get a spine. please.

Today in Dumb Young Women Who Don't Know What the Hell They're Talking About and They're Making the Rest of Us Look Bad, Eva Lorraine Molina busts out some bullshit about how women nowadays aren't "ladylike" enough.

I bet this girl just read "Modesty" by Wendy Shalit and thought she'd chime in with her own narcissistic, implausible, poorly written diatribe.

"On college campuses telling the difference between liberal and conservative women is nearly impossible when they behave in an equally undignified manner. Conservative women should display their values through their lifestyle. This means acting like ladies, because the difference between conservative and liberal women should not just be the way we vote."

Conservative women wear modest clothing. Liberal women dress like they're competing for Miss Hawaiian Tropic. I'm sorry but I can't take anyone seriously who makes sweeping generalizations and divides people into two categories.

She goes on. "A lady does not tell dirty jokes along with men and she does not tolerate men telling dirty jokes in her presence. She does not swear, and she is not considered 'one of the guys.' In spite of new fashion trends, a lady always dresses appropriately, leaving a lot to the imagination. When at a social gathering, a lady does not do things she will regret the next day. Above all, a lady is well-mannered, dignified, gracious, and kind."

A lady has no sense of humor. She does not have fun, and she is not considered "someone you hang out with." In spite of new fashion trends, a lady wears the frumpiest clothes possible, hiding behind her baggy shirts and long dresses because she refuses to be seen as a sexual being. When at a social gathering, a lady sits around as a bored designated driver while her husband drinks thirteen Budweisers. Above all, a lady is passive, quiet, desperate and a doormat.

"Our society holds conservatives to a higher moral standard."

Let me repeat that, because the first time I read it, I choked on my water in a fit of laughter.

"Our society holds conservatives to a higher moral standard."

No wonder the Bush administration tortured prisoners, Larry Craig solicited a man for gay sex in an airport bathroom, Ted Haggard did meth with his hustler boytoy, Tom DeLay laundered campaign money, Mark Foley sent lewd messages to teenage Congressional pages, Jim Bakker served jail time for fraud and Jimmy Swaggert hung out with a prostitute at a hotel in New Orleans.

Really living up to that standard, let me tell you.

"I have heard many of my male peers place women into three categories: 'the ones to mess around with, the ones to date, and the ones to marry.' Though this is a rather crude way of categorizing women, it shows that men do recognize and value the qualities that make a woman a lady. Ladies are the kind of women that men can take home to Mom and Dad and that most men want to marry."

Sweetheart, he might want to marry you, but he's sure as hell not going to want to sleep with you. It doesn't matter if he puts a ring on your finger, you'll sit home barefoot and pregnant while he's sleeping with one of those women who's there 'to mess around with.' Sorry, but party girls always win. Get a grip.

What all of this boils down to, essentially, is this: Women are supposed to be perfect, happy, attractive helpmeets at all times. Any incidence of women showing INDEPENDENCE, any self-actualization, any time women show dissatisfaction with their lot in life or desire to change said lot, we are being "unladylike." And naturally, it's all OUR fault that society has changed and we've been labeled "sluts." It has nothing to do with the fact that men have been responsible for the hypersexualized female image in modern media. It isn't related to the fact that our society is entirely focused on the male gaze. And, in Molina's world, it's up to us to change in order to be respected by men - of course, it's not the responsibility of men to progress past patriarchy's "fuck them, date them, or marry them" axiom, and change to earn OUR respect. Get off the floor, Eva. Have some dignity.

an ode to beaus of days gone by.

Ah, the good old days. When I was young, carefree. When I dated complete morons.

As I get ready to embark on this crazy journey you kids call "matrimony," I can't help but be reminded of my expansive and often frightening romantic history. I find this to be a good time to reflect and put it all behind me as I get ready to start life with the only person I've ever been in a relationship with who can actually deal with all my bullshit.

I put forth, for your examination: three of the most screwed up couplings of my 23-year-old life.


Exhibit A: Chelsea's Traveling Circus, featuring The 180 Degree Man

When I was 18, I was probably the most miserable person on the campus of Northeastern University. I was also the biggest mess. I smoked far too many cigarettes. I ate horrifyingly fattening cafeteria food every day, I wore way too much glitter for my own good, and I drank Southern Comfort religiously. after screwing around with a misguided emo kid, an actor, a software peddler, a pagan and a hipster, I fell for - you guessed it, or, actually, probably not at all - a long-haired World of Warcraft player English major who pretended to play bass. Who was a virgin. Pro-life. And a Republican.

Not a very long story short, we dated for a year and a half. He broke up with me over the phone right after my mom got out of the hospital, where she almost bled to death (not that there's any ill sentiment remaining). It appears that after we split, he cut all of his hair off and voted Obama. How charming! I like to think it was my bold, overtly feminist ramblings, but it seems to me now that he was either 1) naively under the political direction of his overbearing Catholic mother, who continued to buy him action figures for Christmas when he was 19, or 2) claiming to have voted for Bush and and against abortion simply to irritate me. I wish him all the best, regardless of the fact that I actually have no idea who he ever was to begin with.


Exhibit B: Work Relationships are a Bad Idea, Even if One of You Doesn't Work There Anymore

Fresh on the prowl in January 2008, I admitted to a former coworker that I had a crush on him following an inebriated night in the city. We had worked together as co-ops and had spent most of the 6 month period making fun of each other. He admitted the feeling was mutual. Things are supposed to progress grandly from there, are they not? We met up in Allston for drinks. Drinks turned into hanging out at my friend's friend's house until 3 am. That turned into an awkward sleepover on my parents' couch. We made out in a stairwell at Jillian's during a work party. He took me to lunch and left me on the stoop of my office building, and he didn't call me again. Until he found out I met someone else. Turns out he was "cleaning up the mess" of his psychotic meth-addict ex-girlfriend, who has her eyebrows tattooed on. Last I heard, they had a beagle together. Mazel tov.


Exhibit C: I Thought I Did a Dead Guy

I just want to preface this story by saying: when I was 17, I was an idiot.

I met a guy on the internet. I'm not going to go into my internet rant, and I'm not going to discuss how the internet has led to two engagements of people I know. Including my own. All I will say is, I met a guy on the internet. And he was a lot older than me.

Seven years older, to be exact. I invited a guy seven years older than me, who I had never met before, to come to my house. And he did. And he brought pot. And I hooked up with him.

We went for a walk around my neighborhood and he invited me to go "camping." Now, we all know about "camping." "Camping" is not cooking on an open fire, sleeping under the stars and enjoying nature's pleasures. "Camping" is going somewhere so you can have sex in a tent. Foolish me, wanting adventure and more of this guy's pot, agreed. I met him at a forest in Taunton. He regaled me in stories of jam band festivals and sleeping with a woman in her forties so he could get unlimited use of her Cape Cod beach home. He told me all about the trailer he lived in while we sat in my Jeep to avoid mosquitoes. I was bored and he was an asshole. I drove home the next morning and never saw him again.

One day, curious about the hippie douche I went "camping" with, I Googled him. Much to my surprise, I found an obituary for a person of the same name, and approximate same age, from New Bedford, where he claimed to be from, but the obituary was dated 1999. I convinced myself the loser I met assumed a dead man's name so he could screw high school chicks from the North Shore, and fell into a miserable shame-slump about it.

Recent Facebooking has refuted my initial conclusion. The guy I met from the internet did provide me with his real name. He only used his weed to bed me. His about me says it all: "you could never understand this shit." I think I do, Brian. I think I do.