"The really frightening thing about middle age is that you know you'll grow out of it." - Doris Day

***

Someone: most men like women fairer than them, when it comes to the same race.
which is why dark pple like me have to resort to ang mohs who exotify asian women

if a tan is so sexy why do singaporean women like to stay so damn white
korean and jp women too
and chinese women too

yeah i dont think sg men find me very sexy
only thai construction workers and malay men whistle at me.
the banglahs stare.

and prc dont even bother
lol

the angmohs stare too.


MFTTW: hahaha. stat boards! :D

they really ask offensive things like... your dialect group... religion.. parents income
might as well ask if you are a virgin

married/single/dating non-exlucsively/dating exclusively
names of former significant others, their occupations, AND their income

Me: sexual orientation

MFTTW: yep

number of previous sexual partners


Tim: i had a steak

Me: self made?

Tim: from the friendly butcher next door

Me: he cooks steak?
hahahaha

Tim: i buy the raw steak lah
damn good cut

Me: wagyu

Tim: NOT THAT GOOD
but it's 5 times more expensive than the supermarket cut

Me: is it 5 times nicer?

Tim: about 10 times
nah. infinite times

i like mine 'bleu'
you can't do that with a supermarket cut

if you cheat with NaHCO3, papaya extract, egg white or some rubbish
the texture is different


Me: I’m told you have trouble finding material for this week’s IVLE [posting on popular culture in Singapore and hegemony]

Someone: yess

Me: just buy FHM singapore lah

Someone: hm. but what's the hegemonic struggle there?

Me: haha
sure can find one

remember: critical theory is very powerful

Someone: haha


Someone else: anyway, re the G rated films, aren't you missing hte point a bit re availability etc?

the point is, and i felt this long before ever reading the report, it just articulated something that i felt as a 13 year old, if you're a young girl you see very few roles for you as a joker/wandered/explorer/active person in the world when the world built around you consists primarily of men doing things and being varied and women being ornamental

Me: but then you eschew categories
so why are they so important to you now

why should it matter if it's a male doing things or a female doing things
they're just 'people' to you

Someone else: yes that's how i tried to think about it

Me: at 13? wth

Someone else: the trouble is if you are persistently presented with one picture only, reinforced by didactic instruction from outside, and it conditions how other people react to your behaviour (because note that many of THEM don't eschew categories), and the meaning of your behaviour to other people, this produces a conflict

it's not surprising that many women become idiots if they persistently associate womanhood with clothing and make-up exclusively

i mean we dn't exist atomistically

if you have a certain critical mass of community, enough of a nexus of other people to actively sustain an alternative meaning (remember Chua Beng Huat's critique of PAP manufactured ideology?), then you can be quite free despite others' views

but if you don't have that shared breathing space, you can't unilaterally manufacture sustainable and emotionally healthy meanings of things all by yourself

or you can, but then you become susceptible to "at 13? wth"

Me: ...


Someone: is it a bad thing to meet someone who has all the right qualities mentally and intellectually but not feel any romantic interest simply because they lookt oo plain?

Me: part of the misery of the human condition is we're controlled by our genes

Someone: yes it is
sigh

Me: if shit were good for health, and we forced ourselves to eat it everyday, we would feel horrible

Someone: ..... the analogy is lost on me

Me: if there was a girl who was good for you but damn ugly, and you forced yourself to like her, it wouldn't work out

Someone: i find myself slightly down at the fact that i can't bring myself to be less shallow

Me: what is shallowness?
haha

Someone: clearly there are people who ca nlook past that in selecting mates
i guess i just can't

Me: in this case we apply feminist theory and say that the concept of 'shallowness' is a value judgment imposed by women on men to oppress them

and that an equally valid valuation system (aesthetic appeal) subscribed to by men can be used to value potential partners. ignoring the valuations of half the human race is grossly distortionary

Someone: maybe we are simply genetically or culturally conditioned - but it must not be an absolute otherwise people like (someone) wouldn't get married. the humbling and depressing observation is that someone like me - a victim of such discrimination and conditioning - should also be a perpetuator of it. and a knowing one at that

but really, the thing is - i *know* that i'm in no position to be discriminatory on the basis of looks - yet i can't get over it. it's like talking to the guy next to you in the urinal or thinking abot your parents having sex. it's just.... *shudders*.... something visceral. do you think it's cultural or conditioning? i'd say cultural - most of the qualifiers of female beauty these days aren't the best signs of reproductive fecundity, which you would expect from a purely genetic determinisn point of view