Photo of ex-masturbator from this site. [License]
Today I’m launching a new feature that I will probably forget all about and never repeat, like the feature I launched that time about storage tubs.
But anyway, clock this, yall: for this feature, I’m publishing emails from the Twisty inbox, writing incisive responses, and closing with an endearing “Hugs, Twisty.” In fact, I’m calling the whole feature “Hugs, Twisty.” This is because I am up with people.
So let’s get started!
Hi Twisty,
I’m a fairly new reader of yours and loving it!
I heard today on the news that over 80% of workers losing their jobs right now are men, which I think may mean that there are now more women in the workforce than men. Is this a sign of the paradigm shifting, do you think?
Thanks for all that you do,
April
Dear April,
As luck would have it, spinster aunts are the world’s foremost authorities on labor economics.
The reason more men are getting fired is that they are the highest paid workers, and employers with an eye on the bottom line know that they can keep the women on for less grip.
Watch the TV melodramas for an upsurge in one of patriarchy’s time-honored morality plays: wife has become main breadwinner, unemployed husband sits around in stained undershirt scaring the children, eventually killing himself because he can’t stand the emasculating shame of it all. If the TV show is one of the popular Mutilated Female Corpse cop dramas, the husband will kill the wife instead of himself. The message in either case: men must lead public lives or someone will die.
Hugs,
Twisty
Dear Twisty,
Brett Underwood
Dear Brett,
No, I hadn’t seen this or that. Its such a comfort to know that young people are rediscovering the classics when it comes to self-torture.
Were you aware that “God never created solo sex”? Well, it’s true. This dude knows, because he received, and has published for your edification, a personal letter he got from God Himself, wherein God explains why he shouldn’t hone his bone alone.
Is it a good thing to have sexual relations? Certainly — but only within a certain context. It’s good for a man to have a wife, and for a woman to have a husband. Sexual drives are strong, but marriage is strong enough to contain them and provide for a balanced and fulfilling sexual life in a world of sexual disorder.”
Signed,
God
I’m a bit suspicious about this God-letter. Would God actually use a contraction? And what’s with this “signed, God” shit? What, no hugs from God? Or would that be too gay?
Give my regards to the old gang, Brett!
Hugs,
Twisty
Hello Twisty,
First, you must forgive my inability to find the accent mark. Second, I wanted to point something out to you in case you had missed it in all the hullabaloo about the octuplets. The little girl from Yemen who made the news a while ago for getting a divorce was doing some kind of press tour and Time had an article about it.
Apparently a reporter at this press conference asked the girl “if she hopes to meet her Prince Charming someday”. The writer of the article did not refer to the asker of the question as a “complete idiot” which I feel would have been the appropriate response.
I leave this information in your capable hands.
Sincerely,
Gina
Dear Gina,
It is customary for Western reporters interviewing traumatized survivors of forced marriage and child rape to make jokey innuendos about their future careers as sex objects. These jokes are consistent with global accords governing fair use of women.
Hugs,
Twisty
P.S. I will overlook the accent mark infraction. This time.
25 comments
Lovepug
February 8, 2009 at 11:11 am (UTC -6)
Dear Twisty,
If I try Funfeminism brand paradigm, will I find my Prince Charming?
((((Hugs!)))
Lovepug
PS. Sorry I cannot figure out how to embed URLs, but have you seen this?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/08/MN7P15HD60.DTL
Notorious Ph.D.
February 8, 2009 at 11:43 am (UTC -6)
My thought when I heard the gender/labor story was that the big losses were in those sectors of the economy that were heavily male; e.g. automobile manufacture, investment banking, or construction. The jobs that aren’t going away are in less gendered fields (service industry) or ones that are gendered female (teaching; nursing).
I agree that these are lower-paid jobs. One wonders that if men start flocking to nursing school for a “safe” job, salaries will start to rise in certain specialties that men colonize.
But more on point with your morality play scenario: the big, butch jobs that are disappearing are so heavily linked with American masculinity (lifting big things, using tools, being competitive and predatory) that I think that a prediction of a sharp rise in spousal abuse, child abuse, and rape isn’t far off, as dude nation casts about desperately for some way to prove their dominance.
Or, we could be headed to a future where women’s economic contributions mean that dude nation will start to see them as fully human. Right?
K
February 8, 2009 at 11:57 am (UTC -6)
Would God actually use a contraction? AAAAHAHAHAHahahahahaha! Thank you!
sonia
February 8, 2009 at 12:48 pm (UTC -6)
do not read lovepug’s link unless you want to cry. that was awesome.
PhysioProf
February 8, 2009 at 1:24 pm (UTC -6)
I like this new feature!
Hugs,
Comrade PhysioProf
Ron Sullivan
February 8, 2009 at 1:27 pm (UTC -6)
‘Scuse me while I dig in the T-shirt drawer for my battered old Scarlet A.
Lexie
February 8, 2009 at 2:21 pm (UTC -6)
The picture of the young woman and man attending No Masterbation Allowed Camp wearing the red Ex-masterbator T-shirts?
They are so getting it on with each other.
pulltaffy
February 8, 2009 at 2:34 pm (UTC -6)
(Revealing my punctuation-related stupidity) Where exactly is there a missing accent mark? In Yemen?
Twisty
February 8, 2009 at 2:40 pm (UTC -6)
“(Revealing my punctuation-related stupidity) Where exactly is there a missing accent mark? In Yemen?”
Yeah, we called Yemen, and it’s there, all right. They’re sending it back Fed-Ex Overnight.
Orange
February 8, 2009 at 2:54 pm (UTC -6)
I don’t believe you, Twisty. We know about you and your antipathy to overnight shipping.
not a dudetiful wife
February 8, 2009 at 3:58 pm (UTC -6)
The headline that women are less affected is misleading. Where I sit, in a male dominated profession, it is the feeling that women need their jobs less because men have families to support and there is that ego thing. Sure, women work, but “the man” should keep their job and good jobs should be retained by them. Last week I was mysteriously taken off a project guaranteed to keep my job in the upcoming layoffs and the job was given to a less qualified man. so I have a front row seat to this. I was the only woman on this new engineering project. Now there are no women. I’m taking this up with HR, and the odds on that are iffy. I’m not too shy to ask for positive energy from you all – and that the villians get theirs.
Hedgepig
February 8, 2009 at 6:21 pm (UTC -6)
“I’m not too shy to ask for positive energy from you all”
You’ve got it.
norbizness
February 8, 2009 at 6:37 pm (UTC -6)
I’ve been masturbating to pictures of ex-masturbators all day, lest the cosmic balance be disrupted.
Sylvanite
February 8, 2009 at 6:41 pm (UTC -6)
It’s times like these that make me happy I’m a poorly paid professional working for the state. Everyone gets treated badly, regardless of gender.
I’ve never understood the hostility towards masturbation so common among religionists. Why do they hate life and pleasure so much?
Craroline
February 8, 2009 at 7:19 pm (UTC -6)
re: “Are you looking forward to finding your Prince Charming someday?”
I really liked the girl’s response. Way to put the reporter in their place!
thebewilderness
February 8, 2009 at 8:22 pm (UTC -6)
I seem to be stuck in the spamulator, so please forgive my repeating the fact that I do deeply appreciate people who voluntarily don warning signs.
not a dudetiful wife
February 8, 2009 at 9:50 pm (UTC -6)
I cannot believe that t-shirt, yet it’s true. I wonder if there are coffee cups. I could give them at the office to all the tools.
funny thing. at the exact places where they would applaud that sort of thing, they would probably ban the t-shirt for bad language. I want an opposing shirt that says “Oh, Come on…”
I wonder if coming in a dream or lengthy showers or riding an old tractor on the high seat would still count. Many a good woman has been ruined on a vibrating tractor seat.
Nolabelfits
February 8, 2009 at 10:47 pm (UTC -6)
A tractor? Seriously?
Joolya
February 8, 2009 at 10:48 pm (UTC -6)
I’m'a start selling a shirt that just says “WANKER”.
Erzebeth
February 9, 2009 at 12:03 am (UTC -6)
“Where I sit, in a male dominated profession, it is the feeling that women need their jobs less because men have families to support”
And women don’t? Argh, that pisses me off so much. You’ve got my support, not a dudetiful wife.
polly styrene
February 9, 2009 at 3:06 am (UTC -6)
I’d like to give my work colleagues a ‘current masturbator’ T shirt. A lot of them are wankers.
Citizen Jane
February 9, 2009 at 4:12 am (UTC -6)
That 80% figure doesn’t mean much to me. I’m sure there are many top executives who lost their jobs, but could easily turn around and get another one. Sure, they might take a pay cut, but they still have a job and probably still a damn good one with middle or upper class salary.
The figure that would be useful would be the one that tells me how many men and women are becoming unemployed and unable to find work.
Since it’s related, I would like to share this interesting article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/opinion/09hirshman.html?_r=1
Linda Hirshman talks about how Obama’s stimulus package is going to create lots of jobs for construction workers and engineers – i.e. jobs in heavily male-dominated fields. It’s a great article, although she pisses me off in the second-to-last paragraph when she seems completely blasé about the lack of women in these fields and seems to suggest it’s women’s fault.
I really don’t get it. Would it be so hard to funnel some money into libraries, education and health care? I mean, there are a billion reasons to push funding in those directions besides the fact that women would get jobs that way.
I would think libraries are vital in a bad economy, since I know several people who owe their careers to the fact that they spent their unemployed days sitting in a library learning a job skill. Not only that, but people who can’t afford to have The Internets in their own homes can use library computers to find job postings. Many potential employers will expect you to be reachable via e-mail.
speedbudget
February 9, 2009 at 6:42 am (UTC -6)
For those who are against not masturbating
DeeMom
February 9, 2009 at 7:47 am (UTC -6)
Speedbudget: The logo of humping cows on that site is confusing. As the parent of a teen, I am thinking that it means “Bangin some beef” or something. And the tagline “Thanks, masturbation”…???? I dunno. I might buy one to wear to the PTA.
Kuleana
February 12, 2009 at 9:55 pm (UTC -6)
Re: jobs, I also remember reading that although men are more likely to lose their jobs in an economic downturn, they’re also much more likely than women to find a new job in a reasonable amount of time. But as it’s this blamer’s bedtime, I don’t have a link at the moment!