Let's Talk About Sex

I really want to talk about gender but that's a much catchier title.

So here's the deal.  This whole masculine/feminine gender dichotomy isn't really working for me (I'll talk about dualism later).  Maybe it's because I'm stubborn, but I don't particularly enjoy being told what I should and shouldn't like, what I should and shouldn't find attractive, or how to define myself in relation to other people.

I like poetry, I like art.  I use the word beautiful in everyday conversation.  I study french.  I like strong, intelligent women.  I'm not afraid to wear purple.  I'm not afraid to snuggle with my guy friends.

I promise this is related so just bear with me, but check out this comic from Hark, A Vagrant.

This has always kind of bugged me about Macbeth.  But what bugs me even more is when Lady Macbeth challenges Macbeth's manhood when he seems a little hesitant about killing the king.  That was a low blow Lady Macbeth.  I have a feeling she might have noticed if Macbeth was a woman.  What Macbeth should have done was laugh in her face and go and have a nice sandwich.  My mother always told me never to decide to kill someone on an empty stomach.

Back to the point, Macbeth's ability to kill King Duncan had very little to do with Macbeth's status as a man, but for some reason it had a lot to do with his perceived status as man.  As A Tribe Called Quest would say: "You're not any less of a man if you don't pull the trigger, you're not necessarily a man if you do." [see Sucka Nigga, A Tribe Called Quest, Midnight Marauders—in fact, see that whole album, it's pretty dope.]


In other news I found a cool series of photographs by a French Canadian named Benoit Paillé.  He apparently just walked up to these people and asked to take their pictures.  I see some of them are in their houses, so I assume after the subjects agreed to model they scheduled dates to shoot but all of the photos maintain a certain distance and spontaneity.  I've always been terrible about approaching people on the street and it's a skill that most talented photographers have, so that's definitely something I'm going to have to work at.  I love when photography does stuff like this.  People are weird.

Check out more on his flickr.

That last one's really great.  There's an even cooler concept where a photographer gets two or more strangers to touch in his photos.  The results are interesting.

Unfortunately today's photos aren't particularly mind blowing, so I'll try to find some HIGH ART ones for next time.


I may have been a little bit of a tease with the title of this post so you get two songs today.  I feel like I owe you this one:
Salt-n-Pepa - Let's Talk About Sex

And here's a hint to the next post.  God this song just makes me wanna run around naked.
Sigur Rós-Gobbledigook

There's also an option to download these songs if you follow the link.