Sex in a Life-Mad Society

Life in a sex MAd society by Joyce Huggett is a Christian book aimed at teenagers offering them "guidance" (ie the fear of God) in the realm of relationships and sex.

It was given to me during my days at Bible youth group...Actually, I lie, it was given to my best friend. The fact it ended up in my possession says something about me I think.

When I first read this book, I was about 15 and it made me laugh and scoff. When I reread it at around 19 - when I actually had a boyfriend - it made me livid. Now, I read it and it's all about the laughs again.

It's so manipulative, it's hilarious - though obviously not if you are a confused 16 year old with a hormone flux and a hot boyfriend/girlfriend.

What has always angered me the most about the book is the assumption that all young people have the will power of a wet noodle. It advises never to be alone with your beloved, never to lie down together, never to wear tight jeans and low cut tops, never to let a tongue in your gob and certainly never to have a quick grope - because surely within 10 seconds you will be shagging like dogs and all thoughts of His Loveliness will be gone FOREVER.

And the part that most made me fling the book across the room is the chapter on meddling with non-Christians. The anecdote about the poor sap who married the evil non-Christian devil-worshipping gal who apparently CONTROLS HIS EVER THOUGHT AND MOVE so he now doesn't pray, read the Bible or go to church is the worst. I'm surprised he didn't also say his hair was falling out, he'd lost his job and children pointed at him in the street. Heathens can do that, you know?

Anyway, I shan't rant on, instead I thought I'd share with you some of the LOLworthy illustrations to aid us on our journey of how to be jiggy-jiggy within the Lord's eye line.

Now this illustration shows us HOW to be a couple within Lordy limits. Ensure any shenanigans such as kissing are done in public, preferably on an open, moving vehicle such as a fairground ride. Lips should be dryly pushed together - no unholy tongue - and most importantly, ensure your crotch is as FAR AWAY from the girl as is humanly possible. Hands should not be on each other but holding onto something solid to prevent any accidental stumbles and knobs slipping into mouths/vaginas.

Now, far be it from me to make racial slurs against this book but....this is a chapter about how the evil media makes us all want to bump uglies. They show this with random blackdude and non-quite-Tina Turner. It all goes back to the introduction of the black man's music into rock and roll. It turned normal teens into greasy, over-sexed, spunk buckets. It clearly all makes Not-quite-Tina angry.

Ah the petting problem. When a hand job turns to hell. Now this poor couple clearly are having a petting problem - largely because she is actually giving a handy to a bloke off to the right. Poor side-parting fellow is devastated and rejected. We can tell this because his tie is undone. This is illustration code for sinful and slack-moralled.

Poor, poor sex mad dolly. She is here to show us that if you have THE SEX then bad things will happen to you. You will be tied to a gatepost, develop a habit of smoking dog-ends, get unruly hair and DEAR GOD let us not talk of what happens to your FEET when you shag. She smiles, but that is a vacant smile of one with knots for feet. Under her pretty yellow dress her vag is equally as yellow with the POISON of sexual sin.

Sing with me Kids From Fame fans - "Hi-fidelity, high, high high high". Monogamy, not a board game, more a bored game (according to Derek Jarman, who they quote.) Yes this insanity in coloured pencil is here to show us that 2 girls bad, 1 girl old enough to be your mother, in pink tights - GOOD. Don't believe me? Here's a close up.

EEEH gads. Now see that poor angry fella top left, he is angry at being left out of an orgy going on the other side of the red (for sin) door. See how he makes a fist and wants in. But he is left with the twee sisters and their sensible shoes. Meanwhile, on the other side of the castle wall (I mean WTF?) leaping off a swing is happy monogamous man. Though he does not look very happy. He looks like he is flinging Sharon Osbourne there from his lap in horror as he realises she is actually his mum. Still, he at least got it half right. See first illustration - only indulge in sexy times whilst on some moving outdoor item. They really take swinging to a whole new level.

Ah now, we come to the Illustration which I personally subtitle "I'll never date Christian men if this is what they all look like". Polo shirts, sweaters and glasses (or an unfeasible HUGE head). The happy Christian girls though, how they laugh to be in such scintillating company. Ah but is that why they are so chipper? Or is it because chappy on the right is actually tearing up his copy of Life in a Sex Mad Society so they can all have a guilt-free gang bang once the pizza's gone down?

And that, my friends, is only HALF of it! Oh the sexy, sinful, watercolour joys that are yet to come!

Tattle tail telling tales

Something on twitter - and online life in general - drives me absolutely batty. Actually, a lot of things do, hence my reputation for ranting in twitlonger. But the thing that's winding me up today is the concept of "talking behind someone's back".

In real life it's something that irritates me, and for years watching Big Brother it's always wound me up as well. In fact, it is the very thing that (should be health not be sucky) would stop me auditioning to become a contestant (there's also the fact I wouldn't want to poo in front of the nation, and I would go clinically catatonic without the internet).

For me, the whole concept of "talking behind someone's back" is - to put it bluntly - a crock of shit.

We ALL do it. All the time. Anytime you talk about someone and they are not in the same room and can hear every word you say, you are talking behind their back.

It is not neccesarily a bad thing. A lot of the time, I think it's a perfectly healthy thing.

I know in my own group of friends I talk behind the backs of my other friends, and I assume they do the same about me. I don't mind in the slightest.

The fact is, they are my friends, they want to stay my friends but some things I do annoy, bother, worry or bore them. That's fine, because obviously those things are not enough to outweigh the wonderousness that is me, or they'd simply drop me as a friend.

So, I think it's perfectly healthy for them (or me) to be able to have a wee moan and a laugh and roll their eyes at my foibles, knowing that DESPITE those things, they still love me.

Now, if they were telling other parties who DON'T love me negative stuff about me - without tailoring it with positivity - or spilling private information then that's a different kettle of fish as it's clearly being done to hurt me or belittle me as a person when they claim to love me.

Howver, when it comes to people I don't know well or don't love, I couldn't give a knat's toss about that. Why should I? If they don't like me, it's likely BECAUSE of the behaviours they are having a rant about. So they are entitled to that opinion or feeling and they are just entitled to express that - in what ever manner they like. I'm not going to change for them so I don't need to know about it.

I don't understand why i should WANT to hear about it. If they chose to tell me, fair enough. But why should I DEMAND to know every person's opinion of me? It's ego of the highest order.

And this is where the internet aspect of it comes in. People seem to be under the impression that the internet is the equivalent of one big room, and as we're all in it, we should all be allowed to hear and partake in every conversation going.

It's not accurate at all. It's more like a massive city, with houses and buidlings and rooms. Some are public with many people in them, some are privvate and you can only enter with permission.

If someone is talking about you on the internet, there is absolutely no need for them to address you specifically, or make you aware about it. It's like someone is talking about you at the bus stop, and you happen to walk past and hear them. Are you going to berate them for talking about you and not TO YOU, simply because you exist in the same world as them?

If you saw someone in the street you didn't know, and they were behaving in a way you didn't like - nothing illegal or immoral, just not your taste - would you feel the need to go up to them  and TELL THEM? Or would you go home and tell a member of your family or a friend about the rude person you saw today?

I don't know about you, but about 75% of what I talk about is other people - their lives, their actions, their feelings - I'm not going to go and find each one and tell them everything I've said about them.

It's exactly the same on the internet. Blog and social sites like Twitter exist for people to be able to express themselves freely, without cencorship. (well, to a degree)

On the other hand, it is important to remember that unless you set your tweets to protected - or the equivalent on other sites- what you are saying IS going out into the ether for all to see.

That's not to say you should watch what you say, self-censorship or have to justify your every thought. It merely means that you can't expect not to be JUDGED on what you say and do.

Just as the example of the person on the street, we make judgements about the people we see in life and online every single day. It's how we decide who to be friends with, who to socialise with and who to agree with.

You can't get angry when people judge you on your words or actions and decide they don't agree with you, or like you very much.

There was in fact a legal precedent set recently where someone who WAS being judged by her tweets, tried to bring a courtcase over those judging her. She lost, because her twitter account was public and the words were her own and truthful, so people were allowed to make a judgement call from that.

As I said above though, what we DON'T have a right to is to demand people explain why they don't like us, demand they give every thought about us to our face and act betrayed when they don't.

Unless of course you HAVE told every single person you've ever encountered what you have ever thought about them? From your first teacher, to your granny, to the man who served you in Starbucks. No? You haven't? Then the hypocrisy that you accuse others of is staring you right in the face.

Beck, the scientologist nutter, is quite right

I had planned to start this blog with an introductory post about me, my life, who I am, but due to unforeseen moronic circumstances, I am delaying it in favour of the stuff that is currently top of my brain, like a tupenny falls machine being shoved off the edge by the thoughts building up behind it. Last in, first out.

So, forgive me, you will have to wander into my life like tuning into a film half-way through (and you can't even look up my plot on Wiki....at least I hope not. *Googles self* No...no, you can't.). We'll do the blog version of catch-up/+1 another day.

Yes, as the title says Beck and some random internet people are right. I AM a loser - but don't kill me.

I lose many things. Largely socks, hairbrushes, ballpoint pens, money, my sense of direction, my dignity, hope and - in this instance - patience.

I have lost patience with people who think it's fun and funny to go through life demanding what they want, giving not a thought for others on the way, and then hold their hands up with a poor-me "whaaaaaaaaaaaaat?" when you mention it may not be the nicest of behaviours.

To be honest, I am by nature a pretty patient and forgiving person (too forgiving my brother has always said) and I can veer into the territory of bleeding heart liberal with my instinct to understand and tolerate bad behaviour in many people. But even Saint Me is pushed to my limits. I have my buttons which can be pressed.  And ingratitude, a sense of entitlement and selfish, self-centred behaviour is right up there.

There are lots of behaviours I can witness without feeling the need to butt my over-sized arse into, largely when I think it's deliberately being done to provoke a reaction, or I can see the person exhibiting it is coming from a bad place and is acting out.

One of the main reasons a lot of other people overlook unsocial, unpleasant behaviour is because the perpetrators are young. "They're only young, they don't know" "Oh they're just young and having fun."

Well, you know, my niece is 3. When she was visiting recently we were playing Prince and Princesses (short but complex story mixing dragons, Sleeping Beauty and sometimes Spiderman and the Green Goblin). I - thinking I was being fabulous imaginative Auntie - took the story into an unexpected turn. This was not so fabulous, apparently. Niece didn't like it, shouted at me for doing it wrong and stormed out of the room in a huff because the game was not going the way she wanted it to.

2 minutes later she came back into the room with a sorrowful look on her face, gave me a hug and a kiss and apologised for her behaviour. No one had told her to do that, she had come to the conclusion herself that she was not behaving or playing nicely and you don't do that to someone who is being nice to you.

Now, if a 3 year old can come to that realisation herself, why can't grown young men and women?

And if it is coming from a place of ignorance, I can understand that, but the only way to solve ignorance is education. So, I felt I had to say something. And I have. This means that, like warnings to a toddler, if they do it again they are aware what they are doing is wrong and so there's no more excuses. And we can only assume their intention is either to deliberately hurt or - as I suspect is the case - they simply don't give a rat's ass about the feelings or happiness of anyone else but themselves.

Oh, while we're here let me also briefly (*snerk*) touch on the subject of jealousy. Whilst being a loser, I am also jealous. Yes, I am.

I am jealous of Jodie Marsh and her ability to earn a good living from seemingly being an utter twat.
I am jealous of my friend's husband, Lee, who exists entirely on a diet of meat, potatoes and Pepsi - not a single fruit or veg in sight - and yet is as thin as a rail, horrificly healthy and has all his own teeth.
(or course he could drop dead before 40 in which case I will no longer be jealous of him, but will be jealous of my friend who will be quids in with a massive life insurance and will no longer have to put up with her home-cooked meals being thrown against the wall)
I am jealous of people like the stunningly beautiful Adele, who can move people to their core by simply opening her mouth.
I am jealous of every woman who ever slept with my husband (uh before he WAS my husband, I hasten to add) because part of me wants to be his only ever. (but on the other hand, you taught him well ladies- thank you)
I am jealous of Brian Froud and other fantasy artists who can create such beautiful ugly creatures out of their imaginations and depict them in watercoloury gorgeousness.
I am jealous of people who I know who are just "ok" in the personality department but who seem to attract millionaire friends like wasps to jam and get massive cash hand outs with the simplest bat of an eyelid.
I am jealous of people who have 2 toilets in their home
I am jealous of people who can go about their every day lives, going to work, going shopping, meeting friends - all in one day - without having to ration their energy or know that every minute of good time will be met with an hour of painful recovery afterwards.

Yes, there are people I am jealous of, but none of them were at a party in London on Friday night.