Michael Phelps: Making Patriotism Sexy… Again

Dear Michael Phelps,

Thank you Mr. Phelps (M.P, The Baltimore Bullet, or future love slave, whichever nickname you prefer) for making the Olympics sexy.

You have encouraged millions of women, young and old, to use their imaginations when watching your muscular, smooth, tan body wiggle through water in almost a pornographic way — now I know how men feel when watching women’s volleyball. Oh, and thanks for making Speedos sexy again…that’s a load off my mind.

You’ve even turned Wikipedia into soft-core porn. Here’s how they describe you:

“Phelps has a body particularly suited to swimming. He has a long, thin torso with arms which span 6 feet 7 inches disproportionate with his height of 6 feet 4 inches. He has size 14 feet and double-jointed ankles. He can extend his ankle beyond the point of a ballet dancer which enables him to whip his feet for maximum thrust.”

Wow…was that good for you, too? You’re like the Anna Kournikova of swimming —except you’re really talented.

So talented that when you wear all of your gold metals, it looks like you’re wearing a halter top, making you the only guy who can make a halter top look sexy — you’re so amazing.



Thank god the Olympics are finally over. I felt dirty every time I watched them. It was like my TV knew what I was up to — maybe it’s because I always watched it on mute.

It’s cool that you haven’t responded to my numerous attempts to poke you on Facebook. I’m sure you were busy winning gold metals and stuff. Don’t worry, I can be very understanding — you’ll figure that out soon enough after we’re married. I already rented the church…and made all the plans. But I didn’t get you a tuxedo, so you’ll just have to get married in one of your speedos.

But now that you’ve won all your metals, I’ll be expecting you to start returning my phone calls and e-mails. I mean, what else could you be doing that’s more important?

See you soon,
Your Number One Fan

Enjoy the following videos, but be careful: Licking your computer screen might cause your tongue to get shocked…but it’s worth it.

Majoring in housewife

Sometimes, looking at someone's Facebook profile can tell you a lot about them, like when you see one of your friends has listed Spice World as one of their all time favorite movies.

Other times, Facebook can tell you a lot about an entire generation, like the fact that there’s an entire group on Facebook called Future Housewives @ FAU and there’s almost 40 members.

The description of the group that is listed directly from Facebook:

“This is for all the girls who are going to FAU to get their M.R.S Degree, or if they are going to get a degree and then be a house wife.”

For those of you who have never heard the phrase getting your MRS degree it means that a woman goes to college to find a husband and become a Mrs. This was a popular phrase back in the 1950's and 1960's when women were expected to get married and not have a career.

The idea that the only benefit of college is to meet someone that might support you for the rest of your life is a concept that I thought had long been extinct, but sadly, it seems like it's still alive and kicking.

Last semester, a professor of mine asked how many of the women in class planned on staying home and not working after college.

Not one woman raised her hand.

So when a friend of mine said that she was sick of dealing with all the girls in her elementary education classes that didn’t plan on having a career after college, I was really confused. I just didn’t think college girls thought that way anymore.

My friend looked at me and said, “You can’t throw a sandal down the breezeway without hitting a future housewife on the head.”

Maybe she was exaggerating, but after doing some research, there are plenty of young women who plan on getting a degree, staying home and raising children for the rest of their lives.

Along with the FAU facebook group there are at least five other global groups (groups that students from all different universities can join) with the same concept I’m here for my MRS degree. There’s even a group for Yale University called I came to Yale to get my MRS. degree but am failing miserably.

Sure, a Facebook group might not mean much. And sure, it's possible that a few of these women are only members of this group as a joke. But for all the young women who actually plan on being more than a wife and mother and for all the women who never had the chance to be anything else, we should take a stand. So what's the best way to fight against group like this? Just make fun of them.

MRS Course Listings (feel free to add to the list)

MRS 1100 Cooking in High Heels
MRS 1200 Staying Thin While Pregnant
MRS 2300 Turning Anger into a Smile
MRS 4300 Looking Pretty While Giving Birth
MRS 4600 Doing Your Husbands Laundry and Wearing Pearls
MRS 4300 Attracting the Mailman

Apple Bottom Jeans—Where’s the chicks?

Using sexy ladies to spice up a music video is a concept that even my great-grandparents are familiar with. Sex sells—it’s always going to be that way.

But we’re on the dawn of a sexual revolution—because of the music video Low by Flo Rida. Low can be described in just three words: apple bottom jeans.

Although it’s hard to put the words “apple bottom jeans” and “revolution” in the same sentence there is something so different about this music video that it might just spawn a sexual revolution.

Where are the girls? And where are the apple bottom jeans?

Almost every frame was a guy nodding his head to the slow beat and making some gesture with his fingers—(sexy).

For those of you fortunate enough not to have a radio, and haven’t had this song bashed into your head 43 million times— Low is all about admiring a sexy woman—there may even be a reference or two to prostitution (so classy). Nothing new about that—don’t waste your IQ points trying to figure out the lyrics.

But with the video clocking in at 3:49 minutes long it has only 35 seconds (give or take) of combined frames showing actual women (I counted because I care). That’s a whole 3:14 minutes of just a bunch of guys singing about women.



By now you’ll realize this isn’t your average music video – in fact, take a look at every other top ten video on MTV.com. All of them feature more images of women than men – even the music videos by female artists. Old school Britney Spears actually contained just a few frames of men in her videos.

The lack of women in Low is so untraditional that one might even argue that gender and sexuality is on the brink of a revolution.

Objectifying women has become so much the social norm and unofficial proof of a man’s masculinity that men no longer need to even show the images of the women they’re objectifying.

Because the message of the song is not Look how pretty this woman is…don’t you agree she’s hott? , but you know I’m a man because I sing about how I objectify women—look how cool I am.

And the video assumes that the audience doesn’t want to see images of sexy women—but rather hero shots of the men.

In other words – sexuality has become a way for men to prove their masculinity to each other so much so that sex has nothing to do with it anymore.

Now some of you might be thinking – you can’t possibly find proof of a sexual revolution inside a rap video made by conceited men. And perhaps this is an isolated incident. Or maybe it’s not.

Valentine’s day - Oh crap!

Valentine's Day is here - which means there will be a whole lot of pointless gifts in circulation, a whole lot of couples staring at single people like they're homeless, and forced awkward sex for people all across the country.

Very few of us actually know the history of Valentine’s Day - if you do, then stop reading this right now and get back to watching the discovery channel you history-loving slut. Basically, three saints named Valentine all died in weird ways; you didn't miss much.

Let’s face it – being a single person on Valentine’s Day can be just plain cruel. All day long, all they see is happy couples exchanging big fluffy pink bears and unwanted packs of socks. All day long its happy couples with smiles on their faces.

While you're at Publix buying your Stouffer's dinner for one, you have to stand in the checkout line watching couples suck face while they're buying red wine and organic steak.



And let's not forget the stares that couples give to single people. It’s like they're marked with a huge sign on their forehead that says PITY ME. We look at them like they're homeless and they need some assistance.

Listen—no one wants to have the Hey at least you still have your health talk with their single friends on Valentine’s Day. We all know the drill. The coupled up folks are going home to have sex and the single people are going home to cry and watch re-runs of Dancing With the Stars.

I bring you the single person's survival guide with a few simple rules to keep to from going crazy on Valentine's Day.

THE SINGLE PERSON’S SURVIVAL GUIDE

1) If you don’t have it, fake it. There’s nothing wrong with telling your friends you have a date—you don’t have to tell them it’s with your new box set of family guy.

2) Valentine’s night is the night to hit the clubs. Think about it—there’s no way you could accidentally go home with a married guy.

3) Hang out with other single people. Don’t expect you're coupled up buddies to hang out on Valentine’s Day. Warning—make sure you hang with the right kind of single people. You don’t want to spend the night in the bathroom of a Denny's because your single friend is having a Why does no one love me meltdown. (eww)

4) If you’re really in a pinch, just remember, in a few years almost all of these happy couples will be broken up.

But if all else fails and you're still depressed, just remember that Valentine's Day sucks for everyone-including those people in relationships.

If you’re in a relationship—it’s still a miserable holiday because of the insane amount of pressure. There’s even pressure to buy that special someone the perfect gift. There’s the pressure to buy your single friends gifts so they don’t feel like total crap.

And most importantly, there’s the pressure to have sex. If you’re in a relationship it is practically an unwritten law that you must have sex on Valentine’s Day. There’s nothing that says romance like socially forced awkward sex…can’t wait!

Either way you’re screwed - and not in the good way.

Editor's Note: No chicken nuggets were harmed during the making of this blog.

Yell Scream and Punch Your Way to Love

No one wants to be that couple that everyone stares at in the grocery store because they can't seem to stop fighting about what kind of fat-free yogurt to buy.

Or, if you're Dane Cook fan: the nothing fight over jelly.


But the fact is that couples don't want to be known for having arguments at all. When couples argue, they tend to do it behind closed doors, hidden away from everyone else. There are so many articles written by therapists claiming that they can help couples stop fighting. But why should we try to stop it at all? Fighting is important to keeping a relationship healthy. Should we just hold all of our anger inside until it explodes and we end up having to make that shameful phone call to our parents for bail?

It seems like it's the couples that don't fight that are the unstable ones. It's the prim and proper couples that really scare me. Women who hold in their opinions have a higher chance of death and even scarier: irritable bowel syndrome. (ewww) So the next time you think its best to just ignore your boyfriend's football-watching-Cheeto-eating annoying behavior, think about all those feelings coming out in the form of explosive diarrhea. If you're too shy to speak up, you might want to start stocking up on Charmin now.

Maybe I'm from the old school of thought, but I think, the couple that fights together stays together. A lesson I learned last weekend when the usual You never do the things I like fight, ended in a spontaneous getaway to Orlando, the best vacation we've ever had.

Let the angry words flow from your mouth. Don't walk away or cool off, don't be afraid of saying something you might regret, just say it. A fight can be a way to capture all the little problems and fix them.

For instance, a stupid fight about annoying habits can be a sign that you're spending too much time together.

If you're in the type of relationship that challenges you mentally, spiritually, physically, you're more likely to have a You-can't-trust-anyone-just-like-your-mother fight.

Granted fighting is always a sign of good things to come, if nothing gets resolved and it turns into a habit, your relationship might be treading in dangerous waters.

FIGHTING FAIR VS. FIGHTING DIRTY

1)The main difference between the good fights and the bad ones is intention. Believe it or not, you can pick a fight and have good intentions-and then both people are trying to help each other and the fight leads to personal growth. (Just ignore the cheesy factor)

2)If the fight turns physical, it's time to run like hell.

3)It's true you shouldn't go to bed angry but, if you can't picture this fight ending in sex, it could be time to just walk away.

The very best reason that couples shouldn't shy away from verbal brawls is the kick- ass way in which couples make up. Use your imagination here.

Roommate Sexual Disturbances

In the early hours of a typical Wednesday morning, 20-year old Will woke up for his 8:00 a.m. Statistics class. He got dressed quietly in his sixth floor Heritage Park Towers dorm room on FAU's Boca Raton campus in hopes he wouldn’t wake up his roommate.

After finding out that his class was canceled, Will came back to his room to find his roommate right in the middle of having sex with a girl that wasn’t in the room when he left. Even worse, the roommate yelled "get out" and poor Will gladly left feeling confused and awkward. For the first time I've ever heard of, a college student wasn't happy that a Statistics class was canceled.

During the 15 minutes that Will was walking to his class and back again, his roommate was making a phone call to a girl he was seeing at the time and told her that the coast was clear for her to come into the room. How romantic.

With military precision, Will’s roommate executed the classic rump-and-hump meeting. If it weren’t for some lazy professor canceling class, the execution would have gone a whole lot smoother.

As if the tiny beds, nosy RAs and paper thin walls aren’t enough, many college students have to deal with the dreaded issue of trying to have sex without disturbing their roommates... even resorting to James-Bond-style planning. Seriously, getting laid just shouldn't be so hard (no pun intended).

With a little communication and some education on sex etiquette, it’s possible that Will and his roommate – and college students everywhere - can co-habit and get laid.

On that note, let’s all take the time to consider each other’s feelings and go over a page from my sexual etiquette rulebook.


THE RULES OF SEXUAL ETTIQUETTE WHILE LIVING WITH A ROOMMATE

1. Have a unique signal. A traditional tie on the door won't cut it because if your other roommates find out what the signal is, they will go out of their way to mess with you while you’re sealing the deal. Being an immature jerk to your roommates is practically a rite of passage for college kids.

2. Get a fish tank. Wait... just hear me out. For one thing, fish are the only pets on-campus students are allowed to have in their rooms. The tanks have really loud pumps that can drown out noises. If your roommate ever wakes up and says "what's that vibrating noise?" Blaming the fish tank pump is always a good fallback and even a great "signal."

3. Work out your schedules and stick to them. Put your class and work schedule up on the wall. This way, your roommate can plainly see when you will be around. Hopefully, your roommate will respect that and do the same. More importantly stick to that schedule. If plans change or a class gets canceled last minute, stay out of the room until the appropriate time.

4. Call me old fashioned, but sometimes a simple phone call can save you a world of embarrassment. If your plans change or you randomly come up to the room, give your roomie a call or a text just to let him or her know you’re on your way up.

Keep these tips in mind the next time the mood strikes and your roommate is just sitting there cutting his or her toe nails. Please, let's all work together; feel free to add onto this list.

If only politicians were more like celebs

Earlier this week I was shocked to find that one of my friends didn't know that the presidential debates were taking place at FAU. Okay maybe I wasn't totally shocked, I don't exactly hang out with geniuses.

I kept thinking to myself- how the crap do you miss that story? That's like missing Iraq or 9/11. Its one thing to walk through the breezeway and hallways with tunnel vision, completely ignoring every roommate wanted flier and upcoming event banner in a two-mile radius. But its another thing to just totally miss one of the biggest events to hit FAU.

I assumed that my friend was either an alien in disguise and just flew in from Uranus that morning, or had a severely below average IQ.

But I was shocked when she later chimed into the conversation, "Matthew McConaughey's girlfriend is pregnant- I read it this morning."

So my friend can read, and she's somewhat interested in current events, but didn't even know the presidential debates were coming to FAU. This seems like a common problem with college students, we care more about celebrities than politicians.

THE STATS

1)American Idol gets more people to vote than presidential elections.

2)Perez Hilton claims to get four million hits a day, and he only writes about celebrity gossip. The average college student can tell you the name of all the Spears children, including ones to come, but if you ask them where Barack Obama stands on global warming, you'll get a blank stare.

3)College students are more interested in downloading pictures of Britney Spears flashing her "VaJJ" than taking the time to read a presidential candidate's Web site.

THE PROBLEM

Political candidates and government officials never come down to our level. And by our level, I mean the human level. When Hillary Clinton sheds a tear and Obama dances on Ellen, their approval ratings go through the roof. Its because people feel like they can relate to them. They finally seem human.

THE SOLUTION

Political candidates need to find a way to appeal to us. Maybe they should recruit MTV or Absolut vodka advertising executives, since those people make millions of dollars every year off of our age group.

TOP FIVE QUICK FIXES FOR PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

5) Hillary Clinton should get a DUI and go to rehab, and then people will listen to her.

4)Barack Obama should date Lindsay Lohan and have an illegitimate child, and then we'd listen to him.

3)By all means every political candidate should have a sex tape leaked onto the Internet. If they did that you could guarantee college students worldwide would know who they were voting for.

2)Get into a million dollar custody battle with your ex husband/wife.

1)The ultimate quick fix for every candidate;get a reality TV show. They can call it behind the campaign, everyone would watch. Especially college kids who eat up painfully mindless reality shows.

Maybe it's a bit too risky for Hillary Clinton to be flashing her private parts and for Rudy Giuliani to be suing his baby's mama for custody. But let's face it-these candidates need to do something, there are robots in Disney world that are more lifelike than them.

We devour reality shows and train wreck celebrities because we feel a connection to the people or characters in them. They eat McDonald's, get drunk, and pee in the living room. We can laugh at them because we can relate to them. The Presidential candidates know that they must relate to us, they just don't have any clue how to go about it.

Curiosity Brought us to the Strippers

It was like Disney World for men. Everything was colorful and bright, and it was clean and classy unlike the movies portray them to be. All the heavy rules that society puts on us about our sexuality are completely lifted the second you walk through the door and into to the strip club.

And that's exactly where four girls from FAU ended up on what seemed to be another boring night in Boca.

After a few drinks at Fridays, someone made a risky suggestion to cure our boredom.

"We should go to a strip club."

All of us immediately replied, "Yeah!"

Being strip-club virgins, we were curious about what exactly goes on behind the doors of a Gentlemen’s club. Sure, we’ve all heard the stories and seen the movies about shady strip clubs and all the old gross perverts that hang around them, but we wanted to know what really goes on.

The first task was finding one within a 10-mile radius. But after a few text messages to our male friends, we got flawless directions and a phone number to Cheetah - the place where men can spend a week’s pay in 20 seconds.

Right off the bat we were treated like intruders. The doorman snapped at us. "You can’t enter without a male." Luckily a man entering right behind us claimed he was with us.

You can always count on the kindness of strangers.

A friend later told me that it’s because wives and girlfriends try to sneak in and spy on their husbands and boyfriends.

It’s even better than any rumor, billboard or movie trailer depicts of them. It's a place where everyone can do what they want, say what they want, wear what they want and not be judged - except for us, of course.

We still got crap for being girls in a strip club. Many of the dancers asked us why we were there and gave us an attitude. They kept asking us where the men were. Maybe they were giving us an attitude because we weren't really doing anything, and that means we weren't really spending large amounts of money, either.

A few of the men that came up to us asked if we were bi-sexual. I wasn't quite sure how to explain to people that I'm at a strip club because I was curious about them and just wanted to have fun. The one benefit to hanging out at a strip club is that you don’t have to worry about getting over-aggressive men hitting on you. They’re preoccupied with, you know, other things.

More than that, we wanted to meet these women and talk to them. Some of them were really nice and had other jobs, like working in doctor’s offices, and it felt like we were just chatting it up with a regular college girl... only in less clothes than us.

Farting Equals Love

A few weeks ago, a friend frantically called me, screaming and crying on the phone. "He did it! He finally did it!" she screamed.

Fearing that my friend had gotten engaged, I calmly asked, "Did what?"

"He finally farted in front of me!"

I reacted the way any other classy college women would have: "Congratulations."

Karen explained that she and Mike were finally at a comfortable point in their relationship. Up until that point, neither one of them would fart in front of the other.

In fact, Mike and Karen had gone almost four months into their relationship without the sweet release of flatulence in the other's presence. To them, it had gotten to the point of being a serious competition - which one would pass gas first. Neither one of them wanted to be the one to present the awkward first fart.

The competition would result in my friend making numerous dashes into another room at random moments and even an incident on I-95 when Mike actually stopped the car to get out and pass gas. Finally, during an episode of I love New York, Mike caved and let one rip, which to Karen was a sign that he really cared about her.

It might sound creepy, but being able to fart in front of a person can be a sign of a really healthy relationship.

Not just farting, but it's all of the little personal habits we usually save for alone time. Like binging on an entire pint of Häagen-Dazs while wearing old sweats and watching re-runs of Saved by the Bell. As Tracy Cox explains here, letting someone into your personal world can bring your relationship to the next level.

When your personal habits become something that you can do in front of your significant other, that’s when you know it's right.

But be aware that there is such a thing as a courting stage when it just isn’t appropriate to let one rip in front of someone. Farting in front of your girlfriend can be a sign of commitment, but farting in front of a girl on a first date can be a sign of bad things to come. If you don't have enough class to show her respect in the beginning, she might not be so willing to keep you around. Maybe that’s the reason why romantic dinners are usually candle-lit... to cover the fumes.

There might not be an exact standard amount of time before it’s socially acceptable to pass gas in front of your sweetie. You just have to feel it out for yourself (no pun intended).

For me, it was a pretty simple test. An accidental fart made me realize that I had found the one. It was only our second date, so when the urge to let one rip came over me, I thought it was best to hold it in. But my strategy completely back-fired (again, no pun intended) and in my efforts to clinch, my body ended up letting out a high pitched "biiiinnngggggg!!"

He started to laugh, and now over two years later we're still happy. For us, two days was enough time. For others, it could take anywhere from three weeks to five months. Either way, it’s not really a healthy relationship until you can comfortably pass gas. If your boyfriend or girlfriend is hiding bodily functions, imagine what else they could be hiding.