Inspirational words this Thanksgiving from friend and very talented photographer Lara Shipley:
No one would ever do anything if they realized how much they suck.
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
You, uh, don't do irony do you?
Success has the word "suck" in it!
Actually, when my former girlfriends have realized how much I suck, the tend to do me more.
Does that prove or disprove your theory?
(PS I'm single. Hit me up, sister!)
Don't do it! He smokes pot and lives in Seattle! Those herb-discordant transcontinental romances never work! Besides, do you want to go out with a guy who can't tell the difference between licking and sucking? Probably gay.
I don't know why everybody is so hard on Megan and is so mean to her. I mean, she obviously isn't even trying or attempting to impress or persuade intelligent, honest or decent or smart people, and I say that if looking like a rational human being isn't her bag or her thing, as the kids are saying these days, who are we to be critical?
Live and let live, as Ian Fleming famously once said one time.
makes me wonder.
Does Lara Shipley think everyone sucks but her, or including her? Does she think I suck? She doesn't even know me. I don't suck. If it were just a blanket statement on humanity she'd use the collective noun, but no ... "No ONE" ... I don't like it. Who does she think she is with her camera, and her photographs, and her fancy cup of gourmet coffee ... and her copy of TIME OUT that she reads while she drinks her coffee, but not Starbucks, no, in a local place, cause she's too cool for Starbucks ... and too cool for me, right. Well I do lots of things Lara. Because I don't suck. I rock. YOU suck! With your pictures and your fashionable loft apartment and your dark, brooding European boyfriend who rides a vintage Ducati ... and ... and ... I do NOT suck Lara Shipley! That is all.
So Megan, you're also a photographic kinda-sewer? Don't spread yourself so thin into areas you know nothing about. Upp, too late.
Reading the comments is like watching a bukkake movie, except with opprobrium instead of spooge.
Prudence Goodwife wins the thread. Bonus points for most disturbing metaphor of the year.
It is deeply puzzling to me that women adopt misogynistic expressions. Because of obvious physiological factors, Women suck and men lick when performing oral sex. But "this licks" is not a universal perjorative condemnation. No, "this sucks" is the pejorative term.
Women are thus forced to accept that they suck, not just literally, but figuratively, and every time this expression is used, women are belittled. The only explanation for this asymmetry of sexual parlance is that to behave as a woman is to behave in an inferior way.
When the expression "this sucks" is retired from English slang, we will know that women are treated with the same respect as men. Until then, it is profoundly stupid (paging Ms. McArdle) and self-denigration for any woman to say "this sucks."
Yeah, that's way more important than pay parity and equal representation in high political or corporate offices. If use of the phrase "this sucks" (by both sexes) was really that high on the priority list of women, then whatever inequality we have is deserved.
That said, I don't know any actual women that believe that, I assume I'm just feeding a troll.
It is not a matter of what women "believe;" it is a matter of plain English and simple sexual practices. When women have oral sex with men, they suck. When men have oral sex with women, they lick. Have you ever heard "this licks!" as a pejorative?
"This licks" is not a pejorative because men do not view giving oral sex to a woman as degrading. Women suck is the plain message of "this sucks." To give oral sex to a man is degrading by virtue of the universal acceptance in American English of "this sucks" as an extreme pejorative. To suck is to be a passive sexual partner to a dominant male. This is supremely bad, e.g., "this software sucks;" "this new rule sucks;" "this music sucks."
The fact that women have accepted the fact that they "suck" is proof of a society that is so misogynistic that even women accept their inferiority. The inferiority of women in linguistically encoded into American English. Women "suck," and they accept their own degradation every time McArdle and her pals use this expression.
Or we could just say "this sucks ass" making the term gender neutral and more applicable all-round.
What kind of crap is this?
Women only suck during oral sex? Men only lick?
Have you ever really had oral sex?
There is plenty to suck, or lick, for both sexes.
Amateurs!
And don't listen to John O., Meg. He's just jealous of my bohemian lifestyle.
Hey Wanderlust
Have you ever had a clit in your lips and had the owner of said clit say "suck, suck, OH GOD!!! Thought not. Good luck.
Nice try, fellows, but the tiny size of the clitoris makes it difficult to suck it, and many women dislike this kind of stimulation. Proof positive of the failure of your theory is the non-existence of the epithet, "clitsucker." But, as we all know, calling someone a "cocksucker" is a very serious insult. We also have the charming colloquialism, "this sucks the big one" (not a clitoris, presumably).
So who is it that sucks the male sex organ? Answer: homosexual men and WOMEN. Since homosexual men make up at most 10% of the population and women are about 50%, the people who "suck" are mainly women. Those are the figures, ladies and gentlemen.
So, when a person says "this sucks" what is meant is that "this" has the very negative characteristics of a homosexual or woman passively giving sexual pleasure to a dominant male. Passivity is considered very bad in a power-oriented society in which successful predation is associated with high status.
Thus, it is the height of stupidity and self-degradation for a woman to use the the term "sucks" as a pejorative, because most sexually active women suck. This unfortunate thread adds another straw to the camel-load of evidence attesting to the intellectual, cultural, linguistic, economic, and scientific tone-deafness of Megan McArdle. A stupid woman might say "Megan sucks."