SIGNS OF THE TIMES (JANUARY 18, 2018)

SIGNS OF THE TIMES (JANUARY 18, 2018)

HERE IS THE LATEST MADNESS COMING FROM THE MODERN WORLD

 WARNING: SENSITIVE MATERIAL

Deut 22:5 A woman shall not be clothed with man's apparel, neither shall a man use woman's apparel: for he that doeth these things is abominable before God. 

Pretty dresses are no longer just for women?

Why should women get to wear all the pretty dresses? Why can't men also flounce about in the feathers, lace or fine embroidery if they fancy? These are the questions being posed by the daring young Spanish label, Palomo Spain, whose flamboyant show kicked off the Paris men's fashion week late Tuesday.

Designer Alejandro Gomez Palomo told AFP he wants nothing less than to "liberate" men from the straitjacket of convention.

The 25-year-old is one of a new wave of young designers for whom gender fluidity is not just a fashion statement but a way of being.

"Chanel liberated women (after World War I) by dressing them in male fabrics like tweed," Palomo said. "And when Yves Saint Laurent put women in dinner jackets it was an absolute revolution.

"I am doing the opposite," said the Andalusian-born creator, whose men show their legs, wear plunging necklines and silk suspenders and proudly sport transparent dresses embroidered with pearls and sequins.

"It all comes naturally to me," said Palomo, whose look owes much to the over-the-top world of Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar.

The director's muse Rossy de Palma has even walked the catwalk for Palomo, who struck gold in July when pop megastar Beyonce wore one of his spectacular flowery dresses to present her newborn twins to her 110 million Instagram followers.

Miley Cyrus also sported a Palomo Spain unisex white frilly silk basque in the video for her number one hit, "Malibu".

- 'Liberating' men -

Palomo said his style is about personal "liberation", and rejects all comparison with a gay or transvestite aesthetic often attributed to him.

"It is just a way of giving guys who might want to, the possibility to wear really sophisticated materials, and certain shapes and silhouettes that used to be associated with women's wardrobes," he told AFP before making his Paris debut.

"I am not the first and the only person to do this," he said, citing Jean Paul Gaultier -- who put men in skirts in the 1980s.

Palomo is, nevertheless, the most theatrical and extravagant of a growing wave of designers who are blowing away gender boundaries.

One of the highlights of London fashion week earlier this month was a raucous show by the Loverboy label in which men and women with made-up white faces and blonde wigs heckled the models and swigged wine.

Loverboy designer, kilt- and beret-wearing Scottish rebel Charles Jeffrey, finished his previous show with a man in a princess wedding gown after putting his male models in miniskirts and a woman in a striped business suit.

Like several other young London-based creators, he questions the relevance of gender at all, describing it as a "bit of an eye roll".

- Generational shift -

Punk veteran Vivienne Westwood and rising young Turk JW Anderson at Loewe also regularly blur the lines. The movement has already filtered down to the British high street, with big retail chains such as John Lewis and Selfridges experimenting with gender neutral clothing lines for both adults and children. 

Palomo, who trained at the London College of Fashion, sees himself as part of this generational shift which refuses to define people in binary terms.

His debut Paris show had all his usual cheeky panache: A line of Renaissance court dandies in silken doublets, dresses and hunting attire, full of delicious double entendres.

It built to a final flourish of imperial camp -- a feathered cape, plumed hat and thigh-high boots with white knickers.

Palomo is far from alone in mining the cross-gender vein at Paris fashion week -- American avant-gardists Thom Browne and Rick Owens are old hands -- and transgender models are now commonplace.

Rather it's the exuberance of Palomo's clothes which prompted the French Fashion Federation to invite him into the prestigious Paris fold, the only Spanish designer at style's top table.

"We want creativity, diversity and a bit of disruption, and he brings the lot," a spokesman for the federation said.

Palomo's independence of spirit also extends to where he feels most at home. Instead of one of the big fashion capitals, Palomo has set up his studio in his birthplace, Posadas, a small town of 7,000 people near Cordoba.

Yet he has been dreaming of the Paris catwalk since "I was five years old and making clothes for Barbie dolls. It's a huge honour for me," he said.

And he hopes his irreverence can put a bit of spark back into Spain fashion, so long dominated by safe mass markets brands like Zara.

"Spanish fashion is a little stuck, a bit rank," he admitted. "But I have something to bring to the table." 

 

An epidemic of female sex addicts is being created through the rise of women-friendly porn, sexologist warns

Porn sites say that 2017 will go down as the year when women really got into porn - but experts warn that this isn't always a good thing
 

THINK about the words used to describe men who have lots of sex, and then compare them to the terms we use to describe women who do the same thing.

This starts to explain the unique challenges faced by women struggling with sex addictions, in an age when easy hookups and even easier porn is always at your fingertips.
 

Data from porn sites shows that 2017 will go down as the year when women really got into porn, with "female-friendly" clips and racy books like 50 Shades of Grey growing in popularity.
Robert Weiss, top sexologist and author of Sex Addiction 101 says that in the past years of working with hundreds of sex addicts, he's noticed this trend too - but it's not always a good thing.
Many people are empowered by porn, as they explore their sexuality and find ways to improve their sex life, watching it in moderation as part of a well-rounded lifestyle.
But more and more people - particularly women - are finding themselves hooked.

PornHub

5

PornHub says that searches for "porn for women" defined 2017

Robert told Sun Online: "I'm seeing more women struggling online than I've ever seen struggle before with porn and hooking up.
"Traditionally, porn has been a mostly male venue, since women don't respond to immediate visual images in the way that men do. But while I've been dealing with men for 25 years, there have really only been programmes for women for treatment and care in the past five to eight.
"What's happened recently is that pornographers are getting a sense of how to engage women - with stories and emotional connections as well as the porn."
And while this is great news for many women, it can fuel debilitating addictions for others.

Sex for the different sexes

Sex Addicts Anonymous estimates as many as six per cent of Brits - roughly 4 million people - are battling a sex addiction, while Dr Patrick Carnes, who popularised the term "sex addiction", estimates that one in five sex addicts are women.
And this small group of women faces unique challenges as a result of the stigma which still clings to sex addictions.
Robert said: "What I've seen is that women don't show up looking for help in the ordinary places. It's easier for a man to walk into a clinic and say he has a sex problem.
"But on the internet, women feel more comfortable and so I'm seeing more of them reaching out and building communities online."

Habit or addiction?

The shameful and isolating nature of sex addictions, particularly for women, mean many people become hooked on sex or porn and don't feel comfortable asking for help.
But where do you draw the line between a normal porn habit and an addiction to adult clips?
Robert explained: "No addiction is defined by how much, how often or what kind. Porn is the same.
"If the porn use becomes more important and more focused on than other priorities in life and they begin to suffer, then we talk about an addiction."

And while it's easy to snigger at the idea of a porn addiction, the truth is that being hooked on sex or porn is just as debilitating as an addiction to alcohol, gambling or drugs.
For many men, and now a growing number of women, porn addictions have destroyed lives.
Robert said: "People lose their marriages, they lose their children, they lose their jobs.
"Certain younger people who are more vulnerable end up not doing their school work or going on dates because they're looking at porn and their ability to function in life becomes directly affected.

 Ohio State course reprimands white heterosexual masculinity
Masculinity simultaneously harms yet privileges men, syllabus states 
A class taught this spring at Ohio State University will review a parade of reasons why white heterosexual masculinity is allegedly problematic, tackling the topic from the constructs of racial issues, bullying, pop culture, societal expectations and much more, according to its syllabus.
The course, “Be a Man! Masculinities, Race and Nation,” includes a variety of readings to that end, including its required textbook “Dude, You’re a Fag!” by C.J. Pascoe, which analyzes masculinity as not only a gendered process, but sexual one, its Amazon description states.
Other assigned reading excerpts include: “Masculinity as Homophobia” by Michael Kimmel; “Advertising and the Construction of Violent White Masculinity” by Jackson Katz; “Dude Sex: Dudes Who Have Sex with Dudes” by Jane Ward; “Looking for My Penis” by Richard Fung; “Sodomy in the New World” by Jonathan Goldberg; and “Teaching Men’s Anal Pleasure” by Susan Stiritz.
The class is also expected to screen “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,” the dashcam footage of Philando Castile’s murder, Key & Peele’s “Hoodie Skit,” and an episode of “The New Normal.”
The course is ultimately presented as a study in “feminist masculinity” that seeks to explain how ideas about masculinity “simultaneously harm yet privilege” men, the syllabus states. It also aims to explain how “beliefs regarding masculinity serve to justify certain kinds of violence by men against others, and violence against particular groups of men.”
Before outlining any academic criteria of the course, the syllabus states that the class meets “on land taken by force from Native Americans.” On the first day of the “Be a Man!” class in early January, students went over a “male privilege checklist,” according to the syllabus.
The course was created and is taught by Jonathan Branfman. Branfman is a doctoral candidate in Ohio State’s Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and a recent recipient of a 2017-18 Presidential Fellowship, the most prestigious award given to students by the OSU Graduate School, according the the department’s website.
Branfman is also author of the new children’s book “You Be You!” intended for 7- to 12-year-olds that gives parents a “simple and accessible way” to introduce children to gender and sexual identity “in hopes of decreasing stigmas associated with the LGBTQ community,” the Lantern campus newspaper reports.
“It was really a result of teaching women’s, gender and sexuality studies classes at OSU,” Branfman told the Lantern. “I often found myself thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if everyone got really clear, unstigmatized information about gender and sexual diversity at a young age instead of them having to unlearn all kinds of harmful false ideas when they’re 12 instead of when they’re 20?’”
Branfman did not respond to requests from The College Fix seeking comment.
“The goals of this course are both scholarly and practical. On a scholarly level, students will trace the scholarly debates about masculinity, and understand how these questions have emerged out of feminist and queer research. On a practical level, this knowledge may help students to understand the ideologies they encounter in daily life. In turn, this understanding may help students to navigate the pressures, exclusions and violence they face in order to enhance their own wellbeing and others,” the syllabus states.

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