More to love...really?

Tonight I watched the premier of a new reality dating show on FOX TV that is reminiscent of “The Bachelor” only plus-size. Yep, the whole premise is that an overweight guy chooses among 15 plus size women by going on dates and on the finale of the show asks one them to be his wife. The name of this program is “More to Love.” Because there is more cushion for the pushing, get it? That just irks me to no end.

Luke is a 26-year-old real estate developer who owns his own firm and wants to find a woman to settle down with. He is a heftier guy and professes, “I’ve gotten my heart broken because of my size.” Luke happens to like larger women and claims that he wants to get to know the women he is dating for who they really are, not based on their appearance.
Now I support the idea of curvier more voluptuous women being featured in mainstream television as being able capable of experiencing romance and being accepted for their personalities but something doesn't smell right. It’s the fact that this show revolves around a heftier man who is attracted to large women and that is the sole reason they were chosen. In other words, you’re not going to see a size 14 bachelorette or contestant on the “The Bachelor” any time soon, which is a shame.

My question is, why do plus size women have to fit into their own category of television? Why are they excluded from romance in the media unless it is specified that these are “big, big” women that you are watching, got it? Not thin, but fat, and not with a ph. Apparently its not possible for men to love or be attracted to anyone who isn’t stereotypically skinny, so a curvy woman’s only hope is a reality television dating show where the bachelor is down with love handles.

As I watched the opening explanation of the premise I could almost hear a silent voiceover spewing out “these women aren’t normal and they only way they can get with this bachelor is because he has a thing for fat women.” Although it is positive to see these women in the mainstream its demeaning that there is only one reason for their exposure, almost like a freak show where audiences can come to gawp and gape at the large women who are all fighting for the only man who will have them.
It’s sad that in our society women who don’t fulfill the mainstream look of thin or petite require their own section in the clothing aisle, or are only featured in fetish porn because they aren’t seen as “normal” by the media’s standards. That’s why they have their own show, where they are corralled like cattle as their own “special need” brand of woman.

This is further established in the way these women are portrayed as they talk one-on-one with the viewers about their feelings. Along the bottom portion of the screen we see their name, city, vocation, age, height and weight. You heard me, weight. Are you freaking kidding me? First let’s put these women in the spotlight as “big” women and then let’s weigh them like farm animals, because if the premise is that a man could love them for who they are, not their size, constantly highlighting their weight really reinforces that.

What other dating show focuses in on the weight of the men or women? None, because this is a show about “fat” people, so obviously the audience needs to know how much they weigh to further ostracize them as these disgusting, pathetic creatures that we should be thankful we are not.

We even see the weight of Luke the bachelor, at 330 lbs. because remember folks, this show has already established that he isn’t normal either, because if he was slimmer he wouldn’t be on a show that showcases his love for large women. But one thing to note from a quick preview of the first episode is that this guy’s attitude towards women seems pretty admirable. He wants to get to know the personalities of these ladies and says that looks aren’t a factor for him. Whether that is actually true remains to be seen, but what I immediately wondered when I saw his weight emphasized was why the typical, muscular bachelor type couldn’t be interested in curvier women?
Would that be too strange and freaky for mainstream viewers? A stereotypically, toned, attractive guy and a girl who isn’t the size of a twig dating each other? I guess we can’t go around showing audiences that larger women can be seen as attractive to EVERYONE, because that would actually make them think that they are attractive! Then the media wouldn’t be able to keep stuffing *oops I mean selling* every Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, acai berry, diet pill, or lipo treatment down their throats.

Some of these women seem to love themselves and their bodies, for example, a blonde woman named Michelle says, “I don’t wake up everyday and say I’m going to diet and get skinnier. No I’m going to buy the clothes that fit me today and live for today” while another says “I’m ready to prove to everybody that love doesn’t have a shape or a size.”
But then there are others who suffer from a terrible lack of self esteem and have undergone a lot of judgement and pressure from the men in their past due to their size. One woman made a very sad confession that when she meets guys for the first time she still thinks, “I’m probably too fat for him. He’d probably like one of my skinny friends.”

There definitely are a some opportunities for “More to Love” to break down the stereotypes of romance and body image, but I still squirm at the thought that today the media still has to package it as a show of “fat” women pursuing love, like a warning label or a “this program may not be suitable for younger audiences” pre-show message. Taking the value of reality television, or the lack thereof out of this conversation, what I would really like to see are women of all shapes and sizes represented as people of worth who have real beauty in the media. If shows like “More to Love” are a positive step then we still have a long way to go.

David Martel- "Vestibule" acoustic live

Housepaint tackles poverty and homelessness

The image of a man is painted on the trunk of a tree. Its limbs rise above the man’s head and hold a small house perched atop its branches. The tree stands inside the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). Behind the tree, tiny 3D shacks are painted on clouds of orange smoke that extend up onto the wall.

Better known as the “Hug me tree,” it became a landmark on Queen Street West, and was transplanted to the Institute of Contemporary Culture as part of Housepaint, Phase 2: Shelter, the first exhibit to fuse street art and commentary on homelessness in the ROM.

Housepaint, which ran from December 2008 until July 5, brought together 12 of Canada’s internationally recognized street artists to paint in memory of Tent City and all those who have died on the streets.

The “Hug me tree” stood on Queen Street West until it was knocked down by a car. Neighbourhood residents rescued the tree from being tossed into the trash.

Toronto artist Elicser Elliot was able to infuse a new reincarnation of the tree with the same values as the exhibit. “I thought the tree brings the community together. Everybody gets around it and love is passed through the tree somehow. I was like it’s a community and from a community comes home,” said Elicser.Tent City became home for an entire homeless population that began growing on an empty lot at the base of Parliament Street as early as 1996. For many, the shantytown represented an act of solidarity and civil disobedience, as residents utilized society’s garbage to construct an independent way of life—until they were evicted in September 2002.

Housepaint’s curator, Devon Ostrom, and co-founder of them.ca, was commissioned by Luminato Toronto Festival of Arts and Creativity in June 2008 to do live painting on the site where Tent City once stood, in collaboration with Manifesto Community Projects.

On the packed gravel where up to 200 people lived an alternatively housed existence, he invited Canadian street artists, Case, Evoke, Lease, Dixon/Royal, Cant4, Elicser, Starship, EGR, and Other to each paint canvas houses in homage to former residents. The sizes of the structures were representational of Torontonian’s incomes, with two low, two high and six middle class houses. While painting on the site, Toronto artist Erica Gosich Rose (EGR) felt an undertone of reality.“Since it was such a sensitive topic I had a hard time thinking of what to do. I wanted to react and comment in a way that wasn’t just going to make me cry while painting and totally break down. Because the whole situation and struggle that these people have faced is so immense I wanted to bring an element of hope,” she said. She was inspired by Gustav Klimt’s painting “Hope II” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and wanted to capture the unity of that feminine family. A pregnant woman was sprayed on the roof of the tall house that she painted. The woman’s head was bent down, breasts bare, a golden mosaic of patterned cloth hanging down over her stomach and onto the wall. The other walls were filled with the images of three women draped over one another, eyes closed, hands raised in prayer. When the ROM invited Ostrom to bring the street art into the gallery setting, he wanted the show to retain some of the fluid spontaneity that is part of graffiti culture.

“I didn’t really want to sort of plunk down a bunch of street art in the gallery. I wanted to bring in a chance for the public to get to meet street artists and see their work evolve. I think people have gotten the opportunity to look into a world they don’t normally get that much access to,” said Ostrom, who oversaw artists adding new pieces to the exhibit roughly every month and-a-half, like an organic game of telephone messages which each interprets differently.

One of those additions was “Evoke/Contraction” by Patrick Thompson (Evoke). The large façade of a suburban house and garage were affixed to a slanted wall of the exhibit with the words “Bomb the suburbs” scrawled under the roof. Multicoloured paint splatters exploded across it, representing homelessness and the lack of housing as a national disaster.

Elicser believes that graffiti is appropriate media to comment on homelessness because both cultures are often misunderstood and share the same space, which he realized while he was painting a wall one day and a woman urinated beside some nearby dumpsters.

“I was just like, ‘Why are you peeing right there?’ And it just clicked to me that that was her home and I was sort of painting in her living room. So after that I didn’t get that mad about her peeing in front of my wall, because I sort of realized that it was her wall as well,” said Elicser.

Accessibility was the biggest drawback of exhibiting in the ROM for those who couldn’t afford the $22 admission fee. Ostrom tried to address this issue by giving free tours to different youth and homeless groups, as well as advertising free visitor nights. He also wanted to address the larger themes of homelessness and street art by using Housepaint as a platform for the voices of activists, artists and city councillors.

Eric Weissman has been following the lives of Tent City residents on film since May 2002 in his documentary, Subtext: real stories, and was invited to screen his film at the ROM, which was available for visitors to view in the exhibit.

He began filming when there were only six houses on the lot, as members of the community struggled with addictions, scavenged and built shelters, cooked together and shared their lives with him on camera.“The only difference between Tent City and a small little neighbourhood is they don’t have driveways and garages. They weren’t borrowing their friend’s boat or their friend’s driver to go to the golf course but they would borrow his hammer or they would borrow cigarettes,” said Weissman.

He also witnessed residents’ forcible removal by the city and land owner, Home Depot, who claimed that fire risk and ground contamination on the former garbage dump site justified eviction. Weissman believes that negative media coverage pressured then-mayor Mel Lastman to remove the growing community.

According to Cathy Crowe, co-founder of the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee (TDRC), the silver lining in the death of Tent City was the launch of rent supplements for 105 of the former residents to obtain housing, a program which has been implemented in various provinces. The street nurse who once worked in Tent City deemed this solution a band-aid measure until the federal government funds a national affordable housing program.
Housepaint canvas houses will be auctioned online (bidding started on June 29) with all proceeds going to Habitat for Humanity Toronto (H4H), which constructs housing for families living in substandard conditions. Crowe believes that because H4H does not build for the homeless, there is still a frustrating disconnect, even though she thinks it is a wonderful organization.

Ostrom believes that homelessness and affordable housing are part of the same continuum.
“The lack of affordable housing creates the conditions for homelessness. Housepaint, Phase 2: Shelter is about not only homelessness, but also shelter in general, hence the title,” said Ostrom, who has received a majority of positive feedback from members of the homeless community in Toronto who visited the exhibit.

At the tunnel entrance of Housepaint, the words of Nancy Baker, the first resident of Tent City who is featured in Crowe’s book, Dying for a Home: Homeless Activists Speak Out, ran along both walls.“We all shared stuff down there, even food. It was home. Better than a park bench…Someday I’d like a balcony. After living at Tent City, I hate being closed in.” *published in the July issue of the Ryerson Free Press

Playground

Playground fears
Don’t dictate my tears
Anymore
Now I can tie
My own ponytail
When I’m told
I can’t play
I reassess
The value of the game
When I feel left out
I just get out
A simple move
To another yard
When she’s on duty
My plans are restricted
When she’s off duty
I do as I please
A small victory
I try to seize
Because today
I appreciate recess

Sex advice from....burlesque dancers

Burlesque Definition
-noun
1. an artistic composition, esp. literary or dramatic, that, for the sake of laughter, vulgarizes lofty material or treats ordinary material with mock dignity.
2. any ludicrous parody or grotesque caricature.
3. A humorous and provocative stage show featuring slapstick humor, comic skits, bawdy songs, striptease acts, and a scantily clad female chorus.

"Everyone should indulge in as much clitoris as possible." - Best quote ever.

Tassles Without Borders

Luscious strip teases, full figured mamas, tits and tassles, sequins and boas, boys willing to flash some skin with the ladies, and much, much more is what you’ll find at Toronto’s upcoming Burlesque Festival.

Risque performances from a sexy entourage of international and Canadian performers will grace various stages in the city from July 23 to 26th. The festival committee is spearheaded by members of Toronto’s own Skin Tight Outta Sight, one of North America’s first burlesque troupes.
Sexy Mark Brown will host the kick-off Meet and Greet Teaser at The Gladstone Hotel on Thursday the 23rd, which includes an art show, performances and a bra auction with proceeds going to the Boobalicious Weekend to End Breast Cancer.
You will also be able to learn the tricks of the trade at Canada’s only Burlesque University, where the seasoned veterans of erotic undressing will teach workshops on everything from fan dancing and persona development to the art of shimmying.

You’ll learn from star-studded pros like headmistress of the academy, Cocoa Framboise, featured below stripping away her shiny wrappings atop a candy apple. She started BOOM Chika BOOM burlesque classes in Toronto which blend Broadway jazz, burlesque and go go.

Other headline acts include international burlesque superstar Kitten De Ville, “Tools of the Tease” director and instructor Michelle L’Amour, the drag queen with a PhD in drama, Dr. Lucky, Canada’s own international pinup model, Roxi DLite, and Hot Toddy, co-creator of “Chicago Takes Off,” a burlesque charity benefit for aids.

On top of all these sizzling shows this year marks the debut of the Burlesque Marketplace, where artists can sell their crafts and sexy goods.

So if you want to experience this year’s internationally themed “Tassels Without Borders” you can pick up tickets at The Gladstone Hotel, Rotate This, Nearly Naked, Doll Factory by Damzels and online at T.O. Tix.
With so many hot little numbers coming to the city you better believe that lots of delicious candy will be unwrapped on stage. Because there's nothing sexier than a woman in control of her own fierce, voluptious, natural beauty, and she knows it too.

Acoustic Au Revoir Simone from Still Night Still, Light

Virgin Concrete kicks off with Bill-ee-bop, the happily destroyed robot

Her Morning Elegance by Oren Lavie

"Refresh" your twat

"After your period, refresh.
After intimacy, refresh.
After douching, refresh."

Ever seen this commercial of glowing, satisfied looking women who seem as though it’s their sweetest ambition in life to “refresh” their twat all the live-long-day?

*Cue every-woman voice over* That’s right ladies, if you have odor issues downtown there are some handy little wipes that deliver a cool, tingly, clean sensation so you can get on with your day, as a confident, carefree woman.

Obviously vaginal odour is such an embarrassing and catastrophic part of being a woman that the feminine beauty industry needs to sell us yet another product by persuading us that we’re all smelly as a fish market down there.

Almost as if we can’t be our sexy, true selves if we don’t waft alluring scents of daisy and lavender from our nether regions at the gym, the subway or walking down the street, like walking Glade PlugIns. Imagine if you walked down the street and every time your twat sensed that things were a little off it proceeded to release a little spritz of jasmine scent. Re-god-damn-diculous. So who do they want us to purchase this happy-rainbow-and-sunshine-pussy-in-a-package for? Do you really feel the need to pay to smell like floral bouquet down there? If we were meant to smell that way then we would have been born that way. So what message are we really getting from advertisers? My ears perked up at this line, “After intimacy, refresh.”

Aha! If your pussy smells slightly past its “best before” date, no man is going to want to get with that. So now we should all tote around little wipes for the wear and tear of the day because we’re not clean and fresh enough. I smell bullshit….and it’s coming from advertisers, not in between my legs.

If our peaches are expected to smell ripe and appealing for the opposite sex then why not freshen ourselves up with some smells they’re used to, like nachos and beer? That’s right ladies, clean your intimate areas before sex with this scented wipe and smell like steak and scotch, just perfect for the working man who’s coming home to your inadequate aroma.

What pisses me off is the implied message that that our vaginas, which are the source of all human life by the way (in case you forgot), have to meet a certain standard to fit into this impossible definition of “femininity.” Like if you visit the tea party without matching gloves and doilies your fucked. Our face, breasts, legs, stomach, complexion, hair and our pussies are subjected to enough panhandling in our lifetimes to make you want to riot. Frankly I think I’d like to. My sign would read, “Quit plaguing my body! Let my pussy go!”

Let’s make one thing clear, if some guy receives the highly esteemed privilege of getting into your knickers and then proceeds to critique the natural smells of your beautiful, womanly body he can take his ungrateful goods elsewhere. Every woman is made the way she was intended and the amount of judgment rained upon our lovely bodies is ludicrous, so I think it’s high time we shut it out.

We can all use common sense and be hygienic with our private parts, but why the hell should we be expected to go above and beyond? I don’t know about you, but I don’t need a gold star stuck down there. If you love your lady bits, that should be good enough for anybody.

Another note on this topic of men commenting on our genitals. It’s quite interesting how we are expected to evoke images of floral country meadows between our legs while there is no expectation placed on men whatsoever. I mean, you might comment with your girlfriends about how giving some guy a blowjob was less than pleasant, but that’s likely because he didn’t shower, not because he lacked a tulip aroma around his ball sack.

You don’t see commercials that persuade men to “freshen up” their junk before intimacy, and you aren’t likely to anytime either. Funny how women have always been given this burden of smelling and looking perfect before sex, after sex, during our periods, at the gym, after a long day at work. We’re meant to be crisp and fresh, like candy just out of the wrapper. But that’s not reality kids. The only thing we need to refresh is how we regard these standards of femininity and the warped expectations placed on us and our cunts. Our sacred gardens happen to smell just fine, thank you very much.