It’s a Fine Line Between Pleasure and Pain…

There is joy in picking up random publications abandoned by other commuters on the Underground. This week I picked up the Guardian’s G2 supplement (Wednesday 18th March, 2009) with a sort of disinterested apathy that was quickly replaced by serious pondering.

 

Have you ever heard a group of newly-birthed mothers talk? It often works like this:

 

‘I was in labour for 52 hours! 52 hours! She was completely stuck in there, poor thing! The surgeon kept hovering over me with a scalpel but I threatened to disembowel him if he dared come within 20ft of my bed. Thank God for the Epidural, though. Did you tear?’

 

 

‘Yah, I tore a whole 6 inches but I was soooo not going to have an Epidural, darling. I wanted my birth to be sacred, little Hermione was born sans anaesthesia. We had Annabel Karmel come in person to my water birth to stir-fry the placenta with Tofu! So nutritious! Really the BEST for breastfeeding, darling. How about you, Dotty, how was your labour?

  

 

‘It was really, really hard… Unlike anything else…  I pushed so hard  that I shat myself.’

 

It is said that childbirth requires as much energy as running a marathon, so it’s no wonder we treat it like a race. Women can get more competitive about it than they would about the girth of their thighs. But Viv Groskop reports a whole new trend in one-upwomanship about to sweep the planet: THE ORGASMIC BIRTH.

 

YES! Women, you no longer need to be afraid of genital mutilation or protracted pain! We now have people who want women ‘to break through their fear and have a beautiful experience of birthing’. Well, birth IS a beautiful experience, although for some this beauty is not dissimilar to that of Munch’s ‘The Scream’. Most of us will come back home with a child we do not wish to flush down the toilet straight away.

 

According to Marsden Wagner MD (should that read ‘Male Douchebag?), ‘It’s got to be how it is when you make love with someone. It’s got to be safe, secure and uninterrupted.’ I am guessing his sex life is an insufferable bore.

 

Humour aside for a moment, I can almost see how this phenomena could be more than a myth created by smug Earth mother types. Contractions rise, peak and wane  just like orgasms, and trust me, leave your eyes just as watery and your head just as fuzzy. And it is true that ‘the noises women make are similar to those of love-making – which can embarrass their partners.’ Maybe some EXTREMELY FORTUNATE women have a little switch in their brains that makes all these feral sensations shift from excrutiating pain into excrutiating pleasure. Remember Barbarella, when she is in the ‘Excessive Machine’(thanks, Posie for reminding me of that one. Good thing old Barbie showed Durand Durand who is boss)? Hmmmmm. Hmmmm. Hmmmm.  And who doesn’t like a gentle little bite on the nape of the neck? Or a little crack of the whip? Or like, when something hurts but it’s a nice kind of pain, a really nice kind of pain? Or when… Ah, I digress.

 

I just know that when the Epidural kicked in, the feeling of pain sweeping away from my body was like being on cloud 9 with a battery operated Johnny Depp and beautiful sunsets and wonderful music and exploding ecstasy for ever and ever and ever.

 

 

Until the bloody thing wore off, of course.

‘V’ is for ‘Vengeance’

I’ve noticed the topic of revenge popping up in conversation again and again recently. I guess retaliation is a natural human drive, and with my 2-year-old son it happens instantly: If you snatch his toy or steal his sandwich, you’re going to hear about it straight away. But as parents everywhere educate their children not to hit other children in the playground, not fight, keep a straight face through life’s disappointments, I guess it’s inevitable that as adults people will still seek the thrill of venting their spleens on the sly.

 

As a Scorpio I’m supposedly very vindictive, but I cannot think of a single time in my life when I’ve taken revenge on anyone. Of course, when someone hurts you, you will fantasise about getting them back. Yet whenever I’ve been pissed off enough to try to come up with some scheme  I’ve decided that living well and rising above whatever has been thrown at me is much more dignified. Then I can revel in basking in the glorious sunshine of my unrivalled superiority. Ha.

 

But, as was once said in My Name is Earl, ‘Karma doesn’t have hands’, and there are plenty of people out there who make it their business to make sure the gloves come off. Revenge stories are the stuff of urban legend, such as the infamous story of the jilted wife who hides prawns inside the curtain rails. I read one recently about a girl who covered her ex-boyfriend’s snazzy sports car in bird seed so that it got pecked and scratched and covered in shit(I’m not sure how plausible that really is, but hey). Maybe I never take revenge because I lack imagination.

 

So, lo and behold, I come across a website called Sweet Revenge. Yes, there are people capitalising on the dispersion of simmering anger. They say the concept came up in 

 ’an amusing family conversation about what kind of revenge services could be offered to a divorcee or jilted lover and our collective experiences soon gave birth to the idea that Sweet Revenge is something everybody should enjoy’.

 

Ok then, I think. Show me what you’ve got.

 

So I go down the drop down menu and find what I imagine is the biggest trigger for vendetta, ‘Broken Relationships’. And I find an email for $2.95, to be sent anonymously, with the following words:

 

Ex Lover

I thought you were the world’s best lover, the

thought of you now makes me shudder.

The best place for you is in the gutter.

 

 

HELLO!!????? Earth to Sweet Revenge.com.au!!!!! How old are you, exactly?

Surely if you’ve been dumped you should have more hurtful and bitter words to say face to face? And how exactly is it anonymous? Unless your bloke was the Earl of Rochester he is very likely to know which one of his ladyfriends might have a chip on her shoulder.  Maybe I’ll find something more substantial in the ‘Friend or Foe’ category. It isn’t to be:

 

You suck

You would suck on a dummy

so stop and think, be

upfront and say what you think.

 

 

 

Better luck in the ‘Personal Hygiene’ section? Hmm:

 

You Stink!

Your body odour has to go,

so here is a message to let you know

The smell is worse than you think

your lack of hygeine (sic) makes you stink.

 

 

 

PUH-LEEEEEEEASE!

Look up the definition of Revenge in the dictionary. And check your spelling while you’re at it.

 

 

Andre Jordan Strikes Again. (bastard).

Eskimo Woe: A tale of despair, isolation, global warming, urban deprivation and chilly willies

Eskimo Woe (2)

Eskimo Woe (3)

Eskimo Woe  (4)

Continued on http://www.abeautifulrevolution.com/blog/weird_stuff/index.html

Not that he needs any more advertising or anything. ‘All art aspires to the condition of music’ and all that. He doesn’t need any more advertising, but you might like his stuff, IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY HEARD OF HIM.                       

   *note to self: must try harder*

(149)

That Cold-Hearted Tyrant, the Yummy Mummy.

Oh, postmodern parenthood, where do you eclipse those enduring voices of Capitalism and Mysoginy?

Although not all of us professional housegirlfriends and wives will experience these issues with such intensity, I have found an article that examines what appears to be a new cultural phenomenon, but to me is just yet another case of old wine being poured into shiny new bottles. This is all rather serious brain-grinding, folks, so if you were looking for a bit of ha-ha-ha-ha today instead, I suggest you look here.

Now, if you’re feeling a little like you’ve been failing miserably in your tireless pursuit of the Joneses, have a look here.

Dreaming a Little Dream

Every now and then I’ll daydream that I am an international rock star and supermodel and I am being interviewed by someone for a magazine. In my head, the interview will go something like this:

GLOSSYMAG: So, Professional Housegirlfriend, clearly we all cannot get enough of your rocking new album, but you look even better in the flesh. What is the secret to a physique like yours?

… and I’ll reply something like…

PROFHOUSE: Ah, you know, I eat what I want, when I want and never put on any weight, but I guess I just make sure I get plenty of sex. It’s the best kind of exercise. I enjoy cooking in the nude.

GLOSSYMAG: But your skin, it looks so radiant! It glows with such gorgeous natural lustre! What products do you use?

PROFHOUSE: Oh wow, thanks! I don’t wear any make up. I get tonnes of stuff through the post from all these beauty PR companies but I give it all away. I like the natural look, you know? I’ll let you in on my little secret, though.  I never leave the house without having had an orgasm…

 

… and then the kettle will boil, or the door bell will ring and I’ll snap out of my reverie, like someone just slapped me round the face.

Reality sucks.

More on the Vila Mimosa

Yo y’all.

I found another blog with a very entertaining entry on the Vila Mimosa, by a Carioca guy who goes to visit the place. Needless to say, his approach is much more lighthearted than mine, but I am the first to admit that I am sure there is a lot of fun being had in there, despite it being a shockingly fucked up place. There is no denying the Vila’s pull as a freak sideshow attraction, which in fact was probably the main reason I ended up there.  Pretending there isn’t that side to it is futile and presents an unbalanced view. I also do not believe that it is necessarily helpful to envelop everything in a cotton wool wrap of political correctness. Above anything else, that would be decidedly un-Brazilian of me.

 

His page is in Portuguese and you can find it HERE.

 

I have also found another website, with more of a social conscience… Written by three women, perhaps unsurprisingly, and also in Portuguese… You can read it HERE.

And I have shamelessly stolen some photographs from there to illustrate this blog, but, as I have credited them, I hope you will refrain from casting the first stone.

 

 Now, to my enormous surprise, I have discovered that I am fast becoming an internet authority on the subject of the Vila Mimosa: I googled ‘Vila Mimosa’ and my blog was one of the top entries! Well, there you go. If you’re reading it here, you got it from the horse’s mouth.  Lucky you.

 

Gagging for Stalin

I am proud to report that I am not the only woman on the planet with a maniacal crush on Stalin.

It turns out that stand-up comedian Lucy Porter shares my penchant for the Russian control freak, which either makes me look slightly less derranged or means both Lucy and I need to sort out our taste in men.

 In this week’s Time Out London Lucy has been interviewed by Tim Arthur to promote her new show, ‘Lucy Porter’s Love In’, at the Arts Theatre tonight, where she will be discussing her ‘tragic love life’ which she attributes to ‘accidentally fancying Stalin and having an imaginary dog’.

As a fellow accidental Stalin fancier I must interject that on the whole my own love life has fortunately not been particularly tragic(except maybe on a couple of occasions), so maybe I should get in touch with Lucy and explain that it must be the imaginary dog.

 I actually went to see Lucy Porter doing stand-up once in this joint in St. Martin’s Lane in Covent Garden. I think it was my second anniversary with my current Boyf and we had a great laugh… Sometime during the set I left to go to the toilet and found that on my return the whole audience had turned around to stare at me, as the Boyf had dared to heckle her in my absence. From that moment onwards Lucy showed no mercy on my uppety partner-in-crime, whose slimline metrosexual frame, cherubic Botticcelli curly locks and long fan of eyelashes were an obvious target for taunts on his virility. The result was, of course, that I laughed so hard my sides almost split for the entire evening. She also said I was very pretty which definitely makes her GREAT in my books. Especially as the front row was occupied by a gaggle of dancers from neighbouring Stringfellow’s- Lovely girls, but I really didn’t want the boyf to suggest we made a visit on our anniversary!

Anyhow, back to our lovely Joseph. Here’s a painting of him for you to feast your greedy eyes upon. Yum.

That’s just political correctness gone wrong, motherfucker.

Ah, like I said, postmodern parenthood… So much that needs to be addressed. At least I had the wisdom to stock my pantry with fair trade organic bananas this afternoon on my visit to Waitrose.

Mexican Americans and Beaners…

 From Cheech and Chong’s ‘Next Movie’

  

…For those of us stuck at home with a bottle of wine on a Friday night…

Oh, and a quick correction: The Million Women Rise march actually starts at 12 in Hyde Park, and makes its way towards Trafalgar Square from there.