my twenties

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SIGN THE NO MORE PAGE THREE PETITION

http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/david-dinsmore-take-the-bare-boobs-out-of-the-sun-nomorepage3

If you haven't already signed this petition please do so and help stop the objectification of women in this EVERY DAY newspaper. Pornographic images portrayed so casually by The Sun send the subliminal message that women are on this planet with the purpose of providing male gratification. Forms of female discrimination and feelings of male sexual entitlement can be attributed to these messages inherent in society. Enough is enough, boobs are not news. 

http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/david-dinsmore-take-the-bare-boobs-out-of-the-sun-nomorepage3

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"The world is a bad place, a bad place, a terrible place to live."

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Oblivion: A Lifestyle of Choice

We all live in oblivion. It's an active choice because, as the saying goes, ignorance is bliss.

We convince ourselves that global warming isn't happening, or justify not reducing our carbon footprint because if it does then it's not going to affect our generation. In reality, we're all just too lazy to walk the kilometre to the shop.

We go to the supermarket and choose our meat, already neatly packaged up and stacked, just by reading a label. For some, the only consideration when picking what chicken they want is the marked price. None of us think about where our meat came from, the life it had, or how it was killed. 

We turn over the adverts that call for aid for impoverished countries. Dub it exaggeration or to be "pulling on our heartstrings".

We watch the news about an earthquake in Japan and express how sorrowful we feel for those who died. Then less than 24 hours later indulge in our first world privileges, once again our prime worry returning to whether the battery on your phone will see you through to the end of the day.

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Film Review: We Need To Talk About Kevin

After heard this referred to on the television as a great insight into the workings of a psychotic mind, as well as recommendations from friends and an above average score of 7.5 on IMDB which is most usually my trusty friend, I was incredibly disappointed by this wreck of a film.

Firstly, even if you buy into the absurd premise of the movie that this child is born inherently evil, there are too many other things that are impossible to accept. I'm not a parent, but this child receives no punishment or reprimanding from either parent for his shocking and rude behaviour. Rather, his father actually sides with him as opposed to a very clearly deeply distressed mother, played by Tilda Swinton who is probably the only credit to the movie. 

Furthermore, the story is told in a series of flashbacks as Swinton is living her post-Kevin-trauma life, and is for some reason hated by the community. I have two qualms with this, 1: why not move away from the area? She was jobless anyway. 2: Why on earth would she be shunned by the community? Kevin also killed her daughter and husband.

The director's attempt to use this retrospective narrative only results in long, boring, close up shots of Swinton that makes the movie slow and a struggle to actually sit through. The use of the colour red, although intended to be symbolic, even becomes tedious. Furthermore, beginning the movie this way prevents any character development or empathy whatsoever. It's hard for me to feel moved for Swinton as I only ever see her as a distressed, almost empty woman. Aside from a completely absurd and totally instantly off putting scene at La Tomatina at the beginning as well as a couple of flashbacks to her youth with her then husband.

Not to mention, Kevin never actually did anything extremely disturbing throughout the whole film. Yes, incidents are alluded to: the eye; the guinea pig; the big finale even. But all remained ambiguous and this, indefinitely, meant that they created a much lesser impact. If the intention was to shock the audience with regards to Kevin's pathological order, consider me bored.

All in all, what a waste of my time.

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Sex: Why it's My Thing

In my experience, friends are effort. For some reason or other being able to keep hold of friends just doesn't come easily to me. And I'm never sure if it's because I don't like them or because they don't like me.

I've always been quite a sexual person and haven't ever bought into this idea that you're a 'slut' if you sleep with a lot of people. That's not to say I don't think that 'sluts' exist full stop, only that what we do behind closed doors is nobody's business but our own. And I suppose it goes hand in hand with my ideas of feminism. Women have been taught to repress their sexual desires while men are free to rampantly act on their testosterone, since when is that far?

I do, however, think that girls dress provocatively and broadcast their number of sexual partners and experiences could be classified as 'sluts'. Although I still hate the term.

Back to the topic point, I find it much easier to attain sexual relations as opposed to friendships, and in many ways find them more entertaining and more fulfilling. And the best thing that can possibly come from this is someone you truly love. My greatest friendship, my greatest partner and my greatest happiness has come from sex and I'm truly grateful for that.

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Plotting my Book: What I Really Want to Explore

As a by-product of my late realisation of impending failure I have sat down to finally begin, or at least begin to think about, my first novel which I have always said I've wanted to write. As well as owning my own business being a novelist is one of my ambitions that has been, importantly, permanent throughout my life.

When I think about writing a novel however, I do not think about a fantastical world or an unrealistic love story. In other words, I don't think about an escape from reality, as some authors may. Rather I think about the most harrowing and troubling things in life and society and want to encompass them in my story, not necessarily as the focus, but as external factors which influence my characters.

I have decided that the best way to do this is to create a distopia of the way that I envisage society to be heading, in this way things that now only influence our lives in a small, maybe even subconscious way, can be greatly exaggerated in my universe in order to have a prominent affect on my characters. These issues I see are overpopulation, using up natural resources, materialism, lack of social interaction and a society overly dependant on ever expanding technology.

So, in this novel that I so wish to write, all of these things have culminated in what will be my distopia. And although the story will remain about characters, men and women as me and you are, this society will impair their day to day lives in a deeply distressing way.

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Becoming a Vegetarian: The Reasons Why

As of just over a month now I've successfully been a vegetarian. Of one of the times I was asked why, my response was "I've always wanted to be a vegetarian". Naturally, said person made a joke of it being a "life-long ambition", such as a job would be. But I guess describing it as an ambition isn't a far stretch of the truth.

There are different categories of meat-eaters in this world: those that simply don't care where their meat came from, those who avoid the knowledge, those who are genuinely too detached from reality to know, and those that battle with their moral conscience on the topic. Throughout my life I'd often turn around and say "I'm not buying poor quality meat anymore" or "I'm going to start substituting meat for quorn". But these half-hearted statements are so non-committal and I'd only continue to buy the cheap produce and tasty options. After years of ranting and raving about the injustice of the meat industry and yet continuing to be a consumer of it I finally became a vegetarian. Finally, I practice what I preach.

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Battling With Feminism: Gender Equality and Gender Identity

Feminism has been an interest of mine since my late teens. With a personal history of young sexual activity and a society of increasingly sexually aware pre-pubescent girls and boys I have come to attribute a lot of blame to the media and overly-accessible porn, arguments which I will explore more thoroughly in later posts.

In this particular post, however, I would like to tackle an article that I read yesterday on the "over-sexualisation" of women and try to explain my point that there is a difference between gender identity and gender equality. I am tired of people trying to create some sort of "genderless" society; gender roles are important to how society, families and relationships function - and there is nothing wrong with them.

To give context, this article was trying to demonstrate the "over-sexualisation" of women by recreating Miranda Kerr's GQ shoot and interview, but rather, with a male. Naturally, when posing in the same manner as Victoria Secret Model, Kerr, and re-quoting statements expressing a bi-curious nature of the model from the male perspective, readers reacted in a different manner. I'm arguing that this does not show an inequality.

Yes, society has created "femininity" and "masculinity". Within these two constraints women and men are sexy for different reasons, a man in a suit is just as sexy as a woman in lingerie, and both sexes are sexualised in this way. Just because this man doesn't look as sexy as Kerr in a sodden white vest with his legs apart does not show that women are over-sexualised in society, it merely shows that different sexes aren't sexualised in the same way.

If we want to look at how women are over-sexualised in the society we live in we need to look at how sexualisation is vast, accessible and an every day challenge. For example, women in underwear on the back of buses advertising Scrap Metal Merchandisers (see Eric France Metals). Or Kelly Brooke's billboard advertisement for the London Olympics - naked. Online there is a vast amount of porn, 95% of which is for a male audience, that glamourises women and is accessible to anyone, any age, for free. Lynx Adverts, lads magazines, music videos among many more also show sexualised women.

So although I don't disagree with the premise of the article that, indeed, women are oversexualised, can we please stop confusing equality and identity. Just because a male model cannot pose in the same way doesn't mean inequality, it is the fact that sexualised male models (in the form that they are sexualised as men) is far, far less vast than sexualised women.

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Turning Twenty: Not Just Another Day

As a new Blogger here I am providing a little bit of context to set the scene.

Very recently I turned 20, 10 days ago to be precise. To put this age into perspective, Martin Garrax (age 17) has had a top 10 hit in 10 countries with Animals, Disclosure (age 19 and 22) have had 2 top 10 UK singles, at age 18 David Beckham was already playing for England's Premier League team, Manchester United and Richard Reed co-founded the now multi-million company Innocent Drinks at age 22.

Bearing this in mind, despite my birthday consisting of more than one wonderful occasions, it was hard not to feel somewhat unaccomplished as I entered my third decade of life. The £115 per night hotel room and drinks on the 23rd floor of the Hilton only provided a temporary mask of enjoyment to an otherwise unfulfilled transitional moment in my life. And more importantly the empty abyss of uncertainty that lies ahead for the coming decade. It is this moment of reflection on a life going to waste that has inspired the creation of my blog "My 20s" in the hope of acting on my vast aspirations, thoughts and ideas.