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Notes from a Garage

With John Gardiner

On sexualizing ourselves; a fairly stupid situation….; the road to recovery

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

I really don’t understand why women and girls in modern Western society choose to so blatantly sexualize themselves. I wrote a poem about this a few weeks ago and watched a bit of a country music special on TV this week and have just been looking around me. And I guess men are doing the same thing these days. Huge cosmetics industry for women and it’s on the grow for men. Cosmetic surgery is on the rise, there are tanning salons on every corner, companies like Victoria’s Secret are thriving. It is hugely symbolic to me and represents extremely graphically how the Sixties sort of didn’t get where they were going. Back in that other faraway decade, there was a real movement to go back to the land – back to nature. Hippie chicks burned their bras because they were symbols of the oppression women had faced. They used no makeup other than the occasional day glow paint and stopped shaving their legs and under their arms. Accept me for who I am as a natural, unadorned individual and let’s cut the crap. I remember thinking at the time that this was the wave of the future….a time of benchmark to the progress of civilization. I thought that in the future people would be able to be who they really were, and not have to role play for most of their lives. Of course, not only didn’t this hippie thing catch on and become the future, it somehow backfired on itself to the point where now we have his bizarre cult of celebrity and young girls across the planet want to look like those excellent role models Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan and Jessica Simpson. Save a place for me in the looney bin, folks, because I’m surely on my way. Anyway, don’t get me wrong. I certainly enjoy the sight of an attractive member of the opposite sex as much as the next red-blooded heterosexual male. But I like to think I’m capable of seeing and recognizing the type of natural, wholesome beauty that most people are simply born with. Strange, but true….

So, let’s see what else we can do to screw up the planet. How about releasing a seemingly endless supply of crude oil into the world’s oceans? Yea, sounds good to me. I’m sure this conversation didn’t actually take place, but judging by the sheer stupidity of the situation, it could have. How could anybody in their right mind go drilling holes under the ocean if there was even a slight possibility you could have a blow-out like this. Man, it’s like using nuclear power if we didn’t know what to do with the waste. What’s that you say? We do that too. Oh well. When will they ever learn….when will they ever learn. I don’t even know what to think about this. Tar balls washing up in the Keys….oil into the Louisiana bayou for several miles inland. This doesn’t sound too good to me. And a friend of mine said to me, “well, we’ve got to do it….we need the oil to maintain our standard of living.” And our modern standard of living involves so much oil-driven plastic and other poisonous stuff that it’s mind boggling. And our standard of living is an illusion. People are starving and dying of preventable diseases in the developing world and we’re going crazy from stress in the developed world. We have cell phones, computers, iPods, iPads, iPhones, PCs, MP3 players, USB cables, digital cameras and just about the biggest ream of junk in the history of the planet. But people are going postal they’re under so much pressure to perform – to maintain their particular standard of living. No, we should be figuring how to experience ungrowth. We need to go back to a simpler time and get our priorities straight. It’s not about the sleekest car, the biggest house, vacations in Europe. It’s not about our Standard of living. It’s about everybody’s standard of living. Take a little less for yourself and maybe there’ll be a little more for somebody else. I know….ungrowth is a tough concept after a couple of millennia of growth. But it’s where we gotta go….And you likley read that here first.

I’m still feeling a little rocky following the major surgery on my mouth, but am gradually recovering…feeling a little better each day. My sincere apologies to any groups and organizations and friends whose events I’ve missed over the last few weeks. It’s almost over…..I hope…..and remember…”Hew to the line; let the chips fall where they may.”



John Gardiner is a 25-year-veteran of the community newspaper business, but he is also a prolific writer of moralistic short fiction he refers to as "emotional thoughtscapes" or "adult fables". Samples of his fiction can be found at:

He has also produced a noteworthy piece of humanist philosophy which can be found at: http://www.xs4all.nl/~aboiten/ad502.htm He welcomes comments on his work.