Sunday, August 31, 2008

Am I a slut?

On-going question ever since I started being sexually active (yeah, I can say that without cringing-clue number one, although I don't know of what)
What is a slut, anyway?
Slut,n.:
1.a. A woman considered sexually promiscuous.
b. A woman prostitute.
2. A slovenly woman; a slattern.
So how does one define sexually promiscuous? Do you count an overall number, or the number of one-night stands? How many VD's one has had? (none, thank god)Whether one takes the pill or not?
People have, in the past, expressed disapproval of how I've behaved. They're likely to go on now, which is why i mostly STFU, and do my own thing.
As long as I want to do it, how does it concern anyone else?
I've never had unprotected sex, I've had one-night stands and fucking friends and now a semiserious relationship, and other relationships, some I considered serious but the other did not, and some I gave up after a couple months.
I've never felt pressured and wouldn't for my life give in to pressure-I'm too fucking stubborn.
The thing is, I actually like sex. So why should I deprive myself for fear of being called a whore? And this has happened, mainly thourh high school, cause of a dumb rumour some guy made up-that I'd had a threesome at a party which was SO UNTRUE! I was sixteen. I was mad. And I didn't even know him.
So why did one guy I didn't know decide he could take the fact that I'd drunkenly kissed a girl at a party and then crawled up peacefully in my sleeping bag, and make it into a threesome and label me a slut?
Insecurity, perhaps. I mean, I don't threaten anyone with my sexuality-in fact, I enjoy it and the guys I've been with certainly haven't complained. I mean, for all my faults, it must be nice to end up with a girl like me instead of the girls I knew at high school, who had a broom stuck up their arses and found the slightest mention of sex distasteful. Which is why I surrounded myself with like-minded friends. More fun, dudes.
So what is the problem nowadays?
I don't often encounter it with guys I meet or, ahem, have been intimate with-none of them have complained.
Others have seen me as fair game, and have been put back pretty firmly in their place- I might like sex, but I don't like it with just anyone-there has to be some connection-like when i went to stay with a friend a year ago, and her boyfriend was all over me like a rash, all this because I'd actually told him what I thought. As if I'd ever touch a mate's boyfriend. No fucking way.
So does all this make me a whore?A slut?A bitch?or whatever?

I don't understand where people get off judging everyone else for everything they do. Like the fact that I act like this actually hurt them. I'm not forcing anyone else! This is me, this is my body, and I shall do whatever the fuck I like with it, be that holding off sex for a year or sleeping with ten guys within a fortnight (no, this has never happened).
I personally don't give a fuck about what other people are doing, as long as they like it, it makes them happy, it's consensual and doesn't involve animals (that REALLY makes me want to puke. And it's illegal.)
But no. And girls are the worst, aren't they? Not too fond of girls at times. Or boys. I just don't like people :D
But back to the topic. I really wonder at what girls do to each other. Criticizing all the others do, all the time. Does it make you feel better? Cause in that case you should be having a look at your self-esteem.
My enjoying sex takes nothing away from you, does it?

Go and get laid now.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Fuming

I was busy fighting with blogger, and now I've forgotten what i wanted to talk about.
Oh, yeah.
Yet another interesting post from SuperFrenchie on Alain Bernard's supposedly boastful words before the relay race, but one can't actually find trace of them, comments on the fact that if whe was talking in english, it's bullshit, cause he doesn't speak english, and if it was in french it's probably been badly translated cause he talks slang.
More bashing, surrender jokes, arrogance claims. Now I am so tired of these, mainly cause whatever I do I'll be the French girl in another country and the Brit girl here.
So.
1) What IS it about the body odour claims, jesus christ? Every american blog i've been on that talks about france at some point has had this. I've lived here for FIFTEEN years in less than six months.
Would I have noticed? Especially since all the tourist claims make me paranoid? No, of course not.
And I add a disclaimer for a métro (subwayyy) at the Heure de Pointe (the time betwen five and seven when everyone is coming out of work and the place is so jampacked you can't breathe) cause that is just caused but such close conditions, you dumb fucks.

2)arrogance. Don't know. Maybe I'm just as arrogant as the rest. But I resent being told off because the country I love in "only acts in its own interests!".
No fucking kidding, Boy (or girl) genius. Point me to a country that doesn't. Please. I'd be delighted.
And America is the last fucking place to be able to teach anyone ANYTHING these days. Go and clean up your criminality, your war, your infant mortality rates (higher than Nairobi's in some cities) your obesity epidemic (although I'd rather not talk about that after reading TheRotund's blog) your high school dropout rate, your energy consumption, your bigotry, your invasion of privacy,and then come back to tell us off, okay?

3) Surrendering. Now this is VERY touchy subject, and bringing this up is terribly painful to the people who had to experience it. I'd first like to point out that the GOVERNMENT became Vichy, and the people had no choice in the matter. Unlike going into Iraq, n'est-ce pas. And th US government recognized Vichy. There's something to be proud of.
Then here down south people would probably bitchslap any american who turned up airing the opinion that the french liked being invaded. Especially here, where a lot of the resistants were. The mountains were great places to hide. It was the unoccupied "free zone" although under Vichy control.
After all, there was rationing so the German army ate well, French men sent off to germany to work-my, doesn't that sound like an enviable situation!
And without us, you could have stayed under English control for another couple of centuries, like the Australians. D'you want us to take the Statue of Liberty back? After all, we made it. Although I'm sure you'd rather forget that.
This surrendering stance is a terribly painful one to address, because unlike you, it is a period of history we have to study in school. We see what happened to Jean Moulin for his bravery. We have to learn about Oradour-sur-Glane and the others, not so famous.
We study poetry written by men who were shot a day later, because they wanted their country back. I can't remember the title of the poem that struck me most, this was years ago,in my first year of high school, but I'll never forget how haunting the words were, and how sudden the realization that he knew he would be shot for his deeds. He knew that these would be his last written words. And I believe this kind of bravery makes up for any collaborators.
You are in no way able to judge this. It didn't happen in your country. You were the strong ones.
You were lucky.

This is all very haphazard, but I get very incoherent when I get pissed-off.

Now of course France has its faults, I moan about them enough the rest of the time. i complain about the strikes, about my university being in tatters, about the anarcho-communists who spend their time bitching and trying to disrupt everything so nothing changes and everything gets worse, I complain about the State selling off EDF, about smoking regulations, about education, about everything under the sun when I'm in the mood.

But I'm tired of hearing the same old tired insults all the damn time, from people who have never lived here, don't speak a word of french or any other language, and think everything is owed to them because they're american.

And by the way, you are killing sooooo much goodwill from French kids who want to love America but only see you insulting us all the time.
Way to go.

Thoughts

Lots to say.
I've been reading this blog by a self-proclaimed fat girl (or woman, should i say), The rotund which is terribly interesting. I just found out about the existence of the "fatosphere" and the Fat acceptance movement and all that.
Now, it's not my place to comment on these things cause I have no idea of what it's like to be truly fat. I was pretty fat from about elevn to fourteen, but that came off as i aged, thank god.
Now I come in at 58 kilos, and that's three kilos over my normal weight since I've been back at my parents and not walking six kilometres every day as I do when I live with my roommate in our flat.
So.
I get on with myself pretty well. I've never been on a real diet, and I don't actually know how to calorie count, and food is good so I want to enjoy it. But I'm lucky as I like healthy food, although I'm sure most of the stuff I eat would have the carb control brigade out in arms. Nutters.
But it is so true that women's body is like public property.
I hate being catcalled, and I've been getting ever more aggressive when it happens, which isn't the best of options, so I'm going to have to take it easy.
But i feel so sorry for all public women, be they actresses or politicians or whatever whose weight and appearance is always scrutinised. I mean, in a campaign, you rarely hear about a male candidate's dress choice, do you? But when it's a woman, she has to be careful to look serious without being too matronly, blablabla. Fucking double standards.
And I live in a country of appearances. Fat in France is a no-go. Like, in my chinese class, there's about forty-five girls, and there're only TWO that can be considered fat. And one of those is only remotely chubby.
When I go to the UK, I feel positively skinny.

On a slightly different topic, what is it about being a girl that menaces men, seriously? I read UK papers on line most days-the independent, the guardian, the daily mail- and i've been stumped by the number of articles declaring that we should go back to the fifties, and women should stay at home.
My first reaction was, you have got to be shitting me. Seriously. How can anyone be insane enough to want to stay at hom, cook, clean, bring up the kids and have no life whatsoever?
I'd die of boredom after a week.
There is no way I'm even going to consider being a stay at home wife.
A) I don't actually want to get married.
B)I don't want kids (well, not at the moment, let's be fair)
C) I hate domestic chores
D)I have a very low boredom threshold
E)There is no way in hell I am going to be "maintained" by some guy, however much I might love him. I mean seriously, how demeaning is that? i want my own money, my own life and maybe I'll let a guy in but it'll be on equal terms. No cleaning for me, nuh-uh.

I've always been told I could do anything I want by my parents. And living in the country has left me with enough DIY skills to sort myself out, largely as much as most of the guys I know( except but the boyfriend, but then he spends his time tinkering with machines and sculpting wood and creating stuff for dance shows and all that). SO why on earth would I want to lean on someone else to sort myself out?
It's bloody humiliating, there's my opinion.

What IS it that still allows people to think that women need taking care of all the time? As if we were retards.
I know what makes people want to take care of me. It's my looks. I have, I am told, a very dollish face-which got me out of no end of trouble when I was a teen, mainly because teachers couldn't believe I was any mischief-I'm not very tall, and I'm younger than all my friends cause I skipped a year in school. SO that explains why people tend to get a rud awakening when they get to know me. Tis very funny.

I'd better shut up. AM very busy trying to convince Belle Etoile that no dude is out of her league. Jeez.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

People

...make me sick.
It could be my rampant cynicism, but seriously, people are idiots.
Just visited the blog of a girl I knew in high school, and i came close to throwing up in my mouth. It was nauseating, full of mistakes and twee abbreviations and grandiloquent phrases exalting the beauty of love and how much she loves the people around her and how life is beautiful even though it's SO hard (well when you have her IQ, it has to be hard).
Man, grow out of it already.
And there are so many blogs just like it. Kids who just haven't got over high school and still express themselves as if they were still sixteen.
And I can't stand mistakes, be they grammar or spelling. And I mean the common mistakes, ones you can easily avoid, because French is so fucking complicated it's normal to make mistakes from time to time.
I mean seriously, there seems to be a whole generation of small-minded idiots out there. It's terribly depressing, and brings back (violently) the fact that intelligent conversation is scarce. Luckily Peter was there this weekend, and Hairyboy wasn't, cause goddammit is that guy a fool-he's extremely well read and very insightful, as long as it concerns art. Take him over to Politics, economics, or that kind of stuff and he has the intellect of an amoeba, with a certain tendency to contradict himself, plus BHL's ego and sense of righteousness.
Fucking unbearable.

Relations Bullshit-More Massilia

In any case I had a great time with everyone, got stoned, talked and talked and talked, got up late, just generally took advantage of the holiday spirits, and crossed a line I've been thinking about crossing for a wee while now.

I love the Boyfriend, and he loves me. It's the easiest relationship I've ever had. There's the knub and crux of the matter. He's a year older than I am, but I tend to feel like I'm the older one. I guess a relationship is about sharing your troubles, and he does take care of me too, but yeah, he does make me feel a bit like an older sister from time to time, which is not good.
I think this all started when I spent three weeks with absolutely no contact with him, and was all by myself once more.
I don't know.
Who cares what I do anyway; I seriously don't give a damn about wrong or right just now.
Oh, so what happened?
I slept with Peter early this morning. And man, was it worth it, if only for the excitement.
I get bored fast.
And no-one will ever know-except for whoever comes by here, which is no-one.
There is some safety in being evermore anonymous, although whoever comes by can find out a lot about me.
Thank God none of my French friends would ever read a blog in English- and the Anglophones couldn't tell :)
Was it wrong of me? If the Boyfriend ever came to find out, I'd consider it wrong, because then he'd be hurt. But I'm good at keeping secrets. And at necessary lying. Saying I was reading on the balcony-which was actually true until Peter turned up and pulled me into his room.
In all likelihood I won't see Peter again, anyway. He's leaving the day after tomorrow, and I'm not going back to Marseille for a while.
So here, this is also who I am. This is the kind of thing I will never tell anyone around me. I don't want to lose the Boyfriend, but I need something else.
Am I trying to have my cake and eat it?Probably. Does it make me a lesser person? Not insomuch as it bothers me. And if it bothers anyone else, too bad, tant pis!

I am who i am. And however much I love and need my current relationship, there is something wrong with it, which can't be remedied.
The Boyfriend can't change overnight and bring the excitement other men have. But no-one else has ever given themselves over to me as he has. Which I like but also resent.
As the Best Friend says, he's hung on to me, although we make a show of independence to the world and he pretends his independence to me. All i know is that I can disappear for three weeks with no means to contact him and not worry. That I can watch him go off to his Dads for three weeks, where his ex also lives, and not worry, even if I have no news for a few days.
How safe is that, Jesus.
As I said, I get bored fast.
I'm horrible.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Six days later

Well, I'm just back from four days in Massilia, which is where the boyfriend lives, and it was a hell of a mess. And great fun. And I wasn't very good.
So. It's a mess because the boyfriend lives (but not for much longer) in a great big flat with Pedro, Nana, and Nath, and that place is always fun cause there's always zillions of people around.
Thing is, Nath's been gone for about three months, Pedro's off to Lyons, and the boyfriend and Nana are looking for a new flat/house to share with three other Beaux-Arts friends (i shall call them the Sex maniac-don't be put off by the moniker, he's great fun- Hairyboy, and Luna the loon-no, i don't like her) so the flat is insane, full of boxes and that kind of stuff.
Especially as Pedro's elder sister, Marion, is taking over the flat and is looking for two new roommates at the moment, plus the fact that a Hungarian dancer, Peter, Marion's exboyfriend, was also staying there before he leaves for Madrid on Thursday.
Yes, this is complicated.

Well anyway, when i first turned up, thank god Pedro was there because the Boyfriend wasn't. So I sat down with Pedro and Peter, smoked a joint, the usual, until the Boyfriend and more people turned up.
Cast characters included Lulu, Pedro's girlfriend, Andreas and Conrad, two German dudes, and Anton, a Belarussian dancer.(yeah, lots of dancers in this story-looovelyyy :D)
A real Auberge Espagnole.
Which happens to be an atmosphere I love. It was great speaking English again for once, with Peter, cause his English is even better than his French (I really like and am really jealous of Peter-he's 29,looks 24, speaks English, French, Spanish, Hungarian, German, and Dutch, has lived in each of this countries and in god knows how many others, including Denmark and the US, and has worked all over the world for various dance companies.) and for once I could talk about all my foreigner obsessions, which is a thing I can never do because no-one shares them.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

sickening feelings

I've been on Superfrenchie's blog.
Again.
It's bad for me. I find it so terribly depressing.
I try to ignore most of the french bashing, when I encounter it.
The thing is, in the real world, noone actually believes I'm British until I start speaking. I can pass off as pure French, if I so choose. After all, I speak french with a provençal accent; i have the colouring of Southern France-ie, dark hair, dark eyes, a tan. My education is French; my tastes are probably French; but at the end of the day, I'm not. I don't have French nationality; and that's what it's all about.
But looking French, going on holiday with my french mates, speaking french like a native-this has exposed me to, let's say, different takes on the French.
I've had to deal with hecklers three times out of the four I've been to Scotland. Usually kids our age insulting us, when it wasn't actually threats.
We also got the "oh, the French are so cute", and countless "voulezvous coucher avec moi".
So I guess it's not all negative.
But I'm anglo-american. And three quarters of my life have been spent in France. Which, as i have complained many times before, leaves me in an eternal mix.
I have all but given up american nationality. It's not something I care much about, and my passport expired two years ago. And America makes me ashamed. I guess I'm slightly idealistic.

And French bashing makes me miserable. Part of it is because the ones doing the bashing tend to come from the same places I do-the Uk and the US. Why do we never hear about the Italians kicking our butt?Or the Germans? Or the Swedes? Or the Irish? Or the Japanese?
The other part is because, well, this is where I live. I love it. I'll admit it has many faults, but also so many qualities. And I hate feeling picked on. I've always hated bullies, and this is always what it feels like.
I can't hope for people to like France, or the French. But maybe they could try giving up on a few of the old stereotypes, or maybe cleaning their own backyard up before criticizing ours.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Georgia, Georgia, Georgia

If we don't take care, half the country is going to be swallowed by the Russian giant. Do we want to go back to the Iron Curtain? Russia never having to account for anything?
I don't give a damn about people telling me that Russia was provoked by the "attack" on South Ossetia by the Georgian army to bring that rebellious province to heel, and that Russia only went in to "save" their Ossetian brothers.
That's a load of bullshit.
Russia only wants control, to my untutored eye. The bigger the better.
And it has a lot of losses to make up for, n'est-ce pas.
Anyway. The assault on South Ossetia may have been a mistake; I shan't comment on that.
But whatever happened, Russia has no right to storm in and bomb the place. There are thousands of dead on the Georgian side. This is unacceptable. How can anyone be justifying it?
South Ossetia and Abkhazia are rebellious provinces and however much they might want to be part of Russia, they're not. They're Georgian. Part of Georgia. There's nothing Russia can do about this and the country has no excuse whatsoever for this attack on another country's sovereignty.
I'm ashamed anyone could consider Russia has a point.

["Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed"M.Z.D.]
This is scandalous. I haven't actually gotten around yet to believeing that Russia has been carrying out military operations in Georgia, deliberately violating another country's sovereignty.
And I don't give a fuck that those two regions wanted the Russians there. This would be a whole different ball game if Russia decided the Inner Mongolians (inner mongolia being a chinese province) needed help to break away from China and into their fold, wouldn't it. Or if a neighbouring country decided that Chechnya was actually part of them and not of Russia. It's terrible.

On another note, France and Britain are doing very badly in the Olympics. The US are doing well. And China is leading the game, there's a surprise.


["War is a cowardly escape from the problems of peace."T.M.]

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Screw this

It's too hot to go on visits.
I'm none too fond of having to do the tourist stuff whenever family and in some occasions guests come along.
Some of it is nice, like spending the afternoon in-and next to,of course- some river up mountain, the Toulourenc. That was really nice. As was going to a place in the mountain where we used to holiday when we were little.
On the other hand, every thing lower than a thousand meters over sea level was a pain. I hate all the little villages in summer.
Let's not get confused. I love them the rest of the year, but in summer they're just teeming with tourists. Like one we went to; its population swells by three hundred percent in summer.
It's just unbearable.


["The secret of being a bore is to tell everything."V.]

Sunday, August 3, 2008


we are cooking.
42° Celsius yesterday.
Hot.
Been around with the family, Cousin S, the boyfriend, eating out, strolling around Avignon in the evening, going on the Ferris Wheel, usual summer visitor stuff, etcetera.
Quite pleasant.

Anyway, I'm somewhat disconnected from the world around me. It's quite restful.
My life isn't very interesting.

["Idleness is not doing nothing. Idleness is being free to do anything."F.D.]

Friday, August 1, 2008

well, Cousin S got here yesterday. (I'll try and remember to call her Cousin S and not get confused).
At first, she seemed like the in colour, female version of the mime Marceau (=mute). I'll put that down to jetlag.
Anyhoo, she opened up a bit today, thank god. And she seems really nice now.
So it's all good.

["In these matters the only certainty is that nothing is certain." P.T.E.]