Pretty Pictures

My best friend sent me an email yesterday that provided a much needed ray of sunshine on an otherwise (metaphorically) rainy day.  It was a list compiled by some magazine or another entitled: 'Hollywood's hottest 100 men,' and each name on the list was accompanied by an extremely savoury photograph.  Like any red-blooded woman, I scrolled (slowly) down the list and poured over every inch of each entrant's visage, finding myself more and more 'exhilarated' as the cursor on my laptop drew toward the bottom of the page, and it led me to wonder: does that make me a perv?

Consider this: were I a thirty-nine year-old man, ogling a list of Hollywood's hottest 100 women, and someone were to walk in on me just as drool was beginning to course its way down my chin, I'd wager that terms such as 'Pig' and 'Dirty old man' would be bandied about, depending on the sex and moral bent of the witness.  Yes, I agree that it sounds like I'm betraying the sisterhood by saying that we sometimes have double standards when it comes to issues of morality and taste.  I agree also that not all women are like this, and I certainly don't mean to paint every member of my awesome gender with the same brush, but I think most women will, if they're honest, admit to accusing a guy of being disgusting or creepy at one time or another, for doing nothing more than appreciating physical beauty. 

I know I have.

Yet, to my knowledge, no such derogatory terms exist for women indulging in the same harmless pass time. 

There are, however, unfortunate and equally degrading terms that people use to denigrate women who, for one reason or another, enjoy carnal festivities with successive partners.  Although the words 'Whore', 'Slut,' and 'Mole,' have never escaped my lips, they were used to describe me at one point in my life and, you know what?  It hurt, and needlessly so, because my accusers were wrong.  Just as I believe anyone who calls a man a pig for looking at pictures of gorgeous, half-naked actresses is wrong.  Men and women are very different, it's true, but what separates human beings from most other animals is that both genders in our species were born with desires, and although those wacky theologians might argue that those desires were put there for the purpose of procreation, the fact is that more often than not, we act on them because we want to, not because we have to. 

To put it more succinctly; lookin' at pictures of them there pretty people in their skivvies is fun.

I think that the desire to look upon beautiful - dare I say heavenly? - creatures is perfectly normal, no matter what your gender.  Doubling your standards halves your humanity. 

   

  

Resolutions, Shmezolutions.

The concept of the New Years Resolution has never made sense to me.  I've always been of the belief that, the louder you announce your intentions, the less appealing they're going to sound, and the less likely you are to follow through with them.  Another reason I think New Years Resolutions are doomed to fail most of the time is that people make them in order to try to fix what isn't broken in the first place.  It seems to be a phenomenon that is particularly prevalent amongst single women, who are trying to render themselves unrecognisable in order to find love.  This is, of course, complete bollocks, so voice of radical dissension that I am, I have decided to turn the concept on its head.  So sit back, eat that extra Tim Tam, crack open a beer and enjoy reading through the list that I call my New Years Shmesolutions.

I WILL NOT give up my favourite foods.  I don't smoke, I don't gamble, and the fact that my credit rating is somewhere south of Hell prevents me from any 'therapeudic commerce' that my take home pay can't fund.  Chicken Byriani doesn't cause cancer, I don't have to fork out a month's rent to pay for my Junior Mints habit, and in my eyes the few extra centimetres around my waste directly attributable to my weakness for crusty baguette with brie and olive oil only makes me more attractive.  Newsflash: They don't call 'em love handles for nothing. 

I love Bailey's.  Deal with it.  Let me clarify something: I'm not a drunk.  I rarely drink alone, I don't bring alcohol home if my son's in the house, and I don't drink to get blotto.  Not intentionally, anyway.  I am that rare individual known as the one drink screamer.  In layman's terms, this means that it only takes one standard drink to take me from zero to chatty.  To explain the reason I adore Bailey's, I ask you to imagine combining a bowl of Coco Pops, a cup of cream and a generous slop of alcohol in a blender.  That's what Baileys is; a grown up chocolate milkshake.  Some men may be put off by the idea of a woman drinking, but seeing as these are usually the men who are also non-plussed at the thought of a woman swearing, having independent thoughts and talking back, I think we can all agree that they are no big loss.

I don't have to be a lady.  I dress more Hippie than (Audrey) Hepburn, I have no problem asking a guy out, and my Twitter and Facebook friends will tell you that I love a dirty joke.  I could resolve to be more refined, but what for?  Any guy I might win over with a ladylike facade is bound to be disappointed the first time he hears me swear at idiot politicians on TV, or has the misfortune to be inhaling when I am suffering digestive distress after eating Thai food. 

I like being a sixteen year-old in a thirty-nine-year-old's body.  My son and I have eerily similar taste in You Tube videos; most of my clothes come from Jay Jay's or Cotton On, and you won't find Celine Dion on my iPod.  Life's short enough as it is without forcing yourself to prepare for the grave before the halfway point.

As far as I'm concerned, I AM cool.  Confession time: I'm a dork.  I only go to the beach to read on the sand, I collect ceramic elephants, and my chief exhilarating pastime at the moment is decorating and furnishing a dolls house I bought from a discount store.  Hardly the list of hobbies one might expect of a single woman under sixty, but the traits listed above more than make up for it.  Besides that, they keep me calm and anyone raising teenagers alone will tell you that sometimes getting your geek on is the only thing preventing you from going online and ordering a mother load of horse tranquilisers. 

Trying to change yourself in order to get a man is the same as trying to change a man once you've got him; futile and fool-hardy.  Unless you're a damn good liar, the only resolution you should be making come New Years is to not make any more resolutions.  On that note, I'd like to wish all my readers the happiest of holidays and a wonderful new year.  I'll be taking a break from blogging for just over a week, in order to spend time with my son and indulge in all of the dalliances I mentioned in this post (and hopefully more). 
Cheers!