Lavinia Collins's Blog, page 18

Christmas is Coming! Here is a Medieval Christmas gift from me to you!

It is the festive season, and the medieval world has a lot to give! So this year, I’m spreading the Christmas Joy medieval-style with the 9 funniest medieval manuscript illuminations!

9. Knight Vs Snail

(There is a whole dedicated site tot his one! http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/d...)

 

so bravery, many valour, such chivalry!

 

8. The Hungry Dragon

you know i am not sure i actually have room for all of this man

7. Snail Cat

 

no i am sure this is what cats look like

 

6. Monkey Trumpet Human Centipede

 

literally what are you doing? that is not how you play the trumpet, derek

 

5. Medieval Spirit of Jazz

Just going to leave this one here.

 

4. Fox Vomit

you know i do not remember eating that fox

 

3. How many hands?

no you see i was minding my own business when a radioactive spider bit me

 

2. The flying Penis Monster

 

me? i always get around like this. why do you ask?

 

1. Finally (in something of the same vein!) my personal favourite, the medieval penis-tree.

 

hey maude, whatcha doing?

me, oh just casually harvesting my penis tree, why do you ask?

 

 

Enjoy, and very merry Christmas!

The F Word: Why Feminism is Still a Dirty Word among Young Women

I taught a class the other day. A mixed class, slightly more than half girls. It wasn’t on feminism, but the issue came up. Out of interest, we did a straw poll. Not everyone would have called themselves a ‘feminist’. So far, so what I expected. Some of the girls didn’t. OK – not everyone does, not everyone HAS to. That wasn’t the worrying part.

The worrying part was that none of the girls spoke. None. In a class of twelve. Not a big group. Some of the boys spoke sensitively and eloquently on why they were feminists, or expressed a feeling that women should enjoy social and economic parity with them. None of the girls spoke.

Long long ago in the days of my youth, when I was an undergraduate at Oxford, that free-thinking bastion of the universe – feminism was a dirty word among the undergraduates. This wasn’t what I had expected, and things certainly developed while I was there, not least in part due to the unflinching feminism of the female tutors I was lucky enough to come across. This wasn’t “read the Vagenda, go out protesting in dungarees” this was the continual and emphatic support of me as an equal with my male peers, with as much of a right to speak as theirs. By the end of University – hell, by the end of first year, I was a loud and proud feminist.

I’m not saying that everyone should turn out the same way. Not at all. Nor do I think that you have to use the word ‘feminism’ to live a life of equality and understanding. But why wouldn’t you? Why does it have to be a dirty word that female celebrities shy away from? “I wouldn’t say I was a feminist but…” comes up so often.

I’d hoped that in a post Emma Watson, post Beyonce world, things might  look a little different.

Why can’t we talk about this? Why do people feel shy to say that they believe in the complete equality of the sexes?

Part of this, I fear, is to do with the idea that feminism isn’t sexy. From the twitter Lothario who said that he and his friends wouldn’t date feminists, to the reluctance of TV “hotties” to use that word. Why isn’t it sexy? What’s wrong with the thought that someone might have wholeheartedly chosen you as an equal, rather than submitted to you as a superior?

I’d like to think feminism was sexy. After all, there’s nothing more attractive than being found attractive. How can you find someone’s attraction genuine unless you are an equal? Am I just misunderstanding the whole thing?

Just imagine how many people, if asked, “do you believe in the social and economic equality of the sexes”, would say yes. It’s only a fraction of those who would say “yes” to being feminists. It’s still seen as a dirty word. It’s going to be a gradual process, but this has to change. We have to say that we feel OK with promoting equality, if we want to see any social change in the future.

Dirtbag Arthurian Legend

 

Morgawse: Let’s make out

Arthur: i dunno, don’t you have a husband or something

Morgawse: he won’t mind.

Arthur: idk i know she was my sister and everything, but i think it’s pretty cool i am going to be a dad.

Merlin: No, man. It’s a terrible idea.

Arthur: really?

Merlin: yeah terrible.

Arthur: shit.

Merlin: I know.

Arthur: What should i do?

Merlin: Kill all the children.

Arthur: What?

Merlin: All of them. all the children. just kill them all, in case one of them is yours.

Arthur: That doesn’t seem –

Merlin: You have to.

Arthur: You know who’s really hot?

Merlin: Who?

Arthur: Guinevere. Guinevere is super hot.

Merlin: I hear she’s kind of a slag.

Arthur: Yeah yeah totally agree she’s perfect wife material

Merlin: I think you should stay away, man

Arthur: Yeah yeah you’re so right going to marry her right now thanks for the great advice, dude.

Morgan: hey babe, you know what would be really cool?

Accolon: Making out more?

Morgan: Close – murdering Arthur. You should totally murder Arthur.

Accolon: idk –

Morgan: Do you wanna make out more, or not?

Guinevere: Hey whatcha doing?

Lancelot: idk just hanging out.

Guinevere: Wanna make out?

Lancelot: idk Arthur might be mad.

Guinevere: Honestly, I don’t think he will notice.

Ban Julien Blanc ��� Why Pick Up Artists Have No Place In Civilised Society

So I know I posted a couple of weeks ago about PUAs (Pick Up Artists). This was quite by chance ��� I came across a horrifying ad without realising that this particular monstrosity was the concoction of noted woman-assaulter and professional douchecanoe Julien Blanc.

I don’t imagine that Julien will be reading this, but just in case he is, I’m very ugly Julien, so it’s probably not worth your while getting in touch at all. Cheers.

Anyway, this brand he’s part of, it’s called “Real Social Dynamics”. Just let that percolate a bit. He thinks that his��highly manufactured,��and��explicitly manipulative strategies are “real social dynamics”. Or perhaps he doesn’t believe that. Perhaps he’s a highly cynical business-minded shark who’s happy to take advantage of rich manchildren who feel entitled to any and every woman they find vaguely attractive. Who knows. Because you know what, it’s certainly not nice guys (not “nice guys” actually guys who are nice) who go to pick up artist courses. There’s nothing “nice” about shoving a woman’s face into your crotch for a “joke” and relying on social embarrassment to stop her from head butting your testicles and then calling the police.

And this is the crux of my problem with PUAs. “Real Social Dynamics” might as well just call itself “Forgiveness is Easer to get than Permission Inc.” ��� it’s the same thing. Push women, and then if they object, say it’s a joke and they’re overreacting. Gas lighting, bullying, intimidating.

Has masculinity become so skewed? Have so many men been so thoroughly destroyed by Hollywood films and Cosmopolitan magazine that they think the only way to have fulfilling sex lives is to bully hot strangers into having sex with them? Is there such a ‘crisis of masculinity’ that quantity of sex is more important than consent? That having sex is more important to male identity than being genuinely desired?

There’s no place for Julien Blanc in Britain, and there’s no place for him in modern society. Women deserve better than Pick Up Artists, and men deserve better than being told their masculinity rests on sexual quantity rather than quality. We all deserve better than Julien Blanc. We all deserve better than “Real Social Dynamics”.

Frankly, Julien Blanc can fuck off. And no, Julien, that’s not “negging”. I really do want you to fuck off.

Ban Julien Blanc – Why Pick Up Artists Have No Place In Civilised Society

So I know I posted a couple of weeks ago about PUAs (Pick Up Artists). This was quite by chance – I came across a horrifying ad without realising that this particular monstrosity was the concoction of noted woman-assaulter and professional douchecanoe Julien Blanc.

I don’t imagine that Julien will be reading this, but just in case he is, I’m very ugly Julien, so it’s probably not worth your while getting in touch at all. Cheers.

Anyway, this brand he’s part of, it’s called “Real Social Dynamics”. Just let that percolate a bit. He thinks that his highly manufactured, and explicitly manipulative strategies are “real social dynamics”. Or perhaps he doesn’t believe that. Perhaps he’s a highly cynical business-minded shark who’s happy to take advantage of rich manchildren who feel entitled to any and every woman they find vaguely attractive. Who knows. Because you know what, it’s certainly not nice guys (not “nice guys” actually guys who are nice) who go to pick up artist courses. There’s nothing “nice” about shoving a woman’s face into your crotch for a “joke” and relying on social embarrassment to stop her from head butting your testicles and then calling the police.

And this is the crux of my problem with PUAs. “Real Social Dynamics” might as well just call itself “Forgiveness is Easer to get than Permission Inc.” – it’s the same thing. Push women, and then if they object, say it’s a joke and they’re overreacting. Gas lighting, bullying, intimidating.

Has masculinity become so skewed? Have so many men been so thoroughly destroyed by Hollywood films and Cosmopolitan magazine that they think the only way to have fulfilling sex lives is to bully hot strangers into having sex with them? Is there such a ‘crisis of masculinity’ that quantity of sex is more important than consent? That having sex is more important to male identity than being genuinely desired?

There’s no place for Julien Blanc in Britain, and there’s no place for him in modern society. Women deserve better than Pick Up Artists, and men deserve better than being told their masculinity rests on sexual quantity rather than quality. We all deserve better than Julien Blanc. We all deserve better than “Real Social Dynamics”.

Frankly, Julien Blanc can fuck off. And no, Julien, that’s not “negging”. I really do want you to fuck off.

Dating Advice from Shakespeare

Dear Shakespeare,

My scumbag boyfriend left me at the altar because he thinks I cheated on him. I didn’t, but now everyone else thinks I did, and even my dad is really angry with me because they all believe him. He’s such a jerk. What should I do?

Embarrassed. Messina

Dear Embarrassed in Messina,

What you want to do which is the thing that will solve all your problems is that you should pretend to be dead. Yeah, pretend to be dead. Guys really dig girls who pretend to be dead, and usually stop saying things like, “You’re a big whore” because y’know, they’re sorry you’re dead. The really important thing to do is to pretend until he’s like just about to marry someone else, and then pop out of nowhere, like maybe wear a veil and then lift it off, guys love that. Also pretend you’re not you just someone who looks just the same, but like do it with a wink so he knows you know you’re you.

– Shakespeare.

Dear Shakespeare,

My asshole husband thinks I cheated on him with his best friend and is making me have some ridiculous trial. The whole thing is ridiculous. How can I make him see sense?

Outraged, Sicilia

Dear Outraged in Sicilia,

See above.

– Shakespeare

Dear Shakespeare,

I really dig this girl, but she wants to be a nun and all she keeps going on about is how much she wants to be a nun, and how much she doesn’t want to get married. Also, about how she wants to save her brother from being executed or something, but mainly being a nun. How do I win her round?

Determined, Vienna

Dear Determined in Vienna,

Oooh this is a tricky one. Well the important thing, I think, is that you find a way to make her marry you and you just like sort out the rest afterwards. You should get involved in like an elaborate plot, the more elaborate the better, to like save her brother from being executed, and like in the plot like get her to seduce the execution guy, but not really, and then when everyone things she has got freaky with him and everyone is like, “Oh how can you be a nun anymore?” then that is your time to make your move and she will be all yours.

– Shakespeare.

Dear Shakespeare,

I’m in love with my boss, but he thinks I’m a boy, and he’s in love with someone else anyway. What should I do?

Desperate, Illyria,

Dear Desperate in Illyria,

What you should do right now is go to the lady that he loves while you are a boy and just be kind of rude to her, ladies love that, then she will love you and not him and you can have him for yourself. Also you don’t happen to have a twin brother, do you? That is so helpful in times like this I can tell you.

– Shakespeare

Dear Shakespeare,

I’m in love with my best friend’s fiancée. What should I do?

Torn, Verona

Dear Torn in Verona,

Just tell her that your friend is dead, then she will be all yours. Ladies move on quite quickly, and often don’t ask to see proof that their boyfriends are dead.

– Shakespeare

Erotica and the Pick-Up Artist: Get Off My Land

So I stumbled across this charming advert the other day: http://www.girlfriendactivationsystem.com/10-30d/index.php?r=79402508&a=192481&o=5&s1=UK&s2=desk&s3=4&utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=referral

It’s some pretty standard Pick-Up Artist pseudo-science bullshit, and as soon as I saw the title of the video I knew it would make me so angry and depressed about the state of the world that I wouldn’t be able to sleep but I hate watched it anyway because I have a morbid obsession with all things horrifying.

Well, I learned a lot of “science” about the “female human brain”, and the “primal reptile brain of the woman” (not even kidding you). It’s genre-fiction of the most derivative kind, featuring a hot woman who won’t look the narrator’s way because he’s too “nice” and instead sleeps with a “scrawny” badboy, a girl who he didn’t want but who – after he turned his charms on her to “test it out” –  became too clingy and he had to let her down. If I were going to write a satire of all the MRA, PUA and general misogynist bullshit, I would write this and it just goes to show that the ultimate satire is indistinguishable from the real thing. We’re in Thor Lund territory here, people.

There’s a lot to object to in this disgusting ad (I’m not going to bother engaging in any of the fuzzy logic or “underpants gnome” arguments this advert employs because it’s so obvious how flawed they are), but I’m only going to focus on one thing; its use of erotica (or as the video-maker calls it “literotica”) to back up its findings about “what women want” and what women are “programmed” to respond to. Apparently this is something called the “obsession story” which is initiated in women’s brains (HE SAID BRAIN SO IT MUST BE SCIENCE YOU GUYS) when men “overcome obstacles” that women plant like MINES in a DATING MINEFIELD to “test” them.

Now this particular evil genius read some erotica and saw that the pattern was one which ignored consent. And this is where things get dark, so feel free to check out of the discussion if that isn’t for you. The undertone of this ad (which is also exploiting men by selling them the lie that they are expected to provide financially, that they are inadequate as men if lots of “hot” underwear models aren’t rubbing on them like hungry cats) is that erotica shows sexually persistent men, and erotica betrays the secrets of what women want so therefore – and here’s the kicker – women want you to ignore their resistance cues, and push them into sex. 

At this point can I just say: NO. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.

I’m so angry and disgusted that erotica is being misused (the example quoted is Fifty Shades of Grey, which IMHO has its issues but most adults who read it do understand that it’s not a “how to have sex with your lover” manual that if followed to the letter will make all women want you) in the name of rape apologism.

There are two essential things here:

1) erotica does not represent a “universal” fantasy, that is somehow biologically hard-wired into female brains. They’re actually all quite different, and the advertiser doesn’t bother to point that out because he knows his target audience aren’t going to read them.

2) (and this is the biggie) So, some erotica novels do depict rough, pushy, sex. Some even depict rape. But there is a world of difference between a safe-rape fantasy (something that hasn’t translated onto the small screen when Game of Thrones was adapted for TV, I might add) in a book, or within a consenting couple, and pressuring a relative stranger you’ve been on one date with to have sex with you. Or not asking for consent.

The most disgusting, disturbing thing is that this is being pushed, being marketed and advertised as being “women’s secret desires”. That erotica – often written by women for women, but not at all exclusively, and certainly not exclusively heterosexual or exhibiting “alpha male” behaviours – is being co-opted into this pernicious and age-old narrative that women don’t know what they want. That women “need” to be “shown” what they want by a dominant alpha male and then we will “obsess” over them.

Fuck you and your fake science. Fuck the fact that even shitty internet adverts like this are even being made. Yeah it’s the internet. Yeah yeah yeah but so what? It popped up on my computer; I’m sure it pops up on the computer of loads of men who watch it, and maybe some of them will believe it. After all, men are signing up to be pick-up-artists every day.

It’s terrifying to think that this is being sold as women’s secret desire, and it’s an affront to everything that erotica stands for – positive sexuality, enjoyment, and pleasure. I am so upset by this attitude of the battle of the sexes, that men are supposed to devise a “system” to “control” women rather than interacting with us human to human. And that erotica has got all balled up in that horrible mess. We don’t need this bullshit.

“Your Husband Called” – Why this is Disgusting and Offensive

I saw one of these “charming” “cheeky” signs in a shop window this week. It made me incredibly angry. It’s just a sign, I hear you cry. You’ve overreacting! You’ve got your feminist knickers in a bunch over nothing!

Well, I don’t think so. I mean look at the damn thing. “Ohh your husband called and said buy whatever you want.” You know restricting a partner’s access to money is actually a hallmark of an abusive relationship.

Beside the fact that this sign was out of date in the 1960s, you still see them everywhere, “cutely” promulgating the cultural assertion that the man is the head of the house, and the wife is a supplicant, begging for money to buy herself fripperies like a  new bonnet, or some bright ribbons for her hair. Won’t they swoon with jealousy at the WI to see what I have made myself? Oh silly woman me, all these pretty things I have bought!

The idea that a woman can be encouraged to buy from a little boutique with a sign pretending to have her husbands permission to spend her own money (don’t forget, ladies can be having their own monies these days) is so incredibly tone-deaf that it would be funny if I could bear not to find it beyond insulting. It makes me want to go up to the shop owner and shout, “I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT, MY HUSBAND DOESN’T OWN ME”. But why respond? You’ll get that dead-eyed stare and be told that it’s just “a bit of fun”. Well I don’t think it’s fun. I call bullshit.

 

Romance Endings and Compulsory Monogamy – Is There Room for Something New?

  In the recent review of The Guinevere Trilogy at geekgirlinlove.com (http://geekgirlinlove.com/2014/09/22/book-review-the-guinevere-trilogy-by-lavinia-collins/) there’s some very fruitful discussion about the ‘rules’ of romance-writing and how the novels do and don’t (and in many ways, they don’t) fit in. She says “I like that she is able to love more than one man fully and the critique of forced monogamy.”

I want to talk a little bit about this. I’m also going to preface this by saying that I myself am in a monogamous relationship, and the thought of actually having a polyamourous relationship fills me with two kinds of horror; one of my own jealous neuroses, and the other of timekeeping and logistics. But, I do think that in general, the idea that two people “belong” together, and that there’s no room for something more complex is a drum that is too often beaten in literature.

My case in point for this is The Hunger Games. I loved The Hunger Games, but one aspect really annoyed me. Spoilers ahead guys, so proceed with caution. I was annoyed by the fact that, given that Katniss has undergone the incredible trauma of being in the hunger games, she should be allowed two boyfriends. In the main, not a good idea perhaps, but I’d have thought in those extreme and extenuating circumstances, a girl should just be allowed to have two boyfriends. She had to fight for her life, for god’s sake. I spent the whole of the third book tensed for the fact that one of them was probably going to get killed off to save her the trouble of “deciding”. As it happens, turns out Gale is an insane political fundamentalist willing to literally murder anyone to make a point, which was slightly better than a “convenient” death.  But anyway, my point is, there’s no room for the idea that they both might find a place in Katniss’ life and people might just cut her some slack and let her have two boyfriends. Extenuating circumstances, and all that.

So, I don’t know. It’s food for thought, I guess. We live in a vibrant world with many different people who organise their love lives in many different ways. Many of whom are happy in non-exclusive relationships. This is one of the things we just don’t see in literature at all. From the narrative arc of a typical romance novel, to Daisy in The Great Gatsby being shunted between Tom and Gatsby and forced to choose, to Katniss in The Hunger Games, there is a cultural resistance to this idea that there is anything other than the “right” way to love, the right way to organise ourselves into relationships.

Now, I’m not saying that I am going to be allowing “free love” into my own home, or that we should all start living like bonobo monkeys, but I am also never intending to fight a battle to the death with 23 other teenagers and I still enjoyed reading The Hunger Games. So, if anyone can recommend any reads in this area, please feel free to whack them in the comments, and I look forward to a brave new world of novels about free love and polyamoury.

The NHS, the Midwife Strikes and the Value of Female Lives

 

 

I would not have wanted to be a heavily pregnant woman yesterday, Monday 13th October, 2014. British Midwives were on strike. As if all the usual horrors of birth aren’t enough – how about the prospect that without trained medical professionals you would be far more likely to die?

Until very recently, childbirth was the leading cause of death among women. Not poor women, not old women, but all women. Then along came three wonderful saviours; modern midwifery, modern hospitals and at last the contraceptive pill. The likelihood is that our mothers mothers live to see us grow up today because of modern medicine and modern midwives.

Why, then, do midwives have to stand outside the hospitals where they work, striking and demanding our attention for us to value them? What is wrong with our society that midwives are not valued? In an NHS that still pays its administrators top whack, the hard working women and men who do night shifts, who stick their hands in all the places no one else wants to stick them to bring a child into the world, who work tirelessly, have to beg and protest and suffer for pay they can even live on.

If that’s not the symptom of a sick society, I don’t know what it. Since when did administration and pencil-pushing become more important than the lives of women? And let’s face it, that’s what’s been reckoned with here. And I’m not saying midwives are the only NHS workers paid badly (all nursing staff, for a start), but what I am saying is that it’s symptomatic of a society in which women’s lives are not the priority. In which we matter so much less that those who save our lives the most – the midwives, who endure so much and work so hard – are valued among the least by hospital administration. By the government.

So I for one could not be more behind the strikes. It’s high time we valued those who care for us when we are at our most vulnerable. I’m for the NHS, I’m for fair treatment for nursing staff, midwives and care staff. And if you’re not, you need to be looking in the mirror and asking yourself seriously why not?