Clothing for infants: Obama may have won, but we’re not out of the woods yet.
The decline of America
November 9, 2012 • 4:45 am
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
“Are you ready for this?” he mewled, smirking at me like a mother hamster about to eat her three-legged young.”
Mommy is weird.
Hamsters smirk? Geez.
I dunno ~ just looks naff to me & it’s not exclusively an American trend ~ baby clothes have been naff since babies had clothes. This is the sort of thing that ‘Chavs’ might dress their children in here in the UK [I’m assuming knowledge of 50 shades of grey]. At least the UK English spelling of “grey” [as per the book] is respected.
I think the “onesie” is from the LilMama range on Etsy ~ concentrated essence of naffness throughout
I wonder if the seller gives a cut to a breast cancer charity for the item bottom-right
Baby makeup, jewellery & clothes that turn them into miniature adults ~ that’s where my blood boils
At first I thought this was a joke and the T-shirt was a mock-up. Then I found this CBC article, “Fifty Shades of Grey blamed for Windsor baby boom,” claiming, “Windsor [Ontario] Regional Hospital has delivered 80 babies in six days, 30 per cent more than an average week.”
Right, 50 Shades is to blame and not that this week is just about 9 months after Valentine’s Day. You know, the date traditionally associated with lots of romance and getting it on. Pretty sure that is more likely than the popularity of a book.
People admit to reading that book? In public?
I once saw a group of people reading it quite publicly at a busy international airport, and then I saw it advertised as a bestseller in the airport bookstore. At that I didn’t know what the book was about (and, from a distance, the cover did not give it away), so I thought this must be the next big thing on the bookstores.
I later looked it up and thanked my stars I didn’t actually go about buying it.
My wife read (well, parts of it anyway) that excrable book. She found every bit of it completely implausible and lame. Including the incessant descriptions of sex. And the lame, incessant references to shades of color.
But, since the last time I checked there average number of books in a US household was 4 (!!!), the vast majority of people in the US anyway, have nothing to compare the book to. I shudder to think of how many bookless homes we account for …
I thought that 4 was the average number read in a year? BTW, depending on how you determine that number I’ve read around that many this year but I’ve read a mountain of short stories, articles, etc. so that number is a bit misleading since it doesn’t track all reading only books.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty_Shades_of_Grey
Having read about this book on wiki, I won’t be buying it. Who needs BDSM?!
And for those folks who dress their kid in this stuff, please don’t ever take a photo of them wearing it…. they might never live it down if such a pic gets splashed all over the net when they’re school-age.
What’s wrong with BDSM?
There’s plenty of object to in the books, they are terribly written, are blatant plagiarism (of Twilight, which is already pretty terrible), and despite all it’s press about being a “steamy” book about BDSM doesn’t actually have much kink in them and portrays BDSM as something only people who’ve been abused are into (completely false). The fact such terrible writing is so popular is what really frustrates me. It’s not even the fact it’s erotica, I have no problem with good erotica, but the fact it is so incredibly terrible and so popular is really sad.
OT, I really like your sculptures, Sheryl. The octopus in a jar is particularly good.
/@
“Who needs BDSM?!”
Uh.. people who like it? That question is as dumb as “who needs gay sex (or just sex)?” or “Who needs fancy clothes?” By some standards you cant justify anything but sleep and nutrition and shelter, but thats a boring life, ‘innit?
Operative word is *need*. If you read the wiki description of the book, the woman drops the guy when she asks him to demonstrate why BDSM would look like for him, and he then viciously beats her with a belt. We’re not talkin’ about mild titillating play-actin’ and pretendin’at BDSM here. There’s an epidemic of spousal abuse goin’ on. Sorry, I’m just not sure it’s a good idea to glorify it or sex it up, for mainstream North America. So Yeah, who needs BDSM to get turned on?! Certainly not I! I read that the book is pretty popular among teens too. Just wonderful. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
typo… I meant “what BDSM” not “why BDSM” of course.
Dude, there are folks into BDSM that would find that sort of beating a warm up. DO NOT compare BDSM to abuse, no matter how extreme the play may be it’s consensual and abuse is not.
In fact the books actually do portray abuse in a pretty favorable light but not physical abuse, controlling manipulative behavior is portrayed as romantic and proof he loves her instead of the giant red flags it should be.
Who needs BDSM?
A surprising, but serious, proposal for an answer: people who weren’t held and petted enough as babies.
This doesn’t account for the sadists’ needs, however.
Don’t pathologize the sexuality of others just because you don’t find it appealing. I got plenty of attention as a child, my parents didn’t spank me, and I have a healthy relationship with my Dad and I’m still kinky.
BTW, my personal theory is that I just love the endorphin rush. Some people sky dive, I play with whips, canes, and other toys. There’s an erotic part of it too but that is just the icing on the cake (I play regularly with a sadist who I have no sexual relationship with at all, nor is that even on the table).
*We* don’t have to pathologize it… there are plenty of doctors out there who do pathologize it, especially in extreme cases of SM. But if it’s what turns your crank, sistah, then go ahead, knock yourself out.
http://www.wtop.com/267/2874733/Erotic-best-seller-disturbing-violent
The rush is probably very similar to that engendered when people cut themselves.
Noadi, I gotta add that I’m not judging you. I don’t have that kind of power. I can’t help recalling one of my heroes, Dr. Helen Fisher, who says that we are our hormones. And I do wonder how much of this you think is being done through free will.
BTW, your sculptures are pretty cool. It’s good that you’ve come out to chat here.
So if the belt whupping is just a warm up, would you mind sharing what’s the most extreme you’ve ever indulged in?
What’s wrong with helping to raise the fertility of the white population? They need every help they can get. Looking at the correlation between higher IQ and low fertility, seems to me like reading Shakespeare just won’t do the trick. But then, there are cats, I guess; supposedly, they are as cute (if not cuter) as babies.
Nice embroidery, though.
+1
That would be the person who programmed the font into the computer in the sewing machine, pretty much.
About the only thing they can’t be held responsible for would be the choice of thread colours.
Fonts. Is that Comic Sans on “the” and “reading”?
“Now let’s see…. That’s 45 characters in seven fonts and four colo[u]rs, so that’ll be $225.75. And $16.99 for the garment.”
When I read that the book was originally “Twilight” fan fiction I knew that there was no point in trying to read it. My daughter had read “Twilight” (she was only 14) and gave me a rundown of the plot, that told me all I needed to know.