Proof positive that most Americans have hardly noticed our Prime Minister’s world-class presidential arselicking displays

He’s not mentioned on the Boston Phoenix’s annual list of the 100 Unsexiest Men.

It is a very US-centric list: there’s a mere sprinkling of foreigners, the only “Australian” who is mentioned is Mel Gibson, and I hadn’t heard of at least half of the specimens. Dame Edna, Rupert Murdoch and Keith Urban did get some votes although they didn’t make the Bottom 100.

What a joke. Years of effort and photo opportunities (coming soon – yet another APEC shirt!) and only a few politicians and back-room policy wonks have any idea who Howard is: so tiny a lapdog he is all but invisible to the eyes of Boston journalists.

Come on, he’s definitely unsexier than Tom Cruise (#100). Tom Cruise did once have life in his eyes.

Filed under: crass

*grin* Stop having a sook, Australia

What a glorious rant! Starring a Chopper Reed impersonator.

This video uses language that is Not Safe For most Workplaces.

Filed under: crass, performance

So, is it OK?

crossposted at Feministe

Jessica, Amanda, Twisty and Violet Socks (and Melissa too!)have all written about this article: Is it OK to Demand Anal Sex?.

The picture accompanying the article is odiously twee and threatening simultaneously, and as virtually every respondent noted for starters, when is it ever OK to demand any kind of sex? (The title mysteriously changed to Is Anal Sex a Deal-Breaker?)

The particularly repellent men interviewed openly admit that their pursuit of anal penetration from casual partners is about strutting an achievement in front of their mates: the achievement of persuading women to “give in” and agree to behaviour that they will find painful (at least initially) and which is regarded by the men themselves as degrading. (Language from here on NSFW – Not Safe For Work – comprehensive sexual education lies ahead).

Filed under: crass, education, relationships, sexuality

It’s not just the moustache

This guest post is by Helen on the Cast Iron Balcony.

Aaaaaaargh!

It’s (gag) happened!



Elizabeth and the dweeby, creepy, moustached Anthony have finally realised that each other is their Only Trew Love, and they’re going at it like… well, as far as anyone can go at it in this agressively wholesome, goody two-shoes comic strip. I’m not the only one. There is appalled-ness all over the internets.

If you don’t know what I’m going on about, it’s the comic strip For Better or For Worse, or the FOOBiverse, which has been infesting the funnies page of the AGE for the last few decades. I’m drawn back to it time and again by the seeming inevitability that somehow, sometime, something interesting has to happen… and it never does. The strips ususally end with a bad pun, or a trite piece of folksy wisdom, in the final frame.

For years, young twentysomething Elizabeth has been seeing various attractive helicopter pilots and other charismatic, if one-dimensional, characters who inhabit her teaching zone in far north Canada, or wherever it is. Meanwhile, her dweeby High School boyfriend languishes in her home suburb (just around the corner from her parents), married to the evil Therese (who works full time while Anthony looks after their child – you see, he wanted a baby, she didn’t, and she acquiesced when he told her he’d be a SAHD. Well, she.. she… well, she took him at his word! Sheesh! She is the evil to end all evils.) Naturally, everything in the FBOFW plot is grinding hopelessly towards what Shaenon Garrity describes as “the plodding inevitability of the Liz-Anthony pairing”.

Filed under: Culture, crass, peeves, relationships, vitriol

Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere

We’ve been running a bit of a series on repulsive advertising featuring women’s bodies:

* the Nando’s stripper-mummy-with-a-heart-of-gold: Been trying to find the words
* Pornified racist slavery in the pursuit of fashion: Because “fun ‘n’ edgy” and “pornification of slavery” are so easily confused.
* The Brazilian low-fat yoghurt ads: Ads that make you go Grrr

Today’s edition features a giant grass-painted porn ad on the approach to Gatwick airport. Via the Times Online, the ad features the silhouette of a woman humping a stripper pole, with the text:

Anytime
Anyplace
Anywhere
myprivatedance.com</strong

[image credit: The Guardian]

Because men need gyrating drooling submissive women delivered to their mobile phones wherever they go. I don’t envy those of you who have to put up blokes jerking off to this tripe on the subway, or those of you forced to work in this fucked-up industry.

Filed under: crass, obstreperation

In which I judge a book by its cover

Guest post by Helen on the Cast Iron Balcony.

Thanks to Tigtog for honouring me with an invitation to guest post at Hoyden while she whizzes down mountains.

Recently, the folks at IBTP have been bemoaning the pinkification of everything (something also deplored by Barbara Ehrenreich, Twisty and Tigtog). Coincidentally, while relaxing with the dead-tree paper, I wandered by accident into the My Career section. Normally I would toss this bulky wad, with its depressing articles about young billionaires who are all twenty years younger than me, over my shoulder. This time, like someone driving slowly past a car crash, I couldn’t avert my eyes from a book review by Wendy Taylor (whose column is titled “Expert Advice”).

The name of the book is: “The Girl’s Guide to being a Boss”. Because, presumably, if you’re a grown woman contemplating a position of authority, you’ll rush out and buy a book which refers to you as a “girl”. As if that isn’t enough, the full title as shown by Amazon.com is “TGGTBAB (Without Being a Bitch): Valuable Lessons, Smart Suggestions, and True Stories for Succeeding as the Chick in Charge”. Because, you know, the greatest danger in taking on a management role is that people will think you’re a bitch? And who could resist a book on professional development with a cover like this? Here’s the version shown in the AGE review:

Filed under: Culture, Life, Media, crass, peeves, vitriol

Ads that make you go Grrr

From Brazil. For low fat yoghurt. Iconic film images of Mena Suvari, Sharon Stone, Marilyn Monroe photomanipulated.

Tagline: Forget about it. Men’s preference will never change. Fit Light Yogurt.

Via Jess McCabe, at The F-Word blog.

Filed under: crass, fat-hating, food/drink

Puking up pink

I first saw this story from Zenobia, then Jess McCabe added to it, and then Twisty got a hold of it and spanked it. I have little to add to their words, but I thought that what the story really needed was a photo essay.

Short version: an airline is putting together a special “shopping flight” from Liverpool to Paris. For women only, of course, ‘cos affluent men aren’t into conspicuous consumption at all, just sitting there with their cigars and handmade suits and sports cars nodding indulgently at the silly women addicted to spendspendspending.

So what has the airline’s brilliant, creative, innovative marketing department come up with? Well, we ladies just can’t get enough pink, right? So, they’re touting a plane travel experience that is pinkalicious from the tip of its tail to the bottom of it’s luggage bays.

NB. Artist impression of new airline livery, not actual airline livery

Fly Pink, ladies!

Filed under: crass, obstreperation, photoblog

Nelson Muntz, cue in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

Sick of illegal fly-posting for concerts and other events in your neighborhood?

Sick of having to pay higher rates because of the expense to council in cleaning it up?

Try the solution that Glasgow Council came up with: pay council workers to slap “Cancelled” stickers on the illegal posters instead! Then sit back and watch the event promoters have to deal with confused ticketholders for days while new ticket sales grind to a halt.

A spokesman said it was hoped the move would send fans into a panic and bring chaos to the Rock Ness phone lines.

Colin Edgar, the council’s head of PR and marketing, added: “We expect that it will cause real difficulty for the advertisers.

“If the ordinary folk who have bought tickets think it is cancelled, they can get in touch with the promoters.

We want the life of the promoters to be made difficult and for fans to call them.

“If a member of the public is distressed, we regret that.

“However, the people who should be apologising are the people who are paying people to illegally fly-post the city centre.”

Cue the Wah-ambulance as the concert promoters say that the council is “mean-spirited”: poor babies.

Filed under: Politics, crass, music, performance

Shorter Richard Morrison

When I stop writing about music and art and try to be cute I reveal myself as a gigantic arsehat.

Filed under: Media, crass