Holidays, Reading, Ranting, etc

So, last night I finished Ariel Levy's Female Chauvinist Pigs. If you're as gobsmacked as I am by the idea of 'Girls Gone Wild' as female empowerment or Paris Hilton as a role model for teens' sexual expression, this book will probably speak to you and frustrate you as much as it did me. It has some enlightening (and deeply disturbing) interviews with middle school and high school girls, singletons in NYC, and lesbians in California. I do find it genuinely upsetting that this air-brushed, overwaxed, silicone vacuousness is increasingly displayed as the only acceptable form of 'sexy' (esp because I don't think this is even truly what a good chunk of people consider desirable). I also find it really mind-blowing that, as is clear from the interviews, this conception of sexiness seems almost by definition divorced from any notion of sexual fufillment or even desire on the part of the women emulating it, and yet it is supposed to be 'empowering'. Attention ladies, if flashing your boobs at hooting frat boys for a camera crew makes you feel icky, bored, or contemptuous? Then you did not just find it 'liberating'. If that happens to be your thing, bully for you, but try to tell me it's feminist self-expression for everyone and I will try to restrain myself from poking your eyeballs out.

Going to put in a half-day today, then swing by the grocery store, and do some last minute straightening up before my in-laws arrive. Hope everyone is having a nice holiday. It's supposed to hit 80 today. God, I love living in Arizona. Merry Christmas!