Marriage: Ding dong the spark is .. dead?

I live in a region where it's just not okay to respond to a big ole jolly 

"Hey how you going?"

with the truth e.g. 

"Fucked actually. I haven't slept for four months, my lip has just erupted into a toxic volcano of a cold sore, my husband is wanking himself stupid over, well, every other female of any species but me and my toilet stinks of piss no matter what I do". 

The correct response is 'Yeh cool, great actually thanks. You?' and so the cycle continues.

But today's spiel isn't about my toilet stinking of piss. No. It's about marriage..

Marriage.  Could it be a hoax?  We've all, as little girls, heard fairytales '...and they lived happily ever after' ad nauseum just before we've dropped off to sleep, smiling that one day our day will come.  Silly thing is the tale shouldn't END there, it should start there "Once upon a time there was a man and a lady and they decided it would be nice to get married because, well, that's just what one does...".

No-one told me about the reality of marriage. That it isn;t just a one off commitment and off you go down the path of eternal love and joy.  To be honest, I can't work out why men get married.  They do it, nearly pass out uttering 'I do', enjoy, maybe the first year-ish and then spend the rest of their married days navigating (or not) their wifes' complex emotional needs whilst surpressing their urge (or not) to get with other chicks.

From what I've observed, blokes simply get over their wives sexually.  They get tired of them and the same old shagging routine, and tired of her  body which, as it ages and produces babies loses its hardness and suppleness, and so loses the interest of hubbybandido.  

If you want my opinion, porn is up there in the top three possible culprits. I believe it works its way into the brains of our men so that what ends up being branded on their minds as beautiful and attractive is blonde, fake tit-ted, bleached arse holed chicks (who have probably been crying their eyes out in the bathroom right after they gave themselves an enema in readiness for the impending butt fuck scene).  

And porn isn't just lurking out there somewhere in the background of the internet either, it's everywhere now and it's totally free.  The flow on effect is that it desensitizes us to explicit visual stuff which can be evidenced every time you walk in a news agency or watch the television or read the papers who all celebrit-ize women who have done nothing worthy of their fame, holding up women who are totally physically faked out, yummy mummies, post baby bikini bodies .... these women are nothing to do with us.   Nothing to do with us REAL women who are out there doing everything we can to keep our heads above water just maintaining harmony in the home, making sure we are providing a beautiful nurturing envirnment for our kids, our hubbies, ourselves.  It ain't nothing to do with reality.  

We have totally lost touch with it and the worst thing is, these women become like some kind of standard.  A benchmark of ultimate beauty.  For me, what is important is health.  There is nothing like a good healthy, strong beautiful female body and to aim for that is a noble goal.  What we see everywhere in the media however are bodies that are 'fixed' to fit kinda porn star templates.

As a young woman I rejected all that shit, absolutely.  I did everything I could to express my rejection of female beauty ideals.  Now as a married woman with a hubby who enjoys looking at young, beautiful women, I do find myself feeling inadequate next to them.  My female psyche is under constant barrage from every angle, constantly struggling to retain self confidence in what I do have, trying to distance myself as a woman from these images for my sake and for my daughters'.  It's not easy, it is constant and as I age is getting harder and harder.  

 I don't want to even be thinking about this stuff.  There are way more important things to be thinking about, how to give back, contributing to the community in which we live and work, raising aware, healthy children and as a middle aged woman drawing on life's experiences to become wiser and more rounded.  

Maybe the current model of marriage needs to be revised?  Do our husbands suffer from 'wife fatigue'?  Are we really cut out for this long term monogamous stuff?  I believe yes to each of these questions.  I wonder where we go from here...

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bratzzzzzz

bratz dolls. aw, they sound so...cheeky, cutely mischevious, innocent, harmless, benign.

but. for me, i find them utterly, totally offensive. not just as a mother of a young daughter but also as a wo-man. yes i sound like a burly ole lezza. a diesel dyke, a grass muncher (oh god apologies to the gay community...i'll get to the point) but, the fact is i'm just a boring ole, mid 30's summat mama looking at these mutants in the toy's aisle and wondering why mothers aren't burning these places down!

why, oh why, are you getting your knickers in a twist over a flickn' DOLLY, bidster, i hear you cry.

look. our little girls are only little once. no inhibitions, perfect natural beauty, singing,playing, fascinated by the great outdoors and mother nature's fruits and then...we give them little prostitutes to play with. fantastic.

to me, they represent something really stinking rotten about where we're at as women and mothers. and even worse we're handing this down to our innocent, unsuspecting daughters.

our little girls don't need to be gazing at little, plastic porn stars whilst they're in that valuable 'play-zone' where everything else pales into insignificance apart from them and their toys.

these dolls are turning our daughters' minds to make up, big hair, teeny tiny skirts, bras (BRAS for five year olds FFS!)..basically all the accessories of a fully sexually active ADULT. take a really good look at one next time you find yourself in the toy's aisle. is there any part of a bratz doll you think is adding value to your child's playtime?

our children have the right to a childhood, to be little kids. do we really need to force this shit on our girls? aren't things tough enough as we age as women? could we not, at the very least, give something of worth to our girls; teach them a self confidence that goes beyond any kind of look that says 'yup, i put out'.

and that's why these dolls are so particularly hateful. because these dolls' image is burning itself onto our girls' minds as the way to look, to be.

we had a neighbour once whose little girl was 7 years old. she was well and truly indoctrinated into all things american but particularly the bratz thing. she would come over and talk about her weight problem and that she needed to lose weight by walking everyday with her mother (total nightmare), constantly talk about people in terms of how pretty they were, how their hair was, what they were wearing and so on and so forth. and she isn't alone. i hear it and i see it every time i get on a bus or go to the shopping centre.

and of course, bratz aren't solely to blame for this twisted mess, the whole picture is vast and complex, but as a doll they are playing an important part in the child's play. these dolls belong in a damned sex shop not with our children.

and before you say anything, i'm no wierdy prude. i believe in women having a healthy sexuality whatever that is, of course, but i also believe that kids have a right to their childhood and to learn about sex and the feminine wiles when the time is right and it ain't at 4 years old.

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mother hubbard, you're such a zero

yup, another sucker adding to the flotsam of the Flash Gordon-esque swamp of junk, that is blogworld.. disillusioned by the petty, apathetic hogwash on facebook i have jumped ship to share my neurotic ramblings and wonderings right here in the midst of the din.

my 'profile'?  who cares? well, it's polite, an ice breaker, some foreplay, courteous smalltalk before the meat (ugh)...mother of 2, living on the other side of the world to which i was born (grammar?), kids are steiner educated (relevant?), i surf now and again, am married, mid thirties and that'll do.

so let's get to the meat.  lately, and for some years now, i have pondered the situation us women have found ourselves in.  a brief dalliance with feminism during university years often left me isolated from my business degree peers (say no more and no loss there) though handed me membership to a select bunch of wannabe freaks.  rightly, or wrongly, my role models were courteney love, kat bjelland and pj harvey at the time.  i tried to establish a riot grrl group at my university which died dismally before it was even birthed.  my peers simply didn't give a bald monkey's testicle about human rights let alone what a couple of whingey-woo, stinky looking girls had to say, but then i was in the middle of a snakes nest of right wing, white trash, personality-free, capitalist-y type, absolute wankers.  yes, it was all wrong.  the whole thing. relevance?  apathy even back then, even at a time when independent thought was s'posed to be at some kind of prime.  

so, ladies, mamas, chicas, girls, sisters...where are we at?  whatsdahapps lady-loos?  looking around i see too-skinny models, bras for 5 year old girls, labia plastic surgery (god i hadn't even thought to measure those little pups up), the hell that is the MILF and yummy mummy phenomena (like.  get fucked.), more plastic surgery just for the hell of it, bratz dolls (grrrrr), glee at celebrity fuckups' lives,  a major increase in eating disorders in young girls, ads ads and more ads showing airbrushed, bizarre looking versions of 'beauty'.  gahhhhh where do i even start?  our gender is a contorted, twisted, fucked up, deformed HEAP.

the female phases...maiden, mother, crone.  well, our poor maidens are just bombarded so damned hard by the blessed media they don't know which bit to pump up, lop off, suck off, spray on next, and even when they do there's always more work to be done.  but that's okay because they can turn to their mothers for guidance and light, right?  

as mothers, with our aura of dough around our thighs and bellies (and i won't even start on our tits), we are invisible and undervalued but that's okay because we can turn to our mothers and their mothers for guidance, support and wisdom only, oh wait...our mothers are fucked up baby boomers and their mothers, our crones...  our dear old, wise women are shoved into old people's homes, forgotten, attending tragic wednesday afternoon sing-a-longs to strangers with strangers; their  valuable lifelong experiences and wisdom unheard, gathering dust in concrete bunkers around the western world.  apparently useless.

country? australia.  state?  a sorry one that's what.

so.  who are the perpetrators of such a heinous and deadly crime?  men, yes? hmmm i'm not so sure anymore.  i speak to my husband about this (he treads very carefully and looks nervous).  he asks (in a whisper, trembling.  upper lip has broken into a sweat) who edits the women's magazines that broadcast these images of photoshopped beauty?  women, i say...  who buys these magazines, he questions?  okayyy, women, i say...  he goes on, who buys the bratz dolls?  mothers, i say, tapping my foot and starting to show 'closed' body language...   and, he asks, (he's getting so cocky now i could DECK him) who's buying the bras for their daughters?  yes yes MOTHERS I scream BUT i say, BUT (stabbing the air) who's watching the PORN buddyboy?  (..and that's another show..).

seriously though, it's food for thought.  are we, as a gender, imploding in on ourselves?  are we perpetuating some dreadful, insidious legacy from wayback when? are we now doing this shit to ourselves?   i know when i do make an effort and get all glammed up (oh the comedy), it isn't men who compliment me it's my girlfriends, female relatives, other women (hmmmm maybe that's another issue).  

what is feminism anymore?  what does it mean to be a woman these days?  i don't know that we can point the nail varnished finger at the ole floppy sausage anymore.    we need to look at ourselves as women and as mothers to the new generation of girls.  it's a responsibility we carry and we owe it to our little girls.  easier said than done.  we have to truly love our saggy tits and jelly thighs and transcend the physical in spite of every damned media atom in the universe conspiring against us and our natural, life giving bodies.