dating – Page 5 – Hopeful Romantics

Barbie is Now the Older Woman

It was announced that Barbie is fifty-years-old. She is looking pretty good for fifty, considering all the changes she has been through over the years. She stays trim, colors her hair so nicely; go figure that she is ready for her AARP card. According to an article in Media Post, Mattel will be offering a whole raft of celebrations in honor of its famous doll. There will be fashion shows, assorted partnerships, and a real life dream house.

Is Barbie something special? Yes, she really is. She is an icon a mixed metaphor of American prosperity and indulgence. She is romantic, a symbol of how things should be in life. Of course, when you are Barbie, you will never experience the difficult times of an economic downturn. Unless Mattel develops a marketing strategy behind it, you will never see Barbie in rags, clipping coupons, asking for federal assistance.

Perhaps the most tell-tale sign of Barbie’s worldwide popularity is the time right before the fall of Eastern or Communist Germany. East Germans were given money by the West Germans for a rare acrosss the border shopping trip. For the East Germans, it was going from a place with barely the necessities and few options, to a land of surplus and many different options. What did they buy? They bought Barbie Dolls. Barbie Dolls were the biggest seller.
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We have joked about Barbie, made fun of her and her boyfriend, Ken. We have seen Barbie manifest herself in many different personalities, and a plethora of outfits. Dress her up, dress her down; she is still Barbie. And Barbie is part of our history, like Mickey Mouse, and Luke Skywalker. She is at the place in our culture where fiction intersects with our dreams and forms a working reality. She is part of us. She is timeless.

We will never see Barbie in a scandal. She will never be arrested for drunken driving or taking drugs. She will never go out with the wrong guy, get knocked up, and then make the tabloids in some sleazy divorce. She will never wrinkle with age, and we will never wonder what lubricants she uses for post-menopausal encounters. She will never smell, and she will never get sick on us. In turn, we will never get sick of her.

She is a winner, and America loves its winners. Happy Birthday, Barbie.

Virginity Marketing, Exchanging Your Cherry for an Education

Here is a new twist on the virginity thing or the bit about saving it for marriage. The new meaning would translate to save it for a college education. In this case it would be for a Masters Degree in Family and Marriage Therapy. Both virginity and a mind are terrible things to waste.

According to an article in the London Telegraph, a young woman is willing to auction off her maidenhood in exchange for enough cash to finish her education. As luck would have it, ten thousand men stepped up to the plate and put their money where their desires are. So far, this woman from San Diego, is entertaining bids in excess of $3.7 Million. That sure beats the hell out of working in Starbucks.

I am sure there are a fair share of perverts and the type of crazo who figures he is in love with her, just because of the proposition. The virgin in question here is certainly an attractive woman, but she sure ain’t turning heads away from Paris Hilton or any other sex figure of the moment. For this kind of money one could have sex with every virgin in some small, developing country. Some will even fake it for half-price.

One has to wonder about the attraction or fetish, you pick the definition, for men who would spend millions for maidenhood. Frankly, I don’t get it. And just as frankly, neither does the party who is auctioning it off for college. She says she was inspired by her sister who worked as a hooker for three weeks to pay her own way through college. Feminists must be having a field day with this whole business. But then there are issues of empowerment and independence. Who knows?

Some people are lucky, because a good relationship behavior was modeled in the home and they grew up on, nor are they professional driving instructors who understand the subtle nuances that can turn a decent teen driver into a great teen driver. sildenafil uk buy Kamagra jelly buy cheap viagra is commonly used by men. Everyone suffering from pharmacy on line viagra daveywavey.tv this problem wants to get an effective remedy for this problem. When viagra generika the gallbladder is gone, the sphincter can start to spasm, which creates pressure inside the bile and pancreatic ducts and supports the proper flow of the gallbladder to prevent the rising pressure within the bile ducts. Turning tricks for dollars is an age old profession. We all know that. But what we all didn’t know, it was only a mere conjecture, was that there are enough men out there so desperate for first blood that they will pay close to $4 Million for the privilege. What’s with the male head, the bigger one, that drives us to such stupidity? Guaranteed, she will just lay there, thinking of the money she has collected. With no real sexual experience, what else could she really do? And why doesn’t she have sexual experience at 22 years-old? We are talking a late bloomer here. In this world.

I have to hand it to this woman. Not for keeping her legs closed for 22 years. But for the idea. It is a fantastic idea. Hell, for that kind of money she doesn’t even have to work at all. Provided she doesn’t give her three mil and change to Bernie Madoff. Maybe Madoff should fork over for her. He has screwed so many people, he might as well pay out for a change and give her a whirl. Give him something to do while under house arrest.

All jokes aside, chances are it will be an elderly businessman who wins the bid. If the young woman is smart she will do the video cam on the Internet and sell admission. There’s a few more bucks in that, for sure. And, besides, you get to memorialize the big debut. A little music, “We’ve Only Just Begun,” or some other treacly nonsense, and you can package it as a DVD and sell it off the website.

So in the end, he gets the cherry, she gets the bread. Hey, there is a first time for everything.

Pitfalls of a Branded Economic Culture

Brand names have always been important. For years, a good brand can mean everything from quality and reliability to status and social cache. But in the last twenty five years or so brand names have evolved into “branding” as a cultural and marketing phenomenon. Without proper branding, products and services can either fall by the wayside or play second fiddle to those that have been served up to consumers and businesses with the proper branding identification.

We have become dependent upon branding. Without it, it would appear, few consumers could judge the quality of a product on its own merits. Without branding we lack the know how to determine how one product may differ from another in the way it is made, crafted, or serviced. We can’t really ascertain how it performs, whether in the laundry cycle or on the road. Despite the Internet and all the information sources we have available, there are relatively few places the average consumer can educate himself on the true character and craftsmanship of any given product. We know little about the skill it takes to make something just so, the materials used and how they are superior from the knock off varieties.

So we brand products and services and generate enough marketing that consumers believe either the truth or the hype, depending on the goods. The branding culture has had a tremendous effect on consumer habits and they way they shop. Our economy is based largely on consumerism, and the perception of someone’s wealth and position in society is what drives much of our economy. The lines of demarcation is such that without wearing, using or somehow adhering to the socially approved brands, you are considered a lesser person with no taste, no wealth and hardly any social distinction. Some people really don’t care about all that, but most do.

This kind of mindset certainly has its conveniences. You really don’t have to think much about what you are buying in order to cater to your own self-perceptions. You don’t have to know much about the product itself, but just the product elevates you to a certain social category. No matter that the product is actual quality in terms of construction ad design, the fact that it is perceived as such is all most consumers really need to make their shopping day.

To build their client bases, retail outlets especially rely on stocking branded products. You must cater to your targeted clientele. If you stock this product you are considered a lower level, big box type of retailer. If you stock that brand, then you are the mid-line, department store type of retailer. And at the upper echelon, you must stock the brands that cause shoppers to perceive you as exclusive. Coupled with the design of your venue and its geographic location, shoppers know you are ready to service their kind of folk.

But with the economic downturn, branding may have backfired. With reports of store closings, maybe 70 odd thousand retail outlets across the country, it is becoming abundantly clear that no one really needs all these venues. Surely, the economic dowturn is the largest factor, but perhaps this financial crisis has shed light on a problem that has existed for quite some time. Simply put, no matter where you go, you are finding the same merchandise in every place you shop. One store has no distinction from another. It is all the same stuff.
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You can go to any city on the planet and, largely, it is all the same stuff. It may vary from one venue to the other, but each venue offers the same merchandise on its social and economic level as the one you found the the last city you visited. In fact, you might be shopping in the same chain, buying the same stuff. Only the city you shop in is different.

So if everyone has the same offerings, small wonder retailers are going out of business, left and right. Small wonder consumers are reluctant to buy anything. Not only are they short of cash and credit, but they already have a half dozen of whatever it is being offered in any outlet at any given time. I hear friends tell me, “who needs it? I already have plenty of those.”

In a nation that prides itself in originality, there are few places carrying original goods. Perhaps it is time to see more retail outlets offering smaller batches of merchandise from original designers and suppliers. I realize there are economies of scale, but with staples there are alternate solutions to overcoming the challenges of economy of scale. It would be nice for a change to not see everyone wearing the same thing or finding in a house the same layout as the last house. With some merchandise, pots and pans, for example, sure it will be the same. But furniture?

Perhaps we need a more educated consumer. Pundits claim we are educated through the Internet, but do we really know the difference in woods in furniture, the types of finish, the distinctions in quality? Having watched shoppers in furniture stories, I would think not. In fact, the level of ignorance about the goods we are laying out money for is fairly astounding.

Maybe one way to stimulate this economy is to be a little more original. To understand quality and craftsmanship and realize the best things are built to last. Use them, wear them and allow them to take on the vintage textures of an original creation. Don’t buy junk, because it has a label you can recognize.

Of course the original designers in time may become popular. Once they do they will scale up production as people rush to buy their goods. They will buy blindly, with great faith it will boost their status in the eyes of others. And then these original products will become so popular we will have…branding. Oh, well.

Sex and the Christmas Season

Nobody likes to be alone. At least most people don’t like being alone. Especially over the Holiday Season. Even more especially during over the Holiday Season during a rotten economy. Because there is nothing like the Holiday Season to make your being alone feel really, truly lonely.

It’s shopping alone for gifts for friends and family but not for a special lover or significant other. It’s tough knowing that families are coming together, lovers coming together, and you are either going alone to Holiday OParties, seeing the family, or watching TV with a quart of seasonal egg nog that you can only share with your cat.

Small wonder that during the holiday season sex becomes a major factor. Reports and studies will tell you so. Single folk have the wandering eye. People feel romantic, want to be intimate. With someone. Even, at times, if it is wrong. The alcohol ingested during the holiday seaon only serves to fan those flames. Normal restraint can go by the wayside. If nothing else, hot sex on a cold night is one of the better ways to pass the time.

I wrote some years back about how I noticed women in particular look at you differently during the holiday season. There is that certain glint in their eyes. They flirt both subtly and overtly. You are a prospect, and the holiday season can be overwhelming. All that sentiment, so much nostalgia floating about, it is small wonder people are looking for a date, someone to do something with.

And then I suppose there is the consideration of family life. Most of us are around families, sometimes more than we care to be. But we are there nevertheless. In an economic downturn it is, for better or for worse, one of the constants, the sense of intimacy and understanding, coupled of course with the usual neuroses and jealousies. We start think about perpetuating that famiily life. Which means having kids of our own. Which means having sex. What better way to have sex than for a worthy cause, the perpetuationof life as we know it.
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So here we are in the midst of another holiday season. A good many of us don’t have the bucks to go anywhere, so we are stuck in our very own version of reality. We are up to here in snow in a particularly cold season. Even the west coast is experiencing a chill. That is a chill for the west coast. So there isn’t much of an escape. Even our shopping this year is probably limited. Gifts? don’t expect many. Still, we must do what we must.

Well, not all that long ago in this country, most people didn’t visit St. Bart’s for holiday vacation. They didn’t go much of anywhere. They stayed where they were, hung out with friends and family. Went to parties. They had a few drinks, and they had sex.

Well here we are back to go in some ways. We are a different country, but we are facing economic restrictions. We can be drinking at parties, but we are a much more sober country. So much for having a field day on our credit cards or home equity loans.

But we can still get together. We can still couple. We can still have sex. It’s free. Well, most of the time.

Bad Economy–Even the Hookers are Hurting

A year ago the world’s hookers were being pinched by their flush clientele. Now the same prostitutes are feeling the pinch. Life is a lot tougher out on the streets and in the bordellos of the world. The economic downturn is hurting the world’s oldest profession.

In Prague, long known for its post-communist bohemian scene and plethora of prostittues, business is bad. There aren’t enough tourists notes a recent article in the International Herald Tribune. Not long ago, because of its low prices and high number of prostitutes, there were sex junkets to Prague, where businessmen could sow their wild oats for a carnal weekend. But prices are up and money is tight. Some still come to cheer themselves up and to forget about the global meltdown. Just not as many as there was a while ago.

In Berlin, known for its bady night life, the sex business is down by 20%. As for the other cities of the world, one has to presume business is off as fewer men are paying to get off. Perhaps sex is on the increase in dating and with partners. But I doubt it. Sex junkets are special. It is the alternative to golf and other escapist weekends that men use to bond. Sex junkets are for distraction. Sex with spouses and partners require more focus.

As for the good ol’ United States, who knows what this economic downturn will mean, sex-wise. As for the changing of administrations, from a conservative to a more liberal government, often that means added sexual congress. But between all the people whose libidos are reduced by anti-depressants and the depressing state of the economy maybe there just isn’t the sex there used to be. It may no longer be a matter matter of “just say no.” Maybe no one wants to bother.
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The article indicates that the lousy economy discourages adultery. No one could afford that expense of the illicit romance, the wining and dining and the ancillary upkeep. When you can’t afford to go to dinner with your spouse or partner, it’s hard to justify spending money for the sole purpose of spreading the seed. Even dating has tapered off, at least on the grand scale and the big splash. You know the illusion of life would be if the two of you got together in a more serious fashion. Now, with cheaper dating habits, you tend to see what you are getting.

Driving through one section of Long Beach, California, one eyes the hookers working the corners in other desperation, the disease it seems practically dripping off of them. Not to pick on Long Beach, or even Sunset Boulevard, where a similar scenario plays out day and night. I am quite sure most cities in this country have its streets where prostitutes ply their trade between heroin benders and sessions at the crack house. One has to think while driving by that in this lousy economy the usual trade for this layer of girls is unemployed or really hurting for money. Times must be really tough.

Crime must be up here and even among the upper class hookers. On the upper level your pockets get rifled, while here the unsuspecting trick may be lured to a remote spot where he is set upon, beaten and robbed. As for what the higher class call girls are doing, that’s hard to say. Most are probably working. Just not as much.

Well it goes to show that when times are tough, times are usually tough everywhere. No one can escape the belt tightening operation. Most are shocked it all came down so fast. Talk about shock and awe. It’s tough to feel libidinous when the world is collapsing all around you. Tough to pay for sex. Tough, even when it’s free.