Love this beefcake movie

God help me, I love men. I can't help it.

My favorite Beefcake movie of all time is "Troy."

As a feminist, I was offended by almost everything in that film. But as a woman...oh my!

Let's start with Helen of Troy. Poor thing couldn't help herself. Married to one man and fell in love with another, who had no choice but to "rescue" her from her husband and her homeland and carry her off to Troy so that a war could be started for her. She's standing there on the walls of the city, watching as her young lover and her husband hurl insults at one another, bang their chests and try to kill each other for the honor of possessing her. She is nothing but a possession.

In real Greek mythology, Helen ran away with Paris to escape her boorish husband who raped her and allowed all his chums to rape her too. Having no experience with sex other than being raped by old men, it's easy to see why she would have fallen for Paris, even without the help of Aphrodite. None of this was in the movie, however. She just came across as being young and impulsive.

I don't wish to be rescued if I can't rescue myself and I don't want to be anybody's possession, but just once I'd like to feel what it's like to be loved that much. Okay, okay, I know (I really believe in my heart) that it wasn't a healthy kind of love that made these men fight over her, it was more about power and dominance....but still. The thought of inspiring such genuine passionate emotion in the breast of a man--especially a man as fine as Orlando Bloom!

Oh Lord, and then there's Achilles. Brad Pitt as I have never seen him before. He's not the greatest actor who ever lived, but I'd never kick him out of my bed for eating crackers. He was magnificent in this movie, in spite of his wooden delivery and the fact that he couldn't decide whether to use an English accent or not. And he rescues this little slave girl priestess who was captured at the temple and of course they get it on.
A lot.

At least this woman turned out to have some gumption and some fight in her, but she was still forced by her own emotions to lie with the man who killed her people. Well, who could blame her. I have already said, I wouldn't throw him out of my bed either.

Again, the "real" Achilles was not portrayed here. He was a notorious rapist himself, given to making sex slaves of his female captives. He was also bisexual. In the movie, he comes across very clean and heroic, albeit very arrogant and full of himself.

I loved this movie, but basically it was nothing more than a demonstration of men, both old and young, shouting at each other things like "Yeah, my dick is bigger than yours!" and "Oh yeah? Let's see! Oh well okay but I bet I can spit farther than you can!" and "Alright, I'll show you! And when I'm done spitting, I'll cut your head off and take a crap down your neck-hole!"

Which brought me to a sobering thought, as I recalled all the whooping and chest-beating I've seen lately about the decapitation of that Berg fellow. Men just love to piss each other off and they live to one-up each other. They bomb our city, we invade their country and rape their women, they hack off the head of one of ours, and we're calling for the extermination of the whole Muslim race. Obviously an over-simplification, but it does demonstrate my point about men. They will carry things to ridiculous extremes, just to show one another who's more powerful.

There's one scene where Achilles comes up to the walls of Troy and stands out there bellowing the name of his rival Hector. Just yelling his name. And of course Hector is honor bound to trot out there and let Achilles kill him. I was thinking as I watched this...if some bitch camped out on my front lawn yelling my name, why on Earth would I lend legitimacy to her madness by going out there? I think I'd just sit down in my kitchen and have a slice of pie. I'd say "What was that, did you hear something? Sounded like some lunatic screaming. Mmm, good pie, huh?" But I guess a man wouldn't see the good sense in that.

God bless their cotton-pickin' hearts, ya gotta love 'em.

The screenplay did an excellent job of condensing the 10-year war into its most important events and characters, though much was left out. I was annoyed by one little plot addition in which the women and children of Troy were allowed to escape via a secret tunnel. It smelled like a plot device to keep the ending from being quite so tragic.

Fabulous cinematography with breath-taking epic shots of the thousand ships sailing off to war as well as heart-pumping images of huge battle scenes.

There is some nudity and adult themes, as well as lots of graphic violence, but nothing I'd prevent my teenager from seeing. I'm pretty liberal about that, though.

This is the movie I could watch a million times and never get tired of it.

Fake Boobies

I wrote this years ago as part of a Collective Bias debate at Backwash. I re-post it today in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month. My mom had it. One of our lovely Sex Kittens had it. I just finished editing a really insightful book by a courageous breast cancer survivor. Ladies, take care of your boobies. Or they will take care of you.

Rather than address the Feminist issue of women having major surgery to improve their breasts so they can feel better about themselves, I thought I’d approach this debate from a different direction.

First, a little history:

In 1962 The Dow Corning Center for Aid to Medical Research, headed by Silas Braley, worked with Dr. Thomas Cronin, a professor at Baylor University and his resident, Dr. Frank Gerow to develop the first silicone breast implant. For years injected silicone was used with drastic effects. The silicone traveled through the body freely. It caused death in many women when silicone entered their lungs or heart. The silicone sack developed by Dr. Cronin and Dr. Gerow held the silicone inside the sack so it would not enter the body, or so they summarized, thus making it safe for implantation into the human body. Later independent studies showed that the silicone leaked through the silicone shell. The term used by the manufacturer was gel bleed.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a statement in 1992 saying because of possible links between the implants and physical manifestation by patients who received the implants, the FDA was removing the silicone breast implant from the market. The silicone breast implant could not be used, except for controlled studies. The FDA said further studies were needed to provide the proof of the safety of silicone breast implants.

The number of women who have undergone breast enhancement surgery in the last 30 years is unknown. The figure is inexact, but then so is everything that’s known, or suspected, about the procedure. In fact, the most significant fact is how little information there is. Which means that not one of these women made a truly informed decision.

As to the 800-telepone number provided by Dow to halt the fears of implant safety Dow Corning Wright was warned by the FDA in a letter, about giving false information to patients over the telephone by Dow workers. This letter complained that company employees were making the following false statements over the telephone:

• "Scientific data and research show that breast implants are 100% safe."
• "After 30 years of study conducted with patients there have never been health problems with implants or silicone".
• "Breast implants are safe."

The Food and Drug Administration has now updated their web page to include new information in the following way.

"While many women believe breast implants cause debilitating systemic illnesses, such as autoimmune disease, this is not proven at this time. However, most women with breast implants will experience some local complications such as rupture, pain, capsular contracture (a tightening of the scar tissue or capsule the body forms around the breast implant), disfigurement, and serious infection. These may lead to nonsurgical medical treatments and repeat surgeries. Breast implants are not lifetime devices and cannot be expected to last forever. Some implants deflate or rupture in the first few months after being implanted and some deflate after several years; others are intact 10 or more years after the surgery. When silicone gel-filled implants rupture, some women may notice decreased breast size, nodules (hard knots), uneven appearance of the breasts, pain or tenderness, tingling, swelling, numbness, burning, or changes in sensation. Other women may unknowingly experience a rupture without any symptoms (i.e., "silent rupture"). (FDA 2001)

Pertinent questions for women considering implants:

• For psychological reasons the replacement of a breast lost to cancer is best for some women. But does it outweigh the psychological turmoil that most women who are implanted feel?
• Has Dow been unethical in the past by with holding the results of safety testing on silicone breast implants?
• Are Plastic Surgeons implanting women, knowing that the implants have to be replaced and a second surgery, while painful for the women, will increase their income?
• Who funded the different studies that found breast implants safe? Were they biased?
• Were implants made safe by the use of saline instead of silicone? Says who? Is there good reason to believe them this time?

When buying implants for yourself, what are you really purchasing? Aside from breast cancer survivors who use breast implants to reconstruct one or more lost breasts, most women who buy fake boobies are actually purchasing self esteem or sex appeal. These things can and should be obtained (maybe even for free!) from other, more healthy and less risky sources.