Things That Turn Me Off: Bodily Aesthetics (On Women)

 In no particular order.

• acrylic nails that are at least a thumbnail longer than normal
• tattoos on fingers and hands
• tramp stamp
• garish foot and leg tattoos (usually they're filled in with color)

Basically if you have a tattoo there's a good chance I may not like it on you. What was listed can be seen on woman who are into the "lifestyle/fitness" vlogs where they opt out of the usually 9-5 job and become an "entrepreneur" aka secure some fitness/modeling deal(s) as they crazily work on their glutes to get a huge following on Instagram. One or two very simple tattoo can look okay though if they aren't drawing attention to themselves. But let's go on.

• breast implants that say "we're bolted on" (there are some breast augmentation that look natural as can be, probably even two perfect, and these are aesthetically fine - hey if you fool me then you fool me)
• lip injections 
• butt implants
• weird eyebrow style (i.e. too thin and/or long)

If you combine at least three of these you'll be looking like some kind of low-income trash Barbie trying to be something. What that something is I don't know. Whatever it is it's a sad and weird display of existence. Give me a plain Jane with a relatively flat chest, decent teeth, and a small cross tattoo on her wrist who likes to have a pint every now and then. It's fine if she shops at Kohl's. She doesn't have to be particularly smart or even ambitious (have some goals at least). Those are the preferable basics though. 

A vast majority of working professionals who are women usually don't have the listed features, so that's a good thing. 

Privilege.

When met with people who say you have such-and-such privilege when referring to your race, sex or sexual orientation say, candidly, "Go fuck yourself."

When people say the LGBT face persecution, say, "In America? In the past. Now? Not so much. But hey, the Muslim extremist are coming after you. But if you think you got it bad Christians were persecuted in droves in the Middle East in the past few years and national newspapers didn't give a shit."

When a bisexual who is married to a straight says a part of her is "invisible" because not everyone knows she's a bisexual say, "Okay ... Do you want privacy or do you want recognition? Make up your damn mind. Oh wait, you want society to support same-sex mirage just in case you want to marry a woman. Make sure you tell your husband that in case you want to leave him for a woman. I mean, you sound like an elderly with breathing problem who needs accommodations when flying. Or worse, a vegetarian or vegan."

When people say women are met with sexism say, "Look, I got standards. If the woman is taking birth control I'll wonder why. Most likely it isn't for medical reasons which the pill so happens to bestow on the woman. It's probably because she wants to have sex without the consequence aka baby. And if you got a sizeable chest and it shows it'll be hard for me to keep my eyes above your collar bone. Just sayin'."

When people say that voter ID laws create barriers and infringe on the poor and minority "rights" say, "The perceived hardships of obtaining the documents to get an ID is bullshit. If poor takes three buses and walks 1 mile to work then I'm sure he can also find the means to gather the documents to obtain an ID."

When people say the dark pigment of their skin makes them targets of cops say, "Well, if your demographic didn't cause so much shit in residential neighborhoods you wouldn't be profiled. Look at Asians. Sure, some cheat on standardized tests, but damn, they have perfect attendance. You should probably take a page out of their book."

When people say you're privileged because of the amount of money in your bank account say, "You're right. And I like it that way."

I think I "get" it, but I don't.

This happened in early 2011, late January to be more precise.

When I was about to enter the airport, my uncle quickly pulled me aside - away from my mom and aunt. A man talk. Yes.

"GRA, don't marry an American girl."
"Okay, Tito."

That's it. We rejoined the women; we hugged, kissed, said our goodbyes and my mom and I entered the airport. The problem? I live in America.

I didn't much of it when he said it to me. I didn't even think about it on the plane ride home.

What did my uncle mean by "don't marry an American girl"? Four years have past and, if I haven't misinterpreted this cryptic request, I think I have an idea what he meant.

When I re-entered the States I met a few friends at a restaurant a couple of days later. It was one of those "haven't seen ya for quite sometime, what's up?" type of dinners. The discussion veered towards women. One of the guys said that American women come off as entitled. Was this what my uncle was warning me about? Since my uncle gets his impressions about America from my mother and whatever he hears and processes through the media, I can see that he might see American women as less than marriage material (of course there will be women who will demean marriage and question its existence, if not applaud its current transformation). To be fair, the American media is over sexual and feeds of off the most embarrassing personalities of those that producers and actors deem as "the masses." With that said, I think my uncle was onto something; he saw and felt something wasn't "right" about American women.

In my experience, the women I wanted to date gave off some red flags. On the other hand my older lady friends got married and seem to be in a happy marriages. What they - the older ladies - had in common? A good majority of them were raised Catholic and continue to attend mass whenever possible; some were traditional Catholics. The women I had feelings for? All but one was a Christian (Catholic, actually). I will address each one by the first letter of their name.

"K" is "half"-Jewish (either mom or dad was a non-practicing Protestant, the other Jewish), smokes pot, isn't bright and has other personal issues. "I" isn't religious though she has an interest in "old" religions in a "historic"/hobby-ish way and was the typical NYC girl (raised in Brooklyn by a rather wealthy mother, no mention of her dad, attended a private school later to attend an Ivy university). She seems rather "easy" as well. "S" was the Catholic, but she admits not being sure if there's a heaven, let alone a god, so I'd say she's agnostic. "S", once you got to know her, would probably be the closest to "marriage material." There are more. "C" is a sweet girl; really is the walking granola type (raised as a vegan, and the only vegan that I know of that isn't a militant in the worst possible way) and it rather outdoorsy. Despite our lifestyle differences I think we can carry a successful relationship in terms of "girlfriend and boyfriend." I'm not sure about marriage, though, since I'm not sure about her religious beliefs - if she has any to begin with. "S2" is taken, upon reflection, is the only girl that I thought really was the most "solid" as a person - besides "C" - but unfortunately she's taken. (Though, red flag with "S2": her fiance has a child out of wedlock from another relationship, and "S2" is currently pregnant with his child. They are engaged, at least.)

In short, most are damaged goods - more damaged than any respectable man can bare, comfort, let alone raise a child with. Many have not questioned modernism nor do they care much about questioning it. "I" practically wrote a paper about the wonderment of what could be considered "good" art, let alone what would be considered art years from now -- I cannot see how anyone can be filled with wonderment about this. The cosmos, yes, but art? At this rate, something simple as a dot would be deemed "artistic"(if it hasn't already) and a naked clitoris in black and white would be seen as "progressive." I still have some hope for "I."Actually, when she described her personal fashion as "feministic" I got a bit worried, if not confused. At first I thought "feminine." No. "Feministic." 

Maybe I'm not giving the (practicing) Catholic women a chance - after all, many of the women I had interest in, as written above, were pretty much secular with an empty spiritual life.

____

Dear Tito,

The more I think about your "don't marry and American girl" and the more I think about my experiences and observations of American women, the more I can see where you're getting at.

Love,
GRA

P.S. I am now f_ckin' depressed when I think of your request.

Listen Ladies

If you sleep around, cheat, have little problem making out with guys/girls you met two weeks ago and get plastic surgery then go pop bottles of Cristal, all the while snorting cocaine/fairy dust and smokin' MJs I won't have a good impression of you. In fact, don't be so offended if I ever call you a dumb slut. Both ad homs deserved. Dumb + slut that is.

But don't worry, I bet your apologists will say you're a very compassionate, intelligent and "courageous" person.