69 THINGS THAT WENT THROUGH MY MIND WHILE WATCHING MAGIC MIKE XXL

1. First 2 minutes: Women in the cinema are getting the downstairs feels. Yes. Already. 
2. I feel like I’m at the horniest hen party of all time. They should’ve given us dick straws. They missed a trick there.
3. POOL PARTY! Or, more accurately, NAKED JOE MANGANIELLO PARTY! Wait, that was just the tip of Joe's penis between his legs. Did we just see his tip?
4. We also have a dripping wet Channing Tatum. Can Channing please wear a wet shirt, like, all the time?
5. CHANNING'S GARAGE. I've seen the trailer, I know what's coming. Probably me. In my mind.
6. The same trailer we watched on loop one Saturday night, drunkenly spouting wildly inappropriate things about what we’d do to Channing Tatum.
7. Now he's humping with a drill. I have never wanted to be a power tool so badly.
8. I think I have suddenly developed new and interesting feelings about welding.
9. Channing Tatum is dancing to 'Pony' in his workshop. This is truly life changing.
10. He’s properly humping a table. And great, I’m officially jealous of an inanimate object.
11. I’m lost in Matt Bomer’s blue eyes.
12. No. Like I’m seriously lost. .
13. Matt Bomer is so pretty. I want to lick his face. 
14. He’s teaching us eyebrow tricks. Apparently you can catch more strays by using your iPhone camera instead of a mirror. Thank you, Matt Bomer, you beautiful human you. 
15. I want to touch all of them. In the pants.
16. I am now reconsidering my taste in men. Is there such a thing as too hot?
17. This stripping brainstorm is the kind of meeting I want to be involved in. I could literally contribute SO much…if staring counts as a contribution.
18. I wish men who pee in public areas look like Channing Tatum so I could take a pic of them and use the environment as an excuse to chat them up. 
19. Channing's inner drag queen is called Clitoria Labia. Life made.
20. If Channing doesn’t make a Clitoria Labia spin-off movie, what is the point of living?
21. Big Dick Ritchie (Joe Manganiello) has just confessed he hasn't had sex in five months because his dick scares off the ladies.
22. Every lady in the cinema is currently thinking they’d be up for the challenge.
23. Cinematic greatness has just happened! And it came in the form of Joe Manganiello humping a refrigerator. 
24. I can't write. I am crying too much at Joe's opening of Cheetos. And water, 
25. “I want it that way” by the Backstreet Boys is taking on a whole new meaning. 
26. My envy is real. I hate Sophia Vergara. And Jenna Tatum. And Amber Heard. And all those women who got to touch these magnificent and glorious humans.
27. Why is Channing holding a diamond ring? YES CHANNING! A THOUSAND TIMES YES!
28. Wait, did he just say he proposed to someone with bacon? I think I just had a tiny orgasm!
29. Wow, Jada Pinkett Smith is hella sexy. And she’s the owner and ladyboss of a strip mansion filled with beautiful black strippers. Tough gig.
30. She’s giving us a tour in her pleasure mansion. I’m scared right now and I love it!
31. Jada’s pleasure mansion is where I want to be every day of my life and also I would like to die and be buried there and instead of a ,I would like a sexy man to dance on my grave.
32. Jada is reminding me that I’m a queen and I believe her.  
33. Can Jada Pinkett Smith please just narrate, like, my whole life?
34. I want a shirtless Childish Gambino to do a special rap for me. I have never wanted anything so much. 
35. Channing's old stripper name was White Chocolate. I could so go for a Milky Bar right now. That's not a euphemism. I'm genuinely really hungry.
36. Channing just did a handstand and thrust his pelvis and basically defied gravity AND IT’S EVERYTHING. 
37. Andie MacDowell and her big, fabulous hair are here and all is right in the world.
38. Honestly pissed a group of male strippers has never crashed a single one of my wine nights.
39. Matt Bomer is singing and making a woman feel beautiful and it is so beautiful I want to weep. And dive into those eyes.
40. Channing just said "Cookies are awesome" and "My God is a She" in one glorious minute. Wisdom.
41. If Channing likes cookies, you like cookies (science).
42. Yup, Andie MacFreakingDowell gets the pleasure of being Joe M’s perfect fit. #LIFEGOALS
43. Wait, is Joe wearing a sleeveless fleece? Where do you even buy a sleeveless fleece? I hope I don't get turned on by sleeveless fleeces from now on. 
44. Andie MacDowell just NAILED the "I've just had sex with a guy with a really big dick" sigh so accurately. Give the woman an Oscar! The acceptance speech would be 👌
45. They’ve referred to women’s vagines as glass slippers a fair few times. I’m ok with this analogy
46. I can’t decide whether Tito’s hair looks better curly or in cornrows.
47. Elizabeth Banks and Jada had a moment and it was damn sexy. 
48. Here comes Tito. I don’t know about all that whipped cream. A hot dude + hot fudge sounds really awesome at first, but that shower must have been rough.
49. YOU’RE MAKING A MESS, TITO.  
50. JOE MANGANIELLO IS A SEX GOD. He’s not a human man but a god descended from Mount Olympus.
51. Joe. Dressed in a suit. He looks REALLY good in a suit. But he also looks good shirtless. Hell the man would look good in a friggin’ tutu.
52. I want to marry Joe Manganiello and announce my nuptials on facebook.
53. He’s tied her up in some metal device. I am vividly picturing my honeymoon night with Joe Manganello. 
54. Wait, did anyone ever actually get that woman off Christian Grey's swing?
55. I WANNA CHANNING ALL OVER YOUR TATUM.
56. Dear Twitch, YOU COMPLETE ME. 
57. I want to hug every part of Twitch’s body with my mouth.
58. Twitch doesn't get to speak. But men everywhere should take a leaf off his book. Sometimes, all you need to say is *gyrates sensually*
59. I wonder if they actually go down on women by picking them up over their heads like that?!
60. More feels in the downstairs department.
61. I want to throw money on the screen. Take my dollar bills beautiful humans!
62. I kinda feel for the dudes in here. I mean, this has gotta produce some crazy feelings of inadequacy. They are f*cking ridiculous!
63. I wonder how many people will be having parties for one over Channing Tatum tonight...or shutting their eyes pretending they're getting busy with him.
64. Wow. Is it hot? Are you hot? Yes, I am definitely burning up here.
65. Enough with the dialogues. Please stop talking and go back to dancing. PLEASE?
66. Is there a real stripper convention in Myrtle Beach? Spoiler: there is, according to Channing. Who’s coming with me next year?
67. It’s over. I am sad. But weirdly elated and most definitely feeling strange things.
68. I want to live inside this movie.
69. Is it too late to change careers? I want to be a ladyboss pleasure merchant like Jada Pinkett Smith.

LOVE ME TINDER...

I joke my love life is like a soap opera. The only conclusion I can come to about this is the fact it happens so I can share it with all my readers.

2014 for me was a bad year for love, breakups and attracting people who weren’t right for me. I find though because I work so often, meeting people only happens when I’m at a bar. And though I’m loving the single life at the moment, I figured seeing what’s out there isn’t gonna hurt. And meeting the man of my dreams while I’m taking selfies with my martini isn’t going to happen so under a blanket on the couch, pondering  with my aching neck and likely eternal spinsterhood, I made the questionable decision to download Tinder. I considered the app a perfect match for my dating laziness. It is literally as simple as swipe left for ‘pass’ and right for ‘go’. In short, it’s the place where humanity, grammar and conversation skills go to die. For an app based mostly on looks, these are some pretty ugly truths. So, it was with this in mind and some liquid courage on board that I dipped my feet into Tinder’s murky waters last month. 

And as a serial relationship person, I thought Tinder would be a good way to ease back into dating. It is an interesting juxtaposition in my social circles; as some of  my friends are settling down, buying houses, getting married and having children, I'm just out of a 3 year relationship and finding my feet in the adult world alone for the first time in a long time, talking to strangers and enduring being sent dick pics. 

In a way, tinder is everything i thought it would be: a cesspool of broken hearts, shirtless photos and sleazy one-liners. It is the equivalent of a Saturday morning meat market that prioritises attractiveness over personality. But the swiping part is actually quite fun, particularly as a social experiment – there are some absolute gems of idiocy and oddity, and some fairly terrifying stuff too. Sorting through the Charizards and Pikachus of this world is a lot like playing “hot or not” and, while it might sound incredibly vain, no one would bat an eyelid if you did the same thing in a bar or club.  Tinder is the online version of that first up-and-down look you’d give someone at the Disney trivia night after-party - when you’re mildly inebriated and the conversation has switched to the portrayal of non-human animals in Pocahontas - only now, you’re positive the admiring look is mutual, because Tinder told you so. 

Needless to say, I ended up getting a sizeable amount of matches. Some of which never made contact and a good majority wrote messages that blatantly express their sexual innuendoes. I was propositioned for sex every other message. No shame. Just straight up “wanna bang?’ first messages. And it was gross. Don’t get me wrong. Like most women, I love sex! I am a willing participant in this sweaty game of rubbing genitals. However, my mouth isn’t just a hole for someone's dick. It more often than not spouts out hilarious, wise-beyond-my-years rhetoric that you should be grateful to be in earshot of. This applies to the majority of women.

Eventually, it became apparent to me that Tinder really is just TINDER - an app to meet different kinds of people whose intentions should not be defined nor questioned.  So I turned my neurosis off and stopped taking everyone’s messages seriously. I would oftentimes ignore the rude messages and on a good day, let out a sarcastic retort. But more importantly, I became an expert at picking out behavioural patterns. I became very sharp at sorting out which “Hi. How are you?” messages to reply to.

And so the saga of my tinder exploits began. I started experimenting. There was cute and funny Justin. A finance manager who thinks I’m way too much trouble for him. Our banter would often revolve around how his beard is really making me and the rest of womankind asexual. Then there was Peter - dude on a rebound. We would mostly talk about his ex and how gloriously shocked he is at how easy it is to get laid as a single male these days. Then Jonathan - a Sydney born Caribbean man who knows my ex very well. We exchanged a few flirtatious banter until he eventually realised the inevitable - I’m the chick that everyone in his community knew so he bailed. Not that I even considered talking to him outside of tinder but apparently, he can’t offer me sex or anything more because of the complexity of the situation. Yeah about that, Jonathan….can’t say it crossed my mind either so no love lost there. 

So here I was - a pro tinderer, swiping away and having mindless conversations with random strangers, when another guy that I matched with messaged me. Let’s call him David. Nothing really stood out about him except that he could spell better than the others and his pics were just of him - no group photos, photos of kids, dogs or other women. And he didn’t have anything written on his profile. So I spoke to him. Then like a pro who comes from the old school, he gave me his number for me to text him. I contemplated on it then decided against it. Instead, I gave him my number and told him to text me. Five minutes later, I got a text from him saying I have a massive ego. A few banters later and I was on the phone to him for 5 hours. It was both surprising and refreshing at the same time. Surprising because I found myself enjoying having a conversation with someone that I met online and refreshing because it was basically the first contact that I’ve had with a man in a long time that didn’t involve looking at the screen on my phone. 

And so I decided to be more receptive to David. Come Saturday night, he called after we exchanged a few text messages. Now I don’t exactly remember the course of our conversation that night but for some reason, I agreed for him to come over my place at a very unholy hour on a saturday night. I justified it by telling myself that we have become phone friends so we might as well meet up and get it out of the way. Besides, not once has he tried to sleaze on to me over the phone so he can’t be that horrible in person. And call me hypocritical but I am not one of those DTF bitches. I know you’re all rolling your eyes at me right now but here’s my argument: 1) I didn’t make an effort to dress up - I was wearing my trackies; 2) I didn’t bother putting on make-up; and most importantly, 3) I was wearing grandma panties! Surely this rebuttal would silence your judgmental minds. 

So then David showed up in my doorstep. It wasn’t as awkward as I thought it would be. We got on to it like we have known each other before tinder. We laughed a lot and had a few banter. And then it happened. With one swift movement, he scooped me up and kissed me.  I wasn’t exactly sure what went through my mind at that moment but I knew it felt good. Well I imagine a huge part of it can be attributed to the fact that I haven’t had physical contact with any man since late December last year (remember, Frenchie? yeah there was no one else after him! - HEY I'VE BEEN BUSY WITH OTHER THINGS, OK!). But as a human being with hormones, things escalated pretty quickly. And so I, a self-proclaimed non-DTF chick, might have actually become an accidental DTF tinder-oni. 

The next day, my neurosis was in full force. Questions were reeling through my brain faster than the Skyliner Keisei Electronic Trains in Tokyo.  Does he think I’m a slut for sleeping with him on our first meeting? Or did he already make that assumption before I even slept with him because I agreed to let him come over my place at 1am on a Sunday morning? Wait, did I just have my first tinder bang? Have I just been baptised and initiated into this hook-up culture that has plagued my generation? Should I feel bad about what I’ve done? Hold up! Do I even feel bad about it? Does he look at me differently now because I said I’m not DTF and then I totally acted like I am? Does it even matter? Do I care? Should I care? Is this what you’re supposed to be doing these days as a single woman? Am I ok with it? Why did I even agree to meet up? What do I really want out of tinder? Did I secretly want a tinder shag and channel my inner DTF chick? Or did I want to meet someone and date them and eventually be in a relationship with them? Or am I just there because I have obvious time-wasting issues and being winter and all, I’m running out of ways to entertain myself? 

Since I’m way too much of a basket case to answer any of my questions, I decided to consult the experts:

Mum: Oh sweetie, did you at least use a condom? Don’t be irresponsible! I don’t want grandchildren out of wedlock! (Not really the point here mum but thanks for the tip!) 

Sarah: You’re both consenting adults. You can have sex with anyone you want and it doesn’t make you a slut. You know yourself better than anyone else does. And you have never been one who cares about someone else’s opinion? What is going on?

Nounou: You’re 27. Time to grow up. I slept with some of my tinder dates. Do you think I’m a slut? The most important thing is how you see yourself amidst all these. His opinion and everyone else’s are irrelevant. You should know that - being the "I don’t give a fuck" advocate and all. 

Miles: Ummmm….you’re not a slut. But you just basically became one of those girls who say they’re not DTF but they totally are!

Ok maybe I shouldn’t have asked Miles’ opinion on this one because he still refuses to have a platonic friendship with me after all these years.

I guess the jump from long-term relationship with a guy who knew me inside out to meeting strangers and hoping there was a connection is a strange one. I had heard so much about being a single girl in her late twenties - everything from Sex and the City episodes to think pieces in The Atlantic swarmed around my brain as I prepared myself for this new stage of my life. 

But unlike what the click-bait articles try to claim, my generation, Gen Y, the millenials, whatever you want to call us - don’t really do anything differently than any other generation before us. Unsurprisingly enough, teenagers have always had sex - it’s only in recent years that they’ve been more vocal about it.  It wasn’t Tinder or the Internet that caused this so called hook up culture. It’s just that now teens and young adults, particularly women, can be more open about their sex lives without being cast out of society forever. 

There’s a certain aspect of slut shaming that is inherent in critiques of hook up culture.  They dedicate thousands of words to rebuking consenting adults for getting naked and feeling good, and yet ignore the bigger problem with teenage sex - the lack of sexual education and prevalence of violence against women. They seem so sure that we’re all having ridiculous amounts of sex with numerous partners and that it’s somehow damaging to our health. 

But here’s the thing - we’re not all having orgies and forgoing commitment. Whilst some are single and fancy free, a larger percentage of my Facebook friend’s list are happily coupled up and committed. They’re having babies and picking out linens, generally progressing down the exact path the previous generations have. I’m becoming the odd one out as a 27 year old who seemingly isn’t interested in anything serious right now. 

So what’s it like to date as a late twenties feminist with a big mouth and the tendency to piss off men? A year on and I have learned a lot. 

Sexual politics, the to and fro between people who are, or could be, or want to be attracted to each other is a complicated business. There’s a reason why so much of our  popular culture is obsessed with romance - because we, as a human race, are too.  it’s partly socially conditioned, but largely biological.  As a general rule, we yearn for partnership and sex. It’s something I think we forget sometimes, that the reason we can get worked up over seemingly minimal interactions with people we’re attracted to is because our chemistry is making us. 

But if there’s one thing I’ve taken from this experience, it’s challenging the idea that men on tinder like to hook up and women are only ever after something more long term. It throws out the sexist generalisation that hooking up is a male-only pastime and finally acknowledges that women like to have sex too (sometimes just sex, hold the relationship).  The anonymity of it means both parties are more inclined to be open about what they’re after, and the simple action of swiping left or right puts the power in the hands of both men and women. In theory, at least, this makes Tinder  a feminist ideal. As soon as we stop demonising or slut shaming women for having safe consensual sex with other consenting adults, we can begin to talk about general equality and genitalia liberation. 

However, in saying that, Tinder might not be the seedy underbelly of online hook-ups I assumed it to be, but it’s no Romeo and Juliet for the modern day either. The app has changed the dating game, but the accepted misogyny on our screens, in our universities and on our streets has stayed the same – the denial of women’s sexual agency has never been more public or, thankfully, more contested. By dismantling the myth of a masculine hook-up culture, we can start to see things like Tinder as any other subjective experience – eating pizza, getting a driver’s license or having kids.

I’m not sure whether Tinder will stand the test of time on my iPhone, though. Data is precious. And I’m all for tradition and romance. I have an old soul. I prefer to date the old-fashioned way. I want to find a guy, lock eyes with him, and fall madly in love. And I’m really not sure if I can endure another dick pic from someone that I haven’t even met in person. Or meeting up with a random stranger in the middle of the night and then going through bouts of neurosis the next day.

As for David, we remained friends. He’s actually a really cool person and I have him to thank for my first and most probably last tinder-oni bang.

Bimbo Moments....

Sometimes I feel moderately intelligent. Other times I have to sing the "ABCs" in my head to remember which letter comes next.

WHAT TINDER TAUGHT ME ABOUT DATING AND HUMANITY...OK MAYBE JUST DATING.

Ok, everyone is abuzz about it, and I know I’m late to the party. But the other day, I said to my productivity, “Hey, workflow, let’s take an unexpected 2 hour break and check this sucker out.”
For anyone who doesn’t yet know what I’m talking about, ‘this sucker’ is Tinder: a ‘dating’ app that’s like if hotornot.com (remember that?!) had a lovechild with match.com. And Candy Crush might also be the father.

Basically it’s a location-based app that pulls info from your Facebook to create your profile, and then pulls up ‘matches’ that meet your age/sex/location criteria. All you see of these potential matches are a few photos, any mutual friends or interests (according to your FB profile) and one tagline. Then you ‘swipe right’ if you find them attractive, and left if you don’t (bonus: when you swipe left you get a satisfying stamp across their picture that says ‘NOPE.’) It’s slightly vain and shallow but it's also addictive. From there, if you also fall into their criteria (age, sex, distance) and they find you attractive, you match. Then you can chat, swap numbers, meet up, get Catfished, etc.

Naturally, I had a lot of questions: What are people doing on here? Is anyone normal? Is it just a hookup app? Has anyone actually ended up with someone this way? Is it too superficial? Dangerous? WILL I BE THE FIRST TINDER MARRIAGE?

The danger aspect really got me. The fact that you can tell when someone is “less than a kilometer away” made me believe that I was one mis-swipe away from ending up in some guy named Xenon’s trunk never to be seen again and all because he had a cheeky tagline and a photo of a puppy in his profile pic.

But, I’m dramatic.

What started out as an experiment got me thinking about what this app says about dating in general. Is Tinder simply a microcosm of what we do in real life (p.s. that’s what its creators profess)? File people away as attractive or unattractive, make split second decisions based on minimal facts, trust complete strangers? Do we really need to know tons of information about someone to know if they're a good match?

Thus, I drafted a list of Tinder truths... many of which are true about dating in general. AKA What Tinder Taught Me About Life and Dating:

1. If you didn’t know you had a type: you do. Hence the quick-fire way you can absolutely HATE or love someone’s face.
2. There is no smooth way to start a conversation with a total stranger with whom the only thing you have in common is the belief that you both are not ugly.
3. It’s okay to dislike someone based solely off of the Facebook friend that you have in common.
4. There is always a wrong way to spell a name. Future parents take note: you thought Craig couldn’t be messed up? Think again: I just saw a Kreagg.
5. Guys have apparently not learned that it might be misleading or confusing to highlight pictures of them with their nieces or nephews.
6. A clever one liner goes a LONG way.
7. If the main photo is of two guys, the actual guy will ALWAYS be the less cute one.
8. You never get a second chance at a first impression.
9. Apparently 80% of men like to “work hard, play hard,” travel, and are on a hunt for an INTELLIGENT girl to have sex with or they are looking for cool people to hang with which basically means the same thing.
10. NEVER trust a man who can take a better selfie than you. Never.
11. Take this as an opportunity to delete profile pictures that you didn’t know you had of you and your ex. Nothing more confusing than a Tinder pic of a guy snuggled up to a girl. The same goes for “interests” you may not know you have selected on Facebook. I just saw a guy with whom the only thing we had in common was our shared interest in Buitoni Pasta. What?!
12. Having hot friends makes you seem more attractive.
13. Everyone loves traveling! And working out! And trying new things! And food!
14. This probably says less about my physique and more about my time-wasting issues and imminent carpal tunnel, but it is remarkable to realise that over 400 men in Sydney have looked at my picture and decided it was decent enough to swipe right.
15. I don’t feel more attractive now than I did a year and a half ago, because now I have matches and messages to validate my looks. Having tons of offers for drinks, dinner, coffee or SEX (mostly sex) does not make me feel desired or even flattered.
16. Men are just as frustrated as women. Apparently, womankind is just as guilty of being sleazy as our male counterpart. There’s the chick who is in a relationship but is really bored of her bf so she’s finding solace on tinder; or the chick who is not DTF but invites the boy over to her place in the middle of the night on a Saturday; or the teenage girl who is currently on her quest to master the art of pleasuring a man orally because she wants to be in a very loving and committed relationship when she grows up; and of course there’s the webcam chick who spams the poor unsuspecting guy’s inbox after hitting her with a resounding ‘let’s have sex’ pick-up line.
17. Men, like most women who are attracted to assholes, are attracted to bad bitches. They make an effort to have a conversation with you and would eventually score you a dinner invite when they know your sweet and naïve persona is yet to be unfolded. Their objective fundamentally remains the same but their approach changes.
18. Needy men everywhere! Apparently it’s rude to not reply to a message within an hour of them sending it. They get very upset and would virtually give you a very detailed and profound send-off.
19. Practically everyone you know is on tinder. Your friends are on tinder. Your relatives are on tinder. Your neighbours are on tinder. Married people are on tinder. I matched with 2 dogs and a cupcake. Your ex-boyfriend’s friends are on tinder. And even more shocking, they swiped right on your pic! Yes, I know. I swiped right for them as well but only because I was curious.
20. If someone is less than a kilometer away, put your phone down slowly--very slowly--and run for your life (okay this one is just me).

Regardless of what your tinder experience might be, mine has been for the most part entertaining and ironically empowering. It made me appreciate where I’m at right now and how much my priorities have changed. Though I’m open to falling in love again, LOVING ME is not such a bad thing after all.

The whole tinder experience also gave me an insight on how the sheer amount of repression and suppression required for living in the context of this hook-up culture teaches young adults not to feel at all. Consequently, I have realised how much I want to go back to basics. I'm all for tradition and romance. I want to find a guy, lock eyes with him and fall madly in love. I don't want the first image of him to be a 'fully sick' photograph with his top off showing me his 'mad abs' that he's been taking 'roids to get.'' But for what it’s worth, tinder is an app - like candy crush and trivia crack- and you can always delete it.