Another fun and purely for entertainment TOPIC brought to you by yours truly I love sharing fun things that I read!!

Todays Mind Of Man:
Why Douchebags Are Called Douchebags
by John DeVore



Douchebags were a conspiracy of the patriarchy, a medieval-looking invention that simultaneously suggested that female sex organs were filthy, stinky and repulsive to men, and promised to cure this imaginary affliction. But it doesn’t cure anything. Douchebags can, in fact, upset the natural bacterial culture of the vagina that protects the organ from infection.

There’s also the small matter that unwashed men and women can rid themselves of odorous funks by showering regularly, or even semi-regularly. Vaginas smell like sex and sex smells good. Nibble your lower lip and roll your eyes into the back of the skull good. It is one of those scents that inspire immediate physical reactions. The smell of warm bread makes you drool. The smell of a roaring fires makes you cuddly. The smell of sex makes your skin glow like the digital warriors in “Tron Legacy.”

Men who are selfish, obnoxious baboons who refuse to take responsibility for their poorly thought-out actions are called “douchebags” because that antiquated feminine hygiene product was sold to women by men who didn’t think their nuts smelled like ass butter.

There. Got that off my chest. For the sake of accuracy, I’ll mention that douches were also marketed as birth control devices, and are as effective in that regard as duct-taping the tip of a penis. But I’m serious when I say that douchebags were created by, literally, The Man to keep a sister down. One way to control humans is to control their sexual appetite. One way to control sexual appetite is to broadcast sexual stereotypes. Sex is dirty. Genitals are dirty. Women are dirty. Voila (which is Frenchese for “OH SNAP!”) I don’t believe that the oppression of women was an organized effort, per se. To be fair, it was most likely an ad hoc strategy devised on the fly by thoughtless dudes cobra-tapping one another at the frat temple. I imagine the birth of the idea went something like this:

HIGH PRIEST DONGUS: These women are smart, and strong and I don’t want to share all of my rad stuff with them. I suppose eventually we’ll have to make everything equal. But I wish there was a way to slow that down, you know, for a couple few millennium.


TESTUCLES THE ENGORGED: Well, noble bro, they’re just as horny as the rest of us. What if we tell them, over and over and over again, that their vagina is disgusting?


HIGH PRIEST DONGUS: But it’s not. It’s a wonderful silky bugle of earthly diversion!


TESTUCLES THE ENGORGED: Yes, yes. I know that. But if we tell them the opposite, we’ll have the upper hand! They’ll be so paranoid that their sacred envelope of the gods is repulsive, that we can dictate when sex happens. They’ll be so relieved when we deign to rock their world AND they’ll be so busy cleaning themselves, we can grab even more rad stuff.

Centuries later, enter a nozzle, a bag, water, and vinegar. The douchebag is a potent symbol of one gender’s chief crime against its own species, which is a lack of empathy and imagination. A failure to accept that if douchebags exist, then why aren’t there any dick and balls Sham-Wows? If women are so stinky that they require their own cleansing device, then men should have one as well. Stink is the great equalizer, right? But, you know, as I wrote earlier … soap and water suffice.

Oh, before I forget: humans have a tradition of being notably rotten to their own kind. Take a moment and make a personal accounting. Do you try to walk a mile in your neighbor’s pants? Metaphorically? I know, for one, that I could try harder to empathize with my fellow passenger on spaceship Earth. So I’m calling out bros because a little self-reflection never hurt anyone who accepts that actions must be owned up to. I am not saying that women are without sin. Just not in this blog rant.

Men who are selfish, obnoxious baboons who refuse to take responsibility for their poorly thought-out actions are called “douchebags” because that antiquated feminine hygiene product was sold to women by men who didn’t think their nuts smelled like ass butter. Douchebags are entitled princes who deny other human beings their humanity. They would be content to allow a woman to use a douchebag, as if she were a couch with fingers that could spray Febreze on itself. Douchebags are amateur sociopaths singularly concerned with their own pleasure and pain.

Men who are douchebags think, somehow, they are special flowers with beef jerky petals. Men who think they can write the rules in the snow with their own hot urine. They are men who cannot man up, little boys who don’t share their rad stuff and who don’t play well with others. A douchebag is a douchebag because he smelt it and unknowingly dealt it. Let’s try not to be one, okey-dokes?

I thought bidets were liked by those who have them.

Tamela Lee,
Good Article, I am surprised they didn't single out certain religious organizations as the main purveyor of ignorant slander in stating female sex organs were filthy, stinky and repulsive to men? The ignorance of men, never ceases to amaze me.
Surprising enough I read recently that initially manufacturers of Lysol advertised it as a cleansing douche.
Apparently these ignoramuses didn’t realize Lysol will destroy mucosal tissue.
Anyway thanks for the article.

Ciao Bella
Carlo Antonio

My pleasure to share the funny stuff I find Little crude, but interesting nonetheless.

We have minds?

LOL yep..and two heads!!!

Mind Of Man: Why Men Cheat (The Abbreviated Version)
By: John DeVore



So long as love rides shotgun in your life, nothing can ever truly be that bad. It is the singular prize that trumps all others, the reward that sweetens every success. Truly, it is the hot fudge on the ice cream scoops of personal achievement. Now, excuse me while I puke a little in my mouth. Actually, I’m going to shotgun a cheap beer and play some Grand Theft Auto 4 to make amends for such an unforgivably cheeseball observation. More on love and rewards and, ZOMG, trust, after the jump…. Plus, a fable!


Another reason men run around behind the backs of their doting, self-sacrificing, noble girlfriends and wives—you don’t adore us enough. When Spartan warriors returned home from victorious campaigns, do you think their women greeted them with eye-rolls and shrugs? Nay, she-dudes! They were venerated supremely, celebrated for days upon days!

So, let’s talk infidelity.

Many ladies want to know why it is men cheat. And here’s what you want to hear, straight from the talk-hole of the testosterone enabled: men cheat because we are faithless, miserable dogs. We are backstabbing, silver tongued two-faces who stalk any smooth pair of getaway sticks in a short black cocktail dress that happens to saunter into our lusty field of vision. Men are horny wolves in fluffy sheep’s clothing who delight in looking into your eyes and lying. Breaking hearts is our middle name. Why, at any given moment, while you’re gabbing to your girlfriends about flowers purchased, omelette’s made, sweet words whispered, we’re picturing the nearest woman under the age of 25 in a sheer bikini, riding a mechanical bull.

We are just hopelessly addicted to that “new car smell.” We love to make you miserable in our pursuit of total hotness, your fickle happiness be damned. By the way, my name is John. Have you ever read “Atlas Shrugged”?

And that’s just part of it. If you want to blame someone for our cheating ways, blame evolution! We are hardwired to hunt, and to share our wicked cool genetic code with a world that demands that we do! The universe conspires to compel us to pursue that which retreats. See, we cheat because we’re cavemen, and our half-gorilla brains demand we spread as much of our seed over as much fertile ground as possible to make sure that our little caveboys have the chance to grow up and do likewise. And we do this quickly, mind you, because you never know when a woolly mammoth will shish-kabob us on one of their mighty tusks. It’s not our fault. It’s biology, genetics, science for the love of Zeus.

How can you question science? Without it, the curling iron would never have been invented!

Here’s another reason men run around behind the backs of their doting, self-sacrificing, noble girlfriends and wives—you don’t adore us enough. When Spartan warriors returned home from victorious campaigns, do you think their women greeted them with eye-rolls and shrugs? Nay, she-dudes! They were venerated supremely, celebrated for days upon days! Love was made to them, olives were pitted and fed to them, their wives could not get enough of their dangerous tales of adventure and carnage! Tales told over and over and over again. And, at the end of each of these nights, as the mighty victors, now satiated and spent, drifted off to sleep, their ladyfolk would purr into their ears, “OMG, YOU ARE TOTES AWESOME.”

If you don’t pat us on the back and tell us we’re special, we will find someone who will. And, like Christie Brinkley’s pervy ex-husband, that person who will pat us on the back and tell us we’re special will be nineteen years old.

How could I forget this other important reason why men cheat—we’re addicted to sex! It’s not our fault we drool for hours over porn while you sleep. It’s a diagnosable affliction, and while many of us probably don’t really need to see a shrink to legitimately diagnose it, or to even go to rehab, you have to understand that it’s beyond our control. We can’t help ourselves. Pity the booty junkie. And don’t take our word for it – actual relationship experts on television confirm that some, if not most, men are hooked on sleeping with as many women as they can. This in no way enables us to justify bad behavior and to escape responsibility for our actions. This is just a true fact, that men can become addicted to getting whatever it is they want without consequence.

Surely, as the more emotionally developed and sensitive gender, you can’t negatively judge someone wrestling with such a malady. That would be cruel.

Get the point?

The truth is that men cheat for the same reason women cheat. And cheat you do. There isn’t a word for a women whose husband cheats on her. But the English language gives us a word for a man whose wife runs around on him. That word is “cuckold,” and there are few names as limp and pitiful sounding as “cuckold.” Maybe “smoosh.” Women can be faithless, and for centuries, they’ve done their fair share of tasting forbidden fruit. Literature is full of the sorrow women have caused: Menelaus laid siege to Troy because Helen ran away with another man. Othello smothered his beloved because he believed her to have cheated on him. Hell, frat boy rom-com “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” was all based around that hot chick from “Veronica Mars” cheating on that funny fat dude.

Plenty of blame to go around; it would be unfair to savage one gender so the other can enjoy the dismal pleasures of pointless victimization. But there is a reason people, men and women, cheat.

And here’s the fable part.

A dog was carrying a bone over a bridge. Looking down at the water under the bridge, the dog saw his reflection, which looked to the dog to be a bigger dog, carrying a bigger bone. Wanting the bigger bone he saw in the water, the dog barked and dropped his bone into the river. Stupid dog loses his bone.

We cheat because we’re tempted to risk what we have for the promise of something that isn’t, probably never was, and definitely won’t last.

So … everyone is capable of cheating. We are our very own villain and that is a true fact. Makes us human, I suppose. The choice.

Ah well. Sucks. But it’s a risk we all have to take, trusting the other person even though they could cheat. But without risk, there is no reward.

Tamela,

I know this is a topic meant for fun. Please allow me to make a serious response to the last piece of information you just summarized though. I think this is a very good point. If it is accurate, it certainly has implications for the traditional view of marriage and the role of sex in it. It is a serious challenge to it. Is it realistic to expect people to have just one sexual partner for decades after getting married?

It was realistic when we died at 35..now with technology and living to 11...there is so much more to explore

Snow Sucks When You’re Single

by:John DeVore


As I write this, the floating concrete mall known as Manhattan is experiencing a “wintery mix,” which is what happens when Old Man Winter has food poisoning. Walking to work this morning I got snow up my nose, elbowed in the fat wings by a grumpy Hobbit wrapped in scarves waiting for the subway, and went ankle deep in an enchanted ice puddle. It had to be enchanted, because I’m sure it laughed at me as I cursed. As a little kid, I was certain that snow was just God shaking a giant powdered donut over my house, but now that I am older, I know that snow is just Death’s dandruff. The winter is only enjoyed by Vikings, Tauntauns and people in relationships.

Sure, you can take the edge off every so often by going home with a pound of slutty General Tso’s chicken ... But eventually, you end up in bed snuggling ghosts.

I usually hate the concept of “nesting,” which is just a marketing term invented to sell sage-scented silk throw pillows to emotional isolationists. What I used to call it was “bunkering down,” which is when you turn your living space into a personal Alamo. As far as I can tell, there are only two reasons to bunker down, and that’s 1) invasion by zombies and/or a post-apocalyptic biker gang and 2) a blizzard. The former requires a sawed-off shotgun, the latter a loved one, and maybe a bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream and a Pixar movie and a blanket. Let’s be honest, when the cold rolls in, the one you love is suddenly a hot water bottle you can have sex with.

But if you’re alone, the cold and snow can amplify loneliness. Sure, you can take the edge off every so often by going home with a pound of slutty General Tso’s chicken, or by watching a strangely addictive period drama on PBS that’s about butlers with feelings and manor borns behaving badly. But eventually, you end up in bed snuggling ghosts. That is, if you’re Edgar Allan Poe. But you know what I mean. I can’t think of a more pure primal human urge than to reach for a warm lump snoring next to you as ice angrily tap dances outside the cave/teepee/log cabin. Human body warmth is a visceral sensation on par with eating warm brownies, or emptying your soul through your face at a karaoke bar or smelling the top of a baby’s head; a reason to live.

Not that blizzards are always blessings between beloveds. I’ve suffered through cabin fever before, snowed in with a woman I had to remind myself I love. There have been plenty of times where a weekend spent inside while the sky barfed Slurpees when Jack was all work and no play. Dark nights when I had to remind myself that A) my apartment doesn’t have a 1920s bar and B) that bar I don’t have also doesn’t have a bartender named Lloyd.

I remember spending a romantic weekend in Atlantic City years and years ago. Well, romantic? My girlfriend at that time decided that gambling, swilling champagne, and then getting it on in a heart-shaped hot tub IN our hotel room was a great idea. Anyway, it started to snow Sunday morning. In all fairness, she suggested we stay another night but I insisted that we leave. That if we left now, we could beat a snowstorm that promised to dump over a foot of snow from AC to New York. The drive down from Queens to the Jersey Shore took three hours and change. The drive back through MEGASTORM took us 12 hours. Twelve hours of our little rent-a-car puttering through great drifts of snow and me jumping out of the car on the highway to try to chisel away ice on the windshield. We started the slog very much in love. By the end, she looked at me – you ever seen one of those old cartoons where two characters are stranded on a desert island or in the arctic and they get so hungry that one character looks at the other but instead of seeing that character, he sees a giant ham? Well, I was, briefly, a giant ham to this woman.

I firmly believe that the only time to freak out about snow is when it comes down in July. But for those of you in the Northeast, I know you understand it when I say I’m sick of this mini-Ice Age. I swear, if any of you Canadaese comment about how the snow in the States is “nothing,” I am going to s**t ice cubes. You are a Mighty Snow People. Snow Klingons. Good for you. Shaddup. I cannot wait for spring. When the first thaw comes, Gotham City is going to go bizzz-onkers. I already have a sundress picked out. This city is going to party like the Romans. We’re going to get our orgy on. Personally, I’m going to skip and twirl. On the Charlie Sheen Scale Of Debauchery, I’m going to turn it up to a 1, 1.5. But until then, I endure. Hug ‘em if you got ‘em. If not, I was totally serious about my pal General Tso. In some ways he’s better than a significant other.

You can follow John DeVore’s preening narcissism on Twitter also

Mind Of Man: How We Say “I Love You” (Without Actually Saying, “I Love You”)
By John DeVore

In honor of Valentine’s Day.

OK ladies, check it out: We love you. We love watching your sleeping face glow on our 150-thread count pillowcases. We love that mischievous glint in your eyes that says both, “You know what I’m thinking” and “You have absolutely no idea what I’m thinking.” We love that momentary moment of punch-drunkenness when we catch a whiff of a new fragrance that makes you smell like flowers. (And we don’t even like flowers. Doesn’t anyone realize flowers are just the clown genitals of the vegetable kingdom?)

So there you have it—we love you. Can we move on now?

We didn’t think so.

A man’s ability to take his emotions, pack them like snowballs, and store them away in a beer cooler deep inside his heart was a handy evolutionary trick—there is no crying in mastodon hunting.

The next time you look deeply into your man’s eyes to intimately purr that you love him, and he responds with an imperceptible grunt, don’t emo-spazz and have a text breakdown about relationships with your bitter man-hating friend Brittany, because, after all, she’s just jealous you have a guy who has problems muttering the most important and overused words in this or any other language. Instead, consider this: You ladies frequently accuse the committed XY chromosome bearer in your lives of being emotionally unavailable, but have you ever considered that most of you are emotionally over-available? A man’s ability to take his emotions, pack them like snowballs, and store them away in a beer cooler deep inside his heart was a handy evolutionary trick—there is no crying in mastodon hunting.

Your dude’s reluctance to declare his love like some cheesy love-ballad-spewing jukebox in boxers isn’t the absence of love. Words are cheap (sneaky lotharios buy them wholesale) and you should know better than to judge us by how often we declare our affections. We know you’re the talkative, more emotionally intelligent gender, which is why we never doubt your genetic compulsion to advertise your heart’s surplus of romantic goods and services. We love to hear you gush.

But cut us some slack, because we tell you we love you all the time, and we do it without saying we do. It’s not that we’re clever; it’s just that we’re the action-oriented gender. And if you need proof to back up this fact, consider these ways we say the “L” word, without ever actually saying it.

1.We Happily Go To Something Called “Brunch,” Which Is French For “I Am Castrated.” Dudes don’t need a reason to drink Sunday afternoons, but apparently you do. And if we’re going to drink something on the Lord’s day, it sure isn’t going to be watered-down mimosas. You no doubt learned to love this infernal social tick from watching those glampires chat and chew on emotional porno The Show That Will Not Be Named About Vapid Banshees And Their Designer Handbags. We’re not casting blame. We happily go to eat breakfast food noticeably lacking in corn beef hash, and engage in silly, urbane conversations with you in noisy bistros because we love you and want you to be happy. Why is every dish festooned with fruit, anyway?

2.We Gladly Let You Drag Us From Department Store To Shoe Store To Candle Store. Why do you ladies insist on touching everything in a store? If you shopped the way dudes shop, like highly trained members of Delta Force, you’d be a more efficient, credit-card-debt-accruing ninja. For some reason, though, you shop the way little old Italian ladies pray the rosary: slowly. So slowly, that we can feel our facial hair grow. Have you ever turned to your man whilst fluffing a cranberry duvet you’re totally not interested in buying to say, disingenuously, “Are you OK?” How did we respond? “Absolutely, yes, I’m fine. Take your time.” We didn’t mean it, but our desire to see your discount-hungry mind blissed-out is completely genuine.

3.We Change Personal Habits You Think Are “Bad,” But We Think Are “Whatever.” Clipping our toenails next to that day-old, empty pot of mac and cheese while wearing threadbare boxers isn’t a big deal to us, but clearly it upsets you. Same goes for the moldy shower curtain that isn’t too moldy, our mismatched dishes, and coming home stinking like the wino banished from Winoville for being too much of a wino (huh?). Dudes don’t like to change because change is a major pain in the butt. But when change comes with the added benefit of making our woman more proud to be with us, then we do it, albeit at a glacier’s pace. All y’all females have never realized a fact dudes are way too aware of: We’re disgusting, slovenly beasts until the right chick comes around and makes us the best possible person we can be. We love that, and love you for caring.

4.We Swallow Our Fear And Absorb Your Monthly Freak-Outs Like Understanding Man-Sponges. We don’t know why or what we did, but we’re sorry. How about a back massage while you vent about your evil walrus-shaped boss who hates you, that celebrity with the eating disorder who makes you hate yourself, OR your best friend whom you hate because she brags about her perfect, rich boyfriend with the loft and quaff whom everyone knows is in the closet but it doesn’t really matter. Did we mention we’re sorry? And please notice the furrowed brow, pursed lips, and soothing head nod – we’re concentrating on your every word. Seriously, we are. Even if we’re not, appreciate what isn’t being said. Exactly – we’re saying nothing. Let it all out and just know that if anyone were to really threaten you, like a mastodon or terrorists, we’d go all Die Hard on them. But until such a moment, we listen, and do nothing but listen, because we love you.

5.We Pretend To Love And Even Dance To Your Music, Which Sounds Like Cartoon Animals Dying To A Beat. If dudes could create a universe without Rihanna, Fergie, or Justin Timberlake, we would. And in that universe, we’d make sure all bra clasps were made of beef jerky. The ringtone booty shakers you insist are great music make us want to seal ourselves in a soundproof coffin with an iPod loaded with nothing but AC/DC, Guns N’ Roses, and Foo Fighters. Whenever we’re out, and “Umbrella” plays, we make sure to share your girly excitement, sans squeal. And, in the most profound symbol of our adoration of you, we painfully pop and drop like a wounded eagle. Appreciate this display of unconditional love; being seen dancing is as embarrassing as being photographed at a Sunday brunch, our mouths full of crème fraîche, whatever that is.

6.We Know How You Like Your Coffee, That You Hate Tomatoes, And Your Favorite Ice Cream Is “Chubby Hubby.” So we’re not good at doing dishes, cleaning our sheets, or any other chores. But we’re good at running errands and will happily brave torrential rains in order to get you whatever it is that you need. Not only that, though, we have an internal database of all of your likes and dislikes. When we show up, soaked to the bone, with a plastic bag full of goodies vetted to appeal to your idiosyncratic wishes, you know you’ve got our heart on a skewer, like a personalized lollipop for you and you only. Iced green tea? Check. Chocolate chip granola bar? Check. Chicken nuggets with extra BBQ sauce? Check. And if tampons are included, just assume we’re thinking about that dreaded day when we get on one knee and ask you for the honor of spending our lives by showing you, if not telling you, how much we love you.

LOVE THIS!

Sleep, Food, Sex haha that about covers it

He is a great author..very funny and lot of truth in it

I will have to read more of his stuff.

Mind Of Man: Why You’re Not Married
BY: John DeVore
02/23/2011


The reason you’re not married yet is because I don’t really care why you’re not married and no one else does, either. Seriously, nobody cares. You shouldn’t care. Marriage isn’t a tiara. It’s not a ribbon to cut or one of those big novelty lottery checks. You don’t “deserve” a husband. You’re not Veruca Salt. You should be happy with whatever life gives you, because the only thing you truly “deserve” is a grave, although there just aren’t enough funeral pyres in these modern times. But I don’t want you to freak out. If you’re not married, or single, or unhappy, then life is working out as it should. No one has a right to happiness. As Americans, we only have a right to the pursuit of happiness. This explains why we love cars so much. The road trip is more important than the tourist trap. Enjoy the view. Roll down the window.

Love is an opportunity that whispers at your doorstep, but most people don’t hear it, because they’re too busy talking about themselves loudly. Talking about why they’re not married, why they’re so unhappy, why life is so unfair.

Life is not a Carnival Cruise production of “Beauty and the Beast.” Your prince might never come. But that’s okay. When one door closes, a trapdoor opens under your feet. You’re not married because that’s not where you are in the story of your life right now. Take a moment to breathe. Put your feet up. Eat one of those tiny cups of chocolate pudding that, according to television commercials, stop time. Wherever you are in life, really, that’s where you’re supposed to be. That’s not some hippie jive talk. That is the truth. If everybody’s life unfolded according to their precious and predictable little plans, then the world would be plagued with millions of billionaire rock star-celebrity chef-novelists flying around in golden helicopters.

Life is not a linear series of events that you control. It’s not A, B, C; it’s more like A, W, 5. Life is winging it. Improvising. Navigating by the stars and sailing in the general direction of the shore, knowing well between here and there is an ocean of krakens, sirens and that madman Captain Nemo. Opportunity knocks only once, debt collectors knock and knock and knock. Then there is love. Love is an opportunity that whispers at your doorstep, but most people don’t hear it, because they’re too busy talking about themselves loudly. Talking about why they’re not married, why they’re so unhappy, why life is so unfair.

I haven’t written a column in a few weeks because I’m mysterious. But apparently during those weeks, everybody’s become an a**hole. A moralizing, finger-wagging, self-absorbed a**hole and I have half a mind to pull the internet over and give it a stern talking to. Here’s what I’ve learned recently. Men are a stinky fraternity of post-adolescent, “pre-adult” knuckleheads who watch too much porn and just can’t settle down because beer pong is too much damn fun! I’ve also learned that women who aren’t married are wang-hungry harridans wailing like the betrayed women of Greek drama, wronged by man and Zeus.

Then there was some piece I won’t dignify with a link [I will.—Editor] that was, like, about how women should blame themselves for their plight. That’s a good start! But taking responsibility for your happiness and your sorrow isn’t the same thing as self-loathing and that article seemed to do nothing but inspire an already self-pitying demographic to self-flagellate. Have these articles made you feel small? Unloved? Lonely? Stop reading them. Look, I have made a fancy hobo’s living exploiting gender fears. So believe me when I tell you that online relationship hacks are just like patriotic xenophobes. Everything is the fault of “the other.” It’s cheap provincialism masquerading as sophistication. Any bitter little monkey-troll can write an essay. I should know. I am an expert.

There are so many essays out there about why dating sucks. These essays are so angry and sad and honestly, anger causes wrinkles and sadness promotes donut abuse. Let me play some catchup. Where are the good men? Same place they’ve always been. There are two types of people in the world. Those melancholy few who take care of business and then there’s everyone else. This is the way it has always been. There are those men and women who own their good decisions and bad decisions and then a vast stupid mob who moo and cluck and turn the blame game into blood sport. But let me address the mob first. You’re unhappy because no one likes to feel like they’re a line item on someone’s life plan list. A “relationship” is not a prize. Not a noun. A relationship is a verb. If you want a relationship, start by being a human being and try to relate to another human being. It’s basically a fulltime job. There is no plan. Love finds you, and either your listening or you’re not. This is an immutable fact of nature. The mob, the web, your fears and selfish ambitions are nothing but noise. Turn down the volume. Put your ear to the door. The heart has such a small voice, but it says such wonderful things.

Chill out, big mama. “But John, its different because you’re a maaaaan!” Whatever. You are where you’re supposed to be. I mean, the world is full of unhappily married people, and terrible mothers and absent fathers. If you’re not married or dating, then so be it. It might not be where you want to be. Your plan might not be working out the way you thought it would. But the payoff is pretty good, I think. At least your life is interesting. I don’t believe in fate. I believe in atoning for your transgressions. I believe in not being a dick to other people. I believe in courage, which is the act of stuffing your fear in a basket, balancing it on your head like a Sherpa, and trudging up an impossibly tall mountain that disappears into the clouds. Many of the articles I’ve read recently accuse men of being children, and also women of being children. It’s too bad we can’t all actually be children – sharing toys, playing nice, building couch pillow forts. At least children live in the moment, their only life plan being making the most of a snow day.

I’m not married because I’m a f**king train wreck human being. I’m in therapy. I work too much. I gave up drinking because long ago I committed to drinking all the liquor, but there’s so much of it, too much, really, and I thought I’d be polite and leave some for all of you. I smoke, I worry that I don’t write enough. I have broken hearts and had my own heart flayed, speared and studded with dynamite. In the words of some of my esteemed colleagues [Hugs!—Editor], I am an emotional cripple. But I’d rather be an emotional cripple than an emotional vampire. I can be cranky. I am damaged goods. One of my button eyes is missing, my fur is matted and I’m stuffed with gravel. I have a needle and thread. I mend and make amends.

My parents had a lovely marriage. My mother fought for my dad until the day he died and hours before that happened, he fought to spend every minute he could with her. I don’t feel the need to try and top them. They were a lucky couple who grew up together, and then continued to grow together. As a kid, I saw their playful stolen kisses. I heard my dad sing Patsy Cline songs to her at night in their bedroom. When they had arguments, I saw them both retreat and return with forgiveness in their eyes. Good job, mom and dad. But I’m not married yet. I might never get married. No matter what happens, I hope it’s interesting.

boo yaaa~!~

Tamela,

Will you marry me? (j/k)

He is a great writer..tells it how it is!!

It's awesome!

LOL interesting huh lol

12 Little Things Guys Can Do To Impress Us Big Time

1.Remembering my birthday

2.Taking my purse while I’m struggling to get my coat on or off

3.Remembering what I said I wanted to order and telling the waiter himself

4.Knowing my complicated drink down to the last detail

5.Giving me the pillow I most prefer to sleep with

6.Asking if the room is too cold, which is especially appreciated when I’m naked

7.Remembering I liked a certain band and ordering tickets to see them as a surprise

8.Getting me the paper on Sunday mornings

9.Reading a book I said was my favorite. Ditto for movies.

10.Carrying my heavy bag without me asking

11.Randomly getting me my favorite candy

12.Fighting off strangers to save me a seat next to him at the bar

I agree with all of those!

Its all about being courteous and puttin others in front of you

Agreed

Kisses!!!!

Why Frat Boys Are The New Hippies
John DeVore



To those of you too busy reading about the historic uprisings in the Middle East, let me catch you up really quickly on the ongoing turmoil in the faraway country of Charlie Sheen. The millionaire sitcom star has been publicly self-destructing. Years of alleged substance abuse, marital problems and bizarre behaviors have, apparently, climaxed. Over the past week or so, he has seemingly divided like a cell into multiple versions of himself and simultaneously appeared on every live television talk show currently being produced. But like most modern celebrity scandals, the personal immolation we’re witnessing isn’t really about the vaguely human celebrity whose antics and flaws and outrageous moral lapses are beamed from dozens of differently shaped boxes directly to our brains.

If you’re over the age of 30, and your idea of an awesome night is constructing the perfect gravity bong … well … I mean … aren’t there any points given out for original acts of hedonism anymore?

No. As befitting our narcissistic culture, Charlie Sheen’s meltdown is about us. You and me. Our society. Our self-interested collective of hairless apes. We are Borg. See, celebrity is a mirror. Once upon a time, that mirror reflected our hopes and dreams. We elevated emotionally volatile individuals like Marilyn Monroe and forced them to wear the glittering chains of our wildest aspirations. Frank Sinatra would never have had a meltdown. Sinatra didn’t melt. But who knows the rot under the gilding.

But today, for whatever reason, celebrity has become a funhouse mirror that reflects our fears back to us. Charlie Sheen’s flaming nosedive is a spectacle that transfixes our millions of eyes and we stare slackjawed. We wag our fingers. We cluck. But we stare.

What are we staring at exactly? We are raptly watching the death of a dream. Charlie Sheen is just a casualty. A sacrifice, maybe, but definitely not the main stage show. We’re all sitting front and center, watching the overgrown, post-adolescent frat boy dream die. At this moment, Charlie Sheen defends a lifestyle and a worldview that is the dream of so many men. Sheen’s lusty appetites are gratuitous like one of the corrupt Caesars, but bland and prefabricated like an Appleby’s. He wants to party without purpose, nail porn stars and punt on his responsibilities as a man. He wants to live the fantasy of every fraternity brother currently shotgunning a beer. And, hey, I’m not crapping on frat boys who are… you know… college boys. But if you’re over the age of 30, and your idea of an awesome night is constructing the perfect gravity bong … well … I mean … aren’t there any points given out for original acts of hedonism anymore?

Right now, there are millions of dudes out there for whom the 1990s never ended. Grown ass frat boys who pine every day for the good ol’ days, before their life ran off the edges of the life map they drew on a cocktail napkin when they were 20 years old. If you think about it, for far too many people, that decade never ended. Our national discourse is just too full of professional Adam Sandler characters, Rush Limbaugh zombies and self-parodying, permanently furious feminists who wallpaper their apartments with back-issues of Sassy magazine. But it is the frat boy who is the most potent symbol of this kind of constant desire to go back to the future. They’re all intellectually-stunted hobbits who carbon-froze their maturity and proudly mount it on the wall of their man cave like Jabba the Hutt did to Han Solo. Imagine Proust hopelessly binge eating those little French cookies that reminded him of his youth – pathetically trying to relive some supposedly magical moment from the past over and over and over again.

The late-‘90s were the high-water mark for this culture: noxious frat boy lady hate bands like Limp Bizkit were huge. Maxim magazine, the PG-13 version of Boy’s Life, was a publishing juggernaut because of its mix of censored Playboy centerfolds, macho nerd prose about rad stuff, and yawn-inducing Hillary Clinton jokes. Wearing a baseball hat, a pukka shell necklace and planning to open a beach bar with your best bros using the money earned from selling the website FreeCollegeBoobPics.com you were going to start was The Plan. Hey, did anyone notice it’s 2011? The life Charlie Sheen is clinging to is no kind of life, and anyone who pines for it suffers from a severe form of sentimentalism that borders on delusion. The best years of your life are always ahead of you, not behind you. It reminds of those tales of Japanese soldiers discovered on remote Pacific islands years after the end of World War II who didn’t know the war had ended. Actually, it reminds me of hippies. Frat boys are the new hippies (and hipsters are the disco of the future—a soon-to-be national shame where no one will ever admit having worn skinny jeans.)

When I was a kid in the late-‘80s, one of our neighbors was a stinky, fortysomething hippie. The guy didn’t know that Woodstock was over. He wore tie-dye shirts. Had long dirty hair. Flashed me the peace sign as I rode my bike by his house. He was emotionally stuck in a youth that would never end. The first time I ever smelled weed was one afternoon in my backyard. He and some hippie friend were passing a pathetic little roach back and forth. They whispered and snickered and continuously made sure the coast was clear. Even at that young age, I couldn’t f**king stand him. I know plenty of dudes who are graying and aging and sincerely laughing at beer commercials, as if they’re National Geographic documentaries about their lives.

Unlike Charlie Sheen, and other “winners,” men don’t threaten their wives. They understand that children learn how to behave by quietly observing the hundreds of thousands of choices, both big and small, their parents make. Men can handle their booze, which doesn’t mean they can inhale liquor by the gallon and not hurl. Handling your booze means having the wisdom and willpower not to drink the booze in the first place if you know you can’t handle it. A man owns his failures and successes. A man knows that adulthood is partying, if you choose, on your terms, not the terms of the boy’s club. Frat boys are hippies – unfrozen cavemen who are strangers in the modern world.

But I’ll say one thing for the hippies. The ‘60s produced a lot of self-indulgent, hard-living rock stars … but at least a lot of them produced some pretty awesome music. Our frat boys, party girls and other assorted celebrity gargoyles produce nothing but mediocre advertising filler.

As for Charlie Sheen … let’s stop a moment to remember that he is an actual, real life person. Not just a grotesque Pinocchio shuffling for our entertainment. When you’re poor and a hoarder, you’re crazy. When you’re rich and a hoarder, you’re eccentric. I suppose that when you’re a golden goose and have a substance abuse problem, you’re a Charlie Sheen. I have guzzled so much whiskey in my past, I have whiskey gills. I’ve done, to excess, most drugs, save for ecstasy, because I hated ravers almost as much as I hated hippies. I have made most of my most regrettable poor life choices under some kind of influence. I’ve done some things that I will be apologizing for as they close the lid on my coffin. But “OMG GUYS I WUZ SOOOOO DRUNK” is the lowest form of conversation. So I have read the reports of Sheen’s drug habits, and if they’re true, then I can say with some measure of authority that one sign you have a cocaine problem is that your cocaine comes in a briefcase, as has been reported in Sheen’s case. I have also met and interviewed porn stars and they are all generally very nice people. Broken, yes, but who isn’t? But I also know that many porn stars love cocaine and money.

Television warps reality, but if I didn’t know any better, I’d say that Charlie Sheen looks like a guy who is covering up fear and anger with a bravado I am not buying. He bellows and rants hilariously, just like thousands of other drunks at the far ends of thousands of dark dive bars. The guy is on Twitter now, ostensibly to get in on the joke, but you can’t be the joke and in on it, too. Like a good mother teaches, you’re either being laughed with, or laughed at. I suppose he’s a hero to some, but those shallow dimwits have no imagination. He’s no hero. In fact, Sheen reminds me of the king’s jester who dances and juggles and whose silly taunts are soaked with savage truth, but the royal court is too busy laughing and carousing to listen. Charlie Sheen is telling us all that he needs help. He’s also telling us that the dream is dead, but even he can’t hear that, because dude will not shut the f**k up.

Mind Of Man: How To Get Over A Breakup

By: John DeVore
12:00PM, 03/23/2011


I’m single, which is working out great because I hate grooming. My ex is awesome, but between you and me and the internet, she could be a total bitch about “soap and water.” Whatever! Now I’m free to wallow in my own filth and believe me, I stink hard. Sure, I look like a lumberjack raised by monkeys, but that’s not why I go to the movies alone. I go to the movies alone because I might as well get used to it, seeing as that’s how I’m going to die. Alone. When I was younger, bourbon was my primary emotional coping mechanism. But since then, I’ve become an adult. Instead of drowning my feelings in delicious brown magic water, I express them to my bestest friends on Twitter. Why, just last night, I twooted the funniest twitter tweet, which was “WHY? #Why?” But I know why this happened and I think it’s related to that one time she said “I love you” and I responded “Baby Stewie is a hilarious character! A baby that speaks like people!”

Without any malice and with actual love in her voice, she told me what she wanted and I totally checked out. My heart treated her like a bill collector and let the voicemail pick up.

You know, that old saying is true. If you love someone, set them free, but change the locks.

I know what you’re wondering. Am I okay? Do I have a wheezing Grinch heart? Am I wandering the Moors, howling at the moon? Check it out: I’m totally awesome with everything. I got this.

My recent breakup was mutual, which is to say we both agree that she dumped me. She reasonably informed me in a mature manner about her feelings and any emotionally evolved man would have calmly nodded and expressed his feelings, but understood that the relationship was not working out. But not me. Without any malice and with actual love in her voice, she told me what she wanted and I totally checked out. My heart treated her like a bill collector and let the voicemail pick up. I even tried to do that thing where you pick up the phone and some stern yet chirpy voice asks for you and you instinctively drop your voice and respond, “Why no I’m sorry he’s not here right now. Can I take a message? Me? I’m his butler.” Thankfully, besides having a great sense of humor, or maybe that was just patience the whole time, she forgave me my momentary mental shutdown.

I even employed a tactic that I can only describe as a “Jedi Mind Trick,” which involved me waving my hand in the air and saying, “You don’t want to break up with me” in a bad British accent. We went back and forth like this a few times until she asked me if I was having a mild stroke. But eventually, I took it like a man. A nine-year old man who had just dropped his Eggo waffle jelly side down on the kitchen linoleum. I scooped my dignity into a little thimble I carry around with me and oozed out under her apartment door.

Then I did what any grown man in his mid-30s would do. I went to an all-you-can eat Chinese buffet and plotted my revenge. I took the “all-you-can-eat” part as a personal challenge. I shoveled forkfuls of General Tso’s chicken into my face with a fury, as if I had a pet tapeworm. I slurped up lo mien noodles like a lady-less tramp. In between bites, I plotted. Oh, she’ll be sorry, I thought. I’ll show her. I will channel Phil Collins.

Future revenge scenarios played out in my mind, my mouth greased with bright red sweet and sour sauce like Fat Joker. She’ll fall to her knees and shake her fist at the sky when she sees me rescue those koala bears from that burning zoo. She’ll walk into the club at the very minute I’m pushing Eliza Dushku away on the dance floor and giving Zoe Saldana a “come hither” look, and of course, she doth hither. Then there’s the moving moment when the scientists usher her into the command center so I can say good-bye to her via video screen right before I ignite the bomb that blows up the asteroid that’s threatening the Earth. “I wish I could come back to you,” I’d say a million miles away, “But humanity needed a blogger, and I just happened to be that blogger.” She’d weep and press her hand on the screen. I’d do the same and say, “But the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one.”

But I’m doing great. I only dry heave with grief in the shower. I’ve started reading trashy sword-and-sorcery novels, including the series A Game of Thrones, which is like Lord of the Rings, only instead of sweet-natured hobbits and wizards, there are dwarves who have sex with whores and grisly decapitations every other page. I’ve gone through the five stages of a breakup, too. Those stages are, in order: love, hate, love, hate and love. What about the “pleading with Jesus” stage, you ask? Done.

I’ve even gone through “The Dead Zone,” which is named for that early ‘80s documentary about how Chris Walken has psychic powers and when he touches you, he can see your future. Only in my case, every time I touch one of the shirts she left at my place or her leopard print Snuggie, I immediately remember whispered promises, midnight giggles and shared sighs of contentment. So, I’ve run her shirts through a paper shredder I bought at Staples and set them on fire in my bathtub. I’ve also scrubbed every place her feet ever touched with a toothbrush and Ajax. I’ve stapled trash bags all over my couch and I’ve dragged my bed to the corner. I sleep in a pile of crumpled up newspapers on my bare bedroom floor.

So everything is ducky. Yesterday, I held the door for a woman and SHE SMILED AT ME and I ran after her and told her I’d love her forever and ever and that we’d grow old together and never be apart. But that was just a fling. One of, literally, dozens of secret flings I’ve had, and by “secret flings,” I mean that all of the women who I’m having flings with don’t know we’re having flings, especially those women who are entirely imaginary. Make no mistake, this space ranger has explored Planet Vagina plenty o’ times, a long, long time ago. Seriously, the truth is I’m kind of dating someone. She works for a “company” in Langley, Virginia and she’s not on Facebook or Twitter and you can never meet her and if I talk anymore about her, she’ll have to kill me, ha ha.

But I’m fine. Why, this past Saturday night, I went to a spoken word open mike and read my new poem, which I titled “Uhhhhh…” Then later, I went home and watched a new TV show called “The NuWave Infrared Oven” which is hilarious. It’s a sitcom about the hottest oven on the market that can cook a frozen pork roast in 90 minutes, leaving it brown on the outside and juicy and moist on the inside, and its wacky friends, a really happy lady and a sexless fat man. During the whole show, I just cried and cried and cried. After that, I put some toenail clippings in an envelope and mailed them to her, because in the future, the only way she’ll be able to get back with me is if she clones me because then, in the future, I’ll be a happy, happy as s**t and 75 years old. I finished my night playing the game “Pretending To Call Her Voicemail And Singing ‘You’re Beautiful’ By James Blunt.” Fun. That game always puts me to sleep, sometimes for 12 hours.

Yeah. There it is. I’m good. I’m good, bro. I’m over it.

Oh, for f**k’s sake, who am I kidding.

Follow John DeVore’s preening narcissism on Twitter

That line especially tickled my funny bone.

hehe

Great articles, and I adhere to the rules you mentioned, when you pay attention to the little details it can amaze people.


Just sayin'

Very true!!

He is a tremendous writer

Nice mind !!!

Nice booty

[quote="tamelalee"]Mind Of Man: How To Get Over A Breakup

By: John DeVore
12:00PM, 03/23/2011




Love this thread

Funny sh*t

Rather creative use of humor and sarcasm to get his points across.

I started to read these just after waking up and I'm thinking, who in their right mind behaves as some of these people he is talking about, but then each of us can think of a few people we see regularly that fit these molds or on rare occassion have done something similar ourselves.

After I woke up more and returned to reading them, I could sift through that humor, sarcasm, and exagerations of certain stereotypes to more easily recognize his themes in each article: every decision is an individual choice with consequences, people shouldn't be so reactionary and try to understand the larger picture or other people's perspectives, and it's ok to disagree but disagree as adults.

Yes...u totally understand it

Mind Of Man: What Is This “Pegging” You Speak Of?

By: John DeVore


My editor, a fashion-forward cyborg with champagne instead of blood, asked me to write about the sexual activity “pegging,” to which I responded that I’m open-minded and fine with two consenting adults dressing up like pirates behind closed doors.

But that’s not what “pegging” means.

Abstractly, I understand why a man could be into this sexual practice. Taboos are mental chains, and nothing is sexier than liberation.

“Pegging” is when a woman wears a strap-on dildo and penetrates a man’s anus. Did you know that? Now you do. The term “pegging” was coined in a contest by pioneering sex advice columnist Dan Savage. Here’s my opinion on “pegging”: Hey, look, I just found a shiny quarter! I bet it’s a lucky quarter! I’m going to make a wish and that wish is that I don’t have to write about “pegging.”

Wishes don’t come true.

I’ll be bluntly honest and admit that “pegging” really brings out the awkward bro in me and lights up my masculine fear center like a slot machine. Every gender-normative synapses in my brain fires and I want to make jokes about how my pooper is an “exit only” orifice. Seriously, it turns me into such a homophobic frat boy that I suddenly want to watch UFC. But the rational part of me understands my apprehension to the concept probably says more about me than the practice. Twenty years ago, I might have been asked about “pegging” and gay bashed myself, and 20 years into the future, men might have evolved to the point that an average evening between male friends at the marijuana bar might end with “Gotta roll, man. My girlfriend’s strapping on the chocolate thunderbolt and I am psyched to get my guy-spot punched!”

Because I am a consummate journalist, I reached out to my friends for their opinions and here’s what I learned. All of my female friends had tons of thoughts about “pegging.” None of my male friends had any opinions. The people I asked are all educated professionals, with a couple bizarre degenerates thrown in for color, and pretty much 100 percent of the ladies had passionate reactions. The most I got out of my male friends, who range in age from mid-20s to late-30s, was one dude who typed, “I don’t know. A finger is okay?” Then both he and I shut the conversation down.

A couple of the women who I was instant messaging with wrote me New Yorker-length essays about men, sexuality and gender issues. Which was cute, but I don’t think people are conscious of their social programming. Humans are creatures of habit. We don’t really like new things. I tell you, I didn’t want to try McDonald’s McRib when it first came out. But man, am I glad I took a leap of faith, because it is the best pork gruel pressed into a grotesque rib-like shape and smothered in syrup currently on the market.

Another pair of women wondered if a man who wants to be “pegged” is, in fact, a latent homosexual. Which is vaguely offensive to gays, I think. There isn’t a “gay button” buried deep in the colon that, if pushed, unleashes the fabulous. The gay men I have met, the ones who love and dream of marrying their partner or a partner in the future, love with their hearts, not their asses.

I am not anti-butt. I support light butt-foolery. The male posterior is a network of highly sensitive nerves and dark Freudian implications. But “pegging”? I have never been “pegged,” and no one has ever asked if they can “peg” me, and I’m going to return to that last part in a moment. Abstractly, I understand why a man could be into this sexual practice. Taboos are mental chains, and nothing is sexier than liberation. I can only guess that it is a rush for a heterosexual man to allow himself to assume such a vulnerable position and to allow a woman to control him and be inside of him. In that sense, “pegging” is a potent toy in a game of sexual give and take. I have always hated the words “top” and “bottom.” I prefer “Senor or Senorita Grande” and “sweet biscuit.”

Would I want to be “pegged”? My gut reaction to the concept is no, no, no, no. I don’t want a mop in my bucket. I suppose in the spirit of fairness, I’d have to consider it, especially if she’d agreed to anal sex. I would hope that some honest consideration would win me some, er, brownie points and just the act of me intellectually challenging my masculine sexual stereotypes would satiate her.

I have a policy about bedroom kinks – ask and ye shall receive, after I think about it. That goes both ways. When it comes to sex, vigorous communication is preferable to emotional extortion or surprise digits and devices in orifices. If I were in a trusting sexual relationship with a woman, and she wanted to frak me doggy-style, she’d have to really, really want it for me to even address the topic. It would have to be something that turned her on, because that is what is sexy – a sexual playmate who is slippery with desire. Then, maybe, we could start slowly, maybe, after a long debate where I’d have the option to filibuster. I’d really have to love her, of course. She’d also have to be Scarlett Johansson and I’d have to fall off the wagon and bong rum. She’d probably also have to agree to a list of demands from me too, where she’d also have to thoughtfully consider a threesome or to dress up like Princess Leia and play a little game I like to play called “Jabba’s Been A Naughty Space Worm.”

Playful and honest sexual negotiation is essential for couples who want to escape the gravity of Planet Missionary. But, ultimately, you have as much right to say “please” as I do “nooooooooooooo.”

Follow John DeVore’s preening narcissism on Twitter.

I'm sure most men's reactions to "pegging" or anal is "NO!!!!" but there can be compromises, agreements and sexual adventures that will broaden one's horizons and provide more appreciation for being willing to experiment.
I mean come on you tried brussel sprouts to see if you liked them or not.
Sexually speaking it should be the same way, note I said "should", it isn't always that way due to deep rooted fears and psychological limits that we as humans place on ourselves.

I've been "pegged" can honestly say I didn't like it, in return I got to "peg" my female companion and she told me that my size makes it something to ease into and use lots of lube and foreplay.

This might be really putting myself out there, but oh well there it is.

Its good to experiment. Theres no other way to know if you like it. So now you know

Im not sure if pegging is something I even want to do but i have definitly joked around about it with the boyfriend and just talking about it seems to freak him out.

LOL

Yep, but I have a greater appreciation for when a woman says "no" about things she either isn't comfortable with and I've always been one to listen, but sometimes experience gives one that greater appreciation.

But there are some other things we can always experiment with.

Exactly!!!

U are very welcome doll thanks for reading..i know they are long!

They may be long , but I like good reading material

Some stuff is new, the rest at least affirms that I'm not the only guy who thinks along the same lines.

I know right

I would be all in favor of Tamela crawling around in my brain
asking questions and having discussions.

There is something sexy about a woman who wants to get inside your brain.

And your pants lol

The feeling is mutual, although I've only seen you in bikinis so do you even wear pants?
LOL

Yoga pants and leggings mostly lol

This stuff is hilarious! Keep it coming babe!

Sure will..thanks

Mind Of Man: Don’t Judge Me By The Book I’m Reading

By: John DeVore



I’d like to sincerely apologize to the cute nerd girl intently reading the emo-vampire epic Twilight on the New York City subway: I’m sorry for judging you. This happened about six months ago and I sniffed at you for eagerly devouring a young adult novel about a very special girl and her boyfriend, a really nice monster.

When I lug this incredible book out into public, I’m fairly confident that I’m being judged. That reading a trashy tome about errant knights and cunning princesses is, basically, vagina repellent.

I’ve judged people by the books they’re reading. This happens a lot while riding the NYC subway. Books are that rare life accessory that says a lot about who we are. If you’re reading a popular emotional porno like Something Borrowed, it means that you believe in the power of hunky men who’ll use their hospital residency off-hours painting your living room lavender while baking a soufflé. There was the dude I saw with the hipster beard, which is defined as a heavily shampooed and conditioned lumberjack beard that DJs Sunday nights, who was reading a dog-eared copy of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. That communicated to me that he enjoyed iconic 19th Century literature about the merciless tumult of history, and also he drinks Jameson’s watered down with too much ice and will sleep with you if you’re a fashion urchin interested in lame literary poses.

That woman reading Suze Orman just got a letter from the IRS, that man reading The Notebook lost a bet with his girlfriend, and that other man reading Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is confusing strategic thinking with being an a**hole. In all of these instances, I sniffed like the pretentious bastard I am. These readers probably didn’t notice me roll my eyes and return to my dreary Haruki Murakami novel about lonely men being lonely, because that’s what lonely men read when they think the reason they’re so lonely is because they’re so-o-o smart.

But I want to make amends for my superficiality. I am begging forgiveness. I feel terrible for cocking my eyebrow like a douche bouquet when my esteemed editor revealed to me she was reading the young adult best seller The Hunger Games. To everyone in my life who confessed to me they were reading His Dark Materials, earning “I read grown-up fiction” from me, I am utterly and totally contrite.

So if you see me reading on the subway, or at a coffee shop, or in the park don’t judge me by the book I’m reading. Because that book I’ll probably be reading is a series of books called A Song Of Ice And Fire written by George RR Martin. The first book in the series is titled A Game of Thrones, which is being turned into a big-budget miniseries over at HBO, a channel that had great success translating a popular fantasy series into the hit show “True Blood.” When I lug this incredible book out into public, I’m fairly confident that I’m being judged. That reading a trashy tome about errant knights and cunning princesses is, basically, vagina repellent. I’m sure that Mr. Tolstoy, if he ever saw me, clucked and returned to the burning of Moscow. If you’re an attractive woman who saw me entranced by A Game of Thrones, I just want you to know that I’m only a wizard in the bedroom.

But I don’t care. I have never in my life read fantasy fiction or any kind of sword and sorcery. I enjoyed the “Lord of the Rings” movies, but let’s face it, Picard trumps Gandalf. A Game of Thrones is like an R-rated version of “Lord of the Rings.” Instead of sweet-faced hobbits, there’s a drunken, hooker-loving dwarf who’s half Richard III, half John Falstaff. Where “Lord of the Rings” presents a world where good and evil exists, A Game of Thrones basically says humanity is divided into evil and eviler, with a small rock of good being ground between the two into gravel. If King Arthur fronted a heavy metal band named “Dragon Cock of Doom,” that band would be playing in my feverish imagination while reading.

A Game of Thrones is brutal, bleak and deeply cynical. No offense to JK Rowling, but Harry Potter would end up a rotting skull on a pike outside the gates of Harrenhal in less than a chapter. A Game of Thrones is a fairy tale covered in gore. There are no knights in shining armor, just brutes wearing iron dog helmets. Maidens are savaged, innocents sacrificed, and the ratio of villains who deserve to die to heroes and heroines I desperately want to live is, like, 3:1. A Game of Thrones is not for sensitive souls, as there’s plenty of disturbing violence, child butchery, and incest. The books are, basically, about a humble family of noble birth who are cruelly abused, betrayed and tortured for 9,000 pages. It’s awesome. There is nary a shred of sentimentality in these books and the fun is rooting for the little fiery flickers of good in a reality that, much like ours, is so much cold, suffocating darkness. By the old gods of the north, I love these books.

Be kind. I’m halfway through the fourth book in the series, A Feast For Crows, and let me tell you, the ironborn of Pike are total buttholes, and the same with the Freys and those complicated but duplicitous Lannisters. The Starks of Winterfell, the central and tragic family, have a cheery family motto, which is “Winter is coming.” Man, winter is awesome. Don’t snicker if you catch me, an adult man, leafing through my nerd bible. Let us all agree that reading any book is a personal victory. Gasoline on the smoldering coals of inspiration. I have no problem with electronic books like the Kindle. Ultimately, the history of information is about dispensing more of it to more people, which e-books, theoretically, will be able to do one day. There were monks once who sneered at the printing press and smugly explained that hand-written books that take years to make are far superior to cheap paper fed through an ink-stained machine. But paper books, with their colorful covers and musty smell and lunch-stained pages, are still totems that communicate a little bit of our spirit to the world.

I am happy you’re reading, cute nerd girl. Let’s hear it for bright, populated inner-worlds.

Read more of John DeVore’s preening narcissism on Twitter.

Okay I read Sun Tzu "Art of War" and it is for business strategy and if you ask enough people there is always a percentage that will say I'm an a**hole, so it's a bit of a stretch/generalization.

Reading occupies the mind and the fact that some people still read instead of plugging their headphones in and tuning out means that there is something more there.

Yeah I could go on and on about this subject and how it reflects on the individual and how they see themselves in relation to the world.

Oh SNAP!!! Maybe I should start my own column/blog. LMAO

I love reading your posts Tamela!!

Always Willing,
Veronica

Very Cute

U should...U are an incredible edible writer

heheheheh

To Peg or not to Peg, that is the question!

I've been pegged. In fact I went so far as to be pegged while wearing a corset, bra, dress, petticoat and a wig. I liked it. Ah HE double L, I loved it and who would I be kidding by denying it? You, Me? I think I'd be kidding myself if I denied it. After all for the most part you, whoever you may be, probably really don't give a concrete wall placed in the middle of a river now do you?

I'm not a latent homosexual, as Mr. DeVore suggested, "Another pair of women wondered if a man who wants to be “pegged” is, in fact, a latent homosexual." I have no interest in being "pegged" by a man. The only interest I have in my fellow man is the normal friendship that straight men have for each other. I am secure in my masculinity. I am so secure in it that I chose to be pegged while dressed as a female. So not only did I cross the societial taboo that pegging represents but I crossed the taboo of manhood by crossdressing at the same time, "Taboos are mental chains, and nothing is sexier than liberation." You know, I think I could become an ardent practitioner of "womens liberation." (With apologies for the real suffering that women have endured through political, social and religious repression. )

So now that I've been liberated from my taboos's would I do it again? Yes I would and she wouldn't have to be Scarllett Johansson and I wouldn't have to do bongs full of rum or other mind altering chemicals. In fact I'd love to find a girlfriend/wife who would be open to this form of play on a regular basis but it seems women have their hang ups too and the idea of pegging a crossdressed male just doesn't quite seem to hit their HOT button, for the most part. Thank heavens for the MLBR! After all, sex is supposed to be about play too as well as romantic or loving. What better way to play than to push the boundries, the norms, the taboos?

Thanks for sharin FG

Mind Of Man: Everything You Ever Needed To Know About Dating

John DeVore



Everything I ever needed to know about dating, I learned selling comedy tickets on the streets of New York City. Convincing a grouchy New Yorker to give you cash money for magic beans is a brutal way to make a living, much less a buck. But it was while pounding the proverbial pavement like a shabby salesman on the verge of death that I learned that one cannot fail forever. The big story of success, in sales or in love, is actually many smaller stories of failures.

Every time I was rebuffed by a woman in furs or a man who really didn’t like comedy, I got closer to making a sale. Love is an opportunity and the more you put yourself out there, the luckier you get.

If you live in New York, or have ever visited, you’ve probably been approached by someone asking you if you like comedy or complimenting your hair. These people are young and peppy, like religious zealots. On the ladder of social invisibility, these street peddlers are a rung above hobo and a rung below street musician. They often don’t take no for an answer and will follow you for a few feet, insisting that you do like comedy or that your hair really is fabulous, no seriously. Tourists are usually pretty easy because they’re friendly, but they’re also budget-minded and on tight schedules, so there is rarely any profit in their chattiness.

You should know that these carny folk are not scammers. What they sell is legit, more or less. Comedy clubs and hair salons can never fill enough seats. They’re always in the market for more business. So there are promotional companies that sell discounts to these establishments. The catch is the purchaser of the comedy ticket, for instance, has to call the club in advance to secure a seat, which means you’re sometimes given odd hours and comedians who are still asking why the whole airplane isn’t made out of the black box. The promotion company prints their own tickets and hires a small army of eager young scamps to offer the general public these coupons. The discount is usually sizeable, but even with the markup, it’s usually less than what you’d pay at the box office or just showing up at the salon.

My first few months in Gotham City were typical. I lived in a “hotel” that only took cash. Ketchup was my primary vegetable. The labyrinthine subways gave me hives. I was a Dickensian street waif with barely a farthing or a tuppence to my name. A know-nothing yokel with a bindle full of cliché dreams fresh off a cheap flight from Texas. A dumb kid who had no idea how the world really works. I was broke and desperate and I had a degree in writing plays, which barely qualified me to collate marketing materials. Writing bleak, poetic dreamscapes for naked actors with puppets is not a skillset valued by temp agencies. But I was qualified to beg people for money.

I answered an ad for a job that required no experience, which meant I was almost over-qualified. When I called the company, I heard the first friendly voice I had heard in weeks. The “interview” was in a loft, conducted by someone young and happy. I remember being mightily impressed by the interviewer’s fashion style and up until that point in my life I had never even considered fashion style. He was impossibly hip, with his charcoal grey turtleneck and his leather pants. I accepted the job, which was 100 percent commission. The next morning, I was trained and immediately thrown out into the street with a team of naïve losers. I was a capitalist stormtrooper.

Here’s what I learned, and it applies to dating. Love is an opportunity. Cold selling anything means you have to have an appetite for rejection. A hunger to fail. A salesman gets rejected 80 percent of the time, but he makes his living from the 20 percent of the time he succeeds. Every time I was rebuffed by a woman in furs or a man who really didn’t like comedy, I got closer to making a sale. Love is an opportunity and the more you put yourself out there, the luckier you get.

From selling comedy tickets I learned to always make contact. Always listen, because someone who’s talking to you is someone who is interested. Don’t pursue the person or they’ll retreat. Smile.

Of course, I made exactly one sale before quitting.

The team leader, a jaunty gent a few years my senior who wore a brilliantly colored scarf straight out of the musical “Rent,” and who would tell me how he pulled down the kingly sum of 75K a year selling tickets, had a unique motivational technique. He would call one hour lunch breaks and invite anyone who had made money to eat with him. I spent one particular lunch watching him slurp down piles of Chinese food while my stomach ate itself.

Then, right after lunch, hunger commanded that I make some money. There she was, coming right at me, a beautiful young woman. We made eye contact. She stopped to talk to me. I believe she was the first woman in New York to give me the time of day. Most could smell the poor on me. I performed according to the textbook. I made my pitch. I put the tickets in her hand. We bantered. She was studying dance at Julliard and laughed at my jokes. Then … I lied. Here was the most important lesson: the wages of douche is self-loathing.

I told her I was a comedian and my mother was coming in from out of town to see me perform for the first time. But in order to perform, I had to sell a certain amount of tickets. It gets worse. She really wanted to help me, but didn’t have cash. So I volunteered to walk her to an ATM machine. Before she pulled out 20 bucks, I suggested that she buy extra tickets and resell them to her friends at her own markup. Buy three tickets for 60 dollars, then sell her friends the extra tickets for $25. It would still be cheaper than if they bought them at the club, but she’d make a little money too. She asked if I’d be at the club. I said yes. She asked if they’d card for booze there. I said yes. I took her money and gave her a fake name. Then I quit.

Bloodier money has been made. I spent that 60 bucks on bread and PBJ and beer. I bought a tie that wasn’t stained. When you lie to get what you want, you get what you deserve. I won’t boast that she was interested in me, but what if? I remember her distinctly. She had freckles on her cheek. A tangle of licorice hair pulled up into a ponytail. Her smile was the promise of summer on a cold winter day. She might have been a friend. Someone who could have told me not to stare up at the buildings so much or that all yellow trains don’t all go to the same places. She could have been a warm human connection worth so much more than 60 measly dollars.

Rejection hurts. It feels like dreaming you’re an eagle and waking up a penguin. But it’s not a stop, it’s a step. So remember to make eye contact. Smile. Say hello. Listen. If love stops for you, never lie to its face.

Learning how to deal with rejection is all about attitude and perspective.
When a woman rejects you, or insults you it's about smiling, say thanks or acknowledge their
opinion and realize it's their loss. Whether it's sales or dating, it's about the fact that
sometime down the road it will serve you more than it will serve them.

I would however add this, in the event you meet them again, take it as an opportunity to be
the better person, don't see it as a chance for getting even or being mean. Be gracious, be
polite and just take the opportunity to show that what they did/said hasn't phased you one bit.

I love the last line

Rejection hurts. It feels like dreaming you’re an eagle and waking up a penguin. But it’s not a stop, it’s a step. So remember to make eye contact. Smile. Say hello. Listen. If love stops for you, never lie to its face.

Mind Of Man: What Men Think About Menstruation
John DeVore



When I was a little kid, my teenage sister explained to me that she had become a woman. This meant that for one week out of the month, I had better do exactly what she tells me. I would never know exactly when that week would be, so for my sake, she lovingly suggested I play it safe and stay out of her way. Because during that week, she would be going through a natural change that happens to all grown adult women and she wouldn’t be able to control her rage.

So, largely, I did what my older sister told me, because it was obvious that she was a werewolf.

How would you feel if a man’s penis molted once a month and we had to apply copious amounts of salve to our raw member?

Men don’t really think about menstruation, because we don’t have to think about menstruation. We don’t have uteruses. Male genitals are embarrassingly simple. Our junk is a Speak N’ Spell. A woman’s private parts are more like an iPad. Once, in this column, I wondered what it would be like to have a ladyflower for a day. If only to get some answers.

It is difficult to empathize with biological functions that are radically different to your own. How would you feel if a man’s penis molted once a month and we had to apply copious amounts of salve to our raw member? You’d try to be understanding as best you could, but you wouldn’t really understand. But I bet you’d respect our space and our strange lizard wangs. Men don’t think about menstruation. But we know the best way how to deal with it: with a healthy amount of respect.

That respect is, partly, born of awe. I am in awe of your baby space pod. Maybe I have womb envy? I’m serious when I write that my sperm bells are low-tech compared to your belly ducts. But then again, I am genuinely baffled and amazed by the human body in general. I mean, even the simplest bodily functions. What’s the deal with tears? I call them face rain. Bellybuttons are crumb pockets. Fingernails? Mega-hair.

I am sure there are men out there who are grossed out by their woman’s period, which, in many ways, is nature’s way of saying “pulling out worked … this time!” These men think menstruation is dirty, and that by extension, women are dirty. As if women were cursed by God for the crimes of Eve, who just wanted to know what was up. When, in fact, I’m fairly sure that the Almighty was so pleased with the creation of the female of the species, an upgrade on the beta test male, that the Almighty might have invented menstruation as a minor handicap in order to prevent the inevitable conquest of men by a few hundred thousand years.

Are there really men who wrinkle their noses in disgust about the most natural thing in the world? Who are these men? Salem witch trial judges? I just can’t believe they exist. Men who are physically repulsed by a woman’s monthly cycle are not having sex. It’s part of the deal. If the man you’re dating is insensitive about your period I’m willing to bet he’s insensitive about a lot of things. Don’t judge him because he acts like a spoiled brat when your body does that thing that allows the human race to survive. Judge him because, and I think I’m guessing correctly here, he’s a fully rounded jerk.

Let me dispel some rumors about men and your bloody visitor. First of all, men are total cowards when it comes to blood. Think about how many times you’ve seen your own blood. Once a month since adolescence, barring a pregnancy or some medical condition? I’ve been hit in the back of the head by a surfboard. That’s one. I sliced my hand open once cutting tomatoes. That’s two. A couple of cocaine nose bleeds. Three and four. I’ve seen my own blood five or so times and each time I got a case of the vapors. I squeal like a little pink piggy wearing a little blue bonnet. We’re squeamish. You are woman. You are strong and mighty. Spotted panties, stained sheets and bloody tampons don’t freak me out, but once upon a time, yes, sexytime blood splatter totally did.

Then there was one of my first girlfriends who insisted we have sex during her crimson tide. Insisted, pleaded and even tried to bully me. I really didn’t want to, but it was an extremely important political statement that she felt I had to make. Sex is messy. Messy and stinky, that’s how Big Dog likes it. Messy sex is proof you’re doing it right. But it was messy. “Saw V” messy. I learned then that some women are super horny during their period. This is cool. Dry humping is highly underrated. I was happy I learned that lesson, but to this day, I think I was just a prop to this girlfriend in her own one woman gender identity show.

A little more truth. First, the obvious—most men greet menstruation with relief as it is proof that their sexual partner is not swollen with lust spawn. Another thing you should know is that we’re generally proud to go out in torrential downpours to buy you tampons. Why would any man be embarrassed by that? Every dude should know exactly what brand his woman uses. It’s the closest any of us will ever get to being sent on a Navy SEAL mission. Proof that your caveman can go out and come back with whatever tampon or pad you need.

Here’s another myth I’d like to dispel: women talk more about “PMS” than men. Most of the time, I’m unaware that a girlfriend is experiencing “PMS” unless she tells me. That is your hang up, not ours. I’ll be honest, too. It’s not like men aren’t moody. I’m pretty sure I man-struate four weeks out of the month. I am one emotionally bouncy bloke. The idea that men are uniformly stoic and women are basket cases is hilariously wrong. Being nutters isn’t a man/woman thing.

Oh, and if you show us where to place our manly fingers, and then openly communicate about pressure and speed, then we’re more than happy to massage your cramps. This is another mission we’re eager to accomplish.

So hear me women! Moon goddesses! Holy vessels of life! I enthusiastically greet your noble, bloody flow! I bow before your mysterious loins! I honor your cycle, and duly offer up this pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chubby Hubby in tribute. I respect the peeling of your endometrial wall and so do most men. The human body is an amazing thing, isn’t it?

We respect your period and will deal with it like men. Men do not allow their ignorance to outweigh their love.

Except when it comes to werewolves.

Okay for the record I'm not afraid of the sight of blood, I have a great deal of respect for women because they get that monthly visitor.

I've been shot twice and believe me a few of my female friends have had babies, and I would take getting shot over child birth. You get shot it hurts like hell for about a week or two, but with child birth that's nine months of bearing it and then who knows how many hours to deliver it.

Believe me ladies you have all my respect and sympathy. I will admit you have to learn to read a woman so that you know when she's having one of those moments if she wants you to hold her, rub her back or her feet, or if she just wants you to stay the hell away unless you have chocolate or ice cream or both.

More men should think like you Sharky! You should start giving lessons

A ha!!!

If I gave guys lessons then I wouldn't be as special as I am.

As for getting shot, let's just say I was sticking up for a friend and it was the right thing to do.

thats right!!

Mind Of Man: What Men Think About Besides Sex (Which We Also Think About) BY John DeVore


There is a popular stereotype that men think about sex every seven seconds, which is absurd. Men take a break from thinking about sex every second seconds. That second is usually spent in quiet contemplation. Once that second if over, however, it’s right back to what all men always think about: hot sex. Hammering stuff with our pocket Mjolnir. Making the beast with two chests, because we’re feeling kinky.

In the future, if anyone is curious as to what men think about, just come directly to me. I will be your bro shaman. Because science should really be busying itself with more important work than proving stupid stereotypes are stupid.

Exploiting sexist stereotypes is a great way to make money, so I was greatly annoyed when I read that a recent study from Ohio State University used science to prove that, in fact, men think about more than sex. Those pioneering researchers are obviously intent on ruining the fun of those of us who employ sweeping gender generalities for fun and profit. What next, brainiacs? A study that proves women can drive? Groundbreaking research into whether or not brunch is fatal to men? How about proving that, in fact, women think about more than nagging, fashion and chocolate? A radical, paradigm-shifting scientific study that suggests there is evidence that supports a theory that women think about sex. A lot.

I am no scientist, but I’m going to go ahead and call this study junk. Human behavior is fascinating and deserving of intense scientific inquiry. But debunking sexist urban legends? Really, science? Yes, the whole “men think about sex every seven seconds” thing is sexist. It’s an insult to both men and women, really. This cliché just reinforces old gender norms. Men are sexual Neanderthals. Women are defined by their virtue, which is to say, their precious virginity, which once upon a time was nothing more than currency. The idea that men are prisoners of their sexual desires is one that plays to a prejudice that serves to keep us all just behaving in boring and predictable ways. Of course men don’t think about sex every minute of the day.

One of the hilarious conclusions out of Ohio State is that men think about food and sleep as well as sex, which is great news, because that explains why I’m not dead. Here’s some news: when two people are really into each other, when they can slip into each other’s skin and breathe with each other’s lungs and every soft touch turns every nerve ending into a little mouth that sighs, then they both think about sex, all the time, even when they’re asleep.

In the future, if anyone is curious as to what men think about, just come directly to me. I will be your bro shaman. Because science should really be busying itself with more important work than proving stupid stereotypes are stupid. You want to know what men think about? Besides sex? We think about shoes. We think about geology, because we’re all standing on an ever-shifting, throbbing, boiling rock spinning around in circles. We think about Batman and money and if our boss respects our work. We think about gardening and war and our beer belly. Am I good enough? Will I succeed? Am I a good friend?

We think, a lot, about what you’re thinking. We think about the way you sleepily stretch into the space we leave in the bed when we get up, like the tide rushing to fill in a footprint. We think about how to make you laugh because your nose wrinkles up when we say something you think is really funny. We think about your dreams, and the words you whisper to us when ours get dented. On our commute in the morning we think about when we get to see you next. At work, we think about instant messaging you. When we’re out with our bros, having a brorgy, we think about busting balls, and buying beers, and what you’re doing. We think about whether or not we’re the men our fathers hoped we’d grow up to become. We think.

interesting as always

YES...To say the least

Little Grand Dad said that's very interesting (LOL)

Did he now?

Tell him I said Hi!!! Im blowing him kisses too

Just wondering out loud....

Books that should be written or re-written

Jayla "The Art of Erotic Dance"
Tamela "Kissing: The Lost Art of Eroticism"
Sharky: "How to Get Rid of The Evidence"
Cami: "My Hello Kitty Lifestyle"

I was going to comment on that OSU study, but I got distracted by the insanely hot B&W photo of you!

Ah ha..thanks beautiful!! Ditto!! I love ur pics!!

Hee hee..great ideas!!!

That's so cute!

YES, sharky is so creative!