Category: Men & Women

Things that men and women do, sometimes to each other

Train Smash Women

Men & Women, Train Smash Women

Daughter has a friend whom I’ll call Emma, whose life is one of tragedy. She was abused as a child, estranged from parents, talks the most brainless shit nonstop, is almost always drunk when not working, only dates large Black men who (inevitably) abuse her… well, you get the picture: her life is just one long train smash. Emma is 21 years old, and I love her dearly, for reasons I just cannot explain.

Let me get one thing perfectly clear before I go any further: when I come across a Train Smash Woman in person, I run a mile in the opposite direction because their very presence in your life is toxic. (Back in my misspent youth, I once had to rescue a teenage Train Smash Woman from her drug dealer by sticking a gun up his nose, but that’s a story for another time. What that taught me, however, was to stay away from her and her ilk, and I’ve managed to do so ever since.)

I’m still fascinated by them, though, in some twisted anthropological sense even though they absolutely exude tragedy — maybe for the same morbid reasons why people slow down to look at a car crash on the freeway. My problem is that I find them funny, and view their exploits with open-mouthed horror combined with helpless laughter.

We probably all know one or two of these unfortunate souls, but let’s look at a couple of the more famous ones.

Example #1: Lindsay Lohan. This woman started off her life as an unbearably cute child actress, became a beautiful young woman, then went off the rails completely in her late teens and twenties and now looks like some medieval gargoyle:

I have no idea what made her decide to dye her exquisite red hair into a shade we can safely call “Dockside Blonde”, nor to transform her beautiful mouth into a ghastly fish-pout, but they are all just examples of Train Smash decisions. Apparently, she recently broke off an “engagement” with some much-younger Russian playboy (like that was going to be her path to future happiness, uh huh) who (of course) abused her horribly. I have to tell you, though, that Miss Lohan is not a perfect example of a Train Smash Woman because she started off well before careening off the rails; most Train Smash Women start off as losers, and just continue down that track. There is considerable evidence that Lohan’s parents are a pair of utter assholes who leeched off her and gave her neither protection nor guidance, but we won’t go there other than to note that asshole parents may be a common factor in the phenomenon.

Example #2: Britney Spears. Like Lindsay Lohan, Britney began her public life well in her early teens. In her case she was a pop singer who, despite a rather thin and weak voice, tapped into the rich ur-pedophilia vein of boy / girl singers and became fabulously wealthy as a result. She was, in the old idiom, as cute as a button:

…and even when she matured and had a couple kids, she still looked good:

Then came the long train smash of broken marriages, disastrous affairs, drink and drug problems, and weight gain — none of which stopped her from performing, though, and she seemed quite unashamed of the Train Smash her life had become:

And the final breakdown came when she shaved her head in a series of online Facebook posts or tweets, I don’t remember:

Britney has not stayed a Train Smash Woman, however: she’s cleaned up her act, ditched the drugs and weight, and now has a full-time gig in Vegas. Predictably, I find her less interesting now, although she is once again better to look at (if you prefer that clean-living, daily-gym-visit look, that is):

 

Now she’s become just another $70,000-per-month superstar, and is of little interest to us anymore.

But no discussion of Train Smash Women would be complete without a look at the ultimate, nay the very embodiment [sic] of the breed.

Example #3: Lisa Appleton. No, I’d never heard of her either. She was on some foul British reality TV show many years ago, and I have to admit, she was quite cute (in that full-figured look I like) and even did a bit of celebrity modeling:

   

Had I been aware of her in those days, though, I wouldn’t have given her a second look.

But time has passed, as has Lisa’s “career” as a reality TV star, and she’s ummm changed quite a bit:

…and her “private” look is even more alarming:

Now I know what people are going to say: “Come on, she’s wearing [that grotesque] makeup… she knew the paparazzi were there.”

Of course she did, you fools — and she knows that every time she leaves the house, some camera lens is going to record her insanity.

And that’s the joke. Miss Appleton has turned her Train Smash life into a career; in modern parlance, she “owns” her Smashdom and uses it shamelessly. (Under “shameless”, I think, is where you’d find her picture in any dictionary.)

Needless to say, the Daily Mail loves her — almost every day sees a fresh example of Lisa being tongue-in-cheek Train Smash-y, and I love the pictures almost as much as the commenters at the DM website can’t understand why the newspaper features her so often. (Duh, you idiots: it’s because of me, and people like me who love Train Smash Women.)

And the best part of all this? Lisa has a daughter who plans on following in her mother’s footsteps in reality TV.

Multi-generational Train Smash Women!

I can hardly wait. Yeah, I know; I’m a bad person.

It’s All Fun & Games, Until

Men & Women

Okay, I might as well admit to it: I love reading Britain’s Daily Mail Online. I know it’s trash, and they’re absolutely the worst people in the world, but it’s like Train Smash Women (I’ll explain that term tomorrow): it’s foul and horrible, but you can’t help yourself.

Here’s a wonderful example (from the DM last Friday): Naked man is spotted teetering on a window-ledge of French apartment block ‘after woman’s partner arrives home’. Go ahead and look (you know you want to); I’ll wait.

I think one of the reasons that these ridiculous stories appeal to me so much is that so often, something very similar has happened to me. And the above story is one such example.

Back when I still lived in Johannesburg — from memory, this was in about 1980 — I lived close to an area called Hillbrow, which was Johannesburg’s equivalent of, say, what the Bronx is to Manhattan: a dizzying array of high-rise apartment buildings in what was at the time the most densely-populated area in the entire Southern Hemisphere (back then it even rivaled Hong Kong in terms of population per square mile). Where I lived was a similar, but not quite as densely populated area known as Braamfontein, which was walking distance (about three miles) from Hillbrow, and next door to Johannesburg’s enormous main train station. All this is to give you some kind of scale for the calamity which is to follow.

I was at some party or other in Hillbrow, and ended up flirting with this rather cute woman. She told me that she was engaged to some guy, but he was always away doing contract construction work and because of that she felt lonely and neglected. One thing led to another (booze, mostly), with the inevitable outcome that we ended up in bed at her apartment. (Nowadays, of course, Good Kim would never have taken advantage of her vulnerability, but in 1980, 25-year-old Evil Kim ruled the roost, so to speak.) Here’s what happened next:

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Husband Potential

Men & Women

This young man is going to go far. From his Plenty Of Fish (POF) profile (UK version):

I don’t use POF very often, I very rarely send the first message and I’m content being single.
I read many profiles, with women describing in detail their previous bad judgment when it comes to selecting a partner. Detailing how they quite simply want a man who is honest, that they can get along with and will remain faithful. I don’t think that’s too much to ask. I urge you all to choose more wisely next time; if you don’t pick well, ask your family to judge them for you, a brother, dad for example.
You probably have bad taste in men because deep down, you enjoy complaining to your friends how badly your partner treats you; it probably gives you a sense of enormous well-being. I could take on a woman like that, but you’d probably get bored with me. So instead, I’ll keep clear and enjoy the spectacle of the entertaining female psyche!
I won’t take a partner for the sake of not being single, I’m looking for a keeper, I’m in no rush, if I don’t reply to you, I probably don’t envisage you being the mother of my future children, sorry! The following qualities are what I’m looking for:
– slim (no excuse ladies, at our age, we should be in our prime). I may budge if you’re really pretty and willing to let me whip you into shape by sharing my athletic lifestyle. Size 12+ is not for me, you may be average in the UK, but just because lots of women are overweight, doesn’t make it right. Too much greed & indulgence in this country
– without child, unless your partner has died, or at least well and truly out of the picture (I know many a good man that’s been a gap filler, only for daddy to get back on the scene)
– be Roman Catholic (I may budge on that, but our kids would be going to a Catholic school, end of discussion!) or at least hold similar values, such as kindness and family values
– Have some kind of interest in sports
– Have more interests than just shopping and watching TV
– Be able to hold a conversation about topics other than reality TV, soaps, clothes, make-up or other female apparel
– Not have any tattoos, or if you do, they must not be visible (on your face, arms or legs). In fact, all tattooed women can do one, disgusting!
I guess I’m going to be single for a long time ha! If you have read my profile all the way through, you probably need to find a hobby, anyone for tennis?

The typical chick in his target demographic will dismiss the above as “rude”, “egotistical”, “arrogant”, “judgmental”, “picky”, etc. which means that most of them will self-select (or unselect) themselves out of the market, as it were. Which, from his perspective, would be a good thing because he doesn’t have to waste his time on sluts, doxies, losers and slatterns.

There are two things to learn from this little piece of wisdom. The first is that there are some good young men out there — he is not the only one — who are available but who are not going to jump at just any woman who makes herself available. He’s being perfectly honest as to what he finds appealing in a potential mate, and what he considers disqualifications.

The second thing to learn is for young women. Look at his criteria, and most especially what he considers to be disqualifications, and don’t do those things — if someday you want to make yourself appealing to a decent, moral and honest young man, as opposed to your average dating-site asshole who at best is going to pump and dump you.

Here’s the thing: not one of his qualifications is unreasonable. Back when I was in my mid-twenties, about 80% of the women I encountered in my target market (19 – 25 years old) would have easily qualified under his criteria, most with added attributes (i.e. could cook, sew and in short be proficient in what used to be called the womanly arts). But times have changed [10,000-word rant deleted] and he may find the pickings slim.

I hope he finds someone worth his attention, and he probably will — especially as he’s prepared to wait for Miss Right.

Good luck, young fella. We’re all pulling for you.

A Thing Of Beauty Is A Joy Forever

Men & Women

I have a theory about men who are married to the same woman for a long time, and that theory is that she never changes (in his eyes) from the woman or girl he married.

I think the seed of this was planted when at age 20 or thereabouts, I met a man who’d married a beauty queen when he was 24 and she 19. At the time, they’d been married over fifty years, and I don’t know, but I’m certain that they’re both deceased by now.

He’d been a soldier in the British Army (he was a WWI veteran), was still a good-looking man and carried himself with that erect bearing that is unmistakably the look of a senior NCO — in his case, a sergeant-major. His wife had, as the saying goes, not aged well: she’d put on a lot of weight and her once-beautiful face was now moon-shaped. The only thing still beautiful was her hair, which was long, thick and grey, permanently worn in a plait down her back.

But he loved her; good grief, he loved her more than any man I’ve ever known to love a woman. One night, we were sitting in his living-room, both a little tipsy after dinner, when he suddenly said out of the blue, “You know what, boy? I know that _________ is old and overweight. But the only time I ever see that is when we go out and we’re with other people. When we’re at home all alone together, all I can see is the beauty queen I married back in 1922.”

I don’t think he’s alone in this, in fact, I think there are lots of men like him. The popular meme these days is that men divorce their wives as they get older, to “trade up” to a younger, more beautiful woman. That would certainly be true among the rich and famous set — because, let’s be honest, wealth and fame gives them the opportunity to do so, especially when those younger women throw themselves at their, ummm, feet.

But not every man is rich and famous, of course — let’s be honest and say that most men aren’t rich or famous — and among those men, and especially those men who have been married to the same woman for a long time, the very thought of “trading up” is not only ridiculous, but outrageous (i.e. likely to cause outrage). Men like my sergeant-major friend.

I’m going to illustrate the point by looking at a rich and famous man who hasn’t traded up, and has been married for sixteen years to his second wife (his first wife, to whom he’d also been married for about the same length of time, died of ovarian cancer). His name is Pierce Brosnan, and his wife’s name is Keeley. Here they are on their wedding day, in 2001 (they met in 1999):

Here they are today:

…and here they are at some red-carpet affair:

Whenever you see them together, they’re holding hands, or are walking arm-in-arm, or they’re kissing like damn teenagers.

Now I’m going to go out on a limb here, and suggest that Pierce Brosnan could have “traded up” on more than one occasion. In fact, I’m pretty sure that he could have had his pick from, oooh, about half a million women all over the world, had that been his intention. Yet he’s still married to Keeley, and he obviously still only sees the woman he married.

In case you’re wondering about the title of this post, the full sentence written by John Keats is:

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.”

As for me… well, I’m one of those men.

Selling Yourself

Culture, Men & Women

I remember talking once about prostitution on my old blog, and coming down hard against it:

I’m familiar with all the “rational” arguments in favor of prostitution: freeing the police, freeing up jail cells, monitoring the health of prostitutes, whatever. They all have to do with saving money, but they all suck compared to the damage that would be inflicted on our society through legalization.

As you can see, I used to be quite judgmental about this kind of thing, and I still don’t agree with prostitution per se, but as I’ve got older, I’ve become more tolerant about it, with a few caveats.

The problem is that there are in essence three kinds of prostitution: the age-old “selling yourself on the street kind” — i.e. to all comers [sic] — and the more formal transactions, whereby women contract for sex on a more formalized basis, or marry for money. In all cases, the motivation is the same: women are trading themselves to men for financial support, only the first kind is frowned upon by society, the second kind winked at, and the last is pretty much the glue whereby society is held together. (As my friend Patterson* once commented: “All women fuck for money if they’re going to be honest about it, but they seldom are.”)

And, of course, as with all things, there is a murky area between these two extremes: the “contracted” kind whereby young women (and it seems to be mostly the young ones, for obvious reasons) rent their bodies out to wealthy men in order to pay off college loans, or get through some other adverse financial circumstance — hence the popularity of websites like Sugardaddy. This is what I call a “part-time prostitute”, and the exchange is quite cynical — as are most transactions of this kind. But this is different from the “brief encounter” or street-corner type of prostitution, because older men (usually older, because younger men don’t have the financial wherewithal to pay a young woman thousands of dollars a month just for “companionship”) set up an ongoing financial support system, buying Little Miss Hotbody expensive clothing, jewellery, cars and even sometimes a condo. (Note that I’m not saying that this is better than the street-corner kind of prostitution, just that it’s different. The process is the same — women having sex for money — but the terms of congress, as it were, are dissimilar.) If I’m going to be really cynical about it, I’d call this kind of prostitution a “halfway house” between street-corner sex and marital sex.

Of course, wealthy men have always done this kind of thing, but in the modern world, where shame and social opprobrium seem to have disappeared, these transactions are now conducted quite openly. We can argue all day about the morality (or lack thereof) of such an action, but I have to tell you, there is absolutely no way of ever stopping it.

In fact, if I become a part-time Marxist for a moment (shuddup, let me finish), one might almost view this as a “class” issue. Poorer men, who can’t afford to be sugar daddies, go for the “brief encounter” kind of prostitute because that’s all they can afford, and the street-corner prostitutes, who most likely are not candidates for the attentions of the Sugardaddy Set, offer their services. Needless to say, this is the kind of activity which attracts the greatest attention from legislators and morality guardians (e.g. the church, back when anyone cared what that institution thought), which means of course that the police become involved. It’s easier to crack down on street prostitution because the transaction is out in the open.

Now imagine a Vice Squad trying to crack down on the women and men who use Sugardaddy.com to arrange their sexual / financial transactions, and I think we can all agree that their efforts would result in resounding failure. Take it a step further, and imagine a Vice Squad going after someone like the late Anna Nicole Smith marrying a septuagenarian billionaire — even though the transaction is precisely the same as both the other two kinds of prostitution — and the task is impossible, because at this end of the prostitution index, the transaction has become accepted by society and is even blessed by marriage vows. As with most things, the wealthier the people involved, the less law enforcement will be interested. [/Marxism]

We can argue all day about the morality of the activity of women selling their bodies for sex, and about the disappearance of public morality which allows Sugardaddy.com to exist, nay flourish, but this is where we find ourselves today, for better or for worse. As the modern idiom goes, it is what it is, and it seems like we pretty much have to live with it.

Fine. Let us at least acknowledge that street-corner prostitution presents a greater danger to women — slavery, forced prostitution, human trafficking, violence and murder — than does the Sugardaddy- and Anna Nicole-style prostitution. (We can leave class out of it because, as with most Marxist thought, that’s just an overlay of political theory on an age-old situation, and no class warfare is ever going to “solve” or end street-corner prostitution.) I do think, however, that in this regard there is a real need for law enforcement attention, simply because of the many dangers to which poorer women are exposed. Honestly, though, I think that the law should go after the management of the street-corner prostitution industry — that would be the pimps and procurers of women — rather than the actual participants (the women and their clients), because the former are the ones who generally cause real harm to the hapless women under their control. I’m not advocating State-run brothels because both the concept and likely execution are going to be foul.  (To put it in perspective: imagine a State-run restaurant, e.g. managed and staffed by the same kind of people at the average DMV office, and you’ll see why I think State-run whorehouses are a bad idea.) Nevertheless, they are the lesser evil than those managed by the (illegal) private sector, who as a rule do not have the interests of their employees at heart.

The solution, of course, is the free market: legalized brothels. Dennis Hof’s Moonlite Bunny Ranch (which is a legal business in Nevada) is not the norm in the current prostitution industry, but a statistical outlier. It and others like it may be “safe” establishments for both the prostitutes and their clients, but as a bookie might say, that ain’t the way to bet, in numerical terms. (I’m not suggesting that Hof be prosecuted for pimping, by the way: he runs a good business, everyone gets what they want, and nobody gets hurt. Would that all businesses were run that way.) What I am suggesting is that brothels should be legalized, but treated the same as (or perhaps even more strictly than) restaurants: licenses, frequent inspections, staff protection regulations, the whole enchilada.

Is there danger to the Sugarbabies and gold-diggers? Of course there is, but it’s orders of magnitude smaller than that to which street prostitutes are exposed. Law enforcement has no place in this area, and justifiably so. Is this “fair”? Of course not, but it’s not unfair because of the class of the participants; it’s a concern because of the dangers to those at the lower end of the scale. (Again with the ur-Marxism: the working classes are always exposed to danger in greater numbers and to a greater degree than the wealthy; but that’s not a class issue, it’s just a fact of life: oil riggers’ and Alaskan deep-sea fishermen’s lives are more at risk than those of doctors, architects or small-town bankers.)

Some time back, the prostitution topic was broached at Instapundit, and I made the following comment:

Maybe I’m just jaded, but I see little difference between anyone selling their talents to a willing group of buyers, and someone selling their bodies. If you can throw a baseball accurately at 105mph and end up playing professional baseball, how is that so different from a pretty woman selling her body and/or personality skills for an hourly fee? When I was a consultant, clients had access to my mind and business experience for $175/hour… so how is that different from prostitution? How is that different from a person who sells their time, attendance and skills to work in a corporation, for a monthly salary?
I know, this is about sex, and sex is SPECIAL. Sorry to say, but I don’t think that’s so true, anymore. Or maybe my advancing years have made me more cynical about the whole thing. But I see people like the Kardashian coven becoming fabulously wealthy by selling the intimate details of their lives to the public (via television), and I just don’t see the difference between Kim Kardashian and Air Force Amy [at the Bunny Ranch]. Actually, I find Amy less objectionable, come to think of it.
And yes, I know that prostitution is dangerous for the women — human trafficking being one danger, disease and violent death likewise. But it isn’t as dangerous at Dennis Hof’s places — certainly, the girls/women there seem to be okay — so maybe there’s a lesson there somewhere.
One thing I do know: no laws or police forces are ever going to stop the demand for contracted sex. So… [shrug]

By “contracted sex”, of course, I meant the Sugardaddy and gold-digger kind. I personally find both distasteful — I find all kinds of prostitution distasteful — but what the hell. It is what it is; and frankly, I have better things to worry about.

Finally, no article on this topic would be complete without a completely gratuitous pic of one of the participants. Here’s Amy:

I think she’s magnificent.

*Postscript: Longtime Readers of my scribblings know all about my friend Patterson. Newer Readers may not, so allow me please to post the original introduction to this splendid human being (and by the way, he is a real person and not my alter-ego).

Introducing Patterson
February 18, 2008
4:10 AM CDT

For the longest time, Patterson and I have been friends. He’s a little more politically-incorrect than I am, has (like me) been married three times, to (respectively, from oldest to youngest), Mavis, Agatha and Sheila. Unlike me, he has no sons, only four daughters. Perhaps because he is surrounded by women, he drinks a great deal more than I ever did. Last I heard, he was still married to Sheila, who is actually Agatha’s younger sister (his comment on this piece of frightfulness: “I’d do anything to avoid breaking in a new mother-in-law”). Luckily, he and Agatha had no children (the marriage lasted barely a year), so he’s been spared the “daughters as cousins” mess.
He has a first name, but everyone, even his wives, call him Patterson. He is as funny as the day is long, but with a hint of tragedy always lurking in the near background (and sometimes front and center, as you will learn).
Stories abound. Here’s a quick one.
Back in the day, if a refrigerator had a cold water dispenser in the door, it was not hooked up to a water pipe, but was fed by a reservoir inside the fridge. This meant that one would have to take the thing out and refill it periodically. It was a huge pain in the ass, except for Patterson. What he did was quite brilliant. (This was during one of his bachelor periods.)
He would fill the reservoir nearly to the top with spring water, and then top it off with Scotch: ergo, ice-cold Scotch & water, on tap.
Patterson is mostly drunk, and has absolutely no sense of shame or pride about the several embarrassing things which have happened to him over the years as a result of his many episodes of drunkenness and foolishness.
I am also ashamed to admit that over the years I have stolen from him many sayings and passed them off as my own. (One being: “Women have orgasms? Next you’ll be telling me they have the vote!”)
Anyway, I’ve always refrained from including him in the stories of my youth, because it would have required too much back-story and flashback. No more. Now that you’ve been introduced, he can take up his rightful place in the Pantheon of Heroes, and he will feature in many stories in the future.
He deserves no less.