naked nurse 14

SOOTHING OUR SOCIAL/SPIRITUAL/SEXUAL STRIFE

Dear naked nurse,
Do men only want you, until they have you?? I dated men my own age, and it was CRAP. Then i took my BF's advice and tried older men...which was great for a while, until the SAME OLD BULLSHIT!!! Are all men assholes?
-pissed in poughkeepsie

Dear pissed,
Yes.
To the second question, not the first! To the first...not necessarily (in any barbaric time, there are individuals who perceive the insanity and try to swim against the current...but most of them drown). Most assuredly though, all men ARE assholes. Don't get smug or superior - so are wimyn. We ALL act as predators in the realm of love. We leverage whatever "attractiveness" society deems we have, to get the "best" mate we can. Despite the mawkish love songs, it's simple negotiation, where economics rule, not heart. The only difference between the sexes is that society gives greater permission for men to break the mated bond in the service of their sex drive (the same drive that wimyn have...but they're socialized and stigmatized more prohibitively).
Loving is giving without thought of obligation, and neither men nor wimyn know how to do that.
If men aren't bringing you happiness (and why would they?), i recommend serious study of the most current science of sexuality. If healthier perspectives don't bring you joy (and they probably won't)...try a womyn! If that doesn't work, try cryogenics...in another century or two, we may finally get back to the garden.
heartfelt hugs,
the naked nurse

Send queries to nakednursing@yahoo.com!

"We Were Feminists Once"

(From RIOT GRRRL to COVERGIRL, the BUYING and SELLING of a POLITICAL MOVEMENT)
-by andi zeisler
2016
What happened to feminism?
I mean since the 70s - what the hell happened? How did something that reflects the values of most people become a dirty word? And is the current resurgence just a market-friendly, superficial verisimilitude of a resurgence?
Before zeisler answers that question, let's make this personal. How did my lover, a mature womyn who cares about poverty and racism, decide that feminism wasn't for her? How did my housemate, a lifelong progressive, decide that feminism's victory was completed decades ago?
Reality check - estimates say that a womyn is raped every two minutes. Personal observation - that feels like under-reported bullshit, as half the wimyn i've known intimately were raped. How many of the hundred most influential people are wimyn? Time Magazine's list has gobs of 'em...but it confuses fame with influence (rupaul, colin kaepernick, and emma watson may be molding a few minds, but let's not kid ourselves about their actual influence). The annual "100 Most Influential Business Leaders" list perhaps gets closer, and currently shows fifteen humyns with no Y chromosome. Of the 194 world heads of state, we're at a record-high twenty-two non-penised entries (yes, you're probably stunned the number is that high).
And zeisler's take on this? Flat-out brilliant. She wields laser-like incisiveness that cuts through the hoopla of a media-driven celebrity culture. She deconstructs the current wave of hip feminism - while some genuinely pro-womyn initiatives have sprung up, she reminds us that celebrating the notion of feminism in a market-friendly way is a far cry from insisting on real equality. Ever since nixon quashed the Comprehensive Child Care Bill in 1971, no legislation has come anywhere near making life fair for low-income or single parents (read: mothers). In terms of abortion and bodily autonomy, we've been moving backwards. So is our culture celebrating feminism, or just co-opting it? Dove soap may show more natural female bodies...but they're still hawking wrinkle cream, and the notion that only young wimyn have value! The companies that make feminist underpants, feminist T-shirts, or feminist energy drinks pose zero threat to the status quo. There is dangerous hypocrisy in the fashion/beauty industry using feminism to sell products (including ones that damage wimyn - HOW can high heels still exist??), when they're only exploiting a culture in which wimyn spend an hour more than men each day "beautifying" themselves, and thousands of dollars more each year. Marketplace feminism would have you believe that choice is the same as equality...as long as your choices fall in line with what's culturally available.
So yes, a "Riot Don't Diet" T-shirt is awesome...but feminism's challenging complexity requires deeper dedication than a slogan, fashion, or concert prop. Celebrity/market nods can be a positive thing, says zeisler, but they can also foster a complacency most pernicious.
Don't take my word for it. Zeisler is a treasure.

P.S. Need a feminist laugh?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyeTJVU4wVo

dear pam 3

(This letter was triggered by me pondering aloud how i would feel if pam were in better shape. The wheels fell off the wagon.)

Dear pam,

It all started with your comment about liking how in shape i was, and that you'd only ever been with one other man similarly so. I was surprised that such things registered in your mind in a positive/sexy way. I was also pleased, because i liked pleasing you...and because it opened the door to us talking about shallowness, as something we shared.
I often fall back on "treat each other the way you want to be treated". And i need truth on a different level from most people. I don't want to love some idea of "you", i want to love YOU...every hidden thought, warts and all. That's how i equate love.
I also thought you might be impressed, or comforted, to know that i didn't care about your aging, or any other surface bullshit. I thought that might be the most comforting thing you've ever heard from a lover.
Because that's the most loving, comforting thing i myself could hear.
But you aren't me, and i sometimes disrespect that in dealing with others.
What's getting lost in all this unhappiness is that you're probably the least shallow romance i've ever had. I was proud of that, and wanted you to be proud too!
But in this world, i don't think anyone ever banishes their demons of shallowness. Control them? Maybe. They'll always be there, though. Anyone who tells you differently is probably lying (to you, or themselves).
And so (this is what i do to myself), i constantly ask whether there's anything i've said to you that's less than 100% honest. Or if there's anything unsaid, you would want to know. These are the thoughts that keep me up at night. You see that kind of honesty as counter-productive, and fuck yes, it can be. But i see it as the only way out of the press agent bullshit we all accept as a substitute for real friendship, real love.
If you'd been telling me all along the things about me you find unattractive or might have fantasies of changing, i would have felt like we were really breathing.
Was i trying to impose my values? A little. But you were talking about loving me, and i knew that was never going to be real without you knowing my full truth...even when it's clumsy, or hurtful.
Like now.
I'm sorry, sweet songbird. I've been torn, with the knowledge of our time limitations meaning we might never get past the press agent stage...knowing that, should i just relax and be loving in the way you define it, if we're a source of comfort and happiness for each other? Or should i keep pushing for raw honesty? Either path is fraught with pitfalls. Especially for two people who see sex and love differently. If possessiveness weren't central to your vision of love and sex, would you have given a fig about me imagining a more "in shape" you? When it's not something that affects my desire to be with you?
That doesn't mean it wasn't insensitive of me. My chest hurts, knowing that you're hurting.
Our differences don't have to define us...with aligned expectations, they can be almost no issue at all.
A part of me has always been saddened that you've never said you want to end our romance*, because our friendship is too important. In my mind, that means there's some aspect of our friendship i'm probably fucking up.
Another part of me is so humbled that you talk about having the best sex of your life with me, that all i can think of is just holding you and never analyzing anything.
your fool,
wrob

*This is a measure she uses to define how important someone is to her.

14 weeks in the monastery

The passing of time, the marking of milestones, commemorative coincidences...such things don't normally interest those devoted to living in the moment.
Yet as i sit here in my new home, i'm struck by resonances of the first article that ever appeared on this site. Almost ten years ago, i looked out my second-story city window and said hello to you.
Tonight, i look out another second-story window onto a city street, and it feels like a new birth has begun. Indeed, the main reason i returned to urban life after five years in a bucolic beach bungalow, is to maximize my literary voice in the world. I took some humblingly satisfying public-speaking baby steps on that Gulf of Mexico island...and now, i'm in one of the most famously progressive cities on the planet, ready to make writing and public speaking my primary means of interaction with my species.
Hello San Francisco! How is your spirit?
I've been here less than a week, but i've been in the Bay area almost five months, most of that time in painful purgatory, waiting for a safe haven. I seem to have found it, in the last place expected - the geographic center of the third most-expensive city in the U.S. I don't know anything about Honolulu, but with respect to NYC, i don't know whose ass they kissed to get a higher ranking. I lived in that Apple for ten years, and never had a problem getting a room at the drop of a hat, for $500 or less. Yet from my temporary housing across the Bay in San Pablo, i banged my head for three months against the local financial realities, trying to find a home on my non-materialist budget. Just a little room...a glorified closet would do! The ever-changing title to this article is testament to the never-ending stress of that search, because of the unrelenting hours it absorbed every day (visits that didn't pan out, disturbingly well-written fake ads, extensive phone calls and e-mails, flaky landlords, the feeling of having my life on hold, chained to my computer because if you're not one of the first respondents when an ad comes up, your chance is gone...NO, i don't have one of those pernicious smartphone doohickies).
And then there was the other component of my stress...a live-in, obsessive/compulsive, bipolar landlord. That doesn't sound so painful when spoken in clinical terms - which is the greatest flaw of overly clinical language. This piece's original title? "Six Weeks in the Monastery". That became a gut-lurching "Ten Weeks...", then finally...
So optimism and rebirth are upon me.
But first the strange, sad tale of the most schizophrenic home i've ever known (indeed, i don't know what the minimum time requirement is for a place to psychologically qualify as "home", but i definitely passed that benchmark once i moved beyond the initial title of this piece). "Schizophrenic" isn't a comment on that landlord, though...it refers to the heavenly aspects that existed alongside the hellish. Two of my housemates were an unqualified source of joy and camaraderie. One was a source of camaraderie and misery both.
Why do i say "monastery"? Because silence was urged - except for the occasional shared movie night, no electronic devices without headphones. If you had a phone call, it was recommended you take it to the garage, or outside. Cleanliness was not next to godliness, it was the other way around - nothing out of place, and cooking dishes were to be cleaned before you eat. And NO houseguests.
None of those restrictions are inherently unreasonable...indeed, some are perfectly acceptable, even nice (for example, in silence i discovered that cactus flowers make an extraordinary popping noise when they unfurl). But most of those restrictions are distinctly unpleasant when married to obsessive compulsion.
I originally came to San Pablo as a semi-desperate choice, after two housing opportunities fell through and i faced the prospect of being the "guest who stayed too long". I'd been at my brother's for a month, first housesitting, then going with john and mary on vacations to Monterrey and Mendocino. It was all wonderful, but approaching sour time, so when i had a lovely phone chat about eastern philosophy with a landlord who would take me right away, i was off!
For my $500 a month, i got a shared living room. S, the landlord, knew upfront that i'd be continuing my search for a permanent home. With my customary positivity, i threw myself into my new surroundings...given an air mattress and a suggestion that i place it near the other tenant, i crafted a nook under the stairs. It fit the mattress perfectly, and i hung a sheet for privacy. Charming. I also devoted much more of of my time than any other tenant to cleaning and improving the home. The building itself was in a modest little condo complex, with an enviable ethnic mix.
My roommate G was from Uganda, and we hit it off beautifully. He was gentle and intelligent, a political science student at Berkeley. He wanted to become a U.N. delegate (if he could stand living long-term in such a spiritually-bankrupt country as ours, he said). As a child, he had escaped the rwandan genocide that killed most of the people he knew. Our first night, we talked about ubuntu philosophy. Later, he initiated me into the delights of dragon fruit, and invited me to visit Africa. He said that given my un-american personality, i might never leave (and that given my sexy paucity of pigmentation, ugandan women might not let me go). S, who had grown up in Iran and lived through a war, also talked eagerly with me that first night. He shared his dulcimer - lovely. The next day, he treated me to a walk in Tilden Park, and an amazing tibetan restaurant lunch. My third housemate M turned out to be one of the most gracious, humorous people i've ever known. He'd spent a lifetime in environmental and spiritual pursuits, and was also a poet. I realized i was the only non-believer in the house, but the others were anti-religious, so there was no tension. We eventually shared movie nights, and a few exquisite meals.
Heavenly.
And hellish!
The OC/bipolar factor made me feel like a guest in my own home (and an occasionally unwelcome one, at that). The no-houseguest policy hit me hard, as for the first time in five years, i had a lover! One with whom i struggled to find together time, and who could have visited me often. We met during my home search, when she was renting a room...which went to someone else, but i ended up her bed buddy, so i got the best of that deal. She was a single mother with a full-time job, so we saw each other only once a week for a few hours...plus innumerable garage Skype sessions.
Understand, a part of me has such admiration and hope for S. He's one of the sincerest people you'll ever meet, and perhaps one of the few who is actually making fundamental changes to his personality. I never spoke the word "bipolar" to him, because it's so heavy and permanent-sounding. With what we're learning about the plasticity of the human brain, i truly do think that he's pursuing spiritually-evolved attitudes so diligently, that ten years from now his bipolar issues may be gone. But holy clusterfuck, it is stunningly, soul-crushingly hard to live with a bipolar human being. I am in awe of my aunt, who has spent decades doing it. I truly don't understand how's she's survived. It's not the outbursts that destroy you...it's the omnipresent awareness that one might happen at any time. S's issues meant that everything had to be just right...which is hard enough when you have your own room to retreat to, but brutal without even that. Two or three times, i left an unwashed dish in the sink, and his reaction would either be condescending unpleasantry, or outright insanity as he viciously misremembered reality. I knew, i KNEW, that it wasn't him, it was his demons. I knew not to take it personally. Having the strength of will to not be affected though, was beyond me. I chided him once, saying that the only people who could be happy in his house are monks. He didn't understand how serious i was. In conversation, he also displayed energy vampire qualities - if he got going, he wouldn't even slow down to breathe. I realized that for our talks to be balanced, i would have to continuously and aggressively interrupt him...which was NOT going to happen, given my gentle personality and the diminished emotional walls that have been the by-product of my own spirit quest. I made an occasional attempt to be honest with him, but mostly i focused on keeping the peace. I looked forward to the time when i could give him the full measure of my understanding...which he might eagerly accept. I would share my theory on his conversational style (perhaps in his childhood, words were one of the only places he felt safe?). And i would offer my greatest uncertainty - that having housemates now is either the absolute worst thing he could do, or the best. Or both? It's a perfect formula for spreading misery in the world, but also perhaps a way for him to force himself to keep becoming more human.
This strange existence gave me a window into all those women (and some men) who stay in abusive relationships. There is something comforting in familiarity...indeed, i'm sure it's one of our primary psychological needs. Despite the unending undercurrent of dread, there was also a level on which i bonded with and found solace in that home.
How chillingly perverse.
And our home was a haven for black widows! I was the first to discover one. Their lethal reputation is largely hype, as i've yet to meet any californian with a horror story, and most bites don't require medical attention. I was content to kill them, though...having dealt with the sleep-murdering stress of New York bedbugs and Florida mosquitoes, my veganism has made peace with insecta annihilation. Every week or two, we'd find one...once, even by my elbow as i lay in bed reading.
When opportunities finally presented themselves, G or M would commiserate with me about the stresses of our home. G had been there a year, and when he finally freed himself six weeks after i arrived, it wasn't pretty. His spiritual composure crumbled shockingly. His chief stresses were over S's cruelty, and the feeling he'd been taken advantage of financially (when i analyzed the house budget, i had to agree). Giving no notice, he just left...and soon was on the phone with S, threatening to call the police. I winced at his clumsy attack, but understood.
Yet even in his most stressful hour, S displayed flashes of advanced spirituality. In the midst of G's exodus, S realized that G had bagged up a box of Swiffer wipes S had bought. He reclaimed them...but soon put them back in G's bag. Yet there were also retaliatory, destructive impulses S was giving in to, which i made him acknowledge...but he walked back that Swiffer choice without any counsel but his own.
And M...it would be hard to overstate how much he helped my sanity. Such openness and gentle giving. After i'd been there ten weeks, he sprang free as well. I helped him move, and he stayed on good terms with S, even returning for a couple more Star Trek nights.
My last few weeks brought two new housemates, both coincidentally from Pakistan. The first gave his thirty-day notice three days after he arrived (but i'm not sure why, as he wasn't interacting with S). The second lasted forty-six hours before being evicted for smoking. It was unfortunate, and partly due to cultural differences (smoking-wise, Pakistan is where we were thirty years ago). I was sad, because even though he was a fundamentalist misogynist, he was perhaps quite progressive back home. His first night, he was rather lost and alone, having left his home soil for the first time only two days before. I gave him comfort...when he and S had their eviction argument, they huddled around me, as a safe zone.
Chemistry is a funny thing, though. While G was there, i was fine taking care of my sexual needs behind that hanging sheet...but when a new roommate moved in, i no longer felt that comfort.
A few nights after i left, i had a dream in which S and i were attending a community college class. When i later found him on a city street corner, he had been in an accident. He was sitting up and maintaining his composure, such that it took me a minute to realize he had been maimed. There were bloody wounds, including a widening pool around one eye, and a broken forearm hanging at a sharp angle.
Sometimes dreams are obscure. Other times, not even a little.
And there is always, always a price to pay for the damage we do to each other...and the damage we do to ourselves.
For all the ease with which i found homes in my price range in NYC, i never actually lived in Manhattan itself. And here i am now, smack dab in some of the most coveted real estate in the world...and i'd almost rather be in a "less desirable" borough, as i like Berkeley's energy more. But i tried for three months to find a home within biking distance...
And now, thanks to rent control and a non-greedy new landlord, i'll be coming to you from ground zero of the Summer of Love.
One block from Golden Gate Park.
The zero-emissions buses connected to the cables above, pass by below.
Tomorrow, my lover may be spending her first night here. We have sex. Without condoms. Wheeee!
Perhaps money has destroyed much of the authenticity and unconventionality this city once had, as many Bay locals grumble.
But i'm here. And i'm naked.
I love you all.

funniest sketches of all time

The funniest comedy sketches in the history of television. I wish i could link you to them all, but oh that proprietary bullshit...
(NLA = no link available)
"The Sanity Clause"
-A Night at the Opera
Okay, this isn't television...but this is what every comedy writer of the 20th century was chasing. It only took half a century or so to catch up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_Sy6oiJbEk
"Who's on First?"
-The Abbott & Costello Show
This one first came to fame in radio and movies, and has inspired more imitations than any sketch ever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=airT-m9LcoY
"This Is Your Story"
-Your Show of Shows
TV's breakthrough into the realm of real funny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQBlEnsylI0
"The Dentist"
-The Carol Burnett Show
There's been sketch comedy more brilliant, but i'm not sure there's ever been anything more funny than conway cracking up korman.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cUZhHS0PMM
"Philosophy Football"
-Monty Python's Flying Circus
Too smart? Sorry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur5fGSBsfq8&t=100s
"The Parrot Sketch"
-Monty Python's Flying Circus
There. They can dumb it down, too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npjOSLCR2hE
"NPR's Delicious Dish: Schweddy Balls"
-SNL
Ladies love my balls.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPpcfH_HHH8
"Racial Draft"
-Chapelle's Show
Scattershot satire that misses no mark. NLA, but if you enjoyed "Who's on First?"...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evt6As72m4
"The Niggar Family"
-Chapelle's Show
Preposterous (ly funny). NLA, but if you happened to like "Who's on First?"...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BmTYpVtICE
"Jackie Rodgers' Jr.'s $100,000 Jackpot Wad"
-SNL
From the funniest SNL season ever. NLA - so, what did you think of "Who's on First?"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mdqv5xIsFLM
"I Know Black People"
-Chapelle's Show
NLA. Never saw the show, but somehow knew the black guy was cleaning up. Just like YOU know there's probably another "Who's on First?" coming...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ETjwNs3Qus
"Haunted Elevator"
-SNL
Can anyone explain why this is hysterical?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS00xWnqwvI
"Election Night Special"
-Monty Python's Flying Circus
Sllllightly silly...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJVROcKFnBQ
"Chocolate Factory"
-I Love Lucy
No, not technically sketch comedy...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkQ58I53mjk
"Substitute Teacher"
-key & peele
Son of a BITCH!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd7FixvoKBw
"Chippendale's Audition"
-SNL
Shameless? Lowbrow? Hysterical? NLA? Yes, yes, yes, and yes. Like the band Yes, who were in that other tribute to "Who's on First?"...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK5HA5baxBo
"The Cheese Shop"
-Monty Python's Flying Circus
I think it's funnier than you like it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3KBuQHHKx0
"Buckwheat Has Been Shot"
-SNL
An amazing high wire act. Even now, some wouldn't be comfortable finding humor in john lennon's murder. And even though this one's NLA, i promise i'll never again inflict another "Who's on First?" on you.
"Behind the Music: Blue Oyster Cult"
-SNL
NLA. I gotta have more cowbell...and i gotta break my vow about "Who's on First?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0Jg7pvVzKk
"Argument Clinic"
How delightful the lengths they went to never end on a punch line...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y
Too much python, chapelle, and SNL? Make your case! Fill up that comment box!

"God, No!"

(Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales)
-by penn jillette
2011
Don't get overexcited. The title is misleading.
Not in the specific sense...penn's lead-off essay is exactly what the title and subtitle promise. His premise is this - if "god" told you to kill your child, would you do so? Penn dares suggest that the overwhelming majority of believers would NOT, thereby outing themselves as atheists-in-hiding. It's a sharp argument.
But don't expect a book devoted to theistic matters. Penn shoots off into more traditional memoir fare...his experiences in zero G, firsthand knowledge of what burning cock smells like, devout admiration for siegfried & roy, devout loathing for kreskin, sober partying with ron jeremy and a naked elvis impersonator...penn's voice is well-honed, and his writing smooooth.
He also takes a stab at re-writing the Ten Commandments. He calls agnosticism insincere, intellectual sleight-of-hand, and that the sins of faith are too life-threatening to be appeased (my own approach is sometimes still conciliatory, but not long ago i wrote an "atheisto" essay in which i declared i could no longer be agnostic in good conscience).
Penn also dives into his libertarianism, and his frustrations with conservatives and liberals. He makes good points, yet it also seems that libertarianism's devotees are so widely divergent as to be almost incoherent. Penn acknowledges this...indeed he's sometimes modest to a fault (while at the same time being somehow unapologetically arrogant). Libertarian's individualism, freedom, and the notion that we don't need big government social programs, combined with penn's atheism, misses an important point - religion as an institution isn't about god at all. It's about social glue. And in a property-based culture of competition, people need artificial, POWERFUL social glue to keep us from acting despicably. Is penn right about people basically being good? I think so...but capitalism without something to replace religion is just a confederacy of amoral predators.
But the book taken as a whole is rather fantastic, and entertaining as hell. Penn's forthrightness is admirable, and even if you disagree with him, you get the sense that he'd be delighted to talk about it, and might possibly change his mind if you made sense.
Would that we were all like that. We might even maybe save this insane world.