The renowned Swiss artist H.R. Giger has died at the age of 74, as a result of injuries sustained in a fall. Giger, who passed away in a Zurich hospital, was most famous for the alien monster he created for the movie of the same name.(source)
Even if many people aren’t familiar with the vast majority of Giger’s work, almost everyone would recognize the frightening yet somehow vicious beauty of the Xenomorph creature from the Alien films.
However the vast body of his work is explicitly erotic, what some might consider as bordering on pornographic.
Giger’s so-called biomechanoids represent a large share of his work. His representations of these creatures is a mixture of human and mechanical parts, with a strong focus on sexuality that can be disturbing for the viewer.
While not all of his art is sexual and explicit (okay, most of it is…), all of it is darkly unique, thought-provoking, and emotionally stimulating.
Love it or leave it, the world has lost an incredible artist. The king is dead. Long live the Alien King.
So, if you’ve been on social media at all today you may have seen the various stories about James Franco allegedly attempting to “hook up” with a seventeen year old young woman via Instagram. In case you missed it, here’s a highlight:
Girl goes to show. Girl meets Franco and takes Instagram with him. Girl “tags” Franco in photo. Franco tries to score with girl.
I mean, in my opinion, he seems to come across as a petulant teen boy with blue balls at one point, (after the girl once again asks for proof of identity) saying “I gave it to you. If you don’t wanna meet, then text me when you do.” As in…call me when you’re ready to put out? And then, in a “surprise twist” (haha,) girl is too smart to fall for it and tricks Franco into proving his identity with photos. And despite the fact that Franco is obviously looking for a booty call and not much more and was trying to sign off when she wasn’t interested, despite the fact that she is barely this side of legal (apparently 17 is legal in NY?) some people on social media and news comment sections are feeling bad for Franco, and blaming the girl, like she somehow “entrapped” him. Even if it’s legal and she is beyond the “age of reason” and legally able to make a yes or no decision on whether or not she wants to be another notch on Franco’s bedpost, she tried to catch him in his bullshit, and some people are pissed at her for it. What does that say about how far our society has or hasn’t come in regards to gender differences and sexuality?
According to the University of Arizona… If a 150-lb person has sex for five minutes, he will burn 24 calories. If the same person has sex for 45 minutes, he will burn 216 calories. (source)
It’s not like I’m the first person to have this idea. We like sex, we like losing weight…why can’t we do BOTH? And the more creative and acrobatic, the more calories burned.
The US National Health and Social Life Survey in 1994 (Laumann et al. 1994) found that 2 percent of the married respondents reported no sexual intimacy in the past year. The definition of a nonsexual marriage is often broadened to include those where sexual intimacy occurs less than ten times per year
Is sex that important? Can a marriage be healthy without it?
Well, I’m not an expert about marriage…or sex… But I am married and I love sex…( and besides, this is my blog, so I can talk about it if I wanna, so, Nyah.) I’ve been with my husband for over eight years, and we’ve been married for a little over three. We have a two year old daughter who is the major love of both of our lives, and we’re both totally cool with that. We’ve had our share of difficulties– financial, family-related, and personal. I think we have a very strong marriage. We can talk about most anything. I have a deep love for my husband and he is my best friend.
And I am still, um… a big hornball. One of the things I like about my husband is how secure and laid-back he is; like how we can laugh about my obsession with Maynard or Noomi. And there is some joking about how I am the man in our relationship because I am always dropping him not-too-subtle hints about sex and he often just laughs at my “crass” and unromantic overtures.
I happened on this article the other day about sexless marriages. We’re definitely not in a “sexless” marriage. Still, we’re older, busier, tired more often… so we’re not doing it three times a day like when we first met. The whole thing got me thinking a bit. How many people do I know might be secretly dissatisfied with the amount of sex they’re having? So I did a little bit of digging on the ever-handy InterWebz this morning, with my mind on a possible blog post.
It’s natural and completely normal for the animal sex of a new relationship to drop off.“The initial passion of any relationship changes after 18 months,” says Sallie Foley, MSW, director of the Center for Sexual Health at the University of Michigan (author of Modern Love and Sex and Love for Grownups.)
“It moves from the romantic and exciting to an attachment kind of loving, fondness. That gotta have it, gotta have it feeling is gone.”
Even though some amount of drop off in sexual frequency can be expected, that doesn’t mean we don’t mourn it sometimes. And there are instances where a “drop-off” turns into a “shut-out.” There may be emotional or physical reasons behind why a marriage becomes “sexless.”
Some people feel that sex isn’t that big a deal, and that if you really love your partner, you can deal with having less sex than you may want. In my opinion, this would depend on the situation– basically, the reasons for the lack of intimacy.
Because to me, intimacy is a super-important part of a marriage, and for me sex affords a very specific type of intimacy. If it goes for more than a week or two, my dreams start to get markedly kinkier. I get anxious and sometimes even cranky if I go for too long without sex with my husband.Apparently I am not unusual in this regard.
“It’s a very healthy thing for a partnership, there’s no question about that…People who have sex tend to feel closer, more intimate.”
Does your sex life look like this?
Or this…?
A relationship stripped of the intimacy and physical closeness which sex provides feels hollow: the person who is supposed to find you attractive, sexy and desirable doesn’t.
Let me reiterate that there are many reasons a marriage can become sexless, and it’s something you should discuss to see if it’s within your power as a couple to change the dynamic of your sexual relationship. There are many avenues open to you, including but not limited to therapy. But one simple piece of advice I’ve seen in more than one place is this:
“…There’s definitely a use it or lose it aspect to sex…You have to be committed to intimate time together. That doesn’t mean every single time you take off your clothes and have sex. But set aside time just for the two of you.”
Basically, having sex makes you want sex more.
I’ll leave you with this last thought. Some people have the attitude of “what’s the big deal?” Like if your spouse is a good spouse in all other respects, who cares if there’s no sex?
If you communicate to your partner that you are unhappy and they seem ambivalent, that’s a problem.
There’s something very wrong with the picture if your partner is saying ‘I know you’re desperately unhappy but I don’t plan on doing anything about it and still expect you to be faithful’
Until now, the perception has been that you can say anything you like on the internet, without any consequences. Recent cases… show that is getting less and less true.
I’ve blogged…at length…about sex in video games and the experiences girl gamers face. Some of these experiences are amusing. Some of them are even funny. Some are just plain irritating. And anyone that has spent even a modest amount of time in online pursuits where there is some sort of interaction through either comments or live chat, has likely had at least one or two negative experiences with trolls or people that are just flat out ignorant asshats. These are people who either intentionally look for others to harass, or just feel free to say whatever half-formed thought crosses their half-formed brains due to assumed anonymity. Maybe they think they’re “just having fun” or perhaps it makes these pitiable human beings feel better about their own ineffectual and pathetic lives to be able to take a virtual shit on people who might normally kick their asses in real life. And some of them are just plain assholes. Mean.
And these people will use whatever dirty epithet or blasphemous racial or sexual slur they can think of to insult you and tear you down. It’s their only real weapon in place of something intelligent to say.
But even knowing all of this, even experiencing a lot of this, I was still shocked by the vicious cyber attack on Californian blogger, Anita Sarkeesian, after she launched a project to make a web video series about video game tropes and women. Not just the ignorant and inflammatory comments, but the fact that this woman was the victim of a concentrated effort to vandalize her Wikipedia page and organized efforts to have her YouTube videos flagged as “terrorism.” Additionally, she became the target of threats of violence, rape, and death.
Now, if you follow some of the comments made on the videos, you’ll notice that even people who supported this woman in a respectful way were subsequently flamed by some of the other commenters.
I am really floored. Do all the idiots congregate in one place (comment boards on the internet?) Or is it that most of the normal and good people (not all, mind you, but most) know there’s no point in even wasting time trying to argue with these narrow-minded, disrespectful morons?
It appears that Anita Sarkeesian has not only offended most of the remaining misogynists in the world, but even worse, she has offended video game nerds by “insulting” their beloved games. And by “video game nerds,” I don’t mean just “people who like or play video games.” (After all, I play video games. So does my husband and a lot of my friends.) I mean those people who are so sad and pathetic that they live vicariously through their video games. You know who you are.
Now, while the very existence of groups like the Westboro Baptist Church should clue me in on the fact that there are still evolutionary throwbacks in humanity’s pond, I have to admit, even I am still stunned that there are so many socially and intellectually stunted people in this world. Watching the news everyday is depressing enough without this happy horse shit.
I wonder what it was about this woman that pissed so many people off. As my step-father used to say “opinions are like assholes; everyone’s got one.” I’m sure she is not the first person out there to spark a feminist debate about video games. Is it just because she is semi-well known? If I was more well-known, would I receive nasty remarks and threats of violence for this post? Maybe I should ask WordPress to create a Widget exclusively for keeping track of death threats. To hell with overall views and “followers.” You’re not popular until you’ve received death threats from the dregs of society via the internet. Bring it on (and I’ll happily ignore and delete them as per my comment regulations!)
On a more serious note, given the disappointing and disturbing trend in the past couple of decades or so of the legal system’s increasing support of people’s unwillingness to take responsibility for their own actions, part of me hopes we will begin to see repercussions for online harassment. Because that’s what it is. Aside from rude remarks, some people seem to think they have the right to threaten and verbally assault others by dint of being online, and that having “freedom of speech” gives them the right to act like total assholes, when if they said some of this stuff to people’s faces, they’d get arrested or punched in the mouth. If you ask me, some people could really still benefit from a punch in the mouth…
Cuz this is what would happen if you said that shit to mah face!
But maybe that’s just this humble female blogger being a “bitch.”
alienredqueen 