Here Comes the Bra May 15, 2009
Posted by Onely in As If!, Everyday Happenings, Look What Google Barfed Up.Tags: husband-hunting bra, marriage countdown, wierd japanese stuff
7 comments
Nobody does bizarre like the Japanese. We already covered Japan’s rent-a-spouse concept and are pleased to see that they have made further strides in the love industry with the husband-hunting aka “konkatsu” bra!
Triumph publicist Keiko Masuda said of the bra, which features a self-set counter: “First you decide your target time or deadline until marriage and the countdown clock will start.
“Once you find your life partner and get engaged, you have to insert the engagement ring into the slot and the clock stops and The Wedding March begins.”
I had to read that yahoo news snippet three times, plus several other iterations from different articles, before I understood the bra. Allow me to interpret for you: the bride-wannabe sets a timer on the bra for the date or time (unclear) when she wants her fiance to propose. The timer is a clock that ticks down like a bomb in a James Bond movie. If the guy proposes before the digits hit zero, he can take the ring and stick it in the pink slot (subtle, subtle) between the bra cups to cause the Wedding March song to play. Here’s a video with demo. As you would imagine, it’s completely unsexist and inoffensive.
“But what if he doesn’t propose?” you might well ask. “What if the time runs out? What happens then?” That’s the odd thing. None of the articles I read explained what the bra does if no one sticks a ring into it before the deadline. The yahoo piece said it “resets” automatically. But what song does it play? Or does a horrendous screeching buzzer go off like the sound of old maids screaming as their starving cats maul them? Does it reset for the same amount of time originally chosen, or shorter, putting on the pressure because you’re not getting any younger?
Kudos to any Copious Readers who can find out what happens if the man doesn’t propose! Other than that the woman turns into a pillar of cat food.
–Christina
Stay Married or Murder Mother Earth! May 13, 2009
Posted by Onely in As If!, Food for Thought, Just Saying..Tags: divorced households, group housing, jianguo liu, living alone, marriage good for environment, marriage mythology, realconcepts, singles bad for environment
17 comments
So apparently singles are bad for the environment, according to this AP article and this RealConcepts blog post.
Households with fewer people are simply not as efficient as those with more people sharing
says ecologist Jianguo Liu at Michigan State, who analyzed the environmental impact of divorce.
Per person, divorced households spent more per person per month for electricity, compared to a married household, as multiple people can be watching the same television, listening to the same radio, cooking on the same stove and or eating under the same lights.
Ok, so here are just some of the points that Liu doesn’t seem to consider:
Singles often generally use less space and smaller cars than married people. A married household may have one person doing laundry downstairs while another person watches TV upstairs. (If a single person can do laundry downstairs and watch TV upstairs at the same time, then their problems are way bigger than the dying planet’s.) Multi-person households need bigger microwaves, bigger laundry machines. Lisa points out that “a single person may be willing to be cold or hot to save energy, which they can do because it won’t affect anyone else in the household”. Moreover, a single person who keeps their heat at a decent temp and gets energy star windows is going to expend less energy than a couple living next door who doesn’t.
Super Saccharine: Seekingarrangements.com April 17, 2009
Posted by Onely in As If!, Dating, Food for Thought.Tags: Beth Bailey, feminism, heteronormative, power dynamic, Ruth Padawer, seekingarrangements.com, sugar baby, sugar daddy
14 comments
Lisa found an interesting New York Times article by Ruth Padawer about a web site that hooks rich men up with young, beautiful, financially strapped women, often college students working their way through school. The Sugar Daddies provide their Sugar Babies with money, gifts, trips, and swank (often under the euphemism “mentoring”) in exchange for companionship, sex, and arm candy.
Before I read the article, I thought I knew how I felt about this site, Seekingarrangements.com: Yuck! But the piece includes some very interesting quotes from users of the site, Seekingarrangement.com, that shed new light on the practice of being a daddy or a baby. After reading the article, my feelings about Seekingarrangements.com were: Still Yuck!
Whether or not you think this site amounts to prostitution (I’m not sure), it is undeniably perpetuating a sexist power dynamic. As Padawer says, “The ‘baby’ is the one who regulates her appearance, schedule, behavior and emotions to make the payer feel special.” (The baby is overwhelmingly female, and only one percent of the sugar daddies are actually sugar mommies).
I’ll paste a couple of the more interesting quotes from Padawer’s article below and let our Copious Readership weigh in. What do you all think? (more…)
Pop Culture, Scourge of the Onelys (Twice in a Week!): “I Vow” Commercials April 1, 2009
Posted by Onely in "Against Love"...?, As If!, Dating, Heteronormativity, Pop Culture: Scourge of the Onelys, Singled Out.Tags: "i vow", chemistry.com, Laura Kipnis, rhetoric of work, what's wrong with flannel nightgowns?!, zyrtec, zyrtec commercial
19 comments
OK. So I understand that Chemistry.com’s whole business revolves around assuming and promoting couple-dom as the most desirable relationship status. In order to do this, it’s no surprise that the company (and others like it) tends to promote stereotypes about and simultaneously degrade single people (see, for example, this offensive commercial).
But — as if that’s not enough — the newest series of Chemistry.com commercials, dubbed on YouTube as “Chemistry.com Vows,” presents two people mimicking wedding-ceremony protocol and normalizes the matrimaniacal tendencies of American culture. (more…)
Pop Culture, Scourge of the Onelies: Desperado March 30, 2009
Posted by Onely in As If!, Heteronormativity, Pop Culture: Scourge of the Onelys.Tags: Antonio Banderas, Desperado, heteronormative, Johnny Cash, pop culture, the eagles, villeart.com
9 comments
“Desperado” has a pretty, rolling tune. It’s been sung by Johnny Cash and by Antonio Banderas (in Spanish) since it was originally produced (per Wikipedia) by the Eagles in 1973. I like the song–or I did, until I finally listened to the actual lyrics the other day (what can I say, I’ve been distracted by other things for 34 years):
You better let somebody love you,
You better let somebody love you,
You better let somebody love you,
Before it’s too late.
Gulp. Does anyone else feel just a teensy tone of intimidation here? As if you’d been strongarmed into a dark alley by the heteronormafia? (“Hey, listen, I’m just saying you’d better get with a committed romantic significant other, and soon. Hate to see you go swim with the single fishes, but that’s the game, capice? Nothing personal, just business, eh.”)
Or is it just me being strung out on dark chocolate?
–CC
Singles Denied Domestic Violence Protection in Virginia March 26, 2009
Posted by Onely in As If!, Take action.Tags: domestic violence, npr, teen dating, virginia laws
4 comments
I heard on NPR this morning that in Virginia you can only get a domestic violence protection order if you are married, living together, or have a child together. I *think* this is what I heard–I was madly trying to find some unwrinkled work slacks and not get moisturizer on my blouse at the time, so I might have misheard. (more…)
Onely Commits Two Singlisms in One Day March 26, 2009
Posted by Onely in As If!, Bad Onely Activities, Everyday Happenings.Tags: chips and dip, single homeowner, single hostess, singlism, trader joe's
13 comments
OH NO! Onely committed singlism twice in one day!
The first time was in Trader Joe’s:
“My writing group’s coming to my house for the first time tomorrow, so I’m shopping for really great snacks,” I told one of the staff with whom I’m pretty friendly. “I’m nervous because they all have these big, clean, decorated houses and I have. . . well, not to stereotype,” (and so you know I’m going to go ahead and stereotype) “but I live in a single girl townhome.” (more…)
“OneTouch” Ad Commits Two “Isms” in Two Lines March 23, 2009
Posted by Onely in As If!, Everyday Happenings, Heteronormativity, Just Saying..Tags: brad and angelina, diabetes, lesbian marriage, lifescan, marriage mythology, Onetouch, onetouch chris, sexist wedding traditions, single people, singlism in advertising
16 comments
(David-i98, Wikicommons)
Usually doctors’ waiting room magazines are where I look for my Brad and Angelina updates, but the other day I happened upon something else: an ad for OneTouch Diabetes Monitor that double-dips into singlism and sexism. Yay!
In the print ad, the headline across the man’s face reads, “Chris. Newly diagonosed. Motivated. Father.” Then in smaller text, Chris himself says,
I’m only three weeks into being a guy with diabetes, so I’m learning to check my blood sugar. Why? Maya, my four and a half year old daughter. I will dance at her wedding.
I ♥ My Marriage T-Shirt – and that’s not even the news! March 18, 2009
Posted by Onely in As If!, Look What Google Barfed Up.Tags: domestic violence, I ♥ My Marriage, T-shirts are stupid, unfortunate irony
17 comments
Nope, we’re not kidding about this one. First, there’s the T-shirt:
The “I ♥ My Marriage” shirt was a promotional item tied to the 2008 movie “Fireproof,” a Christian-themed film starring Kirk Cameron. The movie, a hit in evangelical circles, centers on a fireman’s religious awakening and his simultaneous effort to save a failing marriage.
And then there’s the “news”: (more…)
Onely.Org 
How to Crash the Pity Party: YOUR RESPONSES REQUESTED April 27, 2009
Posted by Onely in As If!, Everyday Happenings, Your Responses Requested!.Tags: annoying couples, annoying questions, are you dating anyone?, are you seeing anyone?, pity single people, rude comments to singles
25 comments
Back in March, Mishi commented on our post “Where’s your boyfriend? When are you getting married?”, but somehow Lisa and I didn’t see her great comment until just now. So we’re reposting it now and asking for our Copious Readership’s thoughts. She describes a scenario I have experienced many times over, and each time I’m equally befuddled:
Christina
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