Hamsarchat.com, “Iran’s most complete spouse-finding website,” has been banned for “encouraging prostitution,” according to an article in the Guardian. The site, which is one of Iran’s most popular dating sites, claims to help people find spouses and start families, but recently senior ayatollahs have begged to differ. As with any dating site, members complete a questionnaire about themselves, though beyond the typical height/weight details, they are also asked to comment on how strongly they feel about a partner’s hijab, describe their religious views and clarify if their goal is permanent marriage, Islamic temporary marriage or “unknown.”
After a complaint from Tehran’s public prosecutor, a judge consulted with the senior ayatollahs and decided to fine the Web site, ordering them to return the money they had collected to their clients, in addition to shutting down the site. According to Raja News, a fundamentalist Web site closely allied with President Ahmadinejad, the ban was issued because members were asked to post their pictures and e-mail addresses, thereby promoting prostitution.
Sure, that’s a logical conclusion. I can’t remember the last time I gave someone my e-mail address and wasn’t thinking about how it would lead to sex for money, especially in this economy.
Traveling through Italy one summer, I developed an unexpected love for the country’s nude beaches. Sure, there were a fair number of impossibly bronzed women who appeared to have fallen out of a swimsuit catalog, but there were others as well, old and young alike, thick and thin in all the “wrong” places. I left the country convinced America could cut its eating disorder rate in half if we simply embraced the same relaxed attitude toward nudity.
As it turns out, I may have misread the situation. NPR has just declared that feminism is out in Italy and that the woman as sex symbol is back in. The happily naked women I admired may have just been filling the role they have been taught is best to play. As NPR so succinctly puts it, “scantily dressed women can be seen — but rarely heard — on all types of programs, from quizzes to political talk shows.”
Women make up only 2 percent of the country’s top management positions and only 17 percent of Parliament — a smaller percentage than in both Rwanda and Burundi — and recent opinion polls show that the No. 1 role model for Italian girls is the showgirl. A number of Italian feminists are placing a substantial portion of the blame on the prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, who is also a media mogul. Apparently the dwindling amount of clothing on television’s females coincides with the launch of the Berlusconi networks themselves, known for their strange mingling of politics and sex. And Berlusconi recently raised eyebrows by appointing former showgirl Mara Carfagna as minister of equal opportunity.
Said veteran feminist Grazia Francescato: ”We have gone from equal opportunities to equal opportunism … You try to be very appealing to the other sex, especially to very powerful men. I am very, very disappointed by women.”
$200,000 worth of inflatable boobs are lost at sea. Last seen on a cargo ship bound for the land down under, the 130,000 breasts, intended to be a free giveaway in the January issue of men’s magazine Ralph, have mysteriously disappeared, according to a story (called “Storm in a C Cup”) in WAToday. Ralph editor Santi Pintado has issued a cry for help, urging anyone who has information regarding the displaced breasts to contact him. So far, the only explanation he has come up with is pirates. A likely explanation. In the world of booty, they’re moving on up.
It’s hard to be rational in this chaotic world we live in — especially if you want to actually date people. Ayn Rand fans have found a solution: the Atlasphere, an online dating site for Objectivists, “where admirers of Ayn Rand’s novels from around the world can meet easily and affordably — 365 days a year — to network, find shared interests, and perhaps, through our online dating service, even fall in love.” Broadsheet’s Lynn Harris has written about this site on Salon before, but a recent New York Magazine article redirected it to our attention, and in our harsh economic climate, maybe an Ayn Rand dating site is exactly what we need.
Obviously, I immediately created a profile so that I could see who these people are. I was forced to “characterize my spiritual life” and list my favorite works of art — aside from those of Ayn Rand, of course. But after all that work, it turns out you don’t get much more information about anyone than a name and an age, unless you pay $9.95 a month. And let’s face it, I don’t actually believe in “rational self-interest” or the “pursuit of happiness,” per se. Plus I’m broke. Luckily I did collect a pretty choice sampling of profile quotes, though. Highlights from their article include:
From thustotyrants:
“You should contact me if you are a skinny woman. If your words are a meaningful progression of concepts rather than a series of vocalizations induced by your spinal cord for the purpose of complementing my tone of voice…”
From Zak:
“I am rational, integrated, and efficacious. So far, I’ve never met a person who lives up to the standard I hold for myself (except online).”
From dpvabc:
“My name is Daniel. I consider myself to be a born-again egoist and I have dedicated the rest of my life to self-improvement. People see me as a socially inept loner because I tend to avoid superficial conversation but actually I love talking to people who like to think (the problem being I don’t know very many).”
Admittedly, it’s not the most attractive sampling of young objectivists looking for love, and surely there is some really great guy out there that loves long walks on the beach accompanied by lengthy discussions of laissez-faire capitalism and the central role of reason in perceiving reality. These quotes are just significantly more interesting. Undoubtedly, strictly dating objectivists could get tricky, as compromising your own happiness to make your partner happy would seem to be totally off-limits, and, as we all know, relationships are all about compromise, compromise, compromise. If reason is your driving force, what happens to the rules of dating? Are those silly guiding principles just thrown out the window? And, at the end of the first date, who pays? If your highest moral purpose is attaining rational self-interest, how do you justify splurging on dinner for a dining partner that was objectively boring.
One of my favorite things about the holiday season is that my mother always spends several weeks in the kitchen making cookies, which she then exchanges with friends for even more cookies. It’s all very traditional and wholesome, I gain a few pounds, and the world is a generally happy place. Who doesn’t love cookies?
Well, maybe the people who designed fetus cookie cutters. Yes, for the low price of $9.99 you could be the proud owner of cookie cutters shaped like little fetuses. My initial response to the cookie cutters was quite simply, Really? I found them disturbing, which I then realized meant that, to me, a fetus signifies abortion, rather than a stage of life, which disturbed me even more. Maybe I have no sense of humor? Or am I a bad person for not being totally outraged? I decided to ask a few of my clever friends for their gut reactions. As I suspected, the responses ranged from “Can you use that as a Jell-o mold?” to “That’s terrible; I’m laughing, of course” to “Vaguely nauseated.” Then I realized that maybe the best use for fetus cookie cutters would be as a personality test.
You could bring a fetus cookie on a first date, and it would not only break the ice (or very quickly bring the date to an end) but also lend third-date-level insight into your dining partner. You could use a fetus cookie to conduct a sociological experiment. Does the reaction to said cookie change depending on locale? Are they funny at a baby shower, or even more disturbing? Do they fare better at a holiday party, a housewarming or a birthday party? Is there a correlation between age and level of outrage? Do high school kids think they’re write-a-letter-to-someone offensive, while college kids think they are the funniest shit they’ve ever seen? Are people with kids more or less likely to be upset than people without kids? If you never want children, are these just totally hilarious or unbelievably stupid?
So many questions. I have no desire to either eat or bake a fetus cookie, but I will at least cede the point that they are certainly more interesting than the typical heart, snowflake or cuddly animal cookie fare. If, for some reason, you need more fetus cookies (or simply want to be convinced that these are intended to be totally appalling), you can watch this video of a woman baking them, while a song about fetus cookies plays to the tune of “Edelweiss.” Fair warning, though: About the time that she bites off the cookie legs, it starts to feel like one of those twisted fairy tales that people don’t read to their children anymore.
Any vestiges of the belief that all hockey moms (or fans, for that matter) support Sarah Palin were effectively destroyed earlier this month when Palin dropped the first puck at a Flyers-Rangers game and was booed by Philly fans. But in case you still have doubts, one more hockey mama for Obama weighs in with a hilarious rendition of “Don’t speak for me Sarah Palin,” sung to the tune of “Evita’s” “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.” The basic message? “My kid plays hockey, and I wear lipstick/ but I’m a thinker, and you’re a dipstick.” Touché.
