Since I’m borrowing my title from Derek and Clive, I listened to this sketch for the 50 millionth time and still laughed. If you haven’t listened to this, don’t even talk to me EVER.

All I intended to do was direct you to my essay for Miista about women and sex toys. I really want to hear your feedback on this! Are you with me or am I all wrong?

Let me know. Now, back to my 3 o’clock Monday wank.

Watching the news about the Inspector General’s report on the FBI, and Hillary Clinton’s three word tweet in response to it, I was startled by the commentator’s summation.

“Still bitter, he said, shaking his head reproachfully. Everyone on the panel agreed.

STILL??? After the ordeal of the craziest, most obscene presidential election in history, being threatened by stadiums full of slobbering racists screaming LOCK HER UP, what should Hillary Clinton feel? How long is she allowed to feel bitter, if at all? Maybe she was bitter even before the election. Maybe she was born bitter. Bitch.

Why can’t she be more gracious about everything? Why can’t she let it go? In fact, why does she need to tweet at all? It’s so bitter of her. She should just shut up, as many have said, over and over and over.

I am no Hillary apologist but I voted for her, wholeheartedly. Because I’m not crazy.

The use of the word bitter as a pejorative has always fascinated me. It implies an aspect of judgement and condemnation, in a way that “resentful” or “angry” does not. There’s a finger-waggingness to “bitter,” like “God, just get over it, you loser”. With Hillary, of course, the contempt is move overt.

I asked some friends if they thought that bitter is a word more often applied to women than men. No one thought so. But when I googled the definition of bitter, here’s the first one that came up:

See the phrase they used for 2. ?

Ha! I rest my fucking case.

A bitter woman is the worst thing on earth. She’s like a dreaded woman “with baggage,” only worse. She should be shunned. A bitter man probably has a damn good reason for his feelings. Maybe his wife ran off with the milkman.

A bitter woman is just damaged goods.

Imagine an essay on how to spot a bitter man in his 30s!

I read a study that said  25% of people report having felt bitter at some time in their lives. I’m going to say that this is preposterous, and only shows how bitterness has become the most shaming emotion, more shaming probably than feeling homicidal. I’m proud to say that I feel both. Not all the time but at least once a day.

I wrote about bitterness as a disorder here. What a good writer I was back then! I can honestly say I feel bitter about losing my abilities, along with my youth. But that’s okay. Lil’ Spiteful has always been my imaginary gang name, because Lil’ Bitterness isn’t as cute.

Thoughts, arguments, bitter rebukes, anyone?

One thing we learned from the debate on Monday night is that Donald Trump has a thing about fat.

I know his feud with Rosie O’Donnell involved taunts about her weight, but I didn’t realize that fat-shaming is a familiar behavior of Donald’s, verging on an obsession.

In Trump’s value system, being fat is the worst crime a woman can commit. Slobs! Ugly pigs!

He has double-downed today on the fat Miss Universe story. Not only was she a fat pig, she was “the worst [Miss Universe] we ever had. She gained a massive amount of weight, and it was a real problem.” She was “an eating machine!”

Here’s what fat pig Alicia Machado looked like at age 20, when he invited a film crew to watch her working out in a gym.

Machado’s story about being traumatized by Trump’s insults brings to mind a common trigger of anorexia and bulimia: fat-shaming by the father, often in the form of a single, brutal comment.

A former Trump employee recalls that he used to keep an unflattering “fat photo” of her in his desk.  He would pull it out whenever she did something “wrong.”

I can’t even can’t even on this misogynist shit. Clearly, Trump has a deep fear and loathing of women, whose womanly bodies offend him. You can never get thin enough for men like this.

Let’s move on to his imaginary “400 pound” hacker, cited in his argument against Russia being responsible for breaking into the DMC’s files.

Who is this 400 pounder? Is Trump haunted by visions of fat people laying around in basements or running for Miss Universe? Does he see fat people hiding under every bed, like communists?

I’m wondering if he sees that fat guy in the mirror.

I think Donald Trump is a fat pig, and not because I hate men. I see an obese guy in an ill-fitting suit with a stupid wrestler-style pompadour. He looks like a pig because of his bloated face and little slit eyes. He embodies what we mean when we think a  person acts like a pig. No manners, no dignity, no civility, no self-respect.

Now I’m wondering if he likes to keep Chris Christie around just to look thinner by comparison.

I hope every woman who has ever felt fat because some man disparaged her body will make sure to vote Donald Trump off the island and off our planet.

He hates us because mommy didn’t protect him from daddy or because he can’t admit he’s gay or you know, a projection of self-disgust. Whatever.

He’d be a fat pig at any weight.

Save

Save

Save

Three young women noticed a vacuum in the marketplace for pubic hair grooming products, and voila! They formed a company to right that wrong, called Fur.

Because money.

Wait, I’m so sorry, I meant to say, because why shouldn’t we take care of our pubic hair like we take care of the hair on our heads? That is their thinking, apparently.

If only they had asked me that question, I would’ve answered, “Because our public hair is not scorched by styling tools, dye, sun and wind!” And because public has it’s own texture: that’s why they call it pubic hair.

Anyway, who needs common sense where grooming products are concerned, right? If you can be made to feel insecure or inadequate about any area of your body, you will consider buying a product. Let’s say your heels aren’t baby-smooth. You’ll buy one of those egg-shaped things to scrape away at your heels until they’re ready to diaper.

So, the creators of Fur realized that women are moving away from waxing, although according to Fashionista, that doesn’t mean “going totally 70’s.”

I mean, god no. The 70’s were like the fucking National Geographic, with all that public hair! Ugh, the horror of looking natural. Forget that. We’re talking more about “some hair” in the “nether regions.” Not a whole jungle, okay?

And that hair needs to be silky. It needs to be softened with a special oil that costs $39.

Fur Oil’s unique blend of lightweight oils softens pubic hair and clears pores for fewer ingrowns and healthier skin. The 100% natural formula is gently antiseptic, antimicrobial, and reduces inflammation.  Fur Oil can be used as frequently as desired to enhance pubic hair and skin, and is also suitable for use on the face and body.

Directions: Apply Fur Oil liberally to clean pubic hair and skin.  For best results use as part of a daily regimen.

Are you in? For another $32, you can buy Fur’s other product, Stubble Cream,

a lightweight, natural emulsion [that] smoothes prickly regrowth, clears pores for fewer ingrowns and protects pubic skin.

Obviously, I find this annoying and even depressing. It’s also misogyny pretending to be empowering or something. If you have pubic hair, it’s nice for your partner if you bathe regularly. Then, you’re good to go.

Not only is my pubic hair silky enough, my belly button is fine without any belly button products and so are my knees without knee products. I already have enough body issues and shit to keep myself in line, cosmetically.

Finally there is Fur’s packaging and font. The creators wanted something elegant and “timeless, like Chanel” but with the “shock factor of the words pubic hair.” To me, it looks clinical but kind of scary, with the truncated letter f lending it a German quality that makes me uneasy.

Why not just call it Führer, or even Führer For The Pussy?

Take it away before I get madder.

Crystal Renn posed nude in the May issue of French Vogue, and the sight of her public hair has been too much for some people. The comments at The Cut are filled with revulsion for Crystal’s crotch.

Whether the photos are flattering or appropriate or anything else, my interest is in the reactions. What the hell is wrong with people? Those who object to the pubic hair insist that their aesthetic hasn’t been formed by porn. They talk about how nice it is to be “clean down there.”

What isn’t clean about natural hair? It seems very anti-woman to insist on a waxed crotch.   The hair is a sign of adulthood – it’s what separates a woman’s body from a child’s.

I admit I don’t watch porn. It make me too sad. But I’m aware there’s a fatwa on body hair these days. It seems creepy and it seems babyish. It’s as if the very idea of pubic hair is terrifying.

It depresses me to confront the fact that women have yet another reason to feel shame about their bodies. I’m glad that Crystal Renn is breaking barriers, if that’s what she’s doing. If she reads those comments, though, she may feel she’s committed a federal crime by looking like a natural woman.

Opinions, anyone?