money + woman with fewer presents = maybe sex, but definitely no blowjob.

But beside this obvious fact, lies the complexity of human sexuality. Sex drive has much to do with hormones and biological drive, but that doesn't mean that confidence lost because of financial hardship, and stress and anxiety gained because of it don't play into the boner equation. Among women, it's been researched and found (by neurobiologist Louanne Brizendine) that the emotional center of the brain - the amygdala - is crucial to orgasm. If this part of the brain is engaged with thoughts about money problems it can completely inhibit a woman's ability to cum. Regarding men, research has shown that women find a man who can protect and provide to be among the most sexually appealing.

I used to have a phone sex client named Bernard. He had made a fortune during the dot-com boom, married a gorgeous wife, sex was great, had three kids, got her a boob job, even got her that vagina rejuvenation procedure (where your vagina is surgically tightened, sometimes called re-virginization), sex was greater and then he lost all his money. That was when he started calling me... the sex stopped when her credit cards maxed. She refused to take care of their kids and starting fucking his friend, going on drinking binges and becoming belligerent. I was sort of his therapist.

Extreme example, but I think it shows that sometimes we're not exactly aware of what factors play into our relationships or sex lives. Bernard didn't know that his wife only married him for his money (even though everyone else probably knew), but money problems can bring latent relationship issues to the fore.

Maybe this recession is a blessing in disguise! Maybe this is the perfect time for your unemployed ass to find your soul mate, a person who wants you for you. Or maybe it's time to invest in a porn site subscription, save money by masturbating more, skip eating out and teach yourself the 101 ways to use a crockpot.

So, I was @ Super Pussy last night...

So, I'm in Bangkok at the moment, and I suppose the quintessential thing to do here is attend a ping pong show. Now, ping pong shows create new awe for the female genitals. It's incredible what these women can do with their poonanis. Last night a few new friends and I went to Super Pussy. The show was 300 baht (about $10) and before you enter they give you a rundown of the show on a laminated piece of paper. I'm amazed and confused by some of the items: balloons, ping pongs, bottle. Walk up a flight of stairs, and it looks enough like a regular ol' strip club. A few women pull very long streamers out of their vajs and then the first truly amazing pussy act begins: a woman opening up bottles of soda water... you can hear each bottle top pop off. Then, a woman put a bottle filled with water from one Pepsi bottle into another empty Pepsi bottle... but it had changed color while in there! It went from clear to brown in 2 seconds flat. Magic. Then, another woman brought out a wax cake, lit candles on it and blew them out with a straw. The most amazing part of the show was the balloons. A woman inserted a straw, then put these darts in the straw (pointy end out of course), shot the darts and popped each of 5 balloons hanging from the ceiling. Wow. I don't even have any somewhat shnazzy commentary on this experience except to say that I was sort of jealous.

Tell Cosmo We Ain't Takin' Their Shit No More!... 5 secs

Hi,
I just had to do this. I'm asking that you forward this letter to Cosmopolitan (one of - if not the - best-selling magazine for women 18-49), and tell them that it's not ok to continue to play a hand in creating body image problems, body dysmorphia and eating disorders (and a host of other -isms). You can leave it as it is (it's generally worded) or you can add your personal touch to it. Then, write your name at the bottom of the letter, forward it to Cosmopolitan magazine and ask your friends to do the same. If you have a better email address/more direct contact, let me know too!

Re-cap:
1. Copy and paste letter below into an email (send as is or please add personal touch)
2. Type your name at the bottom of the letter and where you're from.
3. Send to cosmo@hearst.com
4. Forward this to friends and ask them to do the same.

Yours in Shit-Stirring,
Virgie

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Cosmopolitan Editors,

Your magazine has a direct role in the numbers of women who experience anorexia and bulimia, who are chronically dieting, and who are ashamed of or worried about being fat or "ugly."

The doctored images on your pages create body dysmorphia and eating disorders. Your magazine is filled with fashions that put average people into debt. Your articles and advice encourage women to diet and gossip while you tout the word feminism. And I will not buy your magazine for these reasons.

What I would like to see in your magazine is more body diversity, more images that portray the spectrum of beauty, and more women of color (for whom European features are not a prerequisite).

Women deserve to feel beautiful in every shade and shape, and with a readership so large, you have a responsibility to women.