Prolific Immigrant

Very often, women are pitted against one another, so many represented as not being “a girl’s girl.” You know these women, we all know at least one woman around whom we are uncomfortable when they get too drunk and start show-boating for male attention. The woman who would justify sleeping with the man on whom you are crushing because “it’s not like he was into her, and why shouldn’t I? If I avoided every man who every one of my friends liked…, there’d only be 30 billion more…”

You know her. And she turns your stomach. And you should pity her because usually, her self worth rests entirely in the realm of how men react to her. And woah is her when her looks shift.

Listen. I too need attention from men. When I don’t even know I need it, and I suddenly get it, I would be a lying liar who lies were I to lie: It doesn’t affect me, I don’t even notice it. And when it’s from a boy I actually like, even better. I am overrun with a hysteria that amounts to a mass email / text to all of my female friends, and where my phone is broken, I will send smoke signals that HE SMILED AND SAID HI AND DO YOU THINK MY OUTFIT IS OKAY, SMOKE SIGNAL LOOKS A LITTLE BLOATED, etc.

But for a normal healthy woman with her self-esteem recipe in good shape, this comes in measured doses. It is not a daily thing, but rather a once in a while thing. Our self-worth is composite of an awareness of what we bring to the human table, rather than what we bring to — specifically — the male table.

That girl mentioned above, contrary to what media keeps trying to shove into my head, is not the norm. Or maybe I have just been blessed with most of the women in my life. (And I hope that you are, too.) She is not the norm.

The norm is women who love one another deeply.
Women who love one another even when we want to punch the other one in her stupidity.
Women who support one another when there is nothing left to say, but only the deepest most heart stopping pain to manage.
Women who tell one another that they are better, that they deserve better, that they can do better, that they will do better, and that they don’t have to show their boobs to get there. But if they did, “then I’ll help you get the right bra, but I would just like to raise my hand and say that I don’t think you need to show your boobs to get this. Let’s go shopping! I love you.”

That is the norm; these women, are the norm.
And if you don’t know these women, then you need to seek them out, to learn from them, and to become one of them. Trust that they will enrich your life, as they do mine.

All of the above to say, please read this article by Emily Rapp, an ode to the beauty and power of female friendship, the love story that all too often goes unsung. A snippet: I was that desperate mother now; it was my baby who was going to die, and soon. It was already too late. I literally could not bear it. I asked for help and I got it. My friends stood with me in the middle of the scary, sky-howling road I was on, knowing they couldn’t take away the pain of the experience, but promising to be there when I emerged on the other side of the grief tunnel when my child would be gone. I feel them, every day, standing there as I stumble through the blissful, heart-breaking hours with my son whose brain and body fail him a little bit more each day. It is not an exaggeration to say that I would not have survived – that I will not survive — without my women friends.

Share it with the women you respect and hold dear. Share it with your daughters to lead by example, and to remind them that their strength is not in how men react to them, but also — if not more importantly — in how women who know them, are women who respect and love them.

Thank you for your friendship.

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**As balance to the earlier article about when to pull support from friends, this is a necessity.

Do you love women? Do you respect women? Are you against sexualized violence? Abuse? Hate? Manufactured realities? Profit over people?

Then you need to watch the following riveting two part video, and you need to internalize every single thing said by the brilliant Jean Kilbourne, and then you need to share this with everyone you know.

Please find Jean Kilbourne here.

To Mothers
By Baraka Blue

To those mothers who buttered sandwiches
and lit loves lanterns when
sweet dreams turned into nightmares-
and cloaked us in radiant safety net bear hugs under covers and
sacrificed many a-night sleep like a coat over a puddle so our pillows stayed dry
and evaporated tears when we would cry, and
smiled at the clouds till they bowed gracefully to a blue sky
and answered all the times we asked, “why?”

to all those mothers who allowed faces to hide in pant legs
when we were shy
from strangers or neighbors or distant
family members who just wanted to say, “hi”
and who explained with true amazement
the transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly

to those mothers who peanut buttered sandwiches,
and read books… over.. and over… and over again.
until she could noose Dr. Seuss
but when that, “please, mommy, please” eyes plead mouth squeezed chubby cheeks… gapped teeth
her heart melts and she reads….
just one more time.
and those words become sweet in her mouth because that warm
ball of innocent trust in her
curls up on her shoulder and she knows no sound sweeter than hearing him breathe.
and when the breathing gets deep… she looks deep into that glowing innocence and her heart weeps with overwhelming mercy-
for she is accessing the feeling nearest to God a human being can experience.
Love.
unconditional mercy… compassionate love.
true selfless, gentle, nurturing, life giving, soul cleansing, spirit raising,
Love.

for all those mothers who buttered sandwiches
and taught young boys in a society so sick and deprived of Love- to Love
and young girls to find Love deep within themselves and watered seeds to full flown flowers unfolding petals gracefully in concrete habitats and old rusty ramshackle shacks in any desert or countryside anywhere and everywhere that mothers…
butter sandwiches
or split coconuts, or make curries, or milk goats,
or steam rice, or warm bottles on stoves, or microwaves,
or hang clothes on lines in the sunshine

this is for those mothers…
who raise children to be lovers
and let youngins hog all the covers
and go to sleep last
making school lunches
and wake up first making breakfast and assembling outfits
who struggle and strain and bear the pain and don’t complain…
but smile.

this is for mothers
who had to be fathers…
and mothers….
and had to hide tears because there was no time for her own
when she was wiping away everyone else’s
this is for mothers… who never knew selfish
and never felt they deserved a congratulations, or a celebration, or a high station, or a standing ovation
but you do….
all of you.

and this is for mothers who bore abuse…
both physical and mental… from men who…
had mothers too… who raised them like you
but forgot what you taught…
and this is my pledge.
I promise I will not. ever. forget.
for every woman is a potential mother… and is a daughter who was an innocent ball of trust
who was held by a mother
who buttered sandwhiches…
if she was lucky.
and if not, all the more reason to treat her
like a mother would treat her….
who loved her
and peanut buttered sandwiches.

and this is for my mother. the one i owe love to.
because you are the one i know love through.
you are the closest thing I’ve ever known to purity.
to sincere over-whelming, overpowering, unconditional love and mercy over flowing
from your heart through your eyes when you look at me.
everything good in me
is from you.
and it is such an understatement to say….
but it is the most powerful thing language can display….
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.

Every day is mothers day. Happy Mother’s Day

Love,
your baby boy

I have noticed a disconcerting increase of late, an unprecedented display of self-pornification. Young women sexing the camera, or sexing one another. Mouths are open and inviting, tongues are licking, eyes are bed-roomed, breasts and asses are popping at interesting (and I can’t imagine comfortable) angles.

Any way you slice it, each of the images is a message of sex. It is not heart, nor conversation, not warmth nor intelligence, but rather pure and unapologetic pornification which reads “I’d like to get fkd by you, or her, or them, or that camera, or that homeless guy in the corner, or I’ll even take on The Republicans because I hear they’re pros at fkng people.”

They are pornified, and have not been told the two simplest secrets between a man and a woman: (1) there is nothing sexier than what happens behind closed doors; and, (2) sexy’s acme is when brain chemistry is set off before our bodies are.

Imagine how a young woman must feel when the bottom line is that much of her identity, if not all, is premised on her own self-pornification and self-objectification?

Imagine how a young woman must feel when the bottom line is that much of her identity, if not all, is falsified in order to please the gaze of men?

Imagine what we are teaching our young men, when these are the images we continue to project of ourselves?

This is where — though we have so much to thank of the North-American feminist movement — the feminist movement has failed us. At the very intersection of itself with the sexual revolution, it was derailed, and as central focus took the female body, rather than the female mind.

Pursued relentlessly was a woman’s right to do with her body as she pleased. Which, don’t get me wrong, is a necessity. I believe very strongly that a woman should have the right to choose what she will do with her body, while fully aware of the consequences and possible repercussions to these choices. Equally, I believe a woman should have the right to choose how she will exercise her mind, and where she will work, and what she will study, and whether she will raise a family.

What I do not support is a world wherein a woman feels that representing herself as pornified object is her only means of self-expression. That it is her driver, her identifying factor, the only face available. Because this? This, once again, alienates women from their right to choice.

And women’s rights must always be about choice.

Reality is, there is nothing more facile than getting laid. And where we once fought the male gaze as it pornified the female, we are now doing it to ourselves on their behalf.

For a moment, ask yourself why it is that young girls aged 6 have eating disorders because they are dissatisfied with their body “image.”

Ultimately, presenting oneself as nothing but a sex object is not self-respecting oneself (please. Please argue with me, if you will. I would love nothing more than to take up this point with someone foolish enough to argue that sexualizing ourselves is the road to self-respect). The flip-side to which is how can we demand respect of men if we can’t demand it of ourselves?

To recap: Fk and pornify yourself all you want; just don’t kid yourself about the reality of the world in which we live. Also, don’t tell me it is ‘empowerment’ to get laid. Empowerment is a body of multiplicity; it is having the right to education, to work, to safe and clean living, and to do with your body at a physical level what you wish.

Empowerment is the freedom to choose, while knowing that an alternative to this choice is ever available. And where young women are learning that self-pornification is the only road to self-actualization, there leaves no room for empowerment.

I was at a stop light watching a child who couldn’t have been older than four years old.

She was holding on to her father’s hand and hanging, legs and arms limp, then swaying, pulling, dropping her bottom back and her feet up, but never falling, occasionally looking up at her father and laughing in that way which only children can manage so casually.

The honest one that comes from deep inside their tummies.

She believed that grip was the only thing in the world she required to make her happy and safe.

I watched this little girl knowing that my father is the wall which protects me from the winds, the floor which protects me from the mud, and the roof which protects me from the rain. Once we become parents, the onus rests squarely on our shoulders to be the protectee rather than the protected. Recently, I have wished and prayed that I possessed the ability to be the reflection of this to him, but I could not; as his daughter, I will ever be swinging on his hand laughing.

Selfishly, I sometimes wish I could pass before my parents as I am incapable of understanding a world without them. And I guess this is where Faith kicks in strongest. Today, my parents too are children hanging and swinging from the hand of God…which is where I will eventually be, once they have crossed the bridge into Truth.

I love you, baba.

RIP Poppa Lloyd Wilson; may God’s embrace and mercy be all that our collective imagines it to be, multiplied by a million.

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Comments closed.

An interesting conversation has been brewing and cross-cutting among all of my girlfriends these past few days, in which the following is injected: “….yes, feeling beautiful comes from the inside, yada-yada-yada…I totally get that. I know I’m beautiful and no one can mess with that. BUT F*CK, can’t he just say it out loud? Like, there’s nothing worse than a man not telling his woman he thinks she’s smokin’. It places such a huge dent in me when he doesn’t say it, when he doesn’t acknowledge it, and it’s actually starting to turn me off because I don’t care if he stares at me, I need to know he loves what he’s staring at. OUT LOUD, already.”

Did you catch that boys?

This isn’t about her knowing she’s a hottie (that’s the inside part), but rather, it is about her confirming (yes repeatedly) that you, the man she digs finds her a hottie.

Crystal clear is the memory I have of the first man who ever told me I was beautiful. At university in sweats, runners and a t-shirt, with my hair a mess, I walked past this dude while he was working the bar at Oliver’s on campus. He pulled me over and simply said “I just have to tell you that I can’t stop looking at you. You are so beautiful.”

I stood dumbfounded.
No one had said that to me (except my momma) prior and so to hear it from a man set off an avalanche of squees and near nauseau throughout your WebMistress.

A feeling that has not subsided; a feeling which happens every single time I hear those words from a man, but most importantly, from a man for whose attentions I am vying.

That goes for all women I know; the ones who just started dating their men, and the ones married for 10 years. Even though every single woman I know has an unbelievable reserve of self-awareness both in terms of ability and beauty, each one of these women – myself included – also has a natural inclination to insecurity with regards our looks because we exist in a culture that places so very much emphasis on a woman’s beauty (and know full-well about the male inclination to visual.).

It seems that recently, there is an epidemic amongst the women I know, and one which is centered around their men not engaging these simple words or these simple acknowledgements.

Gentlemen, and on behalf of the Sisterhood: tell your woman out loud that you think she’s hot, because if you don’t, another man will and he will get big points (since the off-set of you never mentioning it actually works to heighten his comment).

If the reason that women like it and so appreciate your attention to detail isn’t enough of a reason for you, then let me break it down and make it all about you instead: When you tell your partner she’s gorgeous, it will turn her on. (Women? We’re selfish that way; maybe you can relate.)

Right. So for your edification, take a read through this article and note that: She needs to hear out-loud from you that you notice her and admire her. And, chose words like “sexy” or “beautiful” or “amazing”; women like words like this because they are bigger and make it seem like you really are thinking they look incredible at that particular moment. Stay away from bland and generic compliments like “you look nice” or “you look fine.” And one compliment that most women really don’t like is “you look cute”; she is not a puppy, she is a woman.

Sidebar: To the women who would say that the above is a slight to women, and women don’t need a man’s accolades to feel good. And to those idiot self-help writers who tell us that everything must come from within or else it is meaningless. You are lying liars who lie and exist in a perpetual sea of self-delusion.

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Originally published 10/08/06.

 I loved him ferociously.  Otherwise, I would have never stood inside of a thorny bush to spy on him.  Maybe I would have done this and thought it normal if my emotional development had been retarded at the age of eight, or if I had water on the brain, neither of which is the case (though some would argue the contrary), and so really, I must confess that I loved him severely ferociously.

I was going to surprise him with a birthday cake and a belated gift, because he had just come back from a two week holiday during which he had his wallet stolen, and days before he left for his trip, he and I had forgotten that we were broken up and we behaved based on that forgetfulness, and so I believed that the words uttered then (“I love you and miss you”) meant “I am yours forever and, like, ever, and p.s. I have castrated myself in honor of this love.”

Lunatic that I am, I decided that I would hang the cake and gift on his front door as it was a Friday night which he usually spent kicking and smacking at his friends in a kick boxing studio.

But alas, that was not to be.

Instead, I pulled up just as an alleged girl walked up the stairs and allegedly walked into the house comfortably and naturally / allegedly, clearly having been there so very many times before.  So I kept driving (to circle back), believing maybe I had mistaken him for the alleged female…that he had managed to go from very little hair to very long hair, and grow breasts since we last saw one another. My imagination is riddled with potential.

My choice was clear; pay a random stranger to knock on the door and pretend they were looking for someone (clearly not there) and then report back to me as to who was inside…or stand in the rain, inside of a bush, while my feet became muddied and as I held my breath and tried very hard not to blink because blinking was very loud.

Naturally, the “just go home” option was nowhere in sight because my mind was screaming He just got home!  We were together days before he left!  ERGO! He was with her when he was with me the day we forgot we were broken up! This rain is really going to fuck up my hair!  He is a lying liar who lied! This rain is really going to fuck up my pedicure, too!  He told me he only turned the ‘special stars’ on for me!  Why are bushes so leafy?  Why don’t I carry binoculars?  Is my mascara waterproof?

Recognize I was not at all worried about being caught because really, I mean, if someone had offered me the Invisibility Cloak, I would have rocked the shit out of that cape and perched my pathetic (and yes, on this occasion, clinically insane) ass inside of his house to confirm that I had in fact seen a woman enter.

Because I am clever, I decided to get a little closer, and so I left the bush and  shimmied quickly and stealthy-like along the wall in full and plain sight, then dashed across this lawn to hide behind a tree. 

Because I am clumsy, my right flip flop dashed much faster than I across this lawn and so suddenly, I wasn’t merely a crazy person, but rather I was also half barefoot in plain sight behind a tree 1/3 my size.

I stopped to contemplate flip flops or barefoot?, but didn’t to ponder normal or insane?.  Really, I was thinking I was some Smooth Criminal and that this behavior was acceptable.  (The people with whom I shared this tale never questioned my sanity either, except for one, only she doesn’t really count because she’s an adult and adults are smart like that.)

I decided to return to the trusted bush so I removed my flip flops and ran for it, as any Smooth Criminal would have done.  Back in the bush, I found the perfect viewing spot for the crazy; I stood, like a torture victim water dripping on my head, legs bent at a 27 degree angle so I could look through this one perfect spot and see nothing. 

Because nothing was precisely what I was staring at – I was merely waiting for the body or bodies to make their way from the kitchen to the living or dining room.  What I was waiting for was confirmation that I had in fact seen a second party enter the premises and this creature was of the female persuasion.  I wasn’t interested in seeing them do anything or stare at them like a sad little mime as they watched television; in that moment, I just really wanted and needed confirmation.  And within a few minutes, I received the confirmation.  First he walked into the dining room with a plate and a glass, and then a long-haired woman followed with the same.  The ‘special stars’ were a romantic edge; I knew this and so had no misunderstandings about the nature of what I was seeing.

The moment I saw, I sloshed my bare feet out of the mud, and said my thank yous and good byes to the trusted bush.  I walked barefoot back to my car, took out the cake and the gift and gently placed each one beneath each of the front tires of my car, and drove over them before continuing directly on to my best friend’s house sopping wet, broken flip flopped and hearted, and with terrible hairstyle and fucked up pedi.

My best friend wiped my tears, wrapped my hair in a towel, and fixed my flip flop, all the while as in shock as I about the news…the news that he was with someone else, not the news that I was a crazy person Smooth Criminal.

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Editor’s Note: Since the night in question in 2007, Miss One Female Canuck has neither returned to the scene of the crime nor has she attempted to bushwhack. Furthermore, she has not since driven over a baked good and wishes the “he” of this story only the best in everything and hopes “he” finds the truest and most fulfilling of loves.

Originally published 10/03/04.

By ‘One’, I mean her very own personal British Special Air Service Officer, their motto Who Dares Wins. I found Mine in Beirut – he is of the Air Troop variety, flying out of planes, a.smashing things and people, and then somehow super-leaping back to the airplane.

I nicknamed him ‘Killer’. Only I didn’t tell him about his nickname, for fear that he would parachute into my hotel room, ‘Killer’ me, and then leave without a trace. (He’ll know now that it’s on here; Hi Killer!)

How to meet and nab an SAS Boy for yourself
Obviously, you will need to be located in a war torn region. Look for the boys jogging and smiling as bombs drop around them; quite likely, they are of the SAS variety.

If you are really adventurous, hang out near cubby holes where ‘insurgents’ (but only those defined as such by the lucky few not belonging to The Axis of Evil) hide and make chai.

If you are not too adventurous, there’s always the internet café of said war torn region. Spy the only boys who are reading neither the news nor the most recent updates titled Where Can You Hide Today?; they will be wearing shorts, t-shirts, sporting a tan and using a British tongue nearly incomprehensible. If you listen closely, they will make subtle ‘vrooming’ sounds as they move their mouse. #notaeuphemism

My Own SAS Boy and I met in the business centre of his hotel (my hotel sat across the street with a sick internet connection). I didn’t know how to work the computer, he helped me manage and we got to chatting. He had seen me the night prior – a memory I do not hold – when I was lost and asked him if he was Australian. In my proper defence, I was told that we (Canadians) were to be hanging out with them (Australians); I saw a blonde, heard an accent and so approached. Very simple equation if ever there was one, little did I know the level of treachery I had committed when I asked a Brit – an SAS one, to boot – if he was an Aussie.

On the physical size of The SAS Boy
They appear ‘small’ (please don’t Killer me) – My Own being perhaps 5’9”, but they’re packed with strong fibre goodness which allows them to take out a man thrice their height and ten times their weight. Upon great reflection, I do think the compact nature of the SAS has to do with the agility required to leap tall buildings and propel oneself from planes, landing squarely in cubby holes 10,000 feet below.

They are, for those of you interested in knowing, rock hard. I threw random items at Killer and they bounced off as though hitting a brick wall. Eventually, Killer asked me to stop being a child and to stop throwing random objects at him. I mumbled and pouted and he finally let me throw one final tire at him as a farewell to the activity of throwing.

On the character trait of The SAS Boy
Focussed.
Determined.
Alpha.
Male.
Fear-LESS.

These are not Boys with whom one should mess about. While walking around Beirut with My Own SAS Boy, I can tell you that I felt very safe. Very safe, indeed; the safest, in fact. There’s something about their line of duty that makes them radiate an aura of complete and total blanket safety (unless, of course, you’re their target). I guess that would be: because they’re trained a.smashing killers.

The word ‘hesitate’ does not exist in their vocabulary, and for that they are to be admired, as it runs into all aspects of their lives, not just the physical embodiment of their ‘work’. Case in point: Within moments of teaching your BlogMistress how to work her computer, Killer asked to take me for a coffee. Right then and there on the spot. (I thought: If I don’t accept, he may Killer me…and so I accepted.)

After coffee was over, he asked to take me for dinner. Right then and there on the spot. (I thought: If I don’t accept, he may Killer me…and so goes the rest of the story.)

Nothing stands in their way and if an SAS Boy wants something, he does what is needed to make certain he gets it. And this I mean literally; nothing stops them, neither physically nor mentally — it’s a pretty spectacular thing to watch as it drips from them and engages all aspects of everything they do and touch.

On the nature of conversation with The SAS Boy
You will not be surprised to learn that among one of the first lines of conversation I had with Killer was
So…do you ever wonder if what you’re doing is wrong? and then
So…uhm…will I, like, one day be sitting in my living room in Palestine and you’ll fly through a window and Killer me MEANING you may one day get wrong orders MEANING have you ever wondered if you’ve already received wrong orders MEANING have you ever Killered anyone who might be innocent?

Lucky I that Killer has a sense of humour and answered all of my questions, even if it was a mere “I really can’t answer that!” which I think is code for That’s The Line That Wins Most Chicks. But I’m relentless and he nicknamed me ‘Unnie Ot’ which is Canadian to the British ‘Honey Pot’. I stared in wonder and confusion, looking for a translation on the wall, the floor and even the window as I had no idea what that was. Nowhere was there closed captioning for the British Hearing Impaired. (Stupid, Beirut.)

Killer was nice enough to finally tell me that ‘Honey Pot’ is a term of endearment used to describe someone who can pull secrets from people very easily. Upon hearing this definition, I smiled and asked: So, was it you who caught Saddam? And have you Killered anyone? And can you fix the World Cup?

On the reliability / loyalty of The SAS Boy
Apparently, SAS Boys have to be at the ready at the drop of a pin, throw of a hat and wiggle of a bottom. They all have a special beeper that, when it beeps, they have to meet at a certain location, are given their orders and then flown out. My Own SAS Boy was riding his motorcycle when he got beeped; he had to leave it and his keys with his friend so he could fly to Beirut within two hours. This would mislead one to believe they are unreliable to anyone but Her Majesty. As I can attest, I’ve had Mine since 2006 and we have not yet lost touch for any extended period of time. In face, he has always been kind and pinged a Hello email and if we are both in London Town this coming fall, we shall hang.

I have already secured the following from Mine, as he graciously accepted the responsibility should the need arise (and to which he is beholden until I drop dead). If ever I am in a state of terror and I need to be saved, then he shall do the saving. Because if we’re talking true loyalty, it never hurts to have that loyalty come from a friend who knows how to disentangle a b*mb, make one, crash through a window, leap off a building, outrun and outfight most all other men, make ‘vrooming’ noises as he uses a mouse, ride a motorcycle, and look good in a suit. (I knew you’d agree.)

During uni, and for a little over five years, I was the manager of the most expensive lingerie boutique in Ottawa, carrying only the best lines Aubade, Chantelle, and Lejaby. A regular bra sold within the range of $120 – $175, panties & tangas upwards of $75. I was spoiled then and I continue to be so today; last bra I purchased was a Rigby & Peller — my favourite brand — at over $200. Being the lush that I am, this is one area in which I truly indulge.

With problems like war in the Middle East, famine, poverty, the concept of globalization, the US’ potential bankruptcy, right-wing lunatic fanaticism, Enrique Iglesias and Anna K, an ill-fitting bra should not be added to this list.

First, you should know that an excellent quality bra is made up of over 120 small pieces. As such, you really should pay a little more attention to the items holding your fun bits.

Second: there is no magic size, but rather that every bra and every material may mean that you will need a different size. Any salesperson who tries to tell you otherwise is an idiot who knows nothing about either a woman’s body or the delicate make up of an excellent bra.

Generally, there are two varieties of (natural) breasts. Here are my sad pathetic attempts to illustrate them:

Whereas ‘A’ looks best in a demi horizontal cup (usually called a ‘balcony’ or a ‘half-cup’ bra), ‘B’ looks best in a demi diagonal cup (usually called a ‘plunge’ bra). The reason this is so is because the different bras highlight the natural shape and contour of your breasts.

With ‘A’, you should be working on creating cleavage that looks as though it fell out of Hugo’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses, whereas with ‘B’ breasts, you really should be working on creating a more plunging neckline feel, either which suits those days when you’re inclined to unbutton an additional button, you hussy. (CALL ME!!)

Ten Tips For Buying a Bra
The digit corelates to the circumferance of your rib cage, while the letter to the size of your breast. That said…

.1. Take your best friend, because she will tell you when your breasts are falling a little too close to your armpits.
.2. Bring a tight t-shirt to the shop. When you’ve tried the bra on, wear your t-shirt over it and make sure you like what you see.
.3. The wire of your bra should never poke you in the armpit. If it is, then you’re wearing the wrong cup size.

.4. Your wire should sit completely flat against your rib cage. NOT ONE PART OF IT should be cutting into ANY part of your breast. The wire is supposed to “cup” your breast, (hence why it’s called an A, B, C, D, etc “cup”). If it’s cutting into your breast, you’re wearing the wrong size and should move upwards on the alphabetical scale.
.5. There should be no ‘extra’ material in the cup. This means there should be no puckering in the cup. Instead, the cup should be stretched perfectly across your breast.
.6. The band of the bra should sit at the tiniest part of your back, the area directly beneath your breasts. It should wrap around your body evenly and so where it sits in the front is exactly where it should sit in the back. To confirm this size, measure the area and add 2″ — the end number is your number. If the back of your bra crawls up toward your neck, it means you need to try a size smaller number.
.7. One breast will be mm larger than the other, making a huge diffrence, and so when trying on the bra keep this in mind and adjust the straps accordingly by loosening the strap of the slightly larger side.
.8. Move around. Life your arms, move them over your head, bend over; make sure you’re comfortable in the bra.
.9. When you try on a bra, buckle it on the loosest hook and place your straps at their middle point as well. Like anything made of material, your bra will give with time, and this must be taken into account when you make your purchase.
.10. If it comes in a box, just don’t bother coming back to my blog. You need to buy yourself one bra that’s hanging on a hanger. Just once in this lifetime indulge yourself and you’ll understand my fetish.

And here’s a free bit of advice: Never let a man loose to buy you a bra on his own. Teddies, panties, garters, tangas, ok, but for the love of God, not a bra. If he must, then you have to accompany him in order to ensure it’s the proper fit, because one last time for the record: There is no such thing as a magic size.

Please share this with your girlfriends.

Few city nights are as sexy as a humid summer evening in Montreal. Add a little Zeppelin to this mix and you’re golden.

In this City, I have always found that there is no urgency in action and no reaction that isn’t slightly languid. On summer evenings, this turns everything sensual.

More warming is that, for the most part, no one is shy in their displays of affection.

Watching couples walk by, I couldn’t help but wonder What is it that draws and then keeps people together?

I polled my friends, both male and female.

Almost certainly, all answers began with something akin to “sexual chemistry, obviously…”

When I asked what that meant, no one could go beyond the words “physical attraction, obviously.”

Beyond my immediate distaste for the word “obviously,” I started thinking about sexual chemistry. The reality is that there’s absolutely nothing obvious about sexual chemistry. That it is ambiguous never really occurs to anyone, but rather, they focus on its necessity.

And, it is most definitely a necessity. I don’t believe that anything long-term can transpire if there is no immediate and almost caustic sexual chemistry. It won’t happen all too often in our lives, it may only happen a number of times; it goes beyond visual appreciation and reaches into something much more palpable. The more urgency there is in that initial explosion, the more likely the relationship will at least begin on the right path. Where it will end is anyone’s guess.

If it were a means of physical attraction and nothing more, then we’d be drawn to thousands of individuals in our lifetime, no one in particular standing out. No one unique creature to whom we keep returning, at least in our thoughts. 

I can’t imagine that sexual chemistry is only about wanting to tear one another’s clothes off as that seems relatively pedestrian and a little bit of a bore.

At the sake of sounding like a hippie wanker (this hurts me more than you), I think what’s key is to look for a certain energy in which you want to be enveloped. If you’re any level of mature, then you should be able to read the energy of the person in front of you; if you find yourself poised, relaxed, attentive, attracted, intrigued and wanting to share in that energy then don’t let that person walk away from you. Also, don’t be a rapist.

Ultimately, it’s that energy which makes people stay together: The ability to work through one another to reach our individual as well as our combined potential. And since we can never reach our complete potential, that process is unbroken and takes the suited lovers with it. Always.

Note: I believe in deep and great true love. Deeply bitter wanks incapable of opening their hearts to the potential vulnerability of great love will likely call me naïve…a label I am quite happy to wear because better here than in their blackened and petrified hearts.

(05/07/19)

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.1. Would love to hear your definition of sexual chemistry (email if you are too shy to comment). Additionally, dl Natacha Atlas’ Something Dangerous and listen to ’Quand je ferme les yeux’ before any of the other tracks.

.2. Image courtesy of the incredible jeremymasonmcgraw.com