For reasons I don’t care to delve into at the moment, I have been reading a lot of men’s magazines lately. By which I mean magazines which are aimed at men, and discuss matters of interest to men, not pornographic publications. You know the sort. Men’s Health, AskMen, Esquire, GQ, etc. Basically, I’ve learned that they are a lot like women’s magazines, with the same sort of content, only geared at men instead of women. And, judging from my experience with women’s magazines, I doubt that there are very many men who take the content in men’s magazines seriously, but the content can still be a very eye-opening look at male culture and society.

Nowhere is this more clear than in the dating advice columns, which ostensibly provide tips and tricks to help men get dates (for which read “laid”). I never cease to be amazed by the advice these magazines offer, because when it’s not outright offensive, it seems really rather stupid, and I can’t imagine anyone taking it seriously, let alone actually carrying it out.

One thing I find especially interesting is the attitude towards women and personal boundaries. These columns basically routinely exhort and encourage men to totally ignore personal boundaries. To never take no for an answer. To push women far beyond their comfort zones. The subtext is that women secretly really do want to date (fuck) you but they have been taught to play hard to get, so they need to be pressured into consenting. Women who seem reluctant or unreceptive really just want you to push harder.

Now, men’s magazines are talking about this in the context of hitting on women, but I think that they mean for readers to use the same attitude in sexual encounters, as well. And I think this speaks to the subtle perniciousness of rape culture in this country. Just as women are told to be accommodating, and warned that being firm makes them seem mannish and rude, men are told to ride roughshod over women, and to push them into consenting to things they do not want to do.

I believe that people are responsible for their own behaviour, which means that I am not going to accept prolonged exposure to men’s magazines as an excuse for being a boor (or a rapist), but I find it very intriguing to note that such magazines are basically ignoring one of the most fundamental rules of human behaviour, which is that you should respect the boundaries that other people set. These magazines specifically promote anti-feminist attitudes when it comes to dealing with women, and they perpetuate the idea that women who stand up for themselves don’t really mean it, and that all women are really “asking for it,” somewhere deep inside.

Women’s magazines may perpetuate equally sexist attitudes, but I would argue that these attitudes are less harmful, because they do not result in the systematic oppression of an entire gender. And I find it very troubling that such magazines are widely distributed and read, primarily by people who do not understand how problematic “advice” which tells men to be pushy with women can be.

The Asian Women Carnival is an awesome new blog carnival featuring, you guessed it, Asian women. There is some really great stuff in there which I would highly recommend reading, from posts about cultural appropriation to stereotyping. I know that I definitely learned some new and interesting things reading through the entries.

The never-ending quest for boys in China has evidently led to a spike in the abduction of boys, which is extremely unfortunate for everyone involved. It’s amazing to see how entrenched cultural attitudes can have a lasting effect on society.

Another day, another funeral home scandal, evidently. Thankfully there are no pictures with this report, but there are some pretty graphic descriptions, so, you know, don’t read it if you have just eaten/are eating. Also, my hat is off to the whistleblower who reported this (although I wish it had happened earlier).

Derailing for Dummies is a fantastic resource which I encourage all of you to take advantage of.

One of the neat things about creating computer databases is that they can sometimes reveal interesting patterns which weren’t apparent before. Sometimes, those interesting patterns turn out to be key to murder investigations.

If you’re one to believe rumourmongering, Dollhouse stands a reasonable chance of renewal, but Terminator is over. (I’ve been saying that Terminator is doomed for months, but some of the reasons behind it as explained in this article are new to me. Alas. Would that good television would be allowed to survive.)

This fascinating story in the Miami New Times is all about back alley slaughterhouses. One of the things that it highlights is the cultural differences and clashes which sometimes arise in immigrant communities; many immigrants view animals, meat, and slaughtering very differently than Americans do.