EMMAorwhatever

my 13 yr old cousin sara, ohh to be that young again..

i really love high-res close up photos of people’s faces.. they’re so invasive. i think it’s because looking at someone in the face is both embarrassing and mystifying to me, and i mean when can i ever just stare unashamedly at someone’s face? never. 

from yr 7 til yr 12 my computer must’ve been wiped 6 or 7 times. as a result, i don’t have any photos whatsoever, and solely rely on gretel to take my king st photo every week to photographically document my existence. however, i somehow remembered my myspace password and found a bunch of old photos. :)

a cute boy brought me a rose

Heroes

true people, pretty much any artist, lionel hutz, people who uphold morals, the creator of the sims, coco chanel, abu from aladdin, my cat salem and her attitude towards life, feminists, animal activists, political dissidents, georgiana duchess of devonshire, any men who participated in the courting process in the 17th century, elizabeth bennet, uffie, anna sui, freud, sienna miller, dallas green, vegetarians, gretchen weiners, my brother adam, people with warm hearts, twiggy, aidan shaw, fred and george weasley, audrey tautou, monty python, the writers of the oc, julie cooper-nickel-cooper-roberts, alain de botton, howl and his moving castle, frank abignale jnr., patricia field, cleopatra, matthew flinder’s cat ‘trim’, roberta williams, ashley tisdale’s character on highschool musical, the cheshire cat, the creator of choc cross buns, medusa, michelle cassie sid maxxie anwar and chris from skins, effy stonem, victoria’s angels, people who are fashion-forward, backward and diagonal, bartok from anastasia, walt disney, the writers of the simpsons, jim morrison, joseph heller, anyone who uses the phrase ‘get maggot’, dylan moran, zapp brannigan, the crazy cat lady from the simpsons, the spice girls circa 1998, romantics, hypno-toad, curious george, gary from spongebob square pants, anyone with their heart in the right place, florists, anyone who makes a good coffee, people with nice handwriting, charlotte dawson, lovers not fighters, open minds, open hands, open arms and definitely lucy ‘cheeky little troublemaker boozehound minx’ corbett! 

taken straight from my myspace. still for the most part accurate.

pretty generic, tabs of note include thefix.ninemsn.com.au (shameless sucker for hollywood gossip), domain.com.au (desperate to move out) and tumblr appearing twice (no idea why). i was talking to a friend the other day and we both concluded we’d sooner delete facebook than tumblr. cool.

Hi  Emma,
What happened?
We hardly saw you at the studio. You disappeared so quickly that you’ve hardly left a trace!  With a small attendance you’ve barely “dipped your toes in the water”.
What did we do to scare you off?
Please forgive us if we’ve neglected you.
Your first few Hot Power Yoga sessions can be quite confronting. The thing is,Emma, that with a little commitment, and over time, this process will doubtlessly prove to be one of the most positively rewarding and empowering lifestyle choices you could have ever made.  You will become light. You will become strong. You will become powerful and stress free. But you have to be willing to give it a decent go.
To help propel you forward, we’d like to offer you a one Month unlimited New Beginner pass for just $99.00, but only if you act within the next two weeks. That’s $61.00 off our regular Monthly unlimited pass. Why not make a commitment to your self in feeling fantastic? Come back and have a real go. We promise that we’ll try harder to make you feel more comfortable and that after a few weeks of real commitment, you’ll never look back!
In fact, if after one month of coming to at least three classes a week you can’t honestly feel the momentum building into something exciting, we will smilingly give you your $99 back. It will be our failure, not yours.
Please do not delay. There is an ancient yogic saying that when an auspicious opportunity comes your way, you should act on it immediately. We sincerely hope to see you again very soon.
Warmest regards,
Michael, Karl and the Team at Hot Power Yoga
Suite 2, Level 1, 285 Hunter St (or 204 King St) Newcastle 2300
Ph: 49296791
www.hotpoweryoga.com.au

yes, i failed at hot power yoga. the instructor looked like ed harris and every time he mentioned the plow position i lost it a little. my ankles and wrists are also post-netball and failed me quite alot. i’m more a run-on-the-treadmill-til-i-pass-out than concentrate-on-breathing-til-you’re-semi-conscious. this is quite a confronting and affectionate email though.. it was like we were going steady. 

a little bit shameless

mind over matter is the answer to all your problems.

We greet the DVD release of sheik-stirring Sex and the City 2 with flutes and organs in our very own boiled-down screenplay.

Sex and the City 2: Carrie on Capitalising

By Paul MacInnes, with apologies to Michael Patrick King and Candace Bushnell 

SCENE 1

INT - a Connecticut mansion. Day. SARAH JESSICA PARKER, KRISTIN DAVIS, CYNTHIA NIXON and KIM CATTRALL are celebrating the marriage of their gay best friend. LIZA MINNELLI is conducting the ceremony and a male CHOIR, dressed as SWANS, are performing the BARBRA STREISAND songbook. All is right with the world.

CYNTHIA NIXON: My boss disrespects me.

KRISTIN DAVIS: Raising my children can prove frustrating.

SARAH JESSICA PARKER: I’m worried about becoming domesticated.

KIM CATTRALL: Something about my vagina.

LIZA MINNELLI: This one goes out to all my ladies who are struggling with all the problems you might have read about in the pages of any women’s glossy!

LIZA MINNELLI strips off into her old Cabaret outfit and launches into an uncomfortable performance of Beyoncé’s Single Ladies. The four FRIENDS turn to each other, registering the wisdom of MINNELLI’s words. They raise diamond-encrusted champagne FLUTES in a toast.

THE GIRLS: To feminism!

SCENE 2

INT - KIM CATTRALL’s PR headquarters, Times Square. Her glass-walled OFFICE affords wonderful views of the busy New York landmark with all its flashing BILLBOARDS, photogenic TOURISTS and absolutely no HOMELESS PEOPLE whatsoever. CATTRALL has called THE GIRLS together to her OFFICE to make an announcement.

CATTRALL: My vagina and I have something to say.

THE GIRLS GIGGLE together in sisterly fashion.

CATTRALL: We have made friends with a sheikh from Abu Dhabi. He has invited us all to stay in his opulent hotel.

DAVIS: Oh my God! That’s amazing! [pause] What is Abu Dhabi?

CATTRALL: It’s the modern Middle East, darling. Cocktails, camels and co …

NIXON: Can we carry on over there as if the banks had never blown up?

CATTRALL: Exactly! Triple cosmopolitans all around!

THE GIRLS raise uranium-plated cocktail GLASSES in a toast.

THE GIRLS: To capitalism!

SCENE 3

INT - the sheikh’s Abu Dhabi establishment. It’s everything you’d expect from a seven-star hotel. What, you’ve never stayed in a seven-star hotel? Well, no need, when you can experience it vicariously through film! SARAH JESSICA PARKER is walking around the hotel conducting one of her internal monologues.

PARKER Sometimes it’s only when you get distance from something that you truly appreciate it. That’s true for relationships, but also for chauffeured Mercedes and spa treatments. After coming to Abu Dhabi I feel like I’m me again. Vain, shallow and irrationally obsessed with shoes.

KIM CATTRALL enters, flanked by two policemen.

CATTRALL: Help! Help! My vagina and I have been arrested!

PARKER: Oh my god!

CATTRALL: Yes. We have learned a harsh lesson that economic and social liberalism are not one and the same thing!

PARKER: In other words, they caught you shagging on the beach!

CATTRALL: Not even, it was just a bl …

PARKER: … Oh, there’s no need to go into detail

CYNTHIA NIXON strides purposefully into the room

NIXON: Did somebody call for a strong female lawyer?

PARKER: They sure did! Go get em girl!

In rushes KRISTIN DAVIS

DAVIS: And don’t forget me. I love my children again!

THE GIRLS all burst into tears in a sisterly fashion

PARKER: I guess we’ve all learned something today.

CATTRALL: Yes. Never go on holiday to Abu Dhabi!

DAVIS: Unless somebody else is paying!

THE GIRLS all raise TANKARDS carved from the BONES of indentured south-east Asian labourers.

THE GIRLS: To the next movie!

KIM CATTRALL’s VAGINA: You’ll be lucky.


- GUARDIAN

after-thought after i read that article, i feel proud to be the woman i am and to make the decisions i do that would shock and shame the women of the generations before mine but the truth is i struggle every single day against a machine of a society who slaps labels on me because i am female.

A generation raised on hard core has trouble with the real thing.

In a recent radio interview the host suggested that since I didn’t like porn, the solution was to not look at it. If only it was that easy to avoid. Many women I know don’t look at porn, but this doesn’t mean that they are not affected by it every day.

The men they date, have sex with and marry are increasingly being brought up on a steady diet of porn, and the more they watch, the less capable they are of forming connected, intimate relationships.

The porn these men consume looks nothing like your father’s Playboy. In place of soft core, soft focus images of naked women smiling coyly at the camera, consumers are catapulted into a world of cruel and brutal sex acts designed to dehumanise women.

In the vast majority of porn today, sex is not about making love, as the feelings and emotions we normally associate with such an act - connection, empathy, tenderness, caring, affection - are missing, and in their place are those we normally associate with hate - fear, disgust, anger, loathing, and contempt.

As she is being roughly penetrated by any number of men, she is being called vile names such as whore, slut, and worse.

We often hear that porn is all about fun and fantasy, so it has no real effect. My interviews with university-age men tell a very different story. When I talk to men about their experiences with porn, it is clear that not all are affected in the same way, but affected they are. Remember, this is the generation that grew up with internet porn, and some studies put the first age of viewing porn at 11 years. Unlike previous generations, these boys and men have unlimited access to hard-core images 24 hours a day.

Many of the men I talk to believe that porn sex is what women want, and they become upset and angry when their sex partner, perhaps their wife, girlfriend, or a one night hook-up, refuses to look or behave like their favourite porn star. The women often refuse to perform the sex acts the men have routinely enjoyed watching, and next to the screaming orgasms and sexual gymnastics of porn sex, real sex with real women starts to feel boring and bland.

These men have become so accustomed to porn sex that some are disappointed by their own sexual performance. When they compare themselves with the male porn actors, who can sustain Viagra-fortified erections for long periods, the guys I talk to often admit to feeling like sexual losers, and worry something is wrong with them.

What troubles many of these men most is that they need to pull up the porn images in their head in order to have an orgasm with their partner. They replay porn scenes in their minds, or think about having sex with their favourite porn star when they are with their partners.

What is new over the past five years or so is university-aged men admitting their addiction to pornography. I had been somewhat sceptical of the addiction model, thinking that it was a way for men to avoid taking responsibility for their porn use.

However, I am not the only one to hear about addiction. Sex and relationship therapists Wendy Maltz and Larry Maltz discuss in their book The Porn Trap how therapists are seeing a rising wave of porn addicts looking for help. They found both in their practice and from interviewing other therapists that ”what used to be a small problem for relatively few people had grown to a societal issue that was spilling over and causing problems in the lives of countless everyday people”.

The men at university I speak to who are addicted do indeed end up in serious trouble. They neglect their studies, spend huge amounts of money they don’t have, become isolated from others and often suffer depression. They know that something is wrong, feel out of control and don’t know how to stop. While men may share their favourite porn stories, they don’t tend to talk to each other about their addictive behaviour, which further adds to their isolation.

If we are really going to tackle porn, however, we have to move beyond individual responses. We are going to need to build a long-term, multi-pronged movement that involves building coalitions, grassroots education programs, and media strategies that eventually lead to cultural change.

But a movement against porn can’t only be about what’s wrong with the world, it also needs to offer an enticing, positive vision of sexuality based on equality and respect. And this sexual equality is closely linked to economic equality, because the whole sex industry rests on women with few choices.

As long as we have porn, women will never be seen as full human beings deserving of all the rights that men have. This is why we need to build a vibrant movement that fights for a world in which women have power in and over their lives because there is no room for porn in a just society.

Gail Dines is a professor of sociology and women’s studies at Wheelock College in Boston. Her latest book is Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality.

“I’m the sixth in our family to go to Hogwarts. You could say I got a lot to live up to. Bill and Charlie have already left – Bill was head boy and Charlie was captain of Quidditch. Now Percy’s a prefect. Fred and George mess around a lot, but they still get really good marks and everyone thinks they’re really funny. Everyone expects me to do as well as the others, but if I do, it’s no big deal, because they did it first.”

mj is that you?