Rites of passage
By all accounts, mine is a pretty safe life. Have never smoked, used to go to pubs for the music but have never drank, never done drugs except for what they’ve managed to hide in legalised medication. Been on rollercoasters once or twice but couldn’t figure out exactly how the adrenaline-thingy is supposed to be fun - if you have to practically put your life on the line to feel alive then what the hell is wrong with you?
Never had a one-night stand. Entering premature old age as I am, I’ve even come to consider recreational sex as being over-rated. Too much hassle for three minutes of pleasure, really. If it even gets to be that long.
I have discovered/invented other ways of having fun, but to the typical man they’d probably be about as exciting as putting on three condoms and a deepsea-diving suit when you’re with Monica Bellucci. My main cardinal sin is that I sleep too much. How much more boring can a person be? I’m so grey that if I stood next to a tombstone, drunks would ignore the grave markers and piss on me instead.
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Wild parties
Yet, whenever I tell people I don’t go to wild parties every week, they, for some reason, tend to not believe me. They think I don’t smoke or drink because I have stopped. My cousins think I have a string of girlfriends all over the place, which is why I’m supposedly reluctant to settle down. At each encounter I’m always left wondering why.
Maybe it’s because that is what is expected in today’s world. Maybe when you’re a, urm, young, single and “modern” man you’re supposed to indulge (otherwise, what’s the point, right?).
Women may whine about their men who keep disappearing into the night, but deep down inside maybe that’s what really is expected of manly behaviour. Hence why they stick with them, if not seek out such cads outright (fume fume). That’s probably also why the women’s magazines treat the issue so matter-of-factly.
In this month’s issue!
Why men cheat
(because they are biologically like that)
What you can do about it
(prostitute yourself up so much that he won’t go anywhere else).
Plus: how to get the right man to date you
(and keep him too!)
And don’t miss our pullout on fishnet stockings and bondage gear for that special occassion!
I can’t figure out women
You know, I still have not been able to figure out women’s magazines. The women’s lib types decry men at every turn for our role in the emancipation of women, but it seems to me they’d make a much bigger difference if they first went and burnt down the editorial offices being run by their own side.
I mean, yeah, maybe women have been victims of men’s whims and fancies. But guess who’s supplying the tips on how to be the perfect love slave? And who is just as responsible, if not more so, for reinforcing the impossible beauty ideal in the minds of women that’s putting so much pressure on our young ‘uns especially?
Out of the kitchen, so to speak, and straight into the roaring fire. Needless to say, I’m still waiting for WAO, SiS, etc to hold placard demos outside the offices of Jelita, Her World, Wanita, Marie Claire, the distributors of Hello and Cosmetic Beauty and Surgery, and all the other mags that pull in 30,000-plus subscribers per issue.
(Do I even have to add that women’s magazines remain the biggest circulated publications in Malaysia? For other magazine categories, a circulation of 3,000-5,000 is considered excellent, 8,000 is fantastic; for women’s mags, 20,000 is considered paltry. It’s big business.)
But you’re right: things have changed since the bra-burners of the 60s. For the worse.
Pick up a mag today and, sure, you’ll read a big article about the empowerment of women. But then flip the page and read all about sexing oneself up so that “you” will feel good at men staring at gaping at your charms.
Incredible but true: manipulative behaviour is to be encouraged. One female professional went on record to say that sex is a weapon/tool at women’s disposal to get their way in this world and they should use it. Or how about this: there’s a wonderful 1971 cover of Life magazine that shows Germaine Greer laughing and flaunting those famous lanky legs. (Who’s Germaine Greer, you ask?)
Waxing or threading?
Mm. The joys of liberation.
These liberals - Muslim or not - having been liberated thusly, now want traditionalist Muslim women en masse to throw off their tudungs and hijabs and be “modern” like them. What, so that more sistahs can grow up confused, you mean? I’d hardly call that “progress”. But maybe my dictionary is different than theirs.
This is me being cynical again, of course. And to be fair, it’s not just women’s mags that are doing it. It seems to me the modern world is good at giving out such contradictory messages in one breath.
Liberal: I am against the death penalty as prescribed under your hudud laws.
Hududist: But what if it was your mother who got raped and murdered?
Liberal: (pause) Well, that’s a different matter. But she’s not, is she.
I can certainly understand the pressure to conform, especially when you’re a teenager. Peer pressure has always been around, I’m sure, but the modern world has become particularly adept at forcing you to think and behave in a certain way as a group.
There’s just no running away from the yoke of advertising or marketing, is there? Not even for people committed to the whole business of empowering women. And “business” is just the right term for it, I think.
