Stiletto Stoners

In this month’s edition of Marie Claire magazine in America, they discuss the trend for professional young women to smoke marijuana after work, a trend they’ve termed “Stiletto Stoners”. According to a study by The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 8 million women admitted to smoking pot in the last year, one of five of which have a household income of more that $75,000 a year with professional jobs including lawyers, editors, TV producers and financial executives.

The young woman profiled in the piece lists off a reel of advantages, helping her relax, it’s cheaper than getting drunk on expensive, sugary cocktails, it helps her relax after a stressful day at work, it doesn’t make her fat, it doesn’t has the nasty consequences of a hangover, or the groggy feeling anti-anxiety pills can leave you with, she finds it easier to lose her inhibitions when high. So it’s win- win surely?

The article seems to be challenging the stereotypes that go with smoking pot, no longer for young hippies, or teenagers who don’t have a job and have nothing better to do but get high everyday. Almost a re-branding of the drug and the sorts of people associated with it. Pointing out that you’re not necessarily a bad mother, unreliable or a waste of space if you have the occasional joint, and for the most part feedback about the piece seems to agree.

Photocredit: NebulaskiN

Glamour leading the way with real women

[caption id="attachment_101" align="alignleft" width="500" caption="From far left: Crystal Renn, Amy Lemons, Ashley Graham, Kate Dillon, Anansa Sims and Jennie Runk. Bottom Center: Lizzie Miller"][/caption]

In the September issue of Glamour magazine this photo caused a bit of a stir amongst its readers. The image of Lizzie Miller, sitting completely relaxed and unfazed by a little bit of belly hit a nerve with readers, who wrote in their thousands to congratulate Glamour on the image.

Glamour have followed up the warm welcome of that image with this image of the seven of the leading plus sized models, getting it all out to make a statement about what real women really are.

Hopefully this image and the positive attention it has received will lead the way for the rest of the fashion industry to finally take note that women are bored of looking at images of stick thin, air brushed and seemingly perfect women, and a more natural and real approach needs to be taken.

Congratulations to Glamour for leading the way, and I hope the rest of the fashion industry follows suit.

Four Kisses You, yes YOU! must Master, or else he'll leave you.

So for a while now I’ve been signed up to the Cosmopolitan.com ‘Sex and Relationships’ feed, and for the most part it’s been complete drivel. What His Cuddling Body Language Reveals, 10 Things Men Don’t Want to Hear in Bed, The Body Language of Liars etc. But this morning an article entitled ‘Four Kisses You Must Master’ landed into my inbox and caught my attention. “Four kisses I must master? But I don’t know any!? There are four different types!? Since when!? Is this why I don’t have a boyfriend???”

So I eagerly clicked the link, desperate to learn these four different types of kisses which will mean that I will never again be left wondering what I was doing wrong, and will be able to keep the attention of men for longer than 30 seconds.

But thankfully as I was reading the rational part of my brain which had been absent for the previous 30 second made a welcome return and I realised, this is bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit.

“Expert” Shelley Hess tells us that kissing is crucial, and in her book, Pucker Power: Great Kissers Make Great Lovers, you’ll find out the best secrets to make any man powerless to resist you once you’ve planted one on his lips. What??

And here I was thinking a kiss was a kiss, fairly straight forward, no complicated tongue, lip, or mouth maneuvering, just simple kissing. Apparently not.

And it doesn’t stop there, oh no, then there’s the handy link directing me to “30 New Blow-His Mind Sex Moves” (oh Lord) where I’m expected to eat peanut butter off his chest to keep him coming back for more. Or fiddle with his back door to “double his pleasure.” Really??

It seems like an unfair amount of pressure to be putting on Cosmo readers. To think that you have to do all these weird and wonderful things to keep a man from cheating seems ridiculous. And if you’re not willing to do them, another woman who is willing is just waiting to pounce on your man and whisk him off into the sunset, where he can enjoy as much teasing, blindfolding, spanking or light bondage as he wishes.

And the wording, “Four kisses you must master.” It just seems a bit exploitative of the impressionable girls and women who might be reading.

To quote the words of the wonderful John Devore over at The Frisky,

“And here I was, thinking there was only one, 100% guaranteed way to drive me wild, and that was to touch my penis.”

Photocredit: Pedrosimoes7