MAGIC MIKE, STRIPPING, THE POWER OF VAGINAS AND FEMALE SEXUALITY

 *this is a disclaimer before you read this you need to realize i use terms like vagina...and a slang term for penis so if you are easily offended.... i suggest you click off this page or else hey go see the movie and don't be so uptight...


Well I went to see Magic Mike for the second time in as many weekends. I know it was such a hard thing to do, but hey my best friend had still not seen it and who was I to let a girl down. The first time I went I took my daughters, ages 20, and 16 almost 17 before I get "Oh my!" Lets face it people we don't live in a glass bubble and my kids are not hyper-protected from the realities of the world. They are probably more informed than some adults, and obviously more mature than a lot of the women that went to see this movie. They giggled and smiled and laughed out of nervousness just like I did, but they were not ogling and whooping and saying things like "that's what I call good genetics" as Channing Tatum bared his assets and let me tell you they were glorious. Yes indeed lots of eye candy for women of all ages. I didn't even know what all the hoopla was about until I left work and said have a great weekend and a female coworker and friend of mine said "Oh I will, I'm going to see Magic Mike!" and I asked "Ok what the heck is this Magic Mike?" She looked at me like I was a nun and said, "Its about male strippers! It has Channing Tatum and Matthew McConaughey, yummy!" A word she frequently uses to describe a good looking man. So I came home and googled it and thought yeah I would like to see that and then I asked some friends who were going on another day or just were not that interested. I thought I was out of luck and then I thought, why not take my daughters? They were the best movie mates to take. I am sure they were subdued in their behavior with me than if they would've been with girlfriends. They have seen Burlesque, actually one of our favorite movies. I had seen Striptease and even as a young girl I watched Gypsy with Natalie Wood. I appreciated the Vargas Girl too at an early age, and if I was not raised to be so uptight with my body heck I might have hid my assets behind fans or feathers to make a wad of cash. I love the burlesque acts today. I am not saying that stripping should be viewed at as a wholesome activity but lets face it people men have been objectifying women for years, so now thanks to Channing Tatum who co-wrote the script for Magic Mike its the flipside. As a matter of fact he was a stripper early on in his career.

Boy does it show. I had seen him in "Step Up" and other movies of his. Of course he is Leading Man status. Almost a throwback to the retro glam of Hollywood, in the midst of all of these character type actors today. He has clean cut all American appeal with chiseled good looks and a gleam in his eye and he is well, super fit. The clincher for all of us movie going gals is that he can cry too. He is the big ticket draw here. Matthew McConaughey, nice bottom, and front and abs and arms shoot it was all nice..... and the supporting cast are equally HOT, there is something for women of every age. Back to Tatum. Like I said I had seen him dance in other movies but to watch him  in Magic Mike is to watch him make love.Yes I said it. He has all the moves down, the grinding, the booty shaking, the hip explosion ala Elvis, the air humping, yep he is to say the least very versatile and damned sexy doing it. Now you know why everyone is so entranced by that dumbass show Dancing With The Stars. I think you can tell a lot by the way someone moves their body on the dance floor.

So did that last paragraph objectify men? Maybe this one will. Well shoot ladies I don't feel sorry for them. I was once told by an old male boss that the worlds biggest commodity is between a womans legs. Years ago I was appalled at his comment as any young woman would have been. As I have gotten older I have changed my view point on that comment and have come to realize that yes Mr. Boschetto was right, wars have been fought over women. Women who have ever had power have been vilified for having a vagina and that power. In reality we are the sex that is needed to procreate, to bring forth leaders of tomorrow. No man I know could spit out a watermelon from his vagina...oh wait they don't have one....and live to tell about it. Truth is since Adam had Eve, or if you believe in evolution the first Caveman had fire, the women here, Eve and the Cavewoman, were not chasing them but were rather being chased by those first men. So now as things have evolved, and I say that in a very enlightened way Women want to be treated as equals in the sex department. They buy sex toys, they buy lingerie, they watch porn and they read sexy books, look at the success of "50 Shades Of Grey". Female sexuality is a powerful thing and to be empowered by having a vagina well that's only something a WOMAN can understand. Sexuality is something we have always had, its just that men have only thought a certain kind of woman should display it. Keep it inside Ladies, like your ovaries! I say let it, "your female sexuality" run free like a swinging dick for lack of a better description...
If more men allowed their women to be open with their sexuality they might realize the home-fires could always be stoked instead of having to go out and look for that fire someplace else. The same can be said for women, if you pay attention to that fire at home pretty soon that blaze will be nice and hot.
So would I recommend going to see Magic Mike, well I am not a film critic but it was good entertainment and had a moral to the story too. I wont give it away but I will say that I know for a fact there were women in that theater that would never step foot inside a male revue but they felt safe enough to venture into the theater and watch these beautiful men strut their stuff. Was it harmless? I think so...it allowed these women to take a walk on the wild side. They were unabashed in their howls and whoops and giggling and comments. They all left smiling. To those boyfriends who went with their girlfriends kudos to you I am sure you had a great evening after the show. Not very many uptight women at this movie...my dear friend who I went to see the movie with yesterday was her typical self..she loves men...oohed and ahhhed and felt like a schoolgirl and I did too even though I knew what was coming up it was still nice to appreciate again.
My  Love also knows that I went to see this movie and his comment to me was..."Have a good time!" no insecurities there...but of course he has always done wiggle wiggle before it became famous.

UN AMERICAN MILITARY MOMS NURSING THEIR CHILDREN! THE RUIN OF THE NATION! GET THE F*#@ OVER IT ALREADY...

What is the military coming too first they let women in the ranks, then they let them breastfeed in uniform! How UN AMERICAN can you be? That is sarcasm friends...sarcasm. I love the photos of the Moms in uniform nursing their babies! I wish that I would have taken photos of my daughters when they were little nursing. Those were special times to me as a mother. I was able to nurse all 3 of my daughters and it was a beautiful thing. I think it created a bond that will last a lifetime, that is when my teens get out of their teen angst years. Breastfeeding for me was not only convenient, they slept in the same bed as I did, it gave me a sense of ultra closeness to my children. They still pile in my bed occasionally. While I am not saying that those Moms who choose not to breastfeed are not developing that same closeness with their child, its a different closeness. I hope I am not offending anyone. Moms are just special creatures equipped with all kinds of amazing abilities, nursing just happens to be one of them. I know moms that know its their child crying in a crowd of kids, or Moms who sense when something is wrong with their child, its Mom intuition a special sense every mom has.
Breastfeeding is a challenging proposition. Engorgement and sometimes blocked ducts, causing mastitis to name a couple, something I had with my last child and it was sooooo painful that I cried when she latched on. Once that passed it was again just my way of nourishing my child. It also allowed me to pass on vital antibodies and nutrients in the colostrum of the first few days of nursing. Two of my children have less allergies and had less ear infections. One of them was just unlucky to have my sensitive skin and allergies. If I had to do it all over again I definitely would!

I did not have a lactation specialist or any coach or any fancy schmancy person helping me. I did have the services of a nurse immediately after my first daughters birth and help and encouragement from nutritionists at the WIC program go to this link to learn more http://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/  A great program for nursing mothers and infants and toddlers.
If you choose to nurse their are a lot of resources out there. Find the one that works for you, and hang in there its not easy for everyone, but don't get discouraged.

Now to the soapbox part of my blog. So the Moms in the military uniforms breastfeeding their babies are getting a lot of flack, from the military and civilians. I find it really stupid to liken nursing your child to defecating in your uniform...which I am sure many military people have DONE, among other things. To regard it as sacrilege is nonsense and a total manifestation of MENS obsession with women's breasts. Men view women's breast as a sexual part of a women that serves only to pleasure them. While it is true stimulating the nipples can cause the release of oxytocin during sex, its also released during nursing. So now that I popped your bubble men, let me inform you oxytocin or the "cuddle hormone" helps a womens uterus get back into shape after child birth when they nurse. This also explains why Moms bond with their babies when they nurse.

So basically the Military Moms haters are guys or gals with tit complexes and really need to rethink what women's breasts are for. They were originally intended for nourishing a child. I mean DO we expect animals not to nurse? We dont get uncomfortable seeing a cow nurse a its calf because thats what we expect? Plus most men I know are not sexually attracted to cows....hmmm let me rephrase that and say animals. So why all the hullabaloo? Maybe it has to do with the fact that these Mommas were well, HOT... I mean if they were homely and wrapped in mounds of material who would have cared, or if they were featured in a magazine like National Geographic who would have cared? View the photos and complete story here http://moms.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/30/11955844-military-mom-proud-of-breast-feeding-in-uniform-despite-criticism?lite
Men and their obsession with breasts have taken this to a whole new level on my stupidity meter.
I for one am proud those gals serve our country and nurse their children, do I care if they wear a uniform while doing. Not one bit. The photos were shot for upcoming Breastfeeding awareness month, military Moms are still Moms. I just think that the people who are uncomfortable with the photos are probably getting feelings in the lower part of their uniforms.....now that's something to be ashamed of.

Getting back my blog groove.....

This year I want to make a comittment to blogging a lot more consistently, there have been stops and starts and spurts of inactivity. Everyday I have a topic for a blog on the tip of my brain, but life seems to somehow get in the way. But really that is just an excuse I like to make for myself....haha. I am trying to become more regimented with certain things in my life, like skincare (sunspots what the hell, they are not age spots, they are not age spots, they are not oh wtf), eating better (cutting out the soda, so freeking hard! hey kids leave me a drop of pepsi!), keeping a journal (I can hide it better than this stuff on the computer), doing things for myself (don't remember the last time I shaved my underarms, damn things scared me this morning ready to put cornrows under my pits!) and finally the hardest of all, letting someone have the last word ( I know right?) At least they will think they have it until I come home and blog about it. My boss was explaining to me to say "OK" to problem passengers and just leave it at that, which is very, very hard for me. Especially when I feel like knocking the fuck out of them! I have rules that I need to follow to do my job properly and waiting for you (lady) to put out your cigarette and get your shit in your bag is not one of them. She cut me off "Krisann" style (for those less astute readers I am Krisann!) and then proceeded to talk about me to her friend another passenger for the full 30 minute trip to Wally world. Her friend by the way has literally stalked me on my bus. Why do all the old creepy black men fall in love with me? I am thinking it is the ass, yes it is still quite nice if I say so myself. The crazy thing is the day this happened I was making a conscious effort to be polite. I know that is hard to believe but its true. I had, just the day before gotten called into the office to review a video because a client made a complaint that I was rude to the city. Funny thing is she would not have complained if I was say, Black or White. No I firmly believe she complained because she was upset that I did not speak Spanish the way she thought I should, nevermind that she lives in the United States and should speak English! Do you already see the number of great blogs that come from these two experiences!

Trust me I have something to say everyday about some topic, however minute and abstract it may be... So this year expect to follow my blogs and vlogs on topics such as me reapplying for Welfare, Underpaid "yeah right" City of Madera employees, living on one income, Bankruptcy, Homelessness, specifically homeless camps, Homosexuality, The first Bi-racial President why do they say Black? Inspiring stories of Athletes female and male alike, Religion, more on Addiction, Sexuality, and any number of things that piss me off. For those of you that follow me Thanks so much for doing so. I hope that some of what I write inspires you and makes you think in a different way. I hope I can be informative, and maybe good for a laugh when you have had a particulary shitty day, or if you are having a great day then I hope I say something to upset you! All kidding aside, wait I am serious...thanks for your support!

To leave or not to leave, When your Bliss is on the Brink of being lost....Settling

I have been noticing a trend among a majority of my female friends and I am wondering why women who are smart and vibrant and beautiful, settle....I am guilty of it too. My relationship is what I would like to think "different", but I have chosen to stay with my Love who I probably should have left 10 years ago. Unlike my friends there is a reason that my "husband" was an asshole, and it was his addiction. He is just getting to a point in his life where it is not controlling him. I don't know what the future holds for us but I want to be positive that whatever happens we will always love each other. That is the key here, my girlfriends either are not in love, or have fallen out of love, or don't know what they are supposed to feel for the significant other in their life. They don't feel appreciated by their male counterparts...yet they choose to stay with them because they are afforded having a sense of financial stability. Not to mention that the sex is either nonexistent or matter of fact "wham bam thank you ma'am"....how sad to live that way.


No, sex is not what a relationship is based on but if you think about it looking back at the one you fell for was it the size of his earning potential or the butterflies in your stomach that had you falling down when he walked in the room? Ideally it would be great to have both, but realistically I think women choose one or the other. I have told my daughters to never depend on a man to support them. I actually like a quote by famed Diarist and lover to many literary men, Anais Nin, “How wrong is it for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, ... Some never awaken.”  As women we look for something to complete us as if we were incomplete all alone, when the fact is we are what men need to reproduce....Don't get me wrong I love my children and had my Love been a provider financially I probably would have had 10. If I did not have any I don't think I would have felt I was missing something.... I would have learned to like the me I had become. Lets face it, as women we loose a great deal of me time when we have a family or a demanding husband. That is why you see so many women divorcing as their kids grow and leave the nest because they then have this freedom they never thought they would have. They want to live the life they did not get to as a mother and wife.

When we are young we have this idealistic/unrealistic vision of what marriage and a relationship should be.We formulate this by what we see and live as children. If your parents had a warm and loving relationship chances are you will too, maybe you will even wait till later in life to find that compatible person. If you saw your parents in what you now know to be an unhealthy relationship, chances are you will follow that suit or avoid it altogether. Whatever the reason we end up in unhappy marriages inevitably we need to be happy with who we are first, no one will complete us or make us who we should become, we can only do that on our own.

If you expect your mate to change after 20 years of feeling unappreciated, you will have better luck winning the lottery. But on the other hand if your mate is willing to look at what got you here and work on it together then maybe there is hope. Listen up men when your women are telling you what they want, chances are they have said it a thousand times but you only filtered out the part where they are telling you to take out the trash and even then not doing what they ask, not the part where they are telling you they want more foreplay.

I am not an expert at relationships, quite the contrary but I do know how to communicate well with my Love. I think that is what makes it different for us we actually talk to and listen to each other. We share our hopes and dreams and fears and insecurities, and we talk frankly and openly about sex and what we need from the other. Look if you cannot talk about sex then you probably should not be having it.......just sayin' come to think of  it you probably aren't. It takes two to make a relationship thrive and it also takes two to grow the weed of discontent, one partner plants it, the other neglects it. Maybe that's why so many women go after the gardener....the other man who will tell them what they want to hear, woo them in all the right ways  and make them feel the best they ever have....until the weed creeps back in because as women we really need to love ourselves and nurture ourselves first, we are in fact the Master Gardeners of our lives.

Life is too short to live in an unhappy and unfulfilling relationship, bliss is attainable either in or out of the relationship but the first thing you need to do is decide what YOU really want.

Bullying Is Everyones Problem

I have been wanting to write this for a week now, but being sick I was unable to until today. The reason I became inspired to write this was because of a newscast that I heard. Graduations were happening all over the states and here locally. I was listening to the news and heard a reporter say, "Local teens want to remember student who killed himself at graduation with an empty chair, their principal won't allow it for fear it will upset the bullies who led him to commit suicide."  Yes that is what I heard, at the time it created such an anger in me that I sat and spewed obscenities at the t.v. "Fuck those bullies, were they thinking of this kid or his parents when they were taunting him? Fuck them I hope they all suffer!" My daughter asked me what I was talking about and I told her and she said "Wow!" which is her way of saying "HOW FUCKED UP IS THAT!" As you can see it still creates such a reaction in me that I cannot think of any other way to channel this but to blog about it!

When society places concern for a bully above the memory of a victim and the feeling of the victims family there is a serious problem. Don't get all crazy on me, I have heard of the young man accused of bullying who took his life too, and I have every sympathy for that family as well. A good upstanding family. What created this need to bully in their child, what creates it in any child? Why is it so prevalent today? I only believe it is more noticeable today, and that it is only recently that it has garnered a spotlight because of  its inundation on social media. I was bullied way before Facebook and Myspace, way before youtube.com and way before 4g technology on phones enabled recording of fights.

This is a list of reasons that I have come up with that I was bullied continuously from my earliest memory of bullying to my last. I was bullied as early as 3rd grade when I cut my hair short got called everything from a beetle to a boy how original....here are the rest.....
1. hair cut short
2. being smart, being teachers pet
3. being liked by boys
4. having breasts develop before others
5. being a "whitewashed mexican"
6. thinking I was "too good"
7. not being thin enough
8. having an ass that boys looked at
9. being shy
10. not fitting in
11. being gossiped about as being sexually active when I was not
12. not fighting back
13. being pretty
14. being ugly
15. accused of being gay
16. having a locker next to a cheerleader
17. for being me.....

I actually cried as I wrote this because peoples bullying of me has had a profound effect on my life, it created a lot of doubt in a frail developing person. I began to hate myself and to not want to exist. I withdrew emotionally and stopped attending school because it was a nightmare to go to everyday. I know that a lot of people that knew me back then had no clue at the time that I was so distraught, I hid it very well, by being rebellious and  covering my pain up with humor. My parents had no clue, all they knew was that I went from this smart bright kid to someone they did not recognize in a period of 5 years. The most crucial years from seventh grade to senior year. I hate that part of my life and the power I let others have over me.

In high school believe it or not I wore a smocked blouse to school at orientation, and I was gossiped about as being pregnant I was also bullied by boys who probably had a crush on me... I just didn't know it. It was also during this period that a girl whose initials were LB and was a year under me bullied me the most next to my other bully who I will talk about next. LB had a locker near mine and she made sure to stand in my way daily, sidling up to her boyfriend in typical socie, cheerleader fashion. She would not move and when I would ask her she would mutter things under her breath and call me things like fat, ugly, loser....this went on for the whole year, at the end of the year she took a picture of me, that she had access to because she was on the yearbook staff I believe, if she wasn't a friend of hers was. She photocopied it and posted it on the entrance of the language arts building with the words LOST, implying that I was a dog..luckily someone took it down before I saw it. I still get upset that I did not beat the shit out of her to this day! Because if I could go back in time and beat the HOLY shit out of her I would, terrible I know my teenage self still hates her! Really I feel sorry for her because she had issues of her own obviously.

My last experience with a bully in which I took control, came after several years of torture from a supposed cousin, who called me a bitch daily, people, daily! From seventh grade all the way to junior year! I guess she thought I was trying to be too much of a chola encroaching on her little clique or whatever, I did try to fit in with the little homie element but thank God I got over that really quick! They considered me too whitewashed, too good. Which looking back on it now is laughable! Finally one day passing through the narrow Biology hall, she whispered "bitch" into my ear, I stopped and said "look if I am such a bitch then do something about it!Now... oh that's right your little friends aren't here to back you up.... so will you please leave me the fuck alone!" I don't know where that Krisann came from, but pretty much from that day on I claimed my power over my bullies. It was freeing and empowering. I still had problems with depression  but never acted on thoughts of suicide. I was lucky.

Today the shift in bullying takes on  a sexual aspect and that is very dangerous thing. Where girls like myself may be bullied for their supposed sexual activity, kids today are bullied for their sexual identity. If you present as  too feminine, or too butch you are a target. Looking back at all of the people I grew up with there is not one that I can say I did not know they were either gay or lesbian. You knew...it was unspoken. It was never threatening to me though because their sexuality didn't really matter to me they were first and foremost my friends. Now that I am a parent I listen to my kids and their experiences and I thank God he prepared me to handle bullying. They have been bullied about their race and sexuality. They've been called faggot or dike. They are all girls by the way.... I would not care if they came up to me and said,"Mom I am gay..", it'd be like telling me they want gravy on their potatoes, I'd say "ok."  If they told me they were suicidal then it would be a big deal and I would be the light they needed to make it through the darkness, after all isn't that what a parent is supposed to do?

Yesterday I took the pledge to stop bullying when I see it happening http://www.itgetsbetter.org/page/s/pledge/  I want to encourage you to do the same. To learn more about the pledge go to this link http://www.itgetsbetter.org/  and this link http://www.thetrevorproject.org/

Bullying is everybodies problem, you just don't realize it until it happens to you....



This is the first in a series of blogs dedicated to tolerance....