Nice Try. No Cigar.
Dig this email I just got.
My name is A. and I am contacting you from DETAILS Magazine in New York to tell you about an article in our latest issue which may be of interest to you and your readers at Bitch Ph.D.. We think that uber-boobs are unattractive and have gotten out of control, so we wrote about it in our latest issue.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!
Details thinks "uber-boobs" are unattractive! I bet all the girls are just falling on their knees thanking god that we've got permission from Details magazine not to get breast implants.
Isn't that white of them? No lady wants to have "out of control" boobs!
I just feel so much better about my feminism now that I know that Details doesn't approve of breast implants. Whew.
The article, if you're bored shitless and don't have anything else to read, is here. I have no idea if it's hilarious, inane, or wrath-inducing, because I can't be bothered to read some wanking article from Details about breasts. But hey, if you're so inclined, there's the click.
(P.S. to A. from DETAILS Magazine: actually, we bitches don't care what you think of our bodies. Sorry about that. Go buy yourself something nice and feel better, honey.)
Bitch_PhD thinks that men who expect her to care what they find attractive are unattractive and have gotten out of control.
Tuesday Tasting: Girls In Gaming
Each week, Ariel Waldman serves a tasting of the latest in sex and tech.
China Company Bans Men-Role-Playing-Women
Aurora Technology, under Shanda Entertainment in China, has banned men from role playing women in their MMORPG, King of the World. Perhaps burned one too many times for mistakenly hitting on any heroine in sight, the company is requiring that anyone signing up for a female character must be gender-verified by webcam. We're not sure if this is gender "verification", or a clever excuse for pr0n, as there is no sight of a ban on women role playing men. Sources say that this fad should fade, as it takes away the entire point of fantasy games by taking away the ability to be someone else.
Feeling Up Fantasy Female Heroines
Always interested in the intersection between sex and video games, Leigh Alexander gives girl characters in games their annual breast examination this week. Analyzing areolas to lack of underwires, she defends the sometimes over-the-top depiction of females in games:
...the gratuitous endowments and high-cut battle skirts, every little plate of waist-cinching, virtually useless armor and every graphic jiggle is as necessary to the genre as the subtle moan of the shambling undead and the high-powered arsenal of the worlds best shooters. And to shamelessly enjoy and appreciate every bare-skinned brawler does not indicate unfairness or misogyny any more than an appreciation for wrench kills or car thievery indicates real-world sociopathy.
Previously, our lovely Posh Suicide provided her views on the double-D debate.
Halo 3 Is Hot For Your Girlfriend
As one of the few females in attendance of the Halo 3 pre-launch party at Microsoft last night, it's obvious that this game is open to receiving any hype it can. Goofy and definitely geeky, a few game-fans got together to make a music video dedicated to their addiction. Featuring horrible oh-so-90's boy band moves, Joystiq warns that "Halo Nights" won't be something you hit replay on. Regardless, we're curious about the mechanics of having sex with Spartan 117.
The Ivy Overfloweth
With Soulcalibur, we focus on creating a game that's visually appealing on such a level that other games can't really compete.
- Soulcalibur IV lead programmer Masaaki Hoshino
Let's go on a journey. A journey into the world of fighting games and female characters. Back in 1991, a girl by the name of Chun-Li was introduced into the male dominated world of fighting games. She may not have been as strong as the others in Street Fighter II, but her quickness lent to her success. Muscular legged and moderately endowed in a blue qipao, studded cuffs and the slightly curious brown pantyhose, Chun-Li quickly rose to popularity offering little sisters and girlfriends their very own fierce female heroine and an open door into gaming.
Within the year, the allure of strong female playable characters had been twisted toward the stereoypical gamer. There was already one obscenely endowed and illogically dressed female protagonist. Enter Fatal Fury 2's Mai Shiranui and her barely covered breasts in 1992. 1992 also gave us Sonya Blade and Mortal Kombat. Does anyone not hear that terrible music cue at the mere sight of those two words? Anyway, Sonya, while her breasts may not be the smallest, she wasn't forced into barely legal outfits. King on the hand, a tall, blond character in SNK's Art of Fighting and King of Fighters took to the extremes, donning men's clothes. She used strength and mind games to win against her opponents, rather than the usual speed boost given to most female characters. In 1995, Battle Arena Toshinden, introduced us to Sofia, the fully endowed, dressed like a dominatrix Russian agent as well as the 3d fighting environments.
And then came Dead or Alive in 1997. DOA designer Tomonobu Itagaki said he wanted to do something to attract people's attention, and borrowing from the aforementioned Fatal Fury, that something became the well known, incredibly unnatural yet hypnotic bouncing breasts that other devs would copy and try to emulate, upgrading our once playable ladies into unrealistic top heavy, barely clothed models. All in order to tap into that wealth of incredibly lonely 18 to 34 year old males. You know, the ones that sit on a stained couch in their parent's basement dressing DOA girls in miscellaneous volleyball outfits and watching them poledance?
That brings us to the present. For the first time in days, my mailbox contained more than just advertisements for 99 cent jugs of milk and teeth whitening services. The August issue EGM was waiting in there and on the cover read World Exclusive First Look at Soulcalibur (apparently it's all one word now) 4. Needless to say, I was pretty excited. Of all the big fighting game series, Soulcalibur is one of the most fun to play for me. A fond summer memory of mine involves a lot of beer, a projector and a huge white sheet and owning all the boys with my cheap Soulcalibur tactics. I flipped through to the story and there on the second page of the article was Ivy, wearing what I can only assume is some kind of gymnastic outfit from childhood barely keeping in her ridiculously overinflated breasts. While battling against katanas and katars with no body armor, she ought to be worried about snagging a leak. The back side of her new outfit also leaves little to the imagination giving players the extra bonus of cheek to cheek combat. Yes, I can almost hear guys cheering everywhere! The bulk of the Soulcalibur 4 ladies have apparently gone under the knife, with Taki opting for two large water balloons rather than breasts. Though Ivy's have grown the most, going from a solid C to a GG. The current trend, no doubt fueled by the boob physics to sales ratio.
Sure, disproportionate, scantily clad heroines have always been a part of the comic and video game world, but in more recent years, it has gotten out of control. I'll be the first to admit when playing City of Heroes, I created a short girl with some pretty decently sized tits. The difference is in user created, and developer generated content. As female gamers, we have little to no choice with these games. We could play a muscular man (essentially moving back to the pre Chun-Li days), play these over sexualized male fantasy characters or not play at all. The continuous imposed creation of these supposed heroines leaves girls feeling ostracized. Video games are not just an outlet for males. Women also enjoy packing away life's stresses and jumping into a new world. We face enough unrealistic images of the perfect woman in American society, we shouldn't have it shoved down our digital throats while trying to escape that very thing.
The Entertainment Software Association has said that 38% of all players are women. Unfortunately games are being developed without considering the full range of women gamers. The games specifically made for girls that are available come across as condescending. I'd rather not tend a garden so I can pay off my in game mortgage or avoid getting caught having an affair in Desperate Housewives nor have a daughter playing the Bratz or That's So Raven. What the hell does that even mean? But that's a subject for another time! The question now is will this ever expanding female body in fighting games ever stop? What will it take to bring our playable sex down to a realistic, or at least less offensive point? We need our female characters designed for us, not for the men. Think original Samus or Hana of Fear Effect before the prequel. No more stilettos and lingerie as armor! Breasts are great! I'm all for breasts... when they aren't all straight out of a Naughty Nurses 6 porno. One can hope that with the growing percentage of female gamers, more will see the need for change, and seek out way to do that.
What do breasts Mean?
Tonight's the Oscars, and we all know that what we really care about isn't the movies, but the outfits. Who's going to wear what, who's going to look great, whose outfit is going to look like a coked-out fashion designer's nightmare?
And, a related question: whose cleavage is going to look awesome (cough:: Penélope Cruz::cough), and who's going to have the hard-as-a-rock half-melons that suggest too much time at the plastic surgeons?
With the latter in mind, folks who are interested in all things breast-related might want to put Stacked: A 32DDD Reports from the Front on their reading lists. What is up with our collective cultural obsession on breasts? I mean, they're nice and all, but you'd think they held the promise of world peace, the way we get hung up on them. According to this reviewSeligson's book doesn't promise to be a Serious Cultural Analysis, but it does look like food for thought. Might make a nice pair (pun intended) with Marilyn Yalom's more scholarly A History of the Breast. Yalom (who teaches at Stanford) points out, for those who will inevitably want to argue that our tit-obsession is "only natural," that actually breasts as objects of sexual focus is actually a modern invention.
My vote is that our modern preoccupation with boobs has got something to do with the modern reification of domestic motherhood: kids aren't just extra hands on the farm, or little savages waiting to be tamed any more; now they're precious innocents who need nurturing and devotion. And by extension, we're all just looking for the perfect mommy to cradle our modernity-buffeted heads.
Which is, in fact, the role Cruz's play in Almodóvar's Volver. Just another piece of evidence that Almodóvar is the fillmmaking genius of our age.
Bitch_PhD's own breast obsession mostly has to do with finding well-fitting bras
True Stories by Rob Corddry: My Wife is More Extreme Than Yours
My wife is Extreme. Shes XXXtreme. Shes ik-'streem! When you are as Extreme as my wife you must have an outlet for all that Extremity. If you let that shit build up youll blow an X-ring and get Mountain Dew all over the damn place. My wife has two outlets for this intensity. One is constantly being Rad all the time. She is also somewhat Gnarly on occasion but thats neither here nor there. The main outlet for her unconventional rabidity is a sport called Being a Fucking Triathlete. Thats right, she will Swim, Bike AND Run all over your shit!
My wife is one of those ladies for whom biking and running just isnt enough. If she is asked to swim and bike, shes like, Shit, I got time for one more thing! And if you ask her to run and then swim, you best invite her to bike as well or get a size six Nike placed somewhere on your body
and Hard! Yeah, she knows Karate too (not really)!
A couple of times a year I accompany my wife to these races. When she wakes me up at 4:30 in the morning to drive to the event I usually think shes joking. You have to get up pretty darn early to fool me! Nine times out of ten shes serious and I have the distinct pleasure of watching the sun rise over a few thousand ruddy characters stretching while Takin Care of Business plays over the tape deck in their Subarus. Mostly these people all look the same. They have really dry hair from the chlorine, they have poor complexions from all the sun and they have the shadow of my middle finger stretching across their faces. You havent heard anything until youve heard the sound of a rubber wetsuit squeak over pre-cancerous skin. Its like chewing on a tinfoil-coated chalkboard, mostly because I am usually hung-over or still drunk at the time.
You see, these events happen on The Weekend, meaning my pre-event nights are usually spent doing a triathlon of my own which includes Drinking, Smoking Weed and Peeing a Lot. Drinking is a triathlon in itself because I start with cocktails before dinner, have a bottle of wine while I eat and finish with whatever someone hasnt dropped a cigarette into. My mornings triathlon is some combination of Vicodin, vomiting and Us Magazine.
But I do rise with her. And I anoint her with ancient oils that Block the Sun. And I drive with her to the Chosen Places and I complain about the Toilets. I watch the baby as she swims and then runs and then bikes. I change diapers on front seats and Nod at other be-Björned men. And when she returns, sweating and panting, she tells tales of poorly marked turns and asshole cops. She regales us with visions of trash in the ocean and fat ladies pulling off to pee in the woods. And we set her on the throne of the Extreme and worship. Then we go home and take naps.
Triathlons are not the only extreme thing she does. She bakes a mean fucking Apple Cranberry Pie with a Caramel Walnut Glaze, she cries at the end of Greys Anatomy every week and she fights with her mother regularly. EXTREME!!! Not convinced? She just bought a bed-skirt that matches our bedroom rug perfectly. Yeah. And she would like me to tell you that she can knit cables. Are you wet yet? Well guess what? She can take our babys temperature rectally, she speaks Spanish and she knows how to decorate a mantle. Read that last sentence again. Yeah
she had a baby. OUT OF HER VAGINA! Perhaps you should call BMX bikes and get her that endorsement deal now.
As I write she is putting a bathing suit on under her clothes. She will go to the gym (A really expensive one
EXTREME!) and then, perhaps, run a few errands. And before she races home to feed the baby (from her BREASTS!) we will meet at the movies. Now, before you start thinking that going to see a movie is a totally normal thing to do, get this
its Monday
AFTERNOON!!!
Rob Corddry is an actor. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter.
Jessica Simpson Defends Her Father's Creepiness
Jessica Simpson defended her fathers creepy, risqué comments about her tit-tays. Simpson said she wasnt offended when her father gushed to GQ magazine about her ample cleavage.
"She's got double-D's! You can't cover those suckers up!"
While a statement like that makes me throw up in my mouth a little, Jessica said shes cool with it; her boobs are a regular topic of conversation around her house.
When asked if the comments bothered her, she tells Jane magazine, "No, I've had double D's for a long time. Are you kidding? No. My family is extremely close. I talk to my mom about my sex life. That's not something that creeps me out.
When asked why she is comfortable with these discussions, Simpson explained her familys podunk heritage
"We're Podunk Southern. And my dad is very open about his ideas and...it's disgusting that people would actually think...people are making a judgment on something that is false."
You get an A for the effort, Jess.
Joe keeps an eye on the other Simpson sister, Ashlee.
Mag's Breastfeeding Photo Is Too Titillating for Readers
A parenting magazine is at the center of a breastfeeding controversy after featuring a nursing mother on the cover of its August issue.
BabyTalk, a magazine catering to new mothers, received hundreds of letters in response to the photo, with many readers calling it offensive and disgusting.
One mother who didn't like the cover explains she was concerned about her 13-year-old son seeing it.
"I shredded it," said Gayle Ash, of Belton, Texas, in a telephone interview. "A breast is a breast - it's a sexual thing. He didn't need to see that."
Another woman, whos in favor of breastfeeding, said she also wanted to protect her family from seeing unwanted breastage.
"I'm totally supportive of it - I just don't like the flashing," she said. "I don't want my son or husband to accidentally see a breast they didn't want to see."
Because, of course, they always tell her which breasts they do want to see.
The photo was meant to call attention to the current debate over breastfeeding in public. A recent poll found that 57 percent of Americans oppose public breastfeeding, while a new generation of mothers - "lactivists" - are advocating for a woman's right to whip 'em out whenever she needs to.
BabyTalk executive editor Lisa Moran said it's the first time a major U.S. parenting magazine has shown a woman's breast.
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