The Lone Girl At The Pool

Swimming is a great source of exercise. By jumping into a single contained body of water and not drowning for upwards of twenty minutes at a time, one can be refreshed, invigorate, and reminded what it feels like to have half a litre of chlorinated water swilling round between your eardrums, behind your optic nerve, and in your nose. But picture this scene, imaginauts – you are a girl.

Picture these other things also! In this XX chromosomed scenario, you are a girl who also decides to be healthy, fit and active. You go to said body of chlorinated water with an eye to jumping in it and not drowning for a while, thusly exercising your muscles. It’s a wise decision, and will help with your asthma. The only problem is that, upon arrival at the swimming pool, you find that you are... The Lone Girl At The Pool.

Suddenly everything starts to fall apart. Old men are doing groundbreakingly slow laps of the fast lane. Large men with varying quantities and qualities of facial hair are lounging around the steam rooms. Boys are hogging the slide, forcibly pushing each other down and jumping on top of each other loudly. And muscular douchebags – oh, those muscular douchebags! – are sat in the Jacuzzis. How do these bros manage to have six-packs when they do no exercise at the gym, instead spending two hours every night in the Jacuzzi before heading off down the pub to glass a minority? It’s an irritating mystery, girls. They may look hunky and powerful, but they seem to do bugger all work to get to that stage. What do they know that I—

I mean, picture yourself as a girl. What do you do if you are the only girl there, and the men are imminently about to start tearing their eyes into your legs, bum, and boobs? We’re here to help, literal and visualised girls. We’re here to help.


So what should your first few moves be? How can you manoeuvre yourself through this situation without causing embarrassment or self-awareness, or bringing leering, judgement, and yes a small degree of self-awareness from the boys? Well let’s start this off by breaking down who the men at a swimming pool will be, and what they are doing there. Pre-planning and research is key to your success!


Location #1: The Kid’s Pool

If there are no women in the pool apart from yourself, then by process of logic there will be no mothers watching over the kid’s pool. This will dramatically decrease the number of kids in the training pool in the first place, leaving only the sons whose fathers are either exceptionally well-meaning or whom only see their sons once every month. In the first case, there is no problem. These devoted dads are dedicated to their doggy-paddling delinquents and won’t pay you any notice. The latter set of dads, however, could prove problematic. Ignoring their brattish sons at the first opportunity, these lanky deadbeats will ogle you as soon as they hear your footsteps approaching.


Location #2: The Main Pool

Focus on the main pool. All manner of pondlife could be floating around in here – from yappy frogspawn right through to warty toads. Be particularly careful as you scan, as certain swimmers may be underwater as you sweep the horizon, biding their time until you swim past before they latch onto you. These are some of the most dangerous predators in the pool, as their eyes are resistant to the sting of chlorine, making them immune to any pepper spray you may fire at them following an awkward encounter at the car-park afterwards.


Location #3: Steam Rooms/Sauna

Not every, or many, pools have either a steam room or sauna. So don’t waste your time looking in the sauna if you don’t have one, or you may rip into the fabric of linear space. If you do have either of these rooms in your pool, look for the tell-tale sign of blobby movement behind the door. The majority of steam room/sauna users are fat businessmen. STAY AWAY!


Location #4: Jacuzzis

A bubbling hotbed of male testosterone, the hot tubs are the most terrifying of sights for a young female to behold. Only one form of the male species frequents the hot tub – the “bro”. Bros are youths between the ages of eighteen and thirty who only go to the pool to lounge around in the Jacuzzis. Bafflingly muscular despite their hard-drinking, tough-bro’ing lifestyles, these men are thoroughly tanned and tattooed liberally. You wouldn’t want to come across on in a night club (or would you?), let alone a whole posse of them in a hot tub. Sat alone in there, cramped on all sides by mean-flirtin’ bros who all have jobs in construction? NIGHTMARE!


Check by next month for more advice!

Is it Socially Acceptable to Like Yourself?

Of course, I mean on Facebook. It's socially acceptable to like yourself as a person, although if you wish to possess 'hip' qualities then it's better you skulk around in a dumpster and sing along to Okkervil River songs. If you want to think yourself funny or attractive or intelligent - feel free. This is a free society, and self-delusion is a widely-accepted form of personal repression. The moment you go on Facebook, however (Facebook is a social website where you go to see how the kid who sat opposite you in French is doing in his quest to become chairman of the student support committee for Winchester), things change. If you show any sign of being fond of yourself, people will immediately form a war commission and judge you guilty of smugness.

Why? Why do we still insist on destroying the egos of the smug and tactless? I'll admit to liking myself on many an occasion, as I make a succession of hilarious jokes and snappy one-liners on Facebook. I am endlessly fascinated by my own life, and want to make sure that as many people as possible know the extent to which I am brilliant. To investigate this further, allow me to look upon the faces of reality TV. When we watch X-Factor or Britain's Got Talent, we watch not for the struggle to be the best (most people get bored by the time of the tenth week, when everyone has started to sound alike and the main discussion is "Dannii Minogue: amazing or irritating?") but instead for the opening stages. Watching people find out they are not good at singing or being talented is where most people find their joy in the show. So what if they look sad? Did you hear that attempt at a High C? Classic!

We don't want people to delude themselves. In this age of high-class media prostitution, we require everyone to be brutally honest about their shortcomings. It may be great news that Angelina Jolie is opening up a new care centre in Africa, but did you see 'The Tourist'? Total bomb, dude! We seem to want that every act of brilliance be countered by an acceptance that there were negative side-effects. We can't be happy about someone doing something good, because their clothes clashed while they did it. Instead of celebrating the poor people who are brave enough to go on stage to pursue their dream of becoming a professional self-welder, we laugh at them for being odd or kooky. But...

Being odd and kooky is a marvellous achievement, worthy of extended merit. Facebook has that 'like' button for a reason - to celebrate individuality and silliness. Would you prefer that there was a "While proud of my achievement today, I accept that there were several drawbacks to my success which will affect me in the long-term" button? Do you want everything to conclude with a downbeat tone? Surely it's more amazing that we can say something stupid and be proud of it, aware that we're being idiots but leaving that as a subtext. I applied to be a nuclear advisor a few days ago, a job I will never get because I have no qualifications whatsoever. But it was FUN to do it! And heck, I told everyone on Facebook about my hilarious attitude towards job-hunting, and I liked the bejewelled hell out of it.


To summarise, when I 'like' one of my own posts on Facebook, it is an affirmation that I am not only brilliant, hilarious, handsome and clever... but the most individual kook you ever saw. Basically, I'm the greatest person ever. Feel free to write comments below which confirm this summary. I'll read them at my leisure, before reposting the best ones on Facebook. And 'like' them, of course.

A Guide To Becoming A Damsel: How To Act In A Way Pleasing To Men

Part 2: Personal Health.


A true Damsel would want to try and keep in shape, so that when grabbed by a knight on horseback and carried off into the sunset she does not weigh him down to one side and cause the poor horse to collapse. Opposition to animal cruelty is almost always seen as a plus in the eyes of a potential suitor, unless you live in the countryside. Also, nobody likes fat people. Repeat this mantra out loud: nobody likes fat people. It is imperative, then, that you keep yourself looking trim, slim, and stunnin’. Rest assured, if you all make the effort now then the men-folk will have no choice but to follow you and slim down themselves. To do this, health and fitness obviously have to play a bigger role in your life, but there are oh-so many pursuits which are available to you that it may seem like a struggle to find one which is right for you! And furthermore, if a Damsel takes on too much fitness at once, she may find herself growing muscles. This is a bad sign, because it means that you will be able to look after yourself if you are ever mugged or in a fight – when this is meant to be the job of the man. Oh dear! This would defeat the purpose of becoming a damsel in the first place.

Now girls, let’s get this out of the way now, so we don’t trip over it later: men were designed to be stronger than women. Not mentally, but physically. That’s the reason why male tennis players best of five when they get to the big tournaments, and women play best of three. Also, tradition. Also, ingrained prejudice. But really, the main reason is that men tend to have more stamina and physicality than you do. You can chalk this down to evolution or divine creation, whatever floats your boat, but the reason is so each gender can assume a different role: the knight and the damsel in distress. If you’ve ever seen Shrek, you’ll know that these roles can be reversed, but it takes quite some doing. The aim of this chapter is not to try and emulate Shrek’s success, but instead to give you solid advice about what sports you are best off attempting – and which sports will get you nowhere fast.

First though, let’s talk general fitness, and whereabouts you should be aiming for. There is nothing wrong with a curvy woman, and it’s often said that the women in magazines (not magazines like Bella, obviously, because they’re all mad and gossip-prone) are too skinny and models are stick-thin waifs who would blow away in a stiff breeze. Men agree with this! We don’t understand why women are so keen to shrink themselves down to wafer-proportions, because at the end of the day a wafer isn’t going to be able to help carry a drunk partner home from the pub. Or take part in the more creative parts of the karma sutra. It’s no secret than the male body in not exactly a temple apart from in a few isolated cases (damn you, David Beckham) and men tend to get worse looking with age. Hair falls out, fitness declines, beer-bellies develop. And it is thus that a compromise must be offered. Women! We don’t expect you to throw up after every meal just to stay thin! Just make sure that you aren’t fat. No more worrying about your figure, unless you legitimately struggle to fit in a deckchair. If you break deckchairs, you have a problem. Otherwise, just keep healthy and happy! And with that, let’s see what sports are right for you:


Women Sports:

Swimming

Swimming is a great way to exercise, as every different stroke exercises all the body at the same time, unless your preferred means of aquatic transportation is the “semi-drown”. Otherwise, swimming is a perfectly healthy activity that a damsel can take part in. However, for reasons that will be defined below, it may be best not to begin with this particular sport, if you are at the very beginning of your training. The preferred article of clothing for a damsel in the pool is a full-body outfit which reveals no cleavage. Make him work for it, ladies!

Aerobics/Gymnastics

Aerobics and gymnastics exist only so that women can increase the number of ways in which they can bend. The activities are both highly strenuous, but they will pay off in the long term as they provide the body with a number of different ways to suggest availability. Most obviously, you will become supple enough to drop a pencil on the floor and pick it up with a modified version of the splits. This is the recommended fitness for all women to begin with, as it can be worked on from the comfort of their own home, and will allow you the opportunity to buy a workout DVD produced by your favourite D-List celebrities. (A culture section later on will discuss this D-List fascination further).

Tennis

Tennis is the best sport there is. It combines physicality and exercise with tactics and cunning, and is recommended to everyone. The further bonus is that all men find a woman dressed in tennis whites to be appealing, and the whiteness also encourages them to believe you are a pure damsel in need of rescuing. Make sure never to outplay another man, unless you are part of a doubles team (same-sex or mixed, it makes no difference). Screaming in orgasmic delight whenever you hit the ball is actively encouraged, as it will gain you some attention.

Pool

Nothing will impress a man in quite the same way as an ability to handle a set of balls, on a table. Pool is a sport which will never make you fit and healthy (it will most likely cause you to become an alcoholic, by past experience) but it will make you the star of your local pub. Of course, a damsel would never go to a pub, which makes this sport somewhat of a paradox for womankind.

Cycling

Britain always seems to win a lot of medals in the cycling competitions during the Olympics. It never hurts to dream, girls!

Ice Skating

Men are always drawn to the art of ice-skating, but because of our lop-sided nature find that perfecting this noble skill is ruddy impossible. As a result, it is always appreciated when women know how to skate and are willing to prop up a flailing male as they go round in concentric circles for a set period of time. Any woman who can ice skate will immediately distinguish herself at an ice-rink, also, so it would be a great place to meet new chaps. However, it has recently been discovered that unruly youths have taken to this sport like a duck takes to a frozen pond, so it should be noted that most men you will meet at an ice-rink will be unsuitable knights (see later chapters for more details on this phenomenon). Ice skating remains an impressive sport, though, and also it lets you wear shoes with razors on them, which is pretty cool.

Rallying

Picture the scene: your knight has staggered out of a business lunch and realises with fright that he has had a few drinks too many and can’t drive his car. What’s a boy to do? Well, if he has a girl who is proficient with a handbrake, he can call her and ask for help. And just imagine how grateful he’ll be (if he remembers)!


Sports To Avoid:

Rugby

A brutal sport, rugby stands for everything which a damsel should abhor. Running, sweating, mud, contact with other people: it’s a nightmare of the grandest proportions. Add to this that rugby is meant to be played by fat people, and you have yourself a sport which no woman should ever admire or take any part in (unless you have a particular fetish for posh men in shorts).

Weight Lifting/Body Building/Boxing/Shot Put

Remember the mantra: “nobody likes fat people.”

Football

Football is just awful. It’s awful. And besides, all the men who play football all seem to be racists and GBH-culprits in waiting, so what’s the point? It’s a stupid sport played by losers. And the fans? Wow, the fans are the most ignorant and prejudiced bunch of oiks you’ll ever see. No man who puts football first is going to turn out to be an emotionally available and loving boyfriend. No, because they’ll be going off once or twice every week to see some men in coloured shirts which somehow links them to a certain town play a match against a bunch of other men (who are quite often foreign, so what’s the point of making them part of an English team and saying they’re a part of the squad?) for a long period of time in awful conditions and what’s the point? Seriously, what’s the point? What an awful sport.

Golf

Golf is for only for drunk businessmen and the elderly.

Hockey

When a woman comes of age, she is taught to play hockey by her teachers and sent into the field to serve her country. As an incentive, she is given a large stick to brandish and frighten the opposition. Sadly, most men already find women to be terrifying enough without them also being equipped with cudgels, so it’s probably best that you leave the stick at home and don’t bother with hockey. This sport does tie-in with ice skating to form ice-hockey, which is even more heinous than this. Hockey isn’t a “banned” sport; more an “advised against” one.

Darts

As with pool, darts is a game only ever played in pubs. But at least pool has the self-respect to have specialist halls for professionals to play the game at tournament level. Darts tournaments always seem to be held at the local. On top of this, the only people who will admire your feminine ways while you play darts are fat blokes with curry stains on their shirt. And let’s repeat that mantra one more time, shall we? Nobody likes fat people!


Now you’ve decided upon a set of sports to play, the next step in keeping healthy is to make sure that your diet is spectacular and svelte. To do this, we’ll have to move forwards a chapter…

It's Hard To Be A Man

At Wilftonville we recognise the inferiority of women. Not many sites will admit to being so forward-thinking as we are, but this is because most sites have a history of fascism.

"Fascism: nobody on the internet seems to know what it means."

Whenever men and women get into a fight about which gender has it worst, the conversation inevitably turns to the idea of childbirth. Women have to go through with it for nine months (the pregnancy, not the birth itself) without any way of transferring the pain and general irritation over to the men-folk. Apparently giving birth is quite the painful experience, and women are not happy about the fact that they have to do it. And because they do, this means that they have some sort of monopoly on persecution complexes. We can’t stand for that!

Women may feel pain in childbirth, sure. There’s no way of knowing for certain. However, due to the screaming that women do on television whenever they do a birth scene, men will just have to assume that something painful is going on there. Let’s not fight about this. But the problem is that all women seem to be under the belief that childbirth is the most painful thing that could ever happen to a person, when in reality it barely scrapes into the top ten. Men have been far too chivalrous to tell women that their complaints are ill-justified, but a time has to come when every secret gets revealed to the World, and the time has come for this one to be told.

In childbirth, women push their legs apart and think of England (unless they are not English, in which case they think of something pagan) and a baby comes out a few hours later, if all goes to plan. Now that’s pretty nasty, but how often does a woman go through the process in her life? Maybe two or three times, generally speaking, although many others don’t have any children at all. Or have fourteen. But the women who have fourteen babies are obviously enjoying the whole process, and so can’t be counted into the equation. Most women give birth maybe two or three times. They are one-off moments which don’t come around very often. For men, there is something much worse that happens, and society has been too quiet about this for too long. It needs to be said.

Society wants men to set their faces on fire.

There, it’s been said. Society as a whole is aimed towards making sure that men burn themselves hideously around their face at least once in their lives. But where’s the evidence for this, you wonder? Well, let’s first take stock of what nature does to male faces. For no apparent reason, if you take a man out into the wild for more than a few days, he’ll come back with facial hair all over his lower face. Unless the man is still hilariously undeveloped, that is. But most men will return with a warm coat of hair all around their chin, cheeks, and nose. Is there any logical reason for why hair grows here? No! It’s a completely irrational - some would say ‘dick’ - move on nature’s part.

That’s nothing to do with society, though. What is part of society is the notion that if a man shaves, he should cover his face with aftershave... after... he shaves. Again, there is no reason provided for why men should have to do this. And yet: did you know that aftershave is flammable? It says on the bottle that if you put near a naked flame, the thing will explode! So what’s being said is that if a man doesn’t have a beard, he should instead have a face covered in flammable substances?

Why does society want men to set their faces on fire?

As a side-note: this week I’m writing all my articles one after another on the same night, and at the moment it’s gone well past three in the morning. This will provide amusing narcoleptic humour for all of you, if things go well. If things go badly, I may cause a diplomatic incident which will result in my quiet elimination at the hands of covert nerdy operatives of the Government. I welcome either outcome.

A Guide To Becoming A Damsel: How To Act In A Way Pleasing To Men

General Appearance (cont.)


Clothing:

Clothes are, as far as anyone knows, one of the four deadly kryptonites for women (we’ll get to the other three later on). Women in the fictional medium of television are always unable to go anywhere without first attempting to try out five different looks for the event, before deciding that their best bet was the first outfit they tried. Now this may or may not be true, but it probably is true, and that’s a problem for us men. We know that you like to look your best, but one thing that needs to be stressed to you is that if you have already got a husband or boyfriend who is waiting for you to dress, then you’ve already won. You don’t need to look completely unique and wonderful all the time. If you happen to be single, however, we understand your desperate lunges through the wardrobe. That’s why this clothing section is going to set down a few ideas that should make things easier for everyone involved.

There are several rules which can’t be questioned. They exist on a different level to all the other rules, and if you’re really going to take all this seriously like you should? You’re going to have to observe these rules to the letter. The first essential rule of Damseldom is to Keep It Classy. That’s not in the sense that Will Ferrell suggests every five damn minutes in the film Anchorman, but in the sense that if you dress like a classless whore, then men will treat you as such. Now, one thing we accept is that there are quite a few women out there who enjoy being treated like a classless whore – and we’re not discriminating against you. However, you probably aren’t going to gain much from reading this, so it’s probably best you go somewhere else now. And if you happen to be a whore who is offended by the implications we just made, then you need to re-read that sentence again. We were talking about classless whores. Not classy whores! Don’t get your legal-to-remove panties in a twist!

So what do we mean when we say classy? Well, for a start, we’re going to have to burn all the different types of miniskirts that exist in the World today. While we don’t doubt for a minute the fact that you, dear female readers, are the very definition of beauty, there are certain women out there who do not understand the concept of dressing their size. We’re talking fat girls here. Not even fat girls. Any girl who wears clothes that are obviously too small to wear are not only deceiving themselves, but are turning off men with the ferocity of a rabid Germaine Greer. It’s not that we want girls to be skinny as models, because the media has made men believe that the only attractive women are the women you see in magazines. It’s that we want you to dress correctly for your size. The nastiness comes not with girls who are overweight – overweight girls need love too, you guys – but with girls who are squeezing themselves into tight skirts that squash all their flesh upwards so it folds over the hem. Excuse us for a moment while we go outside to try and forget about that image.

Any outfit which exposes you exposes you. As a person. It gains you attention, but never from the people you want it to. The “hey look at me! I’m here!” approach to fashion will only ever attract people who have sweaty hetero love on their mind. And rugby players. It will make you far more appealing if you help with the ban on all overly-revealing outfits by burning miniskirts, crop-tops, hot-pants, and all other items of disgustingness. This is a far bigger sacrifice for men than it is for women, but we’ll suffer in silence because it’s for the greater good. Even though the sight of an attractive women in a low-cut top is one of the most wonderful sights imaginable, as the millions of people who watch Dancing On Ice will testify, if the banning of all clothes like that will mean that it keeps us safe from women dressing like they’re still thirteen… then it’s a burden we will carry willingly.

Moving on from this, there are negatives to be drawn from both ends of the spectrum. It’s great if women decide not to dress so fleshulously, but at the same time there was those who overdo it, and dress in suits. This is another item of clothing we’re reluctant to let women wear. On the one hand, it does denote female strength in the workplace, and show us all that women are just as good at maintaining a career as men are. On the other hand, it makes men look weaker than women. Being a damsel means that you have to let men perceive you as weak (even though in reality you’re an ass-kicking girl-power all-action babe), and dressing like you’re about to emasculate the company director of a banking firm with your bare hands doesn’t help that image. Not one bit. We’re going to have to formally request that you take the suits you’ve been collecting in your wardrobe, and throw them all away – or sell them to skinny men – because they’re simply no use to any damsel. You want a Knight to come along on a white horse and rescue you from the dreariness of life, but if that Knight comes along and spots you dressed in a suit, what’s he going to think? “There’s a damsel in distress!” or “That strong, confident woman looks like she doesn’t need any help from a Man!” The answer is the latter. A woman in a suit is committed to her job, and Knights expect their damsels to be committed to them.

Remember: you only need to masquerade as a damsel until you’ve got the Knight of your dreams. Once you own him, feel free to emasculate as much as you wish.

If you can’t wear suits, and you can’t wear any sort of revealing clothes, then what are you allowed to wear? Quite simply, dresses. Plain dresses or elaborate dresses, there’s no limit to what your imagination can turn into fashion reality. Every woman looks good in a dress, be it a little black one or a full on PETA-baiting ballgown. There is a reason why whenever people hold a posh get-together, the invite usually asks for the women to wear a dress – it’s when you look your best. So why not take that best-ness and spread it out over every day of the year? It makes sense if you think about it, apart from in countries like the Arctic where it would make walking an exceptionally difficult chore. In most Western countries, however, it’d just be a minor daily inconvenience. Considering how many daily inconveniences you girls say you suffer through anyway, what’s one more to add to that list? Get yourself in a dress, and you’ll be the talk of the office. It’s a near-guarantee.

A Guide To Becoming A Damsel: How To Act In a Way Pleasing To Men

Part 1: General Appearance


Accessories and Beauty Products

The first step, oh grr-some femmes, is to go through your house and find all the jewellery you’ve been hoarding since you first realised that you liked shiny things. You should try and collect together all of them into one pile – the earrings, the necklaces, and especially the rings. What do you think of them when you see all the pieces together, lumped into one big pile? Are you impressed by them? These items of jewellery right here on the bed (you did put them on your bed, didn’t you, women who are following along? Just another example of the fact that this is a website that cares) symbolise your ties to corporations. Now, unless we’re talking about FIFA, the BBC or McVities, you should know that no men like corporations. At least, none of the men that are worth chasing. Corporations remind men of the big companies which run their daily lives, and thus by wearing jewellery you are simply reminding them repeatedly of the drudgery that makes up their working lives. Drudgery is not a good look for you.

Take aside any pieces of jewellery that has a good story or some meaningful family history and put them back in the drawer, where they can safely remain. Those pieces of jewellery are allowed. Everything else must go! Sell them on to women who have yet to read this, make yourself a pile of cash, and sit on it for a while. You don’t need that jewellery, because the purpose of jewellery and accessories similar to jewellery (example: bangles) is to be bought and given by men to women. The typical scenario nowadays tends to have the following happen:

Man: Hi!
Woman: Hello also to you.
Man: I have bought you a bangle.
Woman: Oh, I already have a bangle.
Man: [Break Up]

If women already have jewellery hanging around every available limb or edge on their bodies, it defeats the point and intention of giving them jewellery in the first place. The fashion industry, specifically the section of the fashion industry which is focally based upon selling jewellery, may suffer from this approach. Good! They have too much money as it is.

While we’re at it, let’s take the majority of your make-up away from you, because here’s another secret which women are oblivious of but which seems blindingly obvious to most men: you look best without it. Keep the basic make-up, sure, because it makes you feel more confident, and the last thing you need is to feel nervous and embarrassed about going out in public. You need to stay secure with yourself, like the hip momma you almost certainly are. The stuff which makes your face an unnatural colour and that little brush that turns your eyelashes into perpetually moving insects of an unspecified nature however – men politely ask you to stop using that. The final point to make regarding make-up is the need women have to bronze themselves, as if men find that attractive.

Men do not generally find that attractive. In fact, it makes you look strange. Going to a salon and getting a sun-tan also brings with it a risk of cancer, which will not be a good look for you. Men are surprisingly able to overlook appearances, but bald women have never been attractive. They’re like those cats you see with all their hair missing – you recognise what it is, but you can’t comprehend it. Around the World, the defining image for women from round here is of ‘the English Rose’. These women are not suntanned, and are instead naturally pale. We like that. Don’t go pretending to be someone who you are not. Make-up is there to make you feel better about yourself, not so that you can go round in disguise all the time. If men in England wanted a woman with a tan, then we’d go to Spain every Summer holi… We’ll now move on.

There are women out there who wear their hair up. In order to enhance your status as a damsel, however, we politely ask that you stop doing this. If you wish to be a Princess, then you’ll have to wear your hair down, and let it flow freely. That’s what Rapunzel did, and the decision never did her any harm! But seriously, wearing your hair up tightens the skin in your face as the hair is pulled backwards, thus putting strain on your features and making your forehead more wrinkly in years to come. Do you want that? Putting your hair up is the occasional fashion move, not the typical one. It makes you look younger and more in need of rescue from strong, heroic men. You may not be approached by said strong, heroic men while dressed in the way we’ve so far described, but we never made any guarantees (note to editor – cut the guarantee we made in the introduction).

You can still buy ridiculous shoes if you like.

Through implementing some of these changes, hopefully you can see the point that’s being driven to: levelling the field for all women. Every woman, no matter how rich, will have to rely on her personality rather than her looks when it comes to attracting men. Sure, it’s a little bit of a hopeless dream, but it’s a romantic one that you should enjoy thinking about. After all, you have a great personality, don’t you?

A Guide To Becoming A Damsel: How To Act In a Way Pleasing To Men

A Guide To Becoming A Damsel: How To Act In a Way Pleasing To Men


Introduction

Women! We live in an age of increased awareness of the fact that you are no longer inferior to men, and in most places in the world we, the men, have begun to accept your equal public status. It’s a difficult transition for us to accept, naturally, as previously we were in charge of everyone. Especially for the white men, to whom no other human could ever be seen as too inferior, the sudden loss of power has been jarring. Sure, we can always block your attempts to take over meaningful roles within government, but that can only last for so long. Sooner or later, the World is going to have to accept the fact that you are every bit as important as we are.

This is a good thing, naturally, and allow us to join you in celebrating this small victory in the long march to World domination (this is your eventual goal, isn’t it?) and happiness for women worldwide. In certain parts of the world women have yet to wrestle back their half of power from male orientated traditions, a failing for which religion presumably should take some of the blame, and society the brunt of it. It can’t have been easy for you to stand up to men and demand your rights and personal freedoms which everyone took for granted back when only men could have them, and it’s a shame that the journey has been so long for you.

Taking back the world has left you with several casualties, however. Scientists are now saying that more women are getting older on their own than ever before, without a partner or family by their side as the long, terrifying walk towards menopause continues ever onwards. You’ve all started focusing on your careers instead, getting yourselves into higher positions of responsibility within your chosen career path and generally showing up the men at every turn. It seems that with great power comes great responsibility, then, and the responsibility of people to continue the human race is getting forgotten, what with all the “finance” and “economic security” that everyone feels a need to seek out nowadays. But surely, given the facts that now women have more money than ever before, on top of the whole finding women with power hot thing that men have felt since the dawn of time, you’d imagine that men would take up the initiative when it comes to dating. Men should be coming up to women more often than ever before, initiating contact and trying to form relationships.

This isn’t happening. There are two possible reasons for why this could be happening:

One: Men aren’t interested in women for anything other than sex. Relationships are horrifying things which no man in his right mind would ever want to get mixed up with because it means that they are no longer able to sleep around and drink a lot with the lads.

As we can all easily accept that men are not that shallow, reason one is not something that can even be considered for discussion.

This leaves reason two:

Two: Women have gotten less attractive.

We don’t mean in the physical sense, because again it has to be stressed that men aren’t that shallow. And anyway, you shouldn’t judge a woman on the way she looks. It’s the personality that matters, so does this modern trend for female singletons prove that women in general have become unlovable monsters whom nobody could ever love? Has the push to be stronger-willed and strongly proud of their own femininity meant that women have isolated the one minority group who never get any sympathy – men?

No and yes. While it’s true that you women have grown in stature over the past few decades, you’re still as likeable as ever you were. Men still like you all. The problem, we’d like to suggest, is not you, but us. We’re feeling scared of women now, because if we say something inappropriate you’ll drop us on the kerb and move on to the next man. It truly is the female revolution, because you’ve realised now that men need you a lot more than you need us, and as a result we have no power left in the war that is romance. You hold all the power, which makes you strong, but fallible. You might be able to dominate us men-folk now, but you’re also more precariously placed than ever before.

Basically put, the problem is that men are unable to connect to women because you hold all the cards. Men are scared of women. That’s what we need to address. Now, we’re not advocating that women suddenly give up their lives and forget there ever was a feminist revolution – heck no – but wouldn’t it be nice if we could all find the person of our dreams once more? In this guide, we’re going to suggest that women should act ‘meek’. You don’t have to be meek for this to work, and it works better if you aren’t, but the important thing is that you learn just what it is that men are looking for in a woman – a damsel in distress. If you ‘become’ a damsel, then men ‘become’ a knight in shining armour, and everyone can be happy. You’ll still be able to call the shots, but at the same time: boyfriend! Wouldn’t that be something to tell your parents?

So on and off, when this feature turns up online, we’ll be giving you advice on how to live your life ‘as a damsel’ so that men won’t be scared of you anymore. If you follow our simple guidelines, then we can nearly guarantee that within mere months you’ll be seeing your life improve. It’s an ambitious project, but one which you’re more than capable of achieving. After all, did you not put the “grr” in “grrrrl power?”

Who Should Be The Eleventh Doctor?

We’re getting closer and closer to the day when David Tennant hangs up the stethoscope (I bet you’ve never heard anyone make that joke, have you? Have you? Hahahaa!!) But when he does hang up the stethoscope, who should pick up the stethoscope that he has just hung up and use it as their stethoscope? To work it out, all we need to do is look at just what it is that makes the Doctor “THE” Doctor, and it all becomes startlingly clear. Stethoscope.

• The Doctor is surrounded by companions.
• The Doctor wears cool glasses.
• The Doctor can go from manic to calm within the space of two seconds.
• The Doctor is not particularly stylish.
• The Doctor is, however, a style icon.
• The Doctor is a little bit mad.
• The Doctor is male.
• The Doctor is the most egocentric man in the Universe.
• The Doctor blurts out nonsense phrases with odd regularity.
• The Doctor is loved by all.
• The Doctor is suave.
• The Doctor loves to order women around.
• The Doctor has a bizarre family tree.
• The Doctor is the mortal enemy of the Daleks.

Who, then, should be the Eleventh Doctor....?

My Beef With Robert Mugabe

Last week I was feeling outspoken, and controversial, so I decided to take a stand against something. After searching the news for a cause I could get behind, I landed on a story about Robert Mugabe’s refusal to accept he had lost the Zimbabwe national election. Inspired into action, I went immediately to my Facebook page and changed my status to:

“Steve would be more than happy to steal Zimbabwe from Mugabe. Hell, I couldn't screw that place up anymore than he did, can I? I challenge you to a fistfight, Mugabe!”

Little did I realise what I was beginning.


Within a few hours of putting this status up, I found that a group had been created in support of my challenge against Mugabe, titled “I bet I can find 1 person who wants to see Steve fight Robert Mugabe”. Within mere days, this group has attracted fifteen members, all of whom previously knew me and wanted to see me achieve my goal of fighting the Zimbabwean leader on a global stage. I didn’t have any specifics down for where, when, and how the fight would take place, all I knew was that at some point in my future, I wanted to take on that man and see if I could succeed where politics and violence had failed before me.

Mugabe has still not responded to my challenge, despite the tens of supporters I have backing me, and I presume this is because he is too busy being a coward and sticking with politics. Strangely, after weeks of speculation that he had lost the elections handsomely, Mugabe now seems to be winning, a feat that many call out as blatant rigging of the results. Now I don’t know much about politics – my specialisation lies within the realm of bare knuckle boxing – but I agree. It seems like Mugabe is rushing his claim to the leadership of Zimbabwe, and I think I know why. He’s seen my challenge, and he’s worried. This entire thing is clearly a reaction to my offer of a fight, whereby he is trying to cement his position as President before I can get over there and take it from him.

I wasn’t entirely sure if this was true, so I had a talk with Nelson Mandela about what could possibly be motivating Mugabe. He was at a fund-raiser doing his best to save the world (sure, like THAT is ever going to happen) and I sidled over to him. “Hey N-Dogg,” I said, utilising the black lexicon that I’ve developed after countless hours of watching Chris Rock stand-up shows. “What up?”
“I do not know” he told me. “What is up with you?”
I turned to face him. “Listen, I need a straight-up answer from you, y’feel me? I need to know; what’s up wit that Mugabe foo?” (This was a term I had learnt from watching the A-Team, which features a black member on the team).
He looked at me, sighed, and put a hand on my shoulder in reassurance. “Trust me, you do not want a part of that shit. He would straight up murder your ass,” he told me wisely, sighing again before walking off in disconsolation.

Undeterred by this warning from the wisest man on the planet, I posted a message on the wall of the facebook group, calling out Mugabe again. I told him that if he didn’t accept my challenge of a boxing fight, then that would make him a gay – a ruse, I was sure, that would finally stir the old python out of his snake-nest. No such dice. Mugabe has remained as quiet and terrified about the prospect of fighting me as ever, and has advanced his claim on Zimbabwe further since I issued this second challenge.

Obviously I seem to be having a profound affect on the way Mugabe is running his campaign. The more I dare him to fight me, the tighter he holds onto the last desperate part of his Presidency. Now as a lover of the black man, it pains me to see this man getting them down. They’ve had enough of this in the past, and they certainly don’t need any more of it now, just because I want to fight a 70-ish year old in a gladiatorial arena, without the use of weapons. So I’m going to compromise. We don’t need to have the arena, Mugabe. In fact, I’ll let you pick whatever location you want for our fight. It doesn’t matter to me. I’m certain that I’ll be able to whupp you all over any battleground.

So come on, be reasonable. I’m trying to make this easier on you, Rob! Just give me a location, and we’ll get this over with, and I won’t call you a homo anymore.

Special Guest Writer for IEF: Daniel Plainview

I was walking through town earlier and couldn’t help but notice that there were men walking around all over the place wearing scarves. Now, it is not a particularly warm day I know, but the number of men who wear wearing bright red or yellow or… glittery… pieces of fabric round their neck was worrying. Over the past few years the trend appears to have been for men to start dressing like women, which does not bode well for the collective future of mankind. In the interests of keeping the gender divide divided, as it should be, I present to all men a few options for things that would be better to wrap around your neck than a scarf.

1: Gold Chains

Mr T popularised this particular outfit, where he would have several gold chains hanging liberally round his neck as he went off on wild adventures with his team and shot people and smoked cigars and avoided planes as much as possible. It is a fine thing for a man to wear gold chains, as it denotes importance and wealth, and most importantly a lack of respect for hooligans and foos. Nobody will rob a man who wears gold chains so brazenly; if he is willing to show off his riches to everyone as he goes about his business, he must be a bad mutha indeed.

2: A towel

Try this at home now. There is no science to prove this, but wearing a [towel] will increase your virility tenfold, and you will feel like the world is your bitch. This can be traced to boxing, where the fighters wear towels liberally, for minutes on end, before standing up and hitting another man for a few minutes before sitting down again and putting the towel back on. There is evidentially some form of healing property in the humble towel which makes men feel stronger and tougher and taller, for wearing one around your neck always feels right.

3: A dead boar

Hunting has been banned in Britain, but only for certain animals. Foxes are off the agenda, and badgers have been safe from gassing for many a year now. This is okay, for the only real animal that any man would want to hunt would be wild boar. There can be few feelings that match the pride you will have when you kick open the door of the family home holding a boar about your shoulders. Throw it down upon the table, and tell the woman to cook it immediately. This is living, my friend. This is living.

4: My Ring

Won't you wear my ring around your neckTo tell the world I'm yours, by heckLet them know I love you soAnd let them know by the ring around your neck.

5: A Snake.

Snakes are a representation of how large your penis is. Those who have a snake wrapped around their neck are showing literally to anyone who sees them that they are no stranger to long serpentine things. The snake should still be living when you put it on, because then it can move around and disturb other people when you aren’t looking, thus proving your dominance over them. In fact, snakes are useful on several occasions, as you can also set them on people who disrespect you and the death will be attributed to the snake and not to you. Snakes are also a delicious source of protein and the bones are crunchy. The snake you pick should be trained not to attack you, that is to say that you should spend a year training it to trust you alone, so that you gain a natural symbiosis with the animal. Symbiosis is the act of gaining a psychic link, so you can order the animal around with your mind. Do not allow your snake to boss you around; you have to show complete dominance.


When not writing, Daniel is an Oil Trader in California, where he enjoys the odd milkshake and runs a business with his son H.W.

The World Is Ruined Because Of….

Girlfriends!

“Oh, but girlfriends are great things!” you shout. “You can have sex with them and they buy you things for your birthday and talk to you when you’re bored and they do all manner of nice things!” Yes, but they are also ruining the World. For why? Let me explain.

Point 1: When a girl becomes a “girl-friend”, she is immediately taken off the singles market and becomes unattainable to anyone who isn’t her boyfriend of Jude Law. She’s gone, possibly forever. She will make no more good male friends once she has a boyfriend, because she doesn’t need them anymore. While guys can have many female friends whilst in a relationship, often to the irritation of the girlfriend, girls tend to only have one good male friend when they are in a relationship. Stands to reason, then, that this means that girls become less friendly once they are a girlfriend. They are also less inclined to go out, it seems, which makes them more isolated. They tend to continue to stay friends with the people they knew before they became part of a couple, but make few new friends, instead tagging along with the boyfriend’s friends. All of this is all very well and good, but it puts the girl in danger if there is ever a breakup. Not only will she lose all the friends that she met through her boyfriend, because their loyalty is to him and not her, but she will likely also find herself with fewer friends that when she first entered into the relationship, due to her placing her boyfriend on a higher pedestal than her friends. Perhaps.

Point 2: A girlfriend is defined by her inability to spend a day without making inane phone calls to her boyfriend about nothing. Were it not for girlfriends, there would be half the number of phone-calls and thus BT would make all their tariffs cheaper because there is a lesser dependency on them. Phone companies would lose their power, if girlfriends ceased to be around.

Point 3: On a similar note, girlfriends tend to be very fond of sending asinine cards to their boyfriends for no reason, as well as sending letters to their friends which just ‘happen’ to mention the fact they have a boyfriend now, so suck on that, Tessa! Anyway, the point is that girlfriends are almost certainly responsible for the World’s need to tear down the rainforests to provide enough paper for their whimsical needs. Get rid of girlfriends, and we don’t need to get rid of some many trees each year.

Point 4: This is the one about sex. There are a lot of people who have sex, and a lot of people who do not have sex. Women of the world, when you get into a couple, you make it impossible for anyone to have sex with you except for, as previously noted, your boyfriend and Jude Law. This is exclusion on a grand scale, because you are here setting yourself up as better than all the sexless losers who are celibate because of your monogamy. You exclude people from sex, which is a horrible thing to do. The mere act of being a girlfriend prevents other people from having sex with you, which is a cruel and unnecessary act on your behalf. Think about other people for once, and stop being so monogamous.

Point 5: Girlfriends are, without exception, incredibly annoying. And you can’t argue that one!


Yes, I am currently single, but you know what else is interesting to note? Shut up.