Tyler Coates looks back on In & Out to answer the very important (and now a column!) question: Was It Good For the Gays?
…at the end of the day, In & Out is mostly offensive because it’s not a very good movie. It’s formulaic and rather dumb — and, yes, The Village People’s “Macho Man” is heard twice. But like most bad movies, it has its fun moments. Joan Cusack more than deserved her Oscar nomination for her hilarious performance, and it’s quite a treat to see Wilford Brimley announce that he’s gay while standing next to Debbie Reynolds. And I’ll forgive Frank Oz and Paul Rudnick for the lame Streisand jokes (and the costume designer for Tom Selleck’s ugly ties), but only because June Squibb’s minor character reveals, with perfect dead-pan delivery, the following line: “My husband has three testicles, and it’s disgusting.”
TNC reflects on his personal boycott of the NFL, two years on.
My family has many unwritten rules. The second most important is: do not open the door if the doorbell rings only once. In our family, if the doorbell only rings once, you were either a salesperson or a canvasser. And salespersons and canvassers are liars and thieves.
My mother came to this conclusion shortly after she first immigrated to Canada; two scam artists pretending to work for the government tried to enter our home. Looking back, this is probably why I couldn’t make it as a (sort of) con artist, selling chocolates on the mean streets of southwestern Ontario.
Gawker has run, like, eighteen pieces about how chemtrails are bullshit, and I keep reading them bc of the people who get so mad. Also, now I know a lot about why chemtrails are bullshit, so.
Settle in for a real good time, ladies:
The book spun out lurid tales that collapsed with just a phone call or two. Without much effort, I found nine people named in the book or known to have been involved in events mentioned in the book, including the legendary actor Cary Grant, who was once married to Hutton. All disputed Heymann’s account. One example: Heymann claimed that in 1965 Hutton was flown from Mexico to San Francisco Presbyterian Hospital, where Dr. Lawrence Nash treated her with “a nutritious soybean protein mixture” and warm Coca-Cola to wean her off alcohol. The hospital told me that no doctor by that name had ever worked there and that no such treatment would have been allowed.
On the future of plus-sized fashion:
Full Figured Fashion Week is the creation of Gwen DeVoe, a onetime plus-size model who now works in human resources at Scholastic publishing. DeVoe, a tall African-American woman with broad shoulders and prominent cheekbones, wears a size 18. She got the idea for Full Figured Fashion Week in 2007, after attending a Tracy Reese show at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. Reese is one of her favorite designers, and DeVoe told me she’d been excited about the show. “My friends were texting me, like, ‘Oh my God, take a selfie!’ ” But after watching a procession of clothes she loved she had a sinking realization: “None of these things are for me. And not because I wasn’t a buyer—because I had the money. But because they didn’t come in my size.”
“The writer and her unfaithful boyfriend attend an Australian UFO conference in search of the perfect documentary subject” is the Longreads summary most guaranteed to spark my interest, thank you.
Update: oh, I read it, now I think it’s kind of exploitative, bummer
SUPER fascinating backstory on how Robert Caro wrote The Power Broker:
In 1968, the Carnegie year and the salary that went with it had ended, the $2,500 book advance from two years before was long since spent, and the book was nowhere close to finished. Caro came home to Roslyn one afternoon from a day of research, and Ina told him she had sold the house. The $25,000 they made on the sale would be enough to live on for another year, and they moved to an apartment in the Bronx.
Ina, who has since researched and written two books about French history, did a lot of the records research for The Power Broker during that year. Caro had injured his back playing pickup basketball during the year of his Nieman fellowship, and he went through bouts of excruciating pain that would last for weeks. “Ina would have to go down to the courthouse,” Caro said. “I knew the courthouse in Nassau County, so I could say, ‘Go to the second floor. Go down the second aisle.’ Ina would call me from a payphone.”
When Caro had written about 500,000 words—considerably longer than the average book but covering less than half of Moses’ life—he had dinner with Kluger, his editor at Simon & Schuster. “I had written a lot of words,” Caro said, “and I gave it to Kluger and asked for the other half of my advance, which was $2,500, and he basically said no.” Kluger says Simon & Schuster gave Caro an additional advance of $1,500. Regardless, Caro had run out of money and was two years or more from completing the book.
oh christ:
I can’t stop thinking about these OKCupid charts http://t.co/ydciUQRZuL straight men gotta GROW UP pic.twitter.com/YXpeKQq1z3
— Heben Nigatu (@heavenrants) September 16, 2014
Deleted comment of the day:
*
I’ve always been most attracted to men five to ten years older than I am. That was true when I was 14 (problematic!) and is still true now in my early 30s. I’m curious to find out at what point it changes!
I remember stumbling across a quotation attributed (maybe) to Colette (it was on a birthday card and did not cite sources, also it was years ago), which ran approximately, “forty is grand, you can finally see the point of men in their twenties.”
When I was thirteen I had a crush on a seventeen-year-old (who, in retrospect, probably thought I was ridiculous or – hopefully – adorably misguided. He’s a conservative douche now.) but aside from that, I’ve always been attracted to guys around my age, up to 2 or 3 years older. The boy is almost exactly my age (he’s 2 months and a day younger, to be precise), and that suits me just fine.
I suspect this will stay the same, too, since it’s already the case that my preference for certain phases of attractiveness actor’s lives changes as I age. I’m sure that when I’m 70, 70 year-old Paul Newman will be the foxiest to me. Right now though, I prefer the 30 year-old version (or well, 32/33 year old, circa Cat on a Hot Tin Roof).
In other words: I’m typical for women. It’s so depressing though that for many men of various ages, I’m already 9 years past my prime. Eh. Who cares about their boners anyway.
Re: the OKCupid chart – I went to go see the new Woody Allen movie (I KNOW GUYS. My friend who I hadn’t seen in a while really wanted to go see it and I thought to myself “It can’t be THAT bad, and this is for friendship! Spoiler: it was that bad) and JESUS CHRIST Colin Firth could be Emma Stone’s grandfather. He literally leaves a perfectly good, age appropriate, mature relationship because he can’t resist Emma Stone’s youthful vigor.
Woody Allen just needs to staaaaaaaaaaahp.
In addition to being an awful human being, he is a boring filmmaker.
(It’s not just that he keeps making the same fucking movie — there are other filmmakers who follow basically the same pattern of “I’m going to keep making the same movie over and over until I get it exactly right,” and I like some of them, because at least the Platonic Movie they’re trying to make is interesting. But Woody Allen’s Platonic Movie is tedious and shitty, and I am comfortable stating that as an objective fact.)
I’m disappointed with Emma Stone for being in that thing and I think Olive Penderghast would be as well.
WWOPD?
I still maintain that Colin Firth and Emma Stone would be AWESOME together…starring in a movie about a pair of kickass father-daughter international spies, or as father-daughter con artists.
Right? That was the worst bit – I unabashedly love both Colin Firth and Emma Stone! They could be so great in any movie together as long as they aren’t playing romantic partners.
They look so uncomfortable together at press appearances, and I imagine it’s because Colin Firth is thinking “Good lord, this girl is young enough to be my daughter. Really, me as her romantic lead. What a disaster.”
(He is three days younger than my mother and she is two weeks younger than me. DISASTER.)
It took a few sips of coffee before I understood that you weren’t saying your mother is 2 weeks younger than you. That would be a disaster!
Haha, no, I meant Emma Stone. Curse you, dangling modifiers!
GRAMMAR! ENGLISH! EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE!
We need to figure out how this works into Ortberg’s Theory of Temporal Sexual Transmorgification stat.
“I’m Zaphod Beeblebrox the first, my father was Zaphod Beeblebrox the second, my grandfather was Zaphod Beeblebrox the third and so on…there was an accident with a contraceptive and a time machine.”
I remember seeing that trailer and thinking “please let this be a movie where they just engage in hilarious platonic super well-dressed hijinks please” annnnnd OF COURSE THAT IS NOT THE CASE BECAUSE WOODY ALLEN ugh ugh ugh
In this case, the age difference is “not mentioned in the script, it’s not written with that as a feature”, says Firth. Nevertheless, he was concerned. “I was very aware of it at the beginning, when I found out who is playing the roles. At the time I thought, ‘I’m going to seem so old and washed-up next to Emma Stone!’ I wasn’t exactly relishing being on the unflattering end of that. Once we were under way, other things came to the fore. But people are going to draw attention to it. I get it. I really do understand. It’s noticeable.” x
Is this British for “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m so sorry”?
Absolutely.
I remember seeing the first like 10 seconds of that trailer, being delighted (THE COSTUMES LOOK SO GOOD, I LOVE THE ’20S AND EMMA STONE AND COLIN FIRTH) and then Woody Allen’s name appeared and my enthusiasm promptly deflated like a balloon.
I had the EXACT same reaction. My friend turned to me and said, “This looks delightful!” and I said “Yes!” and then Woody Allen’s name came up and we both went “. . . Oh.”
ME TOO. Clearly someone needs to make a movie starring Colin Firth and Emma Stone as a father/daughter medium/spy team in the 1920s in order to relieve our collective disappointment.
The absolute best thing about that deleted comment is that the original article is old, so I’m guessing it was accessed through a google search for “catholic schoolgirl uniform sexy” or something. But I refuse to google it to find out if that works.
Yeah, it’s surprising how many shitty comments are on way old posts – how do these chuckleheads find them? And more importantly, why?
Oh, In & Out. I definitely have issues with it — because it’s afraid to show real sexual/romantic attraction between men* it really seems like Howard realizes he’s gay because he conforms to gay stereotypes — but I have also seen it 20+ times and can quote every part of it and love it so much and maybe have a crush on Kevin Kline in it because I guess prissy English teacher who likes Barbra is 100% my type to the surprise of no one. “Do you love me like a cousin?” “In a different way!” “As a pen pal?” “A DIFFERENT WAY!” JOAN CUSACK. DEBBIE REYNOLDS. I love this movie more than I should.
* (and because Peter obviously only has friends-with-benefits potential and Howard would drop him in a second if he knew any gay men with more in common with him, sorrrrry)
YO. HOT DAMN. WHAT AN IMPRESSIVE WINDOW TREATMENT.
I beg your pardon — it is a FABULOUS window treatment.
I saw it when it came out, and then watched it again a year or two ago to see if it held up. It didn’t. (I didn’t remember it being so offensive, which says a lot about small Midwestern towns in the early 1990s.)
There was a scene towards the end, after the Kevin Kline character had been fired for being gay, students were trying to protest and Kline’s character told them no, it was fine. I mentally added “Because as soon as this assembly is over, I’m going to call a lawyer and sue the school for wrongful termination and discrimination, and since the principal didn’t even try to hide his reason for firing me, I will win. I will take this place for every penny it has. No seriously, don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.”
lol you can still be fired for being gay at loooots of places
Also, I don’t know why but I feel like an unusually high percentage of the movies I saw in 1997 (and I do keep a list of every movie I’ve ever seen) have LGBT themes. I know that 1990-92 was the time of New Queer Cinema, but my watchlist from ’97 includes Wilde, Ma Vie en Rose, As Good As It Gets, Chasing Amy, tangentially The Full Monty, and arguably Batman & Robin.
Peter is *definitely* only friends-with-benefits. I like to imagine that a new history teacher was hired at the school the next year and it was love at first sight.
(I’ve seen this movie way too often. It really, absolutely has so many issues, but Kevin Kline is like a massive bucket of charm that I can’t resist.)
My dad wouldn’t let my mom take me to In & Out when I was 11 because he thought my seeing two men kiss would be inappropriate. Then he took me to see Austin Powers. Not sure what his logic was there.
I’m not sure how I feel about the news that Belgium has granted the right to be euthanised to a murderer-rapist serving a life sentence.
I’m all for voluntary euthanasia; I think that people should have the right to die with some measure of comfort and dignity if they decide they don’t want to live anymore. The main purpose of prison is (should be) to rehabilitate inmates and keep them from reoffending, and if Van Den Bleeken truly believes he will always be a danger to society, then there doesn’t seem to be much of a point to keeping him there. (And yeah, there’s a part of me that’s like “You’re a piece of shit human being, GOOD RIDDANCE.”)
But his request came after he was denied a transfer to a specialized psychiatric centre, and Belgium doesn’t have the best track record for providing mental health services to inmates. (But then, even if he’d gotten treatment, would he actually have gotten better to the point where he wouldn’t be a danger to society anymore?)
Ooof.
I’ve been struggling with this one too. I think I wouldn’t be bothered by it as much if he’d straight-up requested euthanasia, but since he asked for this IF he couldn’t get transferred to a psych center, it sounds…not as solid.
“word696969”
Does this mean word69 and word6969 were already taken? *siiiiiiiigggggghhhhh*
I like to imagine to the dickwad giggling to himself at his computer while typing “w…o…r…d…6…9…” then “hm” then TACKATACKA “6969”
“yes, perfect, a masterpiece, now they will truly understand how sexual I am attempting to be”
Re: TNC and the NFL – I have an increasingly strained relationship with the NFL, part of which is brought on by the fact that, since I can’t watch the games (we don’t have cable and we get, like, one over the air station and it’s neither Fox nor CBS) I think about it more instead of reacting to it. I’ve said to my wife for a while now that i’ve thought about giving the game up entirely if we should spawn.
More distance is created every single time an NFL’er does something morally repugnant (more and more often, or at least more and more publicly often) and the league/team has an entirely too-lenient response.
And yet more distance is created by the fact that my team since childhood, I can’t even call by their name without feeling like a damned racist. (My wife and I have taken to just calling them the Washington Racial Slurs).
I have loved football for a long time, but the NFL is making it hard for me to keep that up.
I know – I LOVE football. It can be so great! But I cannot continue to support the NFL or the NCAA.
Wait, the Washington Racial Slurs isn’t their new name? That’s what we’ve been calling them, too.
I have to say it must be getting bad, because my husband, a die hard football fan, is now feeling guilty about his football watching. He feels guilty but he still watches.
Your husband and I am in the same boat. I really thought about giving up on the NFL all together, and was right back into watching Ravens/Steelers (I’m a Ravens fan to boot) last Thursday. And I’m in a fantasy league.
I don’t think college football is any better so I’m not really sure what to do other than begin a monthly donation to my favorite DV resource org of choice.
Washington Racial Slurs. I love it!
Wiley Miller made a Nonsequitur comic about the Washington name. His character accepts that the name is racist. But the racism can be eliminated without a name change. Keep the name and just change the mascot to a sunburned leprechaun.
What do you think?
Honestly (and my husband is a fan of Washington football, which is how we tend to refer to it in our house), I think everyone still remembers the origins of the word and the original mascot and changing it won’t change that. I think it would be better to do away with any semblance of it altogether and land on something else.
Pandora played me an ad from Dan Snyder about how you should do your research and learn the history of the name and then you won’t think it’s racist anymore. I was really wondering who I could report that ad to.
Others have suggested a potato mascot.
I think, honestly, just get rid of it. It’s a farce and it’s offensive, and keeping the word around while changing the mascot is still gonna be racist, because it’s not fooling anybody. If the NBA can force an owner to sell his damn team because he said some racist shit on tape, the NFL should damn well force a racist team name to change. I don’t see why the NFL couldn’t have said, “Dan Snyder, you have 2 months to change the name of your franchise or all your games will be forfeits.” Or something. My loyalty (in as much as it still exists) is to the team, not to the name. It’s a terrible name and represents terrible things, and I want it gone.
The Washington Tan Moms.
The Washington Holidaying Englishmen.
DC is my childhood team too and MAN it’s rough.
My favorite alternate team name is from Gene Weingarten: the Washington Department of Football Services.
I mean, that’s a pretty good one.
Oh Gene Weingarten – I do love him and he is such A Dad and totally embraces it.
I’m not sure if this clip has made the rounds yet or not, but I found it pretty devastating. http://deadspin.com/emotional-cris-carter-on-chil…
Yeah, that is pretty damn rough. Thanks for sharing it.
It’s interesting your comment about giving it up if you spawn – my husband and his friend have this running theory that football will decline as parents refuse to let their children play because of the head injuries. With fewer people playing, fewer fans will have a connection to the game, and the gap between the huge, sports-science enhanced players and normal Joes will widen. Then football becomes more of a niche than a national pasttime.
I’m not sure if I agree with that or not! My brother played up to a college level, so I can certainly say there are many people not dissuaded by head injuries — but he got hooked as a little guy, long before all that came out.
Ugh, and my aunt bought my baby some Washington Racial Slurs garments and it’s just like … what can I do with these?
True story: I have a DC beach towel from right after they won that super bowl (so I was in like……3rd grade? 4th grade?). I cut it into rectangles and use it for cleaning now.
Apply white athletic tape and use a Sharpie to change the logo to read “Washington Racial Slurs”. Or bury it in the back of the drawer.
The moral rectitude of being a football fan is a Really Big Deal in my house right now. My boyfriend really really really loves football, and our friends are starting to get too uncomfortable to be into it, and he’s really upset about it and I kind of just have to sit back and watch because the whole thing is difficult and more fraught than opinions about sports should be between friends, and also deep moral choices like TNC is talking about must come from within, I really believe that.
As someone who really loves sports, but is very close to quitting cold turkey on all pro leagues, that piece was an odd mix of comforting and unsettling. Yeah, I’ll be able to sleep at night but in the meantime NOTHING IS GETTING BETTER.
For those who are interested/didn’t click through, the OK Cupid chart comes from a new book called Dataclysm: Who We Are When We Think No One’s Looking, and it is fascinating. The author, Christian Rudder, is one of the founders of OK Cupid, and he looks at a lot of big data sets (not just from OKC). He also doesn’t let people off the hook when he uncovers something unpleasant, like the above chart — as I recall, he takes men to task for this attitude. Anyways, worth checking out, if you’re interested in this kind of thing.
Worth checking out but please don’t pay actually money to buy his book — please just check it out from the library!!! He is a snide person who looks down on actual okCupid users and has some pretty snide misogynist attitudes in real life. He really does not deserve any more of anyone’s money. I’ve met him in real life but you can judge for yourself if you listen to his NPR interview (on WBUR, I think).
I love that one of the re-tweet comments (is that right? I don’t twitter) is a white bro being like “yeah sure just tell an entire demographic who they should be attracted to.” UAGLALKGJLDG YOU’RE NOT GETTING IT, SON.
Every time I click through to a TNC essay, I think “Ta-Nehisi Coates! This is going to be smart and on point and humane and all-round awesome!” And then every time my mind is blown all over again by just how fantastic he is.
Any and all Chicago Toasters: October 9, 5 pm, in the Murray-Green Library at Roosevelt University, 430 S. Michigan Ave. Ta-Nehisi Coates, senior editor and writer for the Atlantic, will discuss “The Case for Reparations.”
I’m SO EXCITED. I’ve been told that this is his only Chicago appearance this fall, so, be there. Free and open to the public!
Oh crap, marking my schedule now.
PLEASE word696969, PLEASE interrupt more discussions to tell us what MEN like and what MEN want because we haven’t heard enough.
The problem with the world and our understanding of it is that we aren’t told often enough what MEN think.
it must be terrible for men to be so insecure and constantly feel the need to tell people how great and useful they are
brb, just picking my jaw up off the floor
I think my number one pet peeve is the tendency of dudes to be like, “Sorry, ladies, that’s how ALL MEN are and there’s nothing you can do about it. If it bothers you, it’s because you haven’t heard me talk enough about universal male preferences.” And then they turn around like #NOTALLMEN
Pick one, guys.
SO TRUE. :-/
Tracy Moore’s Jezebel piece on the OKC data has this beautiful paragraph: “Ah, another truth: Men really want 20-year-olds until reality sets in and they have to settle for Talky McAge-Appropriate. Bummer. Here’s a thing, and it’s nothing against Rudder directly or his work, which I think does have inherent value. I’m just tired of hearing what men’s preferences are. I’m just no longer interested in hearing what men prefer if they’re given all the best options. I’m tired of how we talk about it, like, as if it actually matters, or that we’d even all instantly become permanently 20 if we could in the first place. As if their feelings are some high bar we can never quite measure up to and must live with and muddle through somehow.”
Oh my god, I want that stitched on a pillow. Yeah, women are expected to settle and be happy with it. In reality men have to settle too, but not without endlessly reminding us that it’s not what they wanted and we should try to be hotter.
I didn’t realize how annoyed I was by all the tittering coverage of Rudder’s book until I read this paragraph and could actually feel the tension in my back unwind as I did so.
I think my initial reaction to that graph is significantly colored by my lesbianism–for me, it’s a relief; please start ignoring me sooner, men, there is literally no upside for me here–but the deeper reaction is very much…when can we all stop caring about male bullshit? Is it now? I’d like it to be now. I don’t have kids of my own; I’m not sure why I should be expected to coddle the fuck out of half the population because they’re such special snowflakes.
Misandrist Island/Colony of New Lesbos forever. At least as like a resort. Christ.
This is the most beautiful thing I’ve read all day. I really just want to yell ‘I don’t care’ at a man right now.
I’ve decided to start caring about men and treating them equally at the exact moment women have equal power to men. Since men presently control something like 99% of the world’s wealth and 80% of the world’s political positions, I don’t anticipate needing to care any time soon.
I was listening to Simon Rich’s story “Occupy Jen’s Street” on Selected Shorts, and it contains this brilliant line: “Ninety-nine percent of men are in love with the top one percent of women. And yet they often refuse to date us. It’s a complete injustice.”
I enjoyed the satire of the whole thing so much I was shocked it was written by a white dude, but should you get your hands on a copy of it, it’s pretty damn good. (Not quite as far away from reality as I’d like, but I think that says more about reality than the satire…)
I was late to the Dirtbag TR article yesterday, so I fear that the magnificence of ladyhistory’s Teddy Motherfreakin’ Roosevelt gifs may be overlooked. I am not myself ladyhistory nor do I know her; I just love the Time to Get Shit Done gif more than I love my own family.
OMG THE TR DELICATE WAVE! adorable.
ladyhistory is basically the reason I joined tumblr.
AMAZING. Thank you! I cannot foresee any situation in which one of these magnificent things will not be the appropriate response.
I was thrilled to read this morning that Alison Bechdel won a MacArthur fellowship! Yay!
Me toooo! In fact, a few people whose work I really enjoy won fellowships. I went to the MacArthur site to read about the project row house guy and was excited to see Alison Bechdel up there too!
Me too! So glad they recognized her genius!
Wow! I love the post she did about Iyengar
SO HAPPY. This isn’t new Bechdel per se, but if any of y’all are NYC-adjacent, I saw the musical adaptation of Fun Home when it was at the Public and it is incredible. It’s coming to Broadway soon and everyone in the world should see it. You’d think that book would be impossible to adapt but it’s a really smart take on it that picks just a few things from the narrative to juxtapose onstage in a really effective way. Plus, it’s composed by Jeanine Tesori (Caroline or Change) and book/lyrics are by Lisa Kron (Well), and an all-female writing team is bizarrely rare in musical theater. I see a lot of musicals and am extremely picky, and this was one of my favorite things I’ve seen EVER.
That con artist story flashed me back to the when I was eight years old with an elaborate fantasy life. My father’s birthday was coming up, and I wanted to buy him a present. So I concocted a “pretend game” that I was collecting for “charity”, and knocked on every door on my long suburban street. I wasn’t conscience of the fact that I was doing something wrong – I was just pretending! Nearly every adult on my street of about 50 homes gave me something, no questions asked. I was slightly tripped up when an older lady asked me “What charity?”, but I quickly recovered and said “A Jewish charity.”
I think I got about $12, all told, an impressive haul. I wish I could remember what I did with it. The next day I pretended to be a construction worker and dug holes in my neighbor’s lawn.
8-year-old me also briefly dabbled in con artistry! My game was taking things from the lost-and-found bin at school, which was placed in a hallway just off the cafeteria and wasn’t under any surveillance. I gave it up pretty soon because my mom was not convinced by my explanation of “Uh, I found it… at school…” (hey, that was technically true!) and she made me take them all back.
Once my sister and I picked some flowers out of our neighbor’s yard and sold them back to them.
So you essentially ransomed their flowers back to your neighbors?
Yup. ~business~
Oh my GOD, that Newsweek article. Maybe it is because I am such a consummate goody-two-shoes, but I am always utterly SHOCKED at the audacity of people who just make things up and pass them off as true, especially in a professional in which honesty and integrity are supposedly two major tenants of the job (SEE ALSO: The Wire Season 5).
Bless you, Nicole, for bringing this appallingly juicy story to my attention.
I am loving that story about Full Figured Fashion Week but it is just making me angry that I ordered something from Gisela Ramirez in June and even though I have emailed them repeatedly, my items have never shown up. I want to support you and I shelled out $50 plus shipping for awesome designs from a plus-sized indie designer but they won’t refund my money or send my items even though it’s been nearly four months.
Did customs eat it??? I know it’s coming from Australia, but STILL.
See if you can put in a fraud claim with your credit card company! I’m assuming you paid with a credit card since it’s coming from Australia? I’ve only ever done this for charges I actually hadn’t made, but it seems like taking your money and not sending you what you bought might be claimable too.
The plus size fashion article – this is really a civil rights movement. Since I’ve had a Joan Holloway-esque figure since junior high, I know how difficult it is to find age appropriate fashionable clothes when one has a 38DDD figure.
That’s ALSO the reason I have NEVER liked older men. I have been hit on by older men (who should really know better) since I was thirteen and they are super creepy. Whoever finances Woody Allen’s movies: stop. They’re just embarrassing now.
I loved the article! I’m so happy that it touched on race, class, and historical issues around the idea of “fatness,” because as you said, this is a civil rights movement; it’s not just about placating a demographic of consumers.
That OKCupid chart is depressssiiiinnnngggg. However, I am pushing 30 and while men my age are all over the place with their interests ( ¯_(ツ)_/¯ ) I am suddenly catnip to the 22-24 year olds. Like, my friends all make the gesture of shooting fish in a barrel whenever one is talking to me. Latent maternal needs? WHO CARES GETTIN’ MY YOUNG BONE ON, MY DAMES.
The guy who made the chart goes into more detail in the book – he shows that while male okcupid users of all ages prefer women in the 20-24 range, there is also a segment of young (20-24) year old male users who are into older women. So I guess that matches your experiences 🙂
He also does a similar chart to the above but with the average age of the women messaged by the men and it’s like – 29, 29, 29, 29, 29, 34, 34, 34, 34, 39, 39, 39 39… basically the youngest they think they can reasonable get away with. So gross.
As a person whose dating philosophy is “minimize inequality in as many areas as possible”… Brb, getting fifty cats.
This doesn’t stop. I’m like Bizarro World Matthew McConaughey now. I get older, they stay 23. (I’m 38 now. My boyfriend will be 28 next week.)
My theory: sensitive young men, raised by badass single moms, need a strong lady to tell them what to do. Plus, boobs.
Dude, I totally made the Matthew McConaughey joke about this phenomenon too! Twinsies!
Glad to know I’ll have a cellmate in hell…
If you can manage to get through the OKCupid article, near the end it calls Rudder’s book “Dataclysm” a MANIFESTO.
And suddenly I realized why the article sounded so … worshipful? I could only hear Mallory’s voice asking me “The prostitute had read his manifesto, why couldn’t you?”
I’ve never seen In & Out but my gentleman friend is from the town in Long Island where it was filmed, so I can recommend the delicious Shipwreck Diner, where they filmed part of the movie.
I am not going to forward that chocolate scam article to my mother, who faithfully buys all chocolate that kids sell door-to-door.
Although, to be fair, that’s just a more well-organized way of door-to-door children scams than others. How is it really different than selling chocolates door-to-door for band trips?
Child scam artist confession: when I was a kid, we used to go through the neighbour’s gardens, pick their flowers, and then sell the flowers on the street for candy money. We were adorable and unsupervised, which helped us get away with it.
Ahh, I just commented above about doing that same flower scam! 😀
Oh, I missed that! You’re not one of my childhood friends, are you?
We really wanted candy money and came up with many elaborate schemes — including selling painted rocks, and friendship bracelets made exclusively in neon green yarn.
And while I’m on a plus-sized tangent/fat girl rage: being fat does not stop at size 24. My sister wears a size 30. Not a single brick and mortar retailer carries her size in stores. So many of the “trendy” places won’t carry sizes over a juniors’ 24. The few stores that do go that high have seemed to go online only. Target recently restructured their plus line so that instead of 1-4 (14-28) it goes from 0-3 (12-26) and anything larger has to be purchased online. Old Navy’s plus line is exclusively online. Hell, even Torrid only carries a size 5 (30) online. eShakti, one of the best places, is unfortunately online only, and they carry sizes from 0-36, but online ordering is a crapshoot since there is no standard body shape. If you’re going to shell out $75 for a dress, you surely want to know that it will fit you first, right??
If you’re going to shame people for being fat, and recoil at the sight of their naked flesh, why won’t you sell them clothing???
With regards to eShakti, they a) have a pretty good return policy, including refunding you 20% on top of what you paid if you return for store credit and b) will customize to your measurements, which, assuming you measured well, results in some very nicely fitting dresses. (unless your body shape is unsuited to the style – they can cut the waist to fit your waist, but if the waist falls higher or lower than your natural waist, you are out of luck)
Yeah, definitely. I love eShakti for that very reason, but I can certainly understand the hesitation to purchase online sight unseen.
Avenue has size 30!
My friend tweeted this bizarre article at me: “Meet the Homeless Man Who Survives by Going Home with Women and Looking Good”. There’s a video (that I haven’t watched because I’m at work), too, which I imagine only helps to confused/horrify/illuminate.
is it just that clip from arrested development where Lindsey thinks an actor is a hot homeless guy?
Heymann attributed this debauched tidbit to a “McLean, Virginia, police report…filed on May 25, 1965, signed by Patrol Officer Charles Duffy,” who chased after but did not catch the freshman United States Senator from New York as he ran off buck-naked.
There are a few problems with that fantastic tale. Among them: There is no McLean Police Department.
OH MY GOD.
http://thehairpin.com/2014/09/six-signs-youre-tru…
this piece on The Hairpin made me laugh. That is all.
Especially the reply.
Whoa, that part in the plus size fashion article about how plus size mags can’t really do print editions because they can’t sell enough ads is FUCKED UP.
The guy I spent years hung up about spent thirty minutes last week telling me all about his new girlfriend, who is 22. This makes her more than thirteen years younger than him.
Meanwhile over in OK Cupid, I had a guy message me the link to Reddit’s weight loss community with note “nobody wants you”. Thanks, random dude.
If I hadn’t prepaid for six months of premium service, I would have deleted my profile. I can feel bad about myself home alone with Netflix, I don’t need it from strangers.
nooooo. No no noooo. That’s all awful. I would love to do you the honor of personally setting each of those people on very much fire.
WHAT THE FUCK
Thanks guys. I was just really taken aback, and it hurt a lot more than it probably should. People are mean.
Somehow, the ability of people to be complete fucking assholes still astounds me.
So the OK Cupid premium account doesn’t come with a “set him on fire/ nuke him from space” feature? Because that seems like it would be worth paying for. Or at least a little animation that sets his profile photo on fire when you click the block button.
Or even a ‘report’ function? That is just gross and surely bad for OKC’s business…
I have a ‘friend’ (really a former co-worker) on Facebook that routinely posts about the chemtrails she keeps seeing in the skies. And I just want to scream, we live near 2 airbases and a couple major airports, of course you are seeing plane trails in the sky. Those are from JETS.
I keep her around because I like seeing what she pulls out of her tin foil tent.
I dated someone 23 years my senior for more than a few years. We lived together. And were so utterly happy (well, until we weren't, which were for other reasons). And yes, there were HUGELY awkward moments, but moments that we then would joke about: his good friend's son was in my college graduating class, he graduated graduate school when I was 2 months old, etc etc. A relationship isn't a numbers game, and while the whole world may make infinite assumptions about you based on just what they see, they can't know the relationship you have. And the "friends" who drunkenly ask you "BUT I MEAN WHYYYYY would you ever (drink spill) DO that! HE'S JUST TOO OLD!" can go right ahead and unfriend themselves.
IDK, I think I just stopped giving a fuck what people saw, mostly. Those who knew us knew us and knew how our ridiculous senses of humor dovetailed so ridiculously together, or how we were equally driven in many ways, or how we just got along. Anyway, much internet love to you and CONGRATULATIONS on your pending marriage!
(Man, I just keep thinking of more: Latter Days! Love and Death on Long Island! Defying Gravity! The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender! Who's the Woman Who's the Man! Not to mention all the nearly contemporaneous ones like Lilies and The Birdcage and Bedrooms and Hallways and Edge of Seventeen. There's a whole host of mid-to-late '90s queer film.)