I'll teach them to disable the comments page ...

Dear Leslie,

I imagine you've probably received a fair bit of email about your article, so I'll try to keep this brief and let you know from the outset that this one falls into the "appreciative but critical" camp.

I applaud the thought that you put into this matter and I agree with your friend about the positives of having any sexual activity conducted in a friendly environment, rather than a dangerous one (I'm not really entering into the complimentary stage yet, am I?). I don't envy the conundrum set you, as a mother of boys, who knows what it's like to grow up as a girl with boys around.

But (there it is!) I think your friend is right. I think that in wanting to protect these girls from their own indecision or loss of control, you're also protecting them from their own decisions and any semblance of mature control they might finally have wrestled back from society. It might have taken a great moving of internal mountains for these girls to finally be able to make the decision to accept an invitation to stay over at a boy friend's (note the space) house. Just walking through your front door (rather than clambering through your son's darkened bedroom window) might be the finishing line for them. They are probably prepared to walk through the front door in the first place because your sons are the kinds of young men they are (young men who know that "no" means "no", but who also understand that lots of other things also mean "No", like "I don't know", "Um", "" and complete silence), raised by the kind of mother you are (the woman who would be Switzerland).

Enough about these girls. Onto the boys.

"There is a relatively straightforward relationship for boys between what they want, what they say they want and what they pursue – with sex, and everything else."

I think you're wrong about this. I've been a boy. I've been excellent friends with boys. It is not straight forward. Relative to girls, relative to anything. I'm not going to start asking where you get your ideas about this, but here are mine:

For teenaged boys there is almost nothing scarier than a teenage girl. Nothing. This does not get better with age. Look at the way women are treated by men, by society. Have you read Stieg Larsson? Apparently the working title for the first novel was Men Who Hate Women. This was not a new concept. But I digress - you know what I'm talking about.

The fact that your sons have girls who are friends puts them years ahead of their peers, I can guaranteee it. When they grow into young men, they will have left a large section of the male population behind forever when it comes to possessing the gifts that women can bestow upon others with their friendship: things like understanding, emotional intelligence and strength. They are already protected from the kinds of relationships which use up their joy and dignity. They will never be cowardly enough to use the words "slut" or "bitch".

I'll wrap up this "brief" (sorry about that) email with something reassuring: these sleepovers aren't about sex. They may be and eventually, they probably will be. But right now, despite the formal conversations between parents and the attempts at casual reassurance by partners, sex is not the only thing that two teenagers of the opposite sex can think of to do alone in a room together. Before the not-inevitable move to the least-squeaky trundle bed, there's probably a lot of learning going on.

Sincerely

franzy

"And then I dropped a stitch!"

Take two people who are intelligent, witty and outgoing. Both can tell an amusing story to a crowd with ease and have everyone laughing. Both can conjure up quips and one-liners on the run in a conversation by reading the situation and understanding the rules of humour and good timing.
One is male and one is female.

Why is the male then referred to, and remembered as, "a funny guy", and the female is always "Crazy!"?

I know the answer, it's a rhetorical question: it's because we still, as a society, fear and mistrust intelligent, outgoing females. Look at the etymology of the word "hysterical". Essentially, having a womb was thought to make you insane. This meant that hysterectomies were originally performed to treat female insanity - which itself was a very wide umbrella.

By the early 20th Century, women were allowed to use this word for "crazy" for occasions which were "funny". This was becoming necessary because as (white) women were slowly being allowed to vote and drive, this put them within earshot and they would, inevitably, do this "laughing" thing.
So "hysterical" needed to remain in broad use because it was difficult to tell whether a woman was laughing because she had heard a joke about about washing or embroidery or some such or if it was because she was just crazy as clown-shit and needed her womb removed.
Obviously, being too simple to actually be involved in the sophisticated world of adult male humour, women were not performing the same action as men when something was amusing. The very thought! Thus was the modern usage of "hysterical" born (there's some of that sophisticated male humour we were just discussing).

So remember girls, next time you're laughing at something, be careful, or you'll find yourself straight-jacketed and organ-robbed quicker than you can say 'bum-trumpet'.

And remember, everyone else: next time you think fondly about a female who you find witty and outgoing, are you thinking of her as "funny" or "just so crazy!"

Who's with me?

*tsk* "Men."

As soon as I hear it, my hackles rise. She's used to saying it. They all are. That off-hand, exasperated little complaint of an explanation. Something's gone wrong. Gone missing. Gone awry. And that's not the way she would have done it. She would have injected a bit of common sense into the matter from the beginning and got it sorted without all this need for eye-rolling and the picking up of dirty socks.

"Men. I mean, honestly. Am I right, girls?"

Yeah, well I've had a gut-full. This goes beyond that utterly hurtful Mere Male page in the back of The Women's Weekly. I've grown up being bombarded by images of dick-head dudes and dopey dads and I can differentiate myself from what I see in the media (offensive and pervasive as it is), but as I work in a female-dominated environment, more and more I get subjected to these blasé little quips with the punchlines revolving around men and their predictable meeting of low expectations.

"Were you having a man-look for it?"

My honest reply to this one is now "Well, I didn't have a woman-look - you know, standing around squawking about it until someone else finds it in plain sight."
Think I'm kidding? No one makes the "man-look" joke around me any more.
I hereby put my foot down. No more making snide little gags about men. Not around me. Not around the men in my life. All the men I know are, every one, excellent human beings. I'm proud of all them. So don't shuffle around here with your smirky little bon mots about listening and understanding and housework. I won't have it.
I'm perfectly well aware that there are too many tedious blokes out there. That's fine. Go and tell your could-burn-water cooking gags around them.
But keep that tiresome dreck away from me.

*tsk* "Oh! Men! I don't know!"
"I do! We're like women, but less whingey."

Join me, my brothers. Put this tediousness in its place and you, like me, will have to put up with it substantially less often.

In case you missed it

I'd like to take a break from my prose-less journey through the life of Tony Smith to express my jaw-swinging flabergastedness at The Age's insistence on skin. I've probably said it before, but it is impossible to look at theage.com.au, without seeing what the medical profession refers to as 'a bit of tit'.


Go ahead, zip over there right now, I'll wait. You are going to see cleveage, side-boob, bikini-stretch or just plain old chestage. Failing that, you'll definitely get a crotch, some thigh or, if the puritans are webmastering, the full-face model pout. But not often. For a news outlet, they certainly don't trust their readers to hang around for news. They have to insert some kind of female skin into the picture, just to be sure you come back.


Take this morning's Lifestyle section image and bear in mind that I haven't doctored it any way.
"What's this?"
"It's this morning's front page image for the Lifestyle section online."
"Hmm. Too subtle."
"Eh?"
"People are going to miss the point. They will drain away from The Age and go and read The Onion or Crikey or something."
"Should I put a title on the picture or something? Let people know it's a fashion show?"
"No. No no no. See this section here?"
"Yeah ..."
"Drag across. Yep. Now enhance. Bigger. That's it. Now closer. Closer. Perfect. Now whack it right here, alongside the original."
"But isn't that a bit ... much? I mean why zoom in on the, uh, 'most important part' if you're going to leave the original there?"
"Are you kidding? We're not smut-merchants! Our readers just want a closer look."
"At this woman's cans."
"You'll go far."

Mountin' Wimin

Flicked on SBS last night and watched a documentary called "Landmark Sex: Married to the Eiffel Tower" about women who fall in love with objects. Not as in "I love these shoes I got in Melbourne!" but as in "I love my archery bow, I have been in a relationship with him for six years, I have sex with him".
Like you, I had a lot of trouble getting my head around this. Firstly, there was understanding the fact that this wasn't a mockumentary. These were real women. Their most common object of love and desire were buildings. Structures. Bridges, walls, skyscrapers, that kind of thing. They love them. Romantic, sexual, committed love. The desire and passion with which these ladies talked about the Empire State Building, the Berlin Wall and various bridges around the world was identical to that fervor with which young lovers discuss their new paramours.
One lady in particular had fallen in love with a fairground ride called '1001 Nacht'. She went to visit him in the off-season where he was parked in a holding yard and wrapped in a tarp. After embracing various girders around the place, whispering odes of devotion and getting extremely red and bothered gripping the guard rail, she lay underneath 1001 Nacht and slowly, blissfully smeared her face with the thick grease from his joints. When it was time to leave she sobbed like a child being torn away from its favourite plaything. She was covered in grease. This was the same lady who was asked to move along by a security guard after an extremely long and sensuous embrace with the Empire State Building.
Another woman couldn't help mounting just about every picket fence she saw. She even had a few favourite picket fences in her room. Just short ones, a few pailings long which she would take to bed. And stroke.
I wish I had the imaginative capacity to make this shit up, but sadly, I fall short of the mark there. This was a real documentary. About real people.


This picture is of one of the Objectum Sexuals (as they prefer to be called) during the aptly-named climax to the documentary showing her consumating her relationship with the Eiffel Tower one year after their marriage.
Yes.
Marriage.
She legally married the Eiffel Tower.
And yes.
Consumation.
Yes she hitched her skirts up and mounted a frickin girder on the frickin Eiffel Tower, vag to steel.
I am still not making anything up. I merely took very very close notice of exactly which girder so that whenever I return to The Eiffel Tower, I can say to loved ones "No! Not that girder. Let's get a photo over here instead. In fact, why not Italy instead?"
Or, if I'm there with Captain T, "Hey man, sit right there, I want to take a photo. No, in fact, how about giving the old Tower a kiss eh? It'll be hilarious!"

We were telling 327 and Jimmythins about this documentary tonight and conversation fell, as it does, to fetishes. What were the weirdest kind of fetishes we could think up? (Reader points for weirdest fetish, real or not).
Stobie pole fetish.
Wheelie bin fetish.
Council traffic light fetish.
Can you tell we were walking home at the time?
Brussel sprout fetish: "OOhh! So stinky!"
A fetish for being wrapped in toilet paper.
A fetish for being praised for neat handwriting:
"What do you think of this note that I wrote?"
"Very nice."
"Ooh. Do you like my enlongated loops on the lower-case gs?"
"Pretty good."
"Thank you."
I am proud to announce that I think I've come up with what might be either the weirdest fetish or cleverest prank to bring to a new workplace: a fetish for being ignored. But you tell people about it, be really upfront.
"Hi, how you going? Hey listen man, this might sound a bit weird, but I've kind of got this ... "thing" ... for being ignored. So if you don't always hear what I'm saying first time because I mumble or whatever, don't worry about it too much."
"Huh?"
"Mmm. That's it. Just. Like. That."
And then just walk away and spend the rest of your time quietly sidling into the back of rooms, looking extremely satisfied until someone notices you, then lose interest and leave. Or just mutter a lot in the next room so that it sounds like you're always asking a question.
"..Mntleyh wondrf thtitle thngexist?"
"What?"
"Uuuuuuuuuhhh yyyyyyyessssss."
"Did you say something?"
"Hm? No, nothing. Don't mind me. Yeah. Seeya later. That's right, just like that, hhhhhhhhoolllyy sshhhhhhittyeah .... "

Tell me that's not hilarious. Picture the looks on your co-workers' faces when you enter a room:
Fuck, they'll be thinking. It's that fucking guy who gets his jollies from being ignored! "HEEEEYYY!!! Franzy!! Hey man! What's been happening? Tell me about your day! Hey everybody! It's Franzy!"
"Oh! Franzy! Hi! Let me get you a coffee! No no! Stay right there! I'll get it!"
Even better would be when you were actually able to stand behind someone and ask a question in a really, really low voice for a while, and then they finally turn around and notice you.
"AH! How long have you been standing there?"
"Aaaaaaaaaaages ... you didn't ... even .... hear me .... ooooooooooooo ..."

***
GTH - ZING! Point to Ashleigh. The band was there to symbolise the best "I got a job" song of all time: One Bourban, One Scotch, One Beer as played by George Thoroughgood. Which is actually all about George avoiding his bitch of a landlady and blowing all of his cash on booze instead of on the rent he owes her, which he is able to do by telling her that he has a job.
I actually have a job, but I did sing the verse as transcribed for about 48 hours straight after The Phonecall.

Men leave the toilet seat up because women leave the toilet seat down.

A comment on Audrey's abortion post

I've been reading Audrey's excellent blogs on abortion and women's rights and the massive fuckbags who congregate around the abortion debate like gravid blowflies over a dentist's chair, dropping nascent maggots into your open mouth while your nerve-endings get drilled.
I find it pretty difficult to become too upset about these foolish fools, partly because abortion isn't a controversial issue for me, but mostly because women like Audrey and Colleen Hartland are already out there, fighting the good fight with more heart and information than I'll ever have.

But one aspect of the pro-choice camp gives me pause every time I hear it. Not until it was articulated by Audrey, an then reiterated by a commenter, Lycanthrope, on Audrey's latest post, that I figured out what troubles me about the whole debate.

"We men will never know the dread of unwanted pregnancy, nor the confusion or gut wrenching decisions surrounding the choice of whether to terminate the pregnancy or not."

True, we don't, and never will, have the physical experience of unwanted pregnancy (and, by all accounts, will never want to either). But I think men do have a huge fear of unwanted pregnancy in our sexual partners, precisely because the decision is out of our hands.
Once a sexual partner (one-night-stand or loved wife) announces she is pregnant we have two outcomes and two choices from each.

1. She decides to terminate the pregnancy. The man's two options are:
A. Relief. He didn't want to be a father at that stage in his life and he's glad the woman made the right decision for herself and for him too.
B. Grief. He believes abortion is wrong wrong wrong. He ruins his own life and perhaps the woman's with guilt and rage. No way would he have offered to raise the child himself, but he will never again be able to stand by his heartfelt beliefs about abortion, women's bodies, sexuality, life and religion ever again because he helped kill a child.

2. She decides to keep the baby. This is where it becomes interesting. The man's two options are:
A. Terror. He doesn't want to be a father. He wants no part of the life he helped create and because of this he is either going to honour his minimal legal obligation of financial support for the next 18 years or become a slimy criminal, dodging responsibility and any semblance of true manhood for the rest of the child's life. He will have to get used to the fact that someone who could and should love him as their dad will probably either outright despise him or at least feel troubled about his existence and maybe relationships in general for their entire lives.
B. Resignation. He tries his hardest to be a good father - supportive, caring, attentive and present. But it's not how he pictured it, especially if his relationship with the woman doesn't last. He always wanted any offspring he had having two loving parents who were there for them; not one who wanted them, despite the feelings of the other, who didn't, but made the best of it anyway because he didn't have a choice.

Those are a man's options for an unwanted pregnancy when contraception fails.

I'm not attempting to make a case for letting men have a say in abortions.
I will never be convinced that abortion is anything other than the woman's choice alone.
I'd just like to think out the man's side of the abortion story, because how are we to be men if we don't talk with and understand women? Lots of the pain listed above could have been avoided if the man had talked with the woman before having sex, because if a man is to have any self-respect he will take responsibility.

And now, to lighten the mood somewhat, or completely ruin it all together, an old favourite from the slightly-misleadingly-titled Sinfest.

Franzy's Continuing Advice for The Ill-Advised

In my previous attempts at advice for dudes about women I've covered sucking up and buttering up. Now we're going for the kill; via an old, tedious joke that tends to appear on quaint fridge magnets given to women by other, more jaded women as a hopefully-ironic gag. But we're going to twist it and turn it to your advantage.

It starts when you sink into his arms and ends with your arms in his sink.

Ho ho. I know. I know. I know. Huh! Honestly! Men. Can't live with them, can't shoot 'em! Ho ho ho! Oh, I know.

So - had enough matronising yet? Well let me demonstrate what you're going to do. Forget the phrase's Sybilic overtones and instead make this your lady-wooing maxim:

It starts with your arms in her sink and ends ... ahem, well, you get the picture. Seriously though - this is Franzy's Piece of Wisdom About Women #3: Do the washing up. Do it quickly and don't smash anything. Brush aside all offers of help. Just stack up the plates, chuck them in the sink with hot water and soap, swoosh swoosh with the water, stack them on the rack and you will be Captain Dynamite.

Reason? Chicks always do all the cleaning. We're talking averages here, mind you. By and large, it's always the girls doing the wiping, spraying, scrubbing and sucking (of dust) while the dudes get all the fun jobs like Chopping Up The Firewood, Replacing The Light Globes and Moving The Furniture. If you suddenly jump up start being all manly and efficient with the dishes, trust me, your lady-friend's estimations of you will rise like the hundreds of thank-you cakes she will bake you* in the future.

And if you're living with a girl, or at least letting one use your dunny, then clean it. Every day. Even if you can't actually see the shitstains, she can. And if you clean it, she shall whisper to her girlfriends: 'And he even cleans the toilet! Every day!'
'Gasp!' they will all gasp. 'He noticed your hair, cooked you that gourmet pasta, did the dishes and cleaned the toilet?!?'
'Yes!'
'Then we shall pillow fight for this Man of Men! Game on, Moll!'

And there, the fantasy ends.

* Metaphor.

***

Oh, here's something fun you can all try at home:

1. Go for a jog (about half an hour should do it).
2. Drink a glass of water afterwards. Just one though, or it'll spoil the fun!
3. Drink a beer.
4. Order a large pizza.
5. Eat lots and lots of it while lounging on the couch.
6. Drink two glasses of red wine with your pizza.
7. Don't get up!
8. Watch a show about a bunch of army dudes doing a survival course in the Northern Territory in which they spend the whole time talking and thinking about water and how the fuck they're going to get a hold of it using only a fire (which they have to make themselves), a jerry can, a tube, a plastic bag and a river full of salt-water crocodiles.
9. Go to bed in a cool room with a runny nose so that you have to mouth-breathe in your sleep.

Dehydration? You bet! Even though I got up and drank the water jug dry at about 3 a.m. You know how you get up in the morning and have a piss? And if you're dehydrated it's kind of ... pungent? Well I was pretty much pushing out pencil leads on the lemon tree this morning. I had so little moisture to give I was actually extruding graphite. Ouch.

***
GTH - I'm awarding the point to myninjacockle for the Tommy Buttfucker story. The header was a photo I took in Derry in 1999 during the Orange Marches where the teeny tiny little Protestant population march up and down the wall of the largely-Catholic fortified old town in celebration of how wonderful their religion is. The cops have to turn up and basically barricade the whole show to stop the two religions meeting up and smashing the shit out of each other. Thus does the connection with my dad's t-shirt occur.

Franzy's Further Advice for The Ill-Advised

Cook. Seriously. Chicks love food. We all know that, I hear you scoff, what sort of bullshit advice is this? True, but here's a little piece of extra ammunition for all the dudes out there, looking to cook their way towards the ladies.
Franzy's Piece of Advice About Women #2: Cook something with crunchy green vegetables in it. Forget the oysters, the Rohypnol and the Tiger's Dick Stew. Serve up something full of fresh-looking vegies that are green and you will be King of Ladyopolis.
Why? Women love to be healthy, even if they say they don't want to, they really mean that they do (where have I heard that before?). Anyway, they also catch a whole lot of shit about what they eat and so it's quite difficult to be both healthy and to eat properly. So when you come along and serve up your dish of sweet tasty tasty munchy greens, the healthy factor kicks in, the eating kicks in: you're a hero.
What should I serve, O Dealer Of Patronising Rambles? I hear you moan.
Stir fry - good. Make sure it's tasty. Put the greens in towards the end or they won't be crunchy.
But here's a couple of better tummy-fillers to get you going:

Franzy's Incredible Green Pastas for Women:

Pasta 1 - Zucchini Love

1. Oil in saucepan. Medium heat. Throw in crushed garlic. Let it cook a little.
2. Chopped onion, bacon and diced zucchini - into the pan! Heat up! Cook cook! Fry! Let the women smell this happening.
3. Can of tomatoes, splash of white wine and a big squirt of balsamic glaze.
4. Stir it up, little darlin', 'til it bubbles. Turn it down a bit - keep it bubblin'.
5. Give it twenty minutes of bubblin' and a'stirin', then put the pasta on.*
6. Whack the sauce on top. Serve.
7. Soak it up: "Wow! I love the zucchini! So sweet!"

Zing.

Pasta 2 - Green is the Reason for the Season

1. Big pot. Boil water. Throw in a Massel Chicken Stock Cube.
2. In goes the pasta.*
3. When the pasta is almost done, throw in chopped up broccolini (little, sweet broccoli or just plain broccoli)
4. When the pasta is ready, throw a handful of frozen peas into the water! Throw 'em right in! Yay!
5. Pasta's done, pour it into a strainer, save some of the chicken stock water.
6. Same pot. Back on the heat. Big lug of olive oil. Crushed garlic, 2 tablespoons of basil pesto, chopped up avocado, pepper, splash of white wine (or verjuice, if you're a toss-bag) and fry fry stir stir fry! Hot!
7. Strained pasta back into the pot, along with that half a tea cup of the stock you saved from being poured down the sink earlier (or not, if you went a bit crazy with the white wine).
8. Mix it up! Mix it until everything is touching everything else! Green-eyed and groovy!
9. Put in bowls, chuck a few fresh chopped basil leaves on top.
10. Serve it up, cowboy.

Make sure you've got lots of fresh-grated parmesan cheese. That way, if somehow you've managed to fuck either of these up, she can politely smother the taste of burnt tomatoes or white wine with plenty of Milanese Marching Powder.

* This is all based on the assumption that you know how to cook pasta. They say that to assume makes an ass out of u and me, but in this case, if you're still struggling with boiling water and telling the time, then the ass is all u.

***
GTH - 2 points to The Other, other Sam for the Bacon Bling gag and a point each to Kath and River for their stories about high school. And one to Lion for being a sport, unless he can provide a crunchy green Japanese recipe to use on the girl of and in his dreams. Then he will score 2 more points.

Franzy's Advice for The Ill-Advised

I've decided to start up an advice column. You don't write to me asking for advice, I just tell you. Unwanted, unsolicited factoids about What To Do. I considered making it an advice column for dudes about how to treat chicks, and it may well turn out to be that, but I decided that it should be made clear that, if you're a bloke, you are receiving advice from someone who does refer to women as 'chicks'.
Sometimes.
Not constantly, but often. This could actually be a positive in your eyes, and could well be a positive in general, but I'll leave it to you to decide.

Let us kick it off with Franzy's Piece of Wisdom About Women #1:
Always notice her hair and say it looks great. Whatever it looks like. Lie if necessary. She won't know. And, if she finds out that you don't actually think it looks great, she won't care, she didn't do it for you anyway, you fool. If she's shaved it of, tell her she's got a great head! (Quips about giving great head will achieve the opposite effect). If she's rolling on the floor screaming about how much she hates it, be a little less forthcoming. If she has scissors, be more judicious still.



Ladies, am I full of shit? Or do you like it when a fella tells you, apropos of nothing, that your current style is smashing? Leave a comment please - ladies only for this one (Moify, you are, of course, excepted).

***
GTH - Ah, River. You tenacious little go-getter, the points are of course yours. This is part of a sculpture from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It is there to commemorate one of the earthquakes that seriously tore apart the city. It was as close to a picture of Judgement Day as I could get. Are we a little angry now? Sorry about that. I was trying to return to the roots of Guess The Header where I was trying to entice readers to come up with their own connections and meanings that linked the strange sliver of photograph to the stranger sliver of writing beneath it.

***
And in other news ... Bloggers enjoy blogging who would have thought.
Bloggers only for this one - do you feel happier after you've blogged? Or do you feel more anxious about your connections because you wonder if this blog will be as well-liked as your other one about travelling to Prague or your old boss?