Clothes, Interrupted.
I phoned my sexiest friend the other day.
“Here, la,” says I, lounging on silk sheets in a pink push up bra and French knickers. “Should we hit the town later or what?”
“Oh, we should,” she replied, and I could tell by the tone of her fake tan that she was sitting on the edge of the bath in a cleavage-enhancing slip, all languid legs and lazily-draped satin. “I’m all out of smoke and I’m bored out of my noggin.”
“Right-oh,” I said, changing into a four inch long denim skirt and a low-cut crop top. “We’ll have a few cans in your gaff. I might actually be able to get some smoke for you, too. Yer wan over the road has some nice stuff.”
“Really?” said my buddy. “There’s not a lot of good stuff about, like. Ooh, this thong isn’t half skimpy. I hope no one notices under my Lyrca mini-dress. Tis pure greyhound.”
…
…
Oh wait. I seem to have spliced real life with Deidre’s Photo Casebook, there.
Oh, I know. The Sun’s “Deidre’s Photo Casebook”, a raunchy comic strip posing as thoughtful psychological assessment, is far too intentionally tongue-in-cheek to be representative of a misogynistic society. It’s rather like those old saucy postcards of the cheeky buxom fatarses; daft but gentle, like a dairy cow that was once deprived of oxygen. Surely everyone knows that women do not just hang about in (and hang out of) their smalls all day long, boobs sellotaped into a decent cleavage line as they wave their inner thighs at hunktacular male models with smouldering eyeliner and impressive jocks on.
Yes. It’s common knowledge that women are generally clothed. We do not, once out of the sight of the male portion of the populace, disrobe in wholesome chumminess and start giggling and sensually stroking one another’s knees.
“Oh, your new Wonderbra’s so hawt, Tabitha, it really shows off your curves, which I don’t mind having shoved in my face because We’re All Girls Here.”
The tragic reality, which of course everyone knows, is that the communal changing room is Hell On Earth for females, because we can’t but compare and cry, or compare and sneer. We spend so much time and energy on the great gladiatorial games of fashion, of hiding and binding and strapping and strutting, that even putting a bra strap out of line can damage your social standing irreparably. Would you dare changing out of your dress in front of your best mate, and finally confirming her suspicion that you have a muffin top to rival a blue whale in XS tights? What if she were to realise that those pert boobies were really just double As over gel-filled cushions? Oh no. We couldn’t have that.
So, while there is the temptation to roll my eyes at Deidre’s Photo Casebook and howl, “Maybe you’d have less issues with unfaithful men if you wore more clothes, you Babylonian strumpet”, I must rein it back in, and shake my head, and smile. For everyone knows that’s not real life, that women don’t just walk in the door from work and start stipping off in front of their Ann Summers-sporting housemates, that there’s no bonding over boobie-baring. No one holds a torch for that kind of Carry On … er … carry-on. As a society, we have accepted that lesbianism is not just something implied to reel in the fellas …
DAMN YOU, STAR TREK! HOW CAN SOMETHING SO FUTURISTIC HAVE PUT US BACK ABOUT THIRTY FUCKING YEARS!
Jaysus. It’s as if Galaxy Quest’s Gwen DeMarco had never even happened.
A Star Trek reference AND a Galaxy Quest reference … and all that sexually provocative imagery and hilarious writing!
FTW.
Seriously, it’s gone beyond a joke now, Lisa. You’re being a selfish fucker. If you’d write something funny, like you do constantly with this blog, be it book or script, agents would rape their own mothers to rep you.
Bags of talent. Sickening. If I had half of your talent I wouldn’t have to work twice as hard as I do.
Just fucking do it. Actually, maybe I should have e-mailed you this instead but fuck it — I want to shame you.
Go on, Kevin, give it to her, give it to her hard! It is funny you mention that, though, because just last night I was telling the Spouse Sparrow that it’s a shame she has to work a day job and I cannot believe that someone is not throwing piles of money at her to write professionally. Seriously. So maybe this will shame her into getting her kit off and getting on the author’s equivalent of the casting couch and get published!
And, not to burst your bubble, Sweary, but um, yeah, some girls do kind of just walk around half-naked when they’re just with their friends. My friends and I in high school used to all meet up over at one of our houses, try on all of each other’s clothes, swap out stuff for a couple of days, and stand in front of full-length mirrors asking each other “Has my butt gotten bigger?” while wearing thongs and finding out where to score (drugs and men). Of course we were all shameless hoorbags, but still.
So I really didn’t think there was anything out of the ordinary with that Star Trek scene, seriously.
Er, I tend to keep my clothes on, both in the privacy of my home or in public. However, we did have to implement a clothes policy for my father who has been known to go around in a loose robe in public, PJs… he has even answered my door wrapped only in a towel. Not a pretty sight, I assure you.
Sweary, the others are right–get your knickers on and start chasing an agent or two.
I think we’re learning here that American gurls = hoorbags and Irish wans = chaste little petals.
Also, I don’t believe you, Fat Sparrow I need to see pictures.
It’s true, y’know. Americans are rightly loose. They’re all over the gaff.
I’d love to do the whole literary casting couch, obviously with knickers on, as Columbo has sensibly suggested. But the last time I met an industry professional, they asked if I would write chicklit under a pseudonym. I was terrified and ran for the nearest cave, and I’m not coming out again. Oh no I’m not.
Columbo, I recall a schoolfriend’s family being nudists in their own home. She thought it hilarious. I was terrified. No eight-year-old wants to see someone else’s pot-bellied ould lad in the nip. Or their own, for that matter.
(But seriously, I’ve been thinking recently about why in God’s name I’m doing the brainless day job when … when … I don’t know how good I am at this malarkey, to be honest. I can’t necessarily believe loose Americans and one seriously drunk Corkman, you know).
There’s only one person around here who’s allowed to give it to Sweary Hard…
It’s tenna past nine in the morning, I’ve just finished the school run – how langers do you think I am?
Rhetorical question.
@ Kevin — You’ll just have to take my word for it, or wait for the Spouse Sparrow to photoshop some. And who was it that said that there’s no point in being chaste when you’re not being chased? Must have been Dorothy Parker.
@ Sweary — You went about that interview the wrong way. What you want to do is wear a man’s suit, light up during the interview, and say “cunt” a lot. I don’t think they’ll be asking you to write chick lit after that. Then again, they may well be speechless after that. Either way, win/win. And do try to get it on film. Thanks.
Well now, I’m not so sure. I knew a girl who lived at the Corrib Village. She lived in a sisterhood of sorts. And anytime I called to visit the stink of the place was cloying. Anyhoos they never seemed to have clothes and were at all times of the day welded to various sorts of PJ’s. And there was nothing sexy about it at all.
Well, we were attending one of the piss-ups after a visiting lecture down at the Juries Inn, when all of them asked me to walk them back. I told them the no. of a mini-cab. Fuck that for a game, I was living beside McSwiggins at the time, and more importantly had two pints awaiting.
Say you’ll write the ‘chicklit’ under a pseudonym, take the money, then call yourself Sophie Cox-Hardie (known to all yer gal-pals as ‘Soapy’) and turn in a romptastic piece of happy flappery.
There’s nowt wrong with a bit of chicklit Sweary. I myself write under the pen name Cecelia Ahern, and pay some politician’s runt (that’s “runt” with an ‘r’) 10% of my earnings to play the role of my alter-ego.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I must go and mourn the passing of all-women pillow fights…
Anyhoos they never seemed to have clothes and were at all times of the day welded to various sorts of PJ’s.
Sounds like Finglas.
But Sparrow, that was how I went to the interview. I’m confused.
Conan … No.
Flann, 10%? That seems excessive. I mean all she does is stand there beaming aimlessly. Sure you might as well have stuck a wig on a grapefruit; I doubt it would have been so expensive.
Er, I am American and I take exception to amerikans being all loose. If you were raised Catholic in a strict household, that was not allowed. People did seem to love seeing us Catholic girls in our uniforms and tanned legs (except normal public school children who just wanted to beat us up).
I agree 10% to the beaming runt is too much, and Flann I am disappointed in the drivel that you have been writing under that pen name–you are giving a bad name to chicklit.
“Yes. It’s common knowledge that women are generally clothed. We do not, once out of the sight of the male portion of the populace, disrobe in wholesome chumminess and start giggling and sensually stroking one another’s knees.”
Try telling that to your average Zoo/Nuts reader…..!
Oh, alright.
Thanks, Conan. I knew you’d understand.
Columbo, don’t be shy, now. We all know American Catholic girls are even looser than the average American…
And Manuel?
“Try telling that to your average Zoo/Nuts reader…..!”
I’m just telling you and Flann now, am I not?
ha!
Btw, what’s that ad on the telly with the girlies romping around in their jammies sniffing some parfum off each others’ fingers? Gave me a bad dose of eyeballitis.
Columbo, thanks for the spew take. I’ll now need a new monitor. I hate to tell you, but a good portion of my half-naked friends in that story were Catholic schoolgirls. Really, have you not heard that the easiest way to get your daughter pregnant is to send her to Catholic school? C’mon, the Chili Peppers even wrote a song about Catholic school girls.
I must have been an exception.
Saw it again, on C4, vaseline intensive something-or-other. I mean to say…
What’s all this casting of aspersions upon American morals!!! As a Catholic (and a former “girl”) I strongly take exception to this characterization!!!
I googled the Photo Casebook and it is easily the cheesiest thing I have seen in ages. They can’t possibly be serious.