Tag: liberation

The Hefner Spin

Jeez, Hef is barely cold, and he’s already being immortalized. I just heard something on NPR, for chrissake, that said that his magazine sparked the sexual revolution. I almost choked on my M&Ms.

Okay, I’ll concede this much: His magazine made sex an open topic for discussion. His magazine normalized nudity. And sometimes, at its pinnacle, before it became the joke that it now is, it really did have good articles. Really.

But this spin that he liberated women? Omigod. Where to begin.

Playboy bunnies are seen as great successes by those who are into that stuff, but not for their brains, honey. Not for their achievements or their societal contributions. Not for any other reason than making the decision to shuck off their clothes in their early 20’s, as if the choices one makes at that age are consistently rational. Gimme a break. If anything, that liberated them to become objects.

You never hear anyone talk about the fact that his magazine helped perpetuate the body shaming that still exists to this day. Very few of us can live up to the standards that his Barbie dolls set. Even fewer of us are in our early 20’s. I actually had to give up on internet dating sites because the men my age are looking for skinny young women. You might be an old sleaze, but that doesn’t make you Hugh Hefner, buddy. Get real.

And by the way, who owned the damned mansion? Not the women whose flesh gave Hugh Hefner so much profit. He might have let some of them live there, and gave them allowances in exchange for unprotected sex, but the fortune and the control was all his. Don’t you think otherwise for a second. And by the way, if they didn’t give him or his friends sex, they didn’t get that “allowance.” That’s not prostitution… how?

The fact that so many women were willing to sleep with this creepy, dried-up 91 year old weasel in exchange for his handouts does not elevate them in anyone’s eyes. That they’d humiliate themselves by dressing up like rabbits (the ultimate breeding machines, lest we forget), does not make them pillars of the community. The fact that they were expected to entertain a revolving door of sleazy celebrities like Bill Cosby and Charlie Sheen should not, I hope, make them the subject of envy. I strongly suspect that none of them have won the Nobel Prize.

I’ve got to admit though, the dude was rife for parody. A friend of mine posted on Facebook, “Hugh Hefner died. I guess he’ll Miss October.” That did make me laugh.

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When Luxuries Become Necessities

I don’t own a clothes dryer, and I don’t particularly miss having one. It’s really not that inconvenient to hang things on a rack to dry. It takes about as long as it would to load the dryer. And I save on electricity and repair bills and space.

I also don’t own a hair dryer. Haven’t had one of those in decades. I’ve yet to be arrested by the fashion police. It takes a lot less time to get ready, and there’s less to pack when I travel.

I also don’t have a TV or an I-phone or a couch. Less stuff to lug from pillar to post. Fewer bills. Less to break down. I keep my kitchen gadgets to a minimum and I don’t collect stuff if I can help it.

I see it all the time. People get a nifty new little thingamajig, and it starts off as a luxury or a convenience or a time-saving device, and it quickly turns into this master/slave relationship, with the thing as the master. When you get something, you become responsible for it, and you also learn to depend upon it. People lose their doohickeys and they freak right out. How on earth are they going to survive without their whatchamacallit?

Stuff just weighs you down, dude. Simplify. You’ll be amazed how liberated you feel.

Having said that, get between me and my laptop or my washing machine and you’ll pull back a bloody stump.

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[Image credit: simpleIjustdo.com]

Coming Full Spiral

This morning I sort of did the walk of shame. I trained on a drawbridge that I had worked on for years, but had left two years ago to completely change my life. After working on this beautiful little bridge since 2001, I realized that as much as I love the job, there was no future in it. Lousy pay, worse benefits, and absolutely no chance of advancement.

So I sold my house, quit my job, left a 16 year relationship, moved 3 ½ hours south and got a degree in Dental Laboratory Technology and Management. I graduated with honors and applied to 198 labs throughout the US and Canada, and had no luck at all. So now I’m back where I started, doing what I’ve always done, but now I’m paying twice as much rent as I paid in mortgage, and I’m teetering on the brink of homelessness.

Now, in the movies when people make such a radical change, their life changes, radically. And frankly, that’s what I was expecting. There’s no real life primer on what to do when you gamble and lose and are right back where you started from. It’s quite humbling. Actually, it’s a crushing blow.

On the way to work today, knowing I was going to be training with my same old coworker for my same old job, I was wondering how I’d feel. Would I be getting smug looks? Would I be depressed?

Actually, as I walked up the bridge, I was surprised to discover that I felt really good. It was like coming home. I really always did enjoy working there. And it was like I’d never left. But as the shift wore on, I realized that I hadn’t come full circle, after all. I had changed. The bridge had changed. It had been modernized. It was different.

IMG_0368 This was the bridge operating console before I left.

001 This is the same room now.

So instead of coming full circle, I had come full spiral. A tight spiral, granted, but I wasn’t exactly where I used to be, emotionally or structurally. I’m older, I hope I’m wiser, and the things that used to upset or worry me seem trivial now.

I think maybe I did get something out of going to school besides a third worthless degree. I think I learned that I can roll with the punches, and that nothing in life is as permanent as I once thought, and that, oddly enough, is a good thing. Once you figure out that change is survivable, a lot of your anxieties disappear. It’s really quite liberating.

So here I am, yet again. The “here” is still here, but the “I” is someplace else entirely. It’s all good.