#but male homosexuals not white women scamming other white women

[anotherbrickinthegay]

My very real, current situation that I think would make a good hc:

Me: I don’t have any feelings about [x] in fact I think my brain tricked me into making them more attractive in my head than they actually are irl

Also me: *has very detailed nsfw dream starring [x]* ah fuck

[nicholsonespersen22-blog]

Sex Workers To Get HIV Treatment, ARVs

Sex Workers To Get HIV Treatment, ARVs

South Africa has embarked on Africa’s first strategy to treat and prevent HIV among sex workers. South Africa will soon begin providing HIV treatment to HIV-positive sex workers upon diagnosis as part of its new announced national plan. Currently, most people living with HIV must wait until their CD4 counts - a measure of the immune system’s strength - fall to 500 before they can start treatment. At least 3 000 HIV-negative sex workers will also receive the combination ARV Truvada to prevent contracting HIV. When taken daily as https://www.2nd-circle.com/escorts-madrid/ -exposure prophylaxis, Truvada can reduce a person’s risk of contracting HIV by about 90 percent. In December, South Africa became the first country in southern Africa to register Truvada, which combines the ARVs emtricitabine and tenofovir, for use as prevention in December.

South Africa National AIDS Council (SANAC) CEO Dr Fareed Abdullah credited Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi for driving the plan’s creation. The plan comes on the heels of research released that found about 72 percent of Johannesburg sex workers surveyed were living with HIV. “The good news is that sex workers are showing a lot of responsibility and about three-fourths of sex workers are using condoms with their clients,” said South Africa National AIDS Council (SANAC) CEO Dr Fareed Abdullah. The bad news is although more than 90 percent of sex workers surveyed had tested for HIV, less than a third of those who were living with HIV had received treatment - far less than the national average, Abdullah added. Sex work is estimated to account for as much as 20 percent of new HIV infections in South Africa, according to Deputy Health Minister Joe Phaahla.

The three-year national plan also aims to reach 70 000 sex workers with a standardised package of services, including PrEP adherence support, delivered in part via a network of 1 000 of their peers. Deputy President and SANAC Chair Cyril Ramaphosa called the plan a chance for South Africans to affirm their rights. “This plan is about the human rights, about the rights of ordinary people,” he said. “Sex work is essentially work,” said Ramaphosa, who ended his address by embracing national leader of the Sisonke sex worker movement Kholi Buthelezi. Buthelezi joined other sex workers in calling for decriminalisation of sex workers to remain on the national agenda. “We are the vanguards of pleasure,” said Mpumalanga sex worker Lesly Mntambo. “Stop criminalising my adult body and what it is capable of doing.

In order to set them apart from "decent" women and avoid confusion, the church required that prostitutes adopt some type of distinctive clothing, which each particular city government was allowed to select. Those who argued against prostitution suggested all sorts of reasons for its existence. Andreuccio in II.5. This young woman is presented as extremely clever and exceedingly cruel. Boccaccio, Giovanni. The Decameron. Trans. G. H. McWilliam. Brundage, James A. Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe. Bullough, Vern L. "Prostitution in the Later Middle Ages." Sexual Practices and the Medieval Church. Ed. Vern L. Bullough and James Brundage. Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1982, pp.176-86. Karras, Ruth Mazo. "Prostitution in Medieval Europe." Handbook of Medieval Sexuality. Ed. Vern L. Bullough and James A. Brundage. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1996, pp. Richards, Jeffrey. Sex, Dissidence and Damnation: Minority Groups in the Middle Ages.

Getting a gang tattoo is about as smart as getting your girlfriend's name tattooed on your arm. Like you're never going to break up. Another thing to consider is what you want to take pride in representing. Is selling crack or date rape drug really something to brag about? What about Otis Garret and Dave Picton? The Hells Angels deny everything and keep secrets from their own members. They only reveal things on a need to know basis. Otis Garret was incarcerated for running a Hells Angels prostitution ring in San Fransisco. The woman who testified against him was murdered along with her twin seven year old daughters. There is nothing there to be proud of. I know a guy who wears Big Red Machine support gear. I asked about them selling crack and he just said he didn't ask about that part of the business. To me wearing support gear is like wearing a T-shirt that says I support Clifford Olsen and getting a Hells Angels tattoo is like saying I support Dave Picton. Something they did but deny.

When researchers taught capuchin monkeys how to use money, it didn’t take long for one of the male monkeys to offer a female one of the coins in exchange for sex. Prostitution is often called “the world’s oldest profession” with good reason; it is a form of exchange that predates the human species, and has even been observed among chimpanzees. Males tend to want sex much more frequently than most females are willing to accommodate, and where a demand exists it is inevitable that some individuals will choose to meet it for a price. The terminology used to discuss this subject is probably unfamiliar to some readers, so a short summary may be in order.

First and foremost is “sex work,” an umbrella term for all forms of labor in which the sexual gratification of the customer is the primary focus. Prostitution, stripping, acting in adult movies, providing phone sex, and the like are included. As you can probably guess, the boundaries are somewhat fuzzy; some dominatrices and burlesque dancers consider themselves sex workers, while others vociferously insist they aren’t. But in general, a “sex worker” is one whose job is specifically focused on the customer’s gratification, not merely tangential to it. As with the term “sex work” itself, there is some controversy regarding the exact meanings and extent of the terms for the various models of legislation.

I find that the simplest and most useful categorization divides all of the individual legal schemes into three broad categories. In the first, criminalization, the act of selling sex itself is illegal; despite the common American perception that this model is nigh-universal, it is actually the least common in the developed world. The United States and several communist and recently-communist countries are the only large nations which have full criminalization, but in the Swedish model (also called the Nordic model), only the act of paying for sex is de jure prohibited. The most common system, found in the majority of European, Commonwealth, and Latin American countries, is legalization. The act of taking money for sex is not illegal in and of itself; rather, certain activities associated with it are.

The specific activities prohibited under legalization schemes vary widely and arbitrarily; for example, while brothels are illegal in Canada, in Nevada they are the only legal venue for selling sex. Specific regimes also vary widely in extent: while in some there are so many prohibitions the act itself becomes de facto illegal, others differ from decriminalization by only the narrowest of margins. The third model, decriminalization, is at present found only in New Zealand and the Australian state of New South Wales. Under this system, sex work is recognized as a form of work like any other, and therefore not subject to any laws that do not bind other businesses. For example, brothels are regulated by zoning laws and the like rather than subjected to special criminal laws; sex workers are responsible for taxes and covered by workers’ compensation programs, and so forth.

For most of history, sex work was generally unregulated; exceptions to that rule were frequent, but nearly always local and temporary. ” And in the Far East, most of the laws were designed to maintain the rigid social order and class structure of those societies, rather than to police the private sexual arrangements of individuals. Indeed, up until the nineteenth century almost nobody imagined that prohibition could be done, let alone that it should. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the “white slavery” hysteria was in full swing. Yet despite this complete failure, Swedish-style rhetoric has been heavily marketed to other countries. …International authorities regard the NSW regulatory framework as best practice. Contrary to early concerns the NSW sex industry has not increased in size or visibility…Licensing of sex work…should not be regarded as a viable legislative response.

New Zealand decriminalized in 2003, with similar results; neither jurisdiction has had a credible report of “sex trafficking” in years. The reason for this should be obvious: despite the claims of prohibitionists to the contrary, the strongest hold any exploitative employer has over coerced workers is the threat of legal consequences such as arrest or deportation. Remove those consequences by easing immigration controls and decriminalizing the work, and both the motive and means for “trafficking” vanish. There is a popular belief, vigorously promulgated by anti-sex feminists and conservative Christians, that sex work is intrinsically harmful, and therefore should be banned to “protect” adult women from our own choices. But as the Norwegian bioethicist Dr. Ole Moen pointed out in his 2012 paper “Is Prostitution Harmful? ”, the same thing was once believed about homosexuality; it was said to lead to violence, drug use, disease, and mental illness.

These problems were not caused by homosexuality itself; they were the result of legal oppression and social stigma, and once those harmful factors were removed the “associated problems” vanished as well. Dr. Moen suggests that the same thing will happen with sex work, and evidence from New South Wales strongly indicates that he is correct. Sex worker rights activists have a slogan: “Sex work is work.” It is not a crime, nor a scam, nor a “lazy” way to get by, nor a form of oppression. It is a personal service, akin to massage, or nursing, or counseling, and should be treated as such.

The sex industries around the world are associated with serious forms of marginalisation, violence, exploitation, and even forced labour. Media, research, and fiction tell stories of sex workers being abused, exploited, and trafficked. They do it so often that we become almost indifferent to it, as almost always happens in front of horror. A sex worker killed in the Italian countryside, a sex worker robbed in Rio de Janeiro during a transaction, a sex worker leaping to her death from a brothel in Seoul. Poor people, what a life. Gendered, racist, classist, homophobic, and transphobic violence haunts the world of sex work, and many of us believe that states, intergovernmental organisations, and NGOs should do more to help.

Yet a lot is being done. Indeed, one finds that, especially following the 2000 UN Palermo Protocol, the last decade has seen a multiplication of interventions ‘against sex trafficking and exploitation in prostitution’ (see for instance UNODC). The problem is the efficacy of these interventions, as it is abundantly clear that the situation has not demonstrably improved in the intervening time. Poor people, what a world. But is there something more to know? We believe there is. This series addresses the violence, exploitation, abuse, and trafficking present in the sex industries, but it does so from the perspective of sex workers themselves. These are the women, men, and transgender people who are directly touched by the abuse, exploitation, and trafficking under discussion, and they are the people who actively and collectively resist all forms of violence against them.

By publishing their voices directly we hope to help readers resist indifference, on the one hand, and to become more critical of states’ interventions, which are widely regarded and legitimated as necessary to combat ‘trafficking’, on the other. All the authors of this series are involved in sex workers’ organising or have been in the past. This means that they are or have been part of organisations composed of, or at least led by, people who have direct experience selling sex. It is our hope that their contributions over the next two weeks will convey some of the radical richness and diversity of knowledge produced within the contemporary sex workers movement.

This movement is fragmented, stigmatised, and under-funded, yet it has continued to expand since its birth in the mid 1970s in Europe, the US, and Latin America. It now involves at least 273 groups that are part of the Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP), and many more individuals all over the continents. They have organised despite the fact that speaking out as a sex worker puts your relationships and families at risk. It exposes you to threats from your ‘employers' and may lead to harassment or arrest by the police, especially if you are an undocumented migrant. You may lose your political credibility, and even be accused of representing the interests of ‘pimps’ and taking money from them.

[animezinglife]

Sydney, taken aback by the situation, apologized awkwardly (which she should not have done), and "Jack” responded with, another, “Fuck you. Heartfelt.”  

Specifically, in the article Jack (or John Goldman, he apparently has a couple of aliases) describes how got turned on by the idea of his girlfriend--someone he felt the need to include was fifteen years younger--sleeping with other men. He detailed the anticipation of waiting for her to come back home and get with him instead, implying that it would be a superior experience and that it made him feel more “manly.”

In reality...it sure did come across as severe insecurity and desperation to give himself a scenario in which he could feel that he was more masculine than another man. You can still view it and hear another breakdown around the 7:03 mark here. 

His past articles contain concerning references to tying up “little girls” and has made predatory comments regarding fifteen-year-old girls (that he refers to as “women in their prime”). He has referred to women as “sex slaves” and claimed that he’s had them. 

What he was not as vocal about were the instances in which he’s taken it up the a** on camera and his porn background, in which he...oh, how should I phrase this? Was the sheath for the sword? 

Interestingly, this is the first real instance in which I fully believe there is deep internal turmoil regarding repressed homosexual tendencies that you often hear LGBT activists talk about. I fully believe the “alpha male” character he’s created and scammed gullible men with no purpose or sense of self-worth is an attempt to combat his inability to deal with these feelings and overcompensate, though I of course have no proof of this and it is merely speculation.

Blaire White’s video on this was my personal favorite.

Had he just taken responsibility for his past and actions--which would be the “manly” thing to do--nobody would’ve cared. Instead, he chose to throw a tantrum, lash out, and spiral about as far off the deep end as he possibly could.

Hope this helps. I for one am loving every minute of this sociopath being roasted by the community he tried to scam himself into and beyond. He’s even now a special character in a certain Steam game, apparently.

He’s an unhinged, abusive lunatic and con artist, and now the internet has him pegged.

If anyone’s looking for the opposite of masculinity and instead find a true misogynist with no control over his emotions or self, look no further than this.

[fromhollywoodtobollywood]

Alright, people my first Bollywood movie is...

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998) dir. Karan Johar

This movie is...a lot of things. It is three hours long so lots of shit goes down. I struggle trying to fit this in to a typical 3-Act Hollywood screenplay structure  because it feels like two movies in one. If it were released in the US, the second half would be released a year later as a sequel to the first. But I digress...Let’s begin.

The story opens with Rahul (Shah Rukh Khan) and his wife, Tina (Rani Mukerji). They are in love! They are married! They are having a baby! It’s a girl! But tragedy strikes. Shortly after Tina gives birth, a doctor informs Rahul that she is suffering from severe internal bleeding. Internal bleeding that she somehow knew was going to happen? I’m pretty sure that’s not how internal bleeding works. Anyway, even though this woman is “profusely bleeding” (doctor’s words) on the inside, she still has the composure and stamina to say proper goodbyes to her husband and write a series of letters to her baby daughter (to be given to her each year on her birthday). I realize if I don’t suspend my disbelief, I may not get though the first 20 minutes of this movie. But seriously, they can’t find a medical consultant in India? I’m Indian, and I can name five MDs in my family. Back to the story: Tina makes her husband promise two things: One, that he will never cry because he looks ugly when he does. That’s going to be fantastic for his toxic sense of masculinity. And two: That they name their baby daughter Anjali. It’s a perfectly normal promise and a cute name. Anyway, she dies, he ugly-cries and we are transported to...

MUMBAI, 8 Years Later (I’m assuming this is 1998 based on the year the film was released)

Anjali (Sana Saeed) is now a super-cute kid on the eve of her 8th birthday. While it’s never established what Rahul does for a living, he’s pretty loaded by any standard. 8-year-old Anjali has a camcorder in her room and her own TV with MTV India. In her spare time, she pretends to be an MTV VJ like Neelam. Anjali speaks a charming mixture of Hindi and English that she clearly learned from MTV. She says things like “I’ll be back next week: Same time, same place.” Anjali loves chocolates and wants to be a VJ when she grows up. The character of Anjali is approximately my age so by the time she’s old enough, MTV won’t have VJs, it’ll just be Teen Moms. BUT ANYWAY, she leaves the house to meet her dad on a bridge and this is where things get a little...freudian. Her father is two hours late to meet her (so this little kid has been standing alone in the middle of Mumbai for two hours). When he sees her, he tries to win back her good graces with flowers, chocolates, and a teddy bear like a fuckboy who forgot it was Valentine’s Day and ran to CVS. In this moment, his daughter says she is “tired” of having to be his daughter and his wife (because she picks out his clothes). He responds with “Well, if I have to be your mom AND dad, then you can...” He doesn’t finish the thought because it’s creepy as fuck. But they quickly apologize, do a cute handshake thing, and head home. At home they run in to Grandma (Farida Jalal) who is leading a Hindu Bahjan group of older ladies. She is very pious and has the same shruti machine as my grandmother. Anjali runs in and greets her Grandmother with a TOTALLY APPROPRIATE “Hi, sexy!” greeting. If I had done this to my grandmother (during bhajans, no less) she would have smacked me. Seriously, why is this kid allowed to have MTV in her room?

We then see a speech competition at Anjali’s school where kids are given a random word and have to speak extemporaneously on that subject for one minute. It’s weird but at this point, not the strangest thing that’s happened in this movie. Anjali is pitted against a girl named Jasminder (like ‘Bend it Like Beckham”!) and of COURSE the word Anjali gets is “Mother.” She begins to cry on stage when her dad steps on stage and basically does her speech for her because she is sad. The audience thinks this is adorable and he gets a standing ovation. We return to Rahul’s mansion where he plays basketball inside near one of those Beyoncé hair fans. This house is off the chain. His mother implores him to get re-married for the sake of his happiness and Anjali’s. Rahul insists that love and marriage are something that only happen once in a lifetime. He also says Anjali is alright because she has the letters from her mother.  Sure. Because a birthday letter totally makes up for not having a mom.

The next morning, Anjali awakes on her birthday in her truly spectacular bedroom (seriously, what does Rahul do for a living?) and runs down stairs to a stack of presents that would make Dudley Dursley jealous. She pushes all the presents aside to find the letter from her mother. In a voice over, her mother says that this year’s letter will be different from the past. This year, her mother is going to tell her a story about Rahul, Tina, and someone named Anjali. Hashtag, intrigue. 

FLASHBACK to Xavier College in the late 1980s

Rahul (still Shah Rukh Khan…they didn’t pull a Chandler Bing/Zac Efron thing here) is playing basketball flirtatiously with a young woman named…Anjali (Kajol.) OG Anjali is smart, funny, and a fantastic athlete (although nothing they do resembles real basketball). However, we KNOW she can’t be taken seriously as a love interest for Rahul because she has short hair and dresses like a combination of Sporty Spice and Dennis the Menace.

A few words about the fashion choices in this film: Although this is supposed to be the 1980s, everyone is dressed like it’s the late 90s. Rahul runs around campus in that GAP sweatshirt and Ralph Lauren rugby shirts that were ubiquitous in the late 1990s. OG Anjali wears a lot of cute but anachronistic, DKNY, Adidas, and Nike separates. No one wears a mullet, no one has feathered/permed hair, nobody’s jeans are acid washed. I have no problem with flashbacks in movies but the fashion and hairstyling make it seem like this is still 1998. Also, does Bollywood have a pass when it comes to showing licensed products and characters? So far I’ve seen a Tweety Bird, a Coke logo, a Pepsi machine, and a background character carrying a Mickey Mouse binder. It doesn’t feel like intentional product placement and I wonder how they got away with this.

Back to OG Anjali and Rahul. While they play “basketball” one accuses the other of cheating and they get in a fight. This brings us to our first SONG AND DANCE BREAK. Honestly, this is why I signed up for watching Bollywood movies. Unfortunately, there are no subtitles for the songs so I can only guess what they are about based on context clues. This one appears to be about Rahul and Anjali’s basketball fight which happened in private but is discussed on the campus radio station. So Anjali dances with her friends, Rahul dances with his and by the end of the song, they are friends again. The song has a fun beat and the choreography is pretty on point. This is probably the second most musically talented school after East High (What team? WILDCATS!). This song would have worked really well as a stand-alone music video and single but of course, this is Bollywood/India so a song can't just be a song.

We return to campus as usual where the principal (Anupam Kher) is waging a war on short skirts. Meanwhile, he ogles a particularly attractive member of the faculty (and so do the male students). I want to take this moment to say that while Hollywood films aren’t always *great* in regards to how they treat the female body, there is something particularly noxious about the male gaze in this film. Sexually objectifying a student or a teacher is just a fun, quirky thing the men in this movie do. It’s especially troubling to think about how Bollywood portrayals of this type of harassment influence Indian gender politics. If anyone has a suggestion for a Bollywood movie where women are visually treated with respect, please let me know. BUT ANYWAY, the actor who plays the principal is actually someone I recognized from playing the dad in “Bend it Like Beckham” and the dad in “Bride and Prejudice.” When I looked him up on IMDB, I learned he is probably the most prolific working actor in the world. Dude has THREE HUNDRED AND NINETY ONE acting credits to his name. Congrats on the career, man. He is happily talking to OG Anjali, a good student and a “good girl” who doesn’t wear short skirts like “other girls” (kill me, please). Principal Malhotra mentions that his daughter (who lives in London but somehow goes to Oxford) is going to do her final year of college at Xavier.

When we meet Principal Malhotra’s daughter she is none other than Tina, (Rani Mukerji) Little Anjali’s mom. We can tell Rahul is into her because there is music and he stops flirting with another woman when she walks in the room. We all know he eventually marries her and fathers her child so this meet-cute is a little anti-climactic. The real magic happens when OG Anjali meets Tina. Seriously, these two share some LOOKS and have some palpable sexual chemistry. If homosexuality weren’t literally a crime in India, I’d like to see these two in a rom com about how they fall in love and scam Shah Rukh Khan for his sperm so they can raise their daughter away from the ever-present male gaze. They have more chemistry with each other than either of them has with Rahul. I’m shipping this so hard and it’s not going to happen.

On campus, Tina faces a very specific form of harassment. Since she dresses modestly, is conventionally attractive, and the principal’s daughter, she is not openly catcalled the way other female students are but Rahul and his bros (in a pretty shitty flirting attempt) ask her to “prove” she’s “Indian enough” by singing in Hindi. Apparently, because she lives in the UK, that means she’s westernized and no longer “Indian.” There is so much wrong with this that I simply cannot. Sorry, that’s the westernized white girl in me talking. In all seriousness, Rahul is supposed to be the campus Cassanova and his idea of flirting is making a woman publicly “prove” her cultural identity. It is hella problematic #notwoke. Tina slays her rendition her rendition of “Om Jai Jagdish Hare.” This is a song sung during Aarti at Hindu prayers. Even I, a culturally beige-washed American, know the chorus and a few verses of this song because if I didn’t sing a long and stay for Aarti, I didn’t get ladoo and ladoo is delicious.

Now we get to the structural problems with this script. A half an hour passes with that is pertinent to the plot of the film. There is a student talent show that is completely irrelevant to the overall plot of the film and simply another excuse for a song and dance. It’s a great song. If they played this at a party, I would not be mad. Tina, Rahul, and OG Anjali essentially improv a full performance and it goes over like gangbusters. It also seems to be an excuse to dress Tina and OG Anjali like 2/5ths of The Spice Girls. Tina is Posh. OG Anjali is a strange mixture of Sporty and Baby. Again, a fun song but would work better as a single. The title song of this film is set among the ruins of a Scottish castle (seriously). For all the shit Rahul gave Tina for going to school in the UK, he seems super content wearing his GAP sweatshirt while singing and dancing in the land of his colonialist oppressor. Sadly, the title song is the least catchy of the film and doesn’t seem to make much sense. Are they all having the same dream about Scotland? Is it a paid advertisement for popular athletic brands of the 1990s? Is it a political statement about India, Scotland, and British colonialism? Who the fuck knows.

We finally come to an important plot point. In an English class taught by the sexually subversive faculty member who wears miniskirts, the students are reading Romeo and Juliet. TANGENT: The professor’s notes on Romeo and Juliet are covered in pictures of Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. These are licensed images from the 1996 film. How did this get past Baz Luhrmann’s lawyers? Tangent aside, instead of asking the students specific questions about the text (or movie), she poses the super deep question: What is love? *insert “A Night at The Roxbury” reference here* Really? What is love? Poor Tina. She left Oxford for this? Rahul answers the question with the level of intellect and sophistication we come to expect from him. He says “love is friendship” causing both Tina and OG Anjali to believe that he is in love with his best friend, OG Anjali. We know this is not true because Tina and OG Anjali are the real love story of this movie. WHY ELSE WOULD SHE NAME HER DAUGHTER AFTER HER?

At this point, OG Anjali believes she has feelings for Rahul and becomes weepy-eyed. When she goes to him to confess her feelings in a wheat field (as one does), he greets her with a confession of love. He then retracts it without giving her a chance to respond and says he was just practicing for when he plans to tell Tina. This guy is the goddamned worst. Why are we supposed to like him, again? OG Anjali responds to this the way any intelligent, self-possessed woman would: By dropping out of college. Rahul and Tina are upset and try to get her to get off the train. She does not. Cool. Way to make a great life decision. Which brings us back to…

LITTLE ANJALI CRYING WHILE READING THIS IN A LETTER. Remember Little Anjali? It’s her birthday? She somehow managed to be a sweet kid despite being raised by MTV and a borderline negligent father. This is the halfway point in the film. Seriously, this shit is only half over. 

It’s now up to Little Anjali to reunite her father and her namesake. She decides to play a word-association game she learned by watching MTV-India to get more background information on OG Anjali. This misguided little girl starts the game by jumping on her father’s back and asking him what word he thinks of when he thinks of the word “sexy”. She says this while on his back. The visual isn’t great. Rahul responds to the “sexy” prompt with the name of HIS MOTHER. This family needs some serious therapy or they are tip-toeing treacherously close to Greek Tragedy territory. Anyway, when she says “Anjali”, he responds with “Sharma” (OG Anajli’s last name). While this seems farfetched that he’d say her last name when his own daughter Anjali is being carried on his back, it’s is not even the most bizarre thing to happen in the last five minutes of this movie.

Little Anjali and the grandmother ask more questions about Anjali Sharma. Rahul says she was his best friend in college. He explains that OG Anjali “wasn’t like other girls” because she enjoyed sports and didn’t “wear make up or short skirts.” “She was one of the guys,” he explains with a smile. I’m starting to think that OG Anjali is just the Bollywood iteration of the Hollywood “cool girl.” I want to take this moment to say that not all American exports are good. Sure, we may have given the world Diet Coke and “Hamilton” but this concept of the female lead who is “not like other girls” is hashtag problematic as hell. “Not like other girls” implies that it is somehow better to be in the company of men and masculinity than it is to be among things and people deemed “feminine.” While it’s on the surface empowering, it’s underlying message is steeped in outdated and patriarchy perpetuating myths about gender. Additionally, no girl is like all “other girls” because women and girls make up 3.5 billion people worldwide. Each girl and woman has her own interests, passions, and opinions that make her unique. It makes me truly sad to see other cultures adopt this “not like other girls concept” and use it to propagate problematic gender norms in their own societies.

That last paragraph was brought to you by my Seven Sisters education. Back to Kuch Kuch Hota Hai- Rahul, his mother, and Little Anjali head back to Xavier College to see Tina’s father on the anniversary of her death. While there, they decide to look up Anjali Sharma. Principal Malhotra says that he knows someone who might be able to help. Rifat Bi, the housemother of the girls dormitory remembers every student and as it turns out is still in touch with Anjali.

A note about Rifat Bi: She is a devout Muslim woman and when she is introduced, the Muslim call to prayer is used as background music. I am ashamed to say that as an Indian-American raised in an increasingly Islamophobic society, I heard that music and got scared-like white lady walking through Compton scared. I thought some “Homeland” shit was about to go down. And I’m a liberal! I voted and volunteered for Hillary! But as ashamed as it made me feel to feel fear upon hearing “Allah u Akbar,” I used this as an opportunity to challenge my Islamophobic assumptions. Rifat is a helpful and kind woman who does what she can to help the Khanna family find OG Anjali. When she gets a phone call that OG Anjali is engaged, she tearfully tells the family the news. At this point, Little Anjali (instead of crying) puts on a hijab and sits on a prayer mat. Although this plot point is Kellyanne Conway level ridiculous, it’s actually a very earnest expression of interfaith prayer and a rare positive portrayal of Islam. While little Anjali prays, Rifat gets another phone call to say Anjali’s wedding has been postponed until December because of astrology.

So what has become of OG Anjali? Well, she’s engaged to an NRI (that’s Non-Resident Indian) who lives/works in London. Her fiancé is a man and I was a little bummed by that (sigh, India). OG Anjali now presents herself in a more traditionally feminine way. Now when we see her, her hair is long, her eyebrows threaded, and she is wearing…makeup. Granted, it is her engagement party but she doesn’t go back to wearing track pants or jeans for the rest of the film. I guess now that she has feminized herself in a traditionally Indian way, she’s the focal point of this second-half love triangle. Her fiancé, Aman Mehra (Salman Khan) seems like a cool dude and he and his bros have some sick dance moves. If Pinterest existed in India in 1998, pictures and video of this scene would have been a bigger wedding trend than mason jars. Aman is also infinitely more watchable, charismatic, and attractive than Shah Rukh Khan. He is not quite the match for OG Anjali that Tina was but she’s dead and nobody’s perfect.

OG Anjali wants to take some time while Aman goes back to London to teach singing/dancing to kids at a summer camp. Little Anjali finds out about this by calling the engagement venue and eavesdropping on the conversation OG Anjali and Aman have about the camp. With new knowledge about the summer camp, Anjali begs her dad to go. He says absolutely not because she has never shown any interest in singing or dancing. Really? This kid watches MTV all day Does Rahul know nothing about his kid? God, he’s the worst. Rahul leaves on an “Exporter’s Trip” (so he’s an “exporter”...is that a job? whatever) to London leaving Little Anjali in the care of her grandmother. While he is at the conference he runs in to Aman and there is a bit of confusion with the phones when both Anjalis call at the same time. The men share a laugh before telling the other “best of luck with your Anjali.” Get it? Because women are property!

Little Anjali and her grandmother use this opportunity to escape to OG Anjali’s summer camp. Gotta hand it to Little Anjali for enlisting adult help. If this were a Hollywood film, she would have stolen her dad’s credit card number (I’m looking at you, “Sleepless in Seattle”). Anjali and her grandmother head to the camp and it’s actually pretty cute. Mrs. Khanna schools the Anglophile camp director on colonialism and goes as far as to dismantle his portrait of Elizabeth I. Honestly, I’d like to watch a movie about an Indian grandmother dismantling colonialist symbols and taking back her power but alas, this is as fruitless as wishing for a queer romance in a Bollywood film. Meanwhile, Little Anjali meets her name sake while dressed like a “Dora the Explorer” cosplayer. Rahul (Parent of the Fucking Century) decides to use MTV to reach out to his daughter and says “Anjali, I miss you, please come home.” OG Anjali hears this and briefly thinks Rahul is talking about her. In that moment, she realizes Little Anjali is Tina and Rahul’s daughter. OG Anjali cries dramatically upon seeing the picture of Tina that Little Anjali sleeps with. Shortly after the identities are revealed, Little Anjali leaves a message for her father with the sound of her sneezing and he runs dramatically to the camp. Remember, this is the same man who left his child to wander the streets of Mumbai for two hours.

Rahul arrives at the camp while the children are singing “Ragupati Raghava Rajaram”-a song I sang every morning as a child. Unlike my childhood prayer, this song has a dance floor beat. I think you could probably play this at The Abbey in West Hollywood and it would be a hit. If I heard this version while sipping a G&T and talking to my new best friend about the red carpet at Cannes, I’d be weirded out in the best possible way. Rahul walks in just in time for ladoo (sweet timing, dude) and calls for Anjali. Both his daughter and his love interest respond-that’s not a Freudian nightmare at all. OG Anjali and share a cinematic moment. Rahul decides to just stay at the camp with his daughter and mother while they sing dance out some feelings of unrequited love and play “basketball.” Little Anjali is finally able to show off her singing and dancing skills. Girl has some skills. All that MTV has really paid off. All these background kids are seriously talented dancers. I can only imagine how good Disney Channel India is.

This is where things get *dramatic* again. OG Anjali remembers she is still engaged to Aman and leaves the camp in tears. A little boy in a turban who hasn’t talked before, cries and tells her not to leave. When Rahul sees OG Anjali leaving he hands her the scarf she was wearing the day she left college. Has he really had it this whole time? Also there are a ton of continuity errors with OG Anjali’s engagement ring-sometimes it’s garnet and others times it’s diamond. Is there no one whose job it is to check for these things? There are so many poor, unemployed people in India. Bollywood could solve a lot of problems if they hired some people to spot and avoid blatant continuity errors. Economics lecture aside, it starts to rain and who shows up but Aman saying he loves OG Anjali and is ready to get married because fuck astrology. Little Anjali and Rahul look distressed.

Little Anjali decides to try a little reverse psychology with Aman. She tells him that he is a very handsome man and could have any woman he would want. Why would he want to marry OG Anjali? God, she’s going to be a monstrous teenager. Aman (jokingly) goes along with what Little Anjali is saying. He says he is handsome and doesn’t have to settle for someone “dark and fat.” Way to reenforce colorism and body shaming, Bollywood. It’s not enough that this movie takes place in India and no one has a “dusky” complexion but let’s throw a little fat shaming in there as well. Nonetheless, Fair and Lovely ™ Aman says that he loves OG Anjali and is ready to get married.

At the wedding, OG Anjali can’t stop crying/thinking about Rahul and Little Anjali. When she comes down the stairs, Aman sees the distress in her face and lets her go. He tells her that he wants her to be happy even if it’s not with him. Besides, he says someone told him “he could have any woman he wants” and shoots Little Anjali a smile. This guy seems genuinely jazzed to be not getting married despite declaring his love in the rain just before this. Rahul and OG Anjali tearfully embrace and it’s assumed they end up together. Little Anjali cries tears of joy while wearing casual western wear. There is no way in hell I could have worn anything other than Indian clothes to someone’s fancy wedding. Little Anjali and Aman lead a pretty solid dance at the not wedding. A farfetched idea but hey, the choreography is on point-a pretty accurate description of the film as a whole.

[bloodfromtherock-blog]

AMERICAN WOMEN “VOTE”: #MeToo

Daniel Hutchens October 18, 2017

The October 9 NY Times piece from Lena Dunham (who created and starred in HBO’s Girls, among other accomplishments) is a powerful indictment of sexism in corporate Hollywood. It focuses on the Harvey Weinstein scandal, of course, describing him as “the most powerful man in Hollywood to be revealed as a predator,” but Dunham also points out the problem is pervasive.



I wasn’t at first sure I agreed with Dunham’s pointed question, “So why the deafening silence, particularly from the industry’s men, when one of our own is outed as having a nasty taste for humiliating and traumatizing women?” I’ve certainly heard plenty of denouncements coming from the likes of George Clooney, Ben Affleck, Leonardo DiCaprio, Michael Keaton, etc., not to mention Quentin Tarantino, who has been described as Weinstein’s “close friend and longtime collaborator,” and said he was “stunned and heartbroken about the revelations.”



But Dunham’s piece ran back on October 9, and of course I have to defer to her experience and direct access to these situations. I’m a distant onlooker at best.



And we can arguably take any of these announcements with a grain of salt. As well as statements coming from some Hollywood women. Are they simply trying to protect their own images or appear politically correct? What do we make of Meryl Streep’s released statement that she personally found Weinstein “exasperating but respectful with me in our working relationship, and with many others with whom he worked professionally…I did not know about these other offenses”. She also called his behavior “inexcusable” and praised “the intrepid women who raised their voices to expose this abuse.”



Or Glenn Close, whose statement said, “for many years, I have been aware of the vague rumors that Harvey Weinstein had a pattern of behaving inappropriately around women. Harvey has always been decent to me, but now that the rumors are being substantiated, I feel angry and darkly sad.”



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The sad truth is, sexism, assault and harassment have always been part of our national fabric, and the situation is likely the same in most every part of the world. In America, the list of powerful men who have been called out for sexually inappropriate behavior (at best) is always growing, and it’s certainly not confined to Hollywood: In the entertainment industry we can list Weinstein, Bill Cosby, R. Kelly, Mel Gibson, Roman Polanski, and Woody Allen. In the political realm, we’ve all heard the stories about Bill Clinton, Clarence Thomas, and of course Donald Trump. Then we have “news” personalities such as Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly. Athletes on this ugly list include Kobe Bryant, Adam “Pacman” Jones, Adrian Peterson, Ray Rice, and Ben Roethlisberger.



These lists I’m including are just samplings, of course, and could go on to be much longer. But the point is, this is an American problem. The current #MeToo movement, wherein women speak up about sexual or physical abuse or harassment, is important and courageous, and should be applauded and encouraged by all of us, men and women alike. The problem needs to be recognized and confronted.



But another sad truth is, there’s likely not one single female anywhere in America who can’t honestly say “Me Too.” This in no way indicates that every American male is an abuser, but it does mean that at one point or another, every female is going to encounter abuse in some form. It’s the same principle as racism: every white American isn’t hateful or racist, but every black American is bound to encounter racism somewhere, sometime in this country. (Other minorities too, of course, as well as homosexuals, Muslims and various other religions, and, well…you name it.)



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I was raised by women. My mother, my aunts and sisters were my primary caregivers. My father lived in the same house as me until his death when I was sixteen, but he was emotionally absent, probably a silent alcoholic, and simply didn’t have much input into my day to day care, discipline or instruction. I got music from him: he was a fearsome boogie-woogie piano player, and gave me my first guitar. I don’t discount those gifts, and I also understand he came from a far worse situation: his own father had apparently been savagely abusive, to the point that my father ran away from home when he was a teenager, to avoid “killing him.” 



But women made me who I am, on every emotional and social level. I’ve always related to women, genuinely enjoy their company and find them to be fascinating, if often mysterious. If I’ve ever been guilty of any type of “insensitivity”, it’s simply that I openly adored women, and at times sought their attention, which certainly led to my not being in the most stable long-term relationships at various points in my life. I will say I’ve remained dear friends with my past girlfriends and my ex-wife, so maybe that counts for something.



I’m also a member (grudgingly at times) of the music industry, which like just about every other American place of business, has a deeply ingrained male-dominant history. But in the same way that music tends to be “color blind”, I’ve often seen decent and equal treatment of female musicians, sound crew, roadies etc. I think many musicians have experienced their fair share of “outsider” status, and maybe that helps us relate to others who may feel the same way. That doesn’t mean discrimination never happens, though, and it’s important for all of us to stay aware.



And certainly, in terms of the “business” part of music specifically, women are often subjected to stereotypical expectations about physical appearance and behavior. And that flat-out stinks, and yes, I have to recognize my part in that system. 



We all have to examine our demons and our tendencies to stereotype or take certain situations for granted. “Born Into This” (our circumstances as Americans and simply as human beings), Charles Bukowski used to say. He’s been a hugely influential writer for me, but he was certainly not exemplary in his behavior toward women.



One of my favorite filmmakers has always been Woody Allen, and when the disturbing stories arose that Allen was dating Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of his then-romantic-companion Mia Farrow back in the early ‘90s, it was tough for me as a fan to reconcile. Allen’s behavior back then can generously be described as questionable as best, despite the old chestnut that “the heart wants what it wants,” and Previn’s adamant defense of Allen’s behavior. (As of this writing, the two have now been married twenty years, so make of that what you will.)



Other nasty allegations against Allen came out eventually, mainly from another of Farrow’s adopted daughters, Dylan, who accused Allen of touching her inappropriately when she was seven years old. But Dylan’s (also adopted) brother, Moses Farrow, has always strongly defended Woody, and accused Mia Farrow of brain-washing: “My mother drummed it into me to hate my father for tearing apart the family and molesting my sister…I see now that this was a vengeful way to pay him back for falling in love with Soon-Yi…My mother demanded obedience and I was often hit as a child.” Moses also insisted that his sister Dylan had been “coached” by Mia Farrow to make accusations against Woody Allen.



It’s hard to sort these things out from afar, but I think on some level I was always hoping Allen was innocent. I truly loved his films, and I think it was hard for me to think the worst of him. I’ve also long believed in the classic D.H. Lawrence adage, “Never trust the artist. Trust the tale.” Meaning, all humans are flawed in one way or another, but this doesn’t subtract from artistic accomplishments, which in one sense can be looked on as the better angels of our natures. Of course, Lawrence has been accused of being something of a misogynist himself at times. As has the undeniable master Pablo Picasso, who told us, “Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth.”

But regarding Woody Allen, I had to eventually admit my relationship to his films had become at least slightly tarnished. Particularly his 1979 masterpiece, Manhattan, in which the 40-something character played by Allen dates a high school girl, played by Mariel Hemingway. (Again, going all confessional, I’ve had relationships of my own where the woman was a good deal younger, including my 10-year marriage. But the particulars in the movie, the position of male power and the high-school-age girl, just don’t sit right.) Hemingway later wrote that in her real life, Allen “had a kind of crush on me,” and invited her to travel to Paris with him. Her parents somehow agreed to this plan, but she spoke up for herself and told Allen, “I’m not going to get my own room, am I? I can’t go to Paris with you.” After hearing these stories, it’s impossible for me to be charmed by Manhattan in quite the same way. 



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My point here, again, is that these details of sexism and oppression are so woven into our culture, it’s impossible to point the finger at one particular industry or individual. Harvey Weinstein has certainly been outed as a major predator, but his removal alone won’t solve the problem. The problem runs way deeper, and in fact the problem is rooted in Us.



In much the same way that the election of Donald Trump is rooted in Us. His campaign was certainly hateful and corrupt, and we’re still waiting to find out the full extent of Russian tampering. But the fact that someone like Trump ever got anywhere near the presidency, after his open contempt of women, his referring to them as “dogs”, “pigs”, “housekeepers”, “slobs”, etc., his pending lawsuits and accusations of sexual misconduct and assault (and in fact his 75 active lawsuits, including the massive scam which was Trump University, which was settled out of court for $25 million 20 days after the election)…his comment that it’s “okay” to refer to his own daughter as a “piece of ass”, his “pussy grabbing” statement, etc. …we have to blame ourselves as a society for allowing an openly woman-hating piece of shit like Trump into our White House.



Which matters, in the context of this “Me Too” conversation. Trump is a poster boy for sexual harassment and disrespect toward women. Not to mention the fact that his legislation is strongly contemptuous toward females. He passed an executive order allowing employers to deny birth control to women on their health care plans, based on the ludicrous notion of “religious objection.” He has also delayed proposed increases in overtime which would have directly aided single mothers, slashed support for military caregivers, blocked pay transparency which prevented gender pay disparity, undid the Fair Pay and Safe Workplace Executive Order, so it’s now easier for federal contractors with chronic violations of sex discrimination and other employment laws to keep getting federal funding. Nothing in the Trump budget includes a serious commitment to any form of paid family and medical leave…on and on.



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Probably the most important thing in my world, the best contribution I can make to solving these problems we’re talking about, is how I raise my children. I have a daughter, Amberly, who’s 10 years old. She actually cried the day Donald Trump was elected (and no, I don’t force my politics on her. I actively teach my children to think for themselves, and in fact her Mom and grandparents were strongly anti-Hillary. But Amberly had been engaged in political conversations with other kids at her school, and she was pretty excited at the prospect of America electing a woman president, and was bitterly disappointed when Trump instead was elected.)



I try to tell Amberly every day how much I love her, how smart and amazing she is, and how can she accomplish anything in the world she sets her mind to. But these aren’t just fatherly pats-on-the-back, they’re rock-solid truths, to which any of my friends who have met Amberly can attest.



I try to do the same with my equally-amazing son, and I’m determined to be there for him, in a way my father wasn’t, and maybe couldn’t be, for me. In the Read This Music book I’ve been working on for years, I wrote a piece to my boy, Zac. Here’s an excerpt:



“Always treat women with respect. Never be one of those two-faced guys who talk nicely to a girl’s face, then get all vulgar and nasty about her when she leaves the room…Remember your Grandma Frankie and your Mom and your Sister are all women too! And every girl you’ll ever meet will be someone’s daughter, sister, mother…treat them well.”

So those are my thoughts about these problems we’re all talking about these days. I think my kids are gonna grow up to be alright, mainly just because they’re two of the coolest people I’ve ever met. I’m proud of them, and even though I’ve worked plenty hard for 30 plus years on my songs and stories, Amberly and Zac are the best I’ve got. The best I’ll leave behind. And they give me a hope for our collective future that I otherwise have a tough time seeing, watching what’s happening in our world right now. It’s probably important we all try to find that brighter edge, that glint of possibility. 



Be kind to each other out there.



(Following are links to Lena Dunham’s article about Weinstein, and another great NY Times article she wrote about Trump’s war on birth control.)




https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/opinion/harvey-weinstein-lena-dunham-silence-.html




https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/09/opinion/lena-dunham-losing-birth-control-could-mean-a-life-of-pain.html