Happy Labor Day!

I am grateful to the Labor Movement for the Monday to Friday work week, eight hour work days (although I’m personally pushing for a 6 hr work day ) and the overall improvement of work conditions.

America is a wonderful country; I dare suggest she’s the best nation in the world to be a part of. But not that long ago even our beautiful country allowed some very unattractive standards.

These days if a rumor arises that a factory boss is not allowing the employees to leave until a big quota is met, the police (and news crews) would hustle over there without hesitation. 150 years ago holding workers hostage without food or breaks for the sake of production quotas was common place.

By the end of the 19^th century workers who had moved to the cities from the farms in search of a better opportunity to achieve “The American Dream” realized that any chance at a dream was next to impossible working as de facto indentured servants. For the workers of The Industrial Revolution 12 hour shift work in airless factories filled with polluted air often stretched into 18+ hour shifts with few if any breaks. Sleep deprivation and a lack of adequate oversight by factory foremen and managers often resulted in injury or death for the workers manning the machines.

Labor Day has come a long way from its roots in the mid 19^th century. We no longer have to contend with outbreaks of rioting because that month too many workers died while working for near slave wages in an unsafe factory. Gone are the stories and pictures of overworked children crippled while tending to textile machines. These days, the biggest concern I hear about in reference to Labor Day is whether the weather’s going to cooperate and how to prevent the potato salad from spoiling.

During your much deserved celebrations I hope you are also able to honor those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold,” as Peter J. McGuire, the general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a cofounder of the American Federation of Labor hoped.

Honor all the hard work that Americans before you have strived for this Labor Day by relaxing with your family and friends while enjoying today’s sunset.

With a cold drink in my hand,

Glory

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The Many Repurposings of Tampons

By Glory Fink

I learned from a good friend while at boarding school that those phone book thick maxi pads are ideal for writing holiday greetings onto. What with the fabulous adhesive on the back of the pads you just draw on the pads, slap them on the outside of your dorm room door and Voila! Holiday decorating is done, now on to studying for mid-terms.

As a wide eyed young maiden wandering through the rice fields of The Philippines I learned that all mercenaries worth their liquor carry tampons in their emergency case. It seems that the ultra absorbent cotton rods are ideal for stoppering bullet hole wounds when you’re too many clicks away from the nearest safe house/band aid station.

I’m a dyed in the wool Girl Scout. I believe that everything can be repurposed and often should be. I am all about making the best with what you have on hand. I have made my own camp oven and let me tell you, the biscuits baked in it were delicious!

Nevertheless, my initial reaction to Tampon Crafts was, “Ewwwww!” After that I was moved by morbid curiosity and had to click through in order to view the train wreck that surely had to be the crafting of tampons.

I’m not going to try to prejudice you with my own thoughts about this site. But I will say that some of these crafts were not invented by a single, unassisted female mind. No, there were men folk involved. You don’t get a sophisticated tampon blow gun utilizing several different brands of Tampons and PVC piping without men cheering the creativity on. There’s even instructions for a tampon bandolier!

Browsing the site, I do wonder how our civilization would be altered if we were able to harness such creative brain power for solving pressing issues such as wide spread hunger, unsafe drinking water and how to get Paula Abdul to meet with Dr. Drew for a “Coming to Jesus” intervention.

Comments and suggestions are always appreciated. Send your emails to glory at askglory.com with “Attention: Glory” in the subject line.

About the Author:

Glory Fink is a writer, a purveyor of euphemistically romantic materials, a photographer, a licensed educator, a wannabe dilettante, a mystery wrapped in an enigma covered in cashmere. She can be found playing with Schrödinger’s cat, traipsing through the back roads of the Mississippi Delta or concocting experiments in her lab/kitchen. Glory does not suffer fools gladly but will gladly suffer endless tours at the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream factory as long as the samples keep coming. She does her best writing in her pajamas and her best sleeping out of them. Glory’s cat is suspicious, her dog obliging and her friends humored by her many antics and efforts to become in reality what she is in her dreams.

Glory can be found living it up in Hattiesburg, Mississippi in a quaint (read: run down) house in a newly historic district but still less reputable side of town with her miniature dachshund and one cat who isn’t. The outside cat came with the house; he is not a pet as much as a ninja. Please feel free to email or call on Glory any time, her life could do with a few more interesting people.

Copyright © 2009, Glory Fink

For information about this work, please contact the author at the address set forth below. Permission is hereby granted to reproduce and distribute copies of this work for nonprofit educational purposes, provided that copies are distributed at or below cost, and that the author, source, and copyright notice are included on each copy. This permission is in addition to rights of reproduction granted under Sections 107, 108, and other provisions of the U.S. Copyright Act. Before making any distribution of this work, please contact Glory Fink to ascertain whether you have the current version. Permission inquiries can be made to Glory Fink at copyright@askglory.com.

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To all my sisters-in-arms out there who have told me through tears and chardonnay, “What does he mean I don’t love him? Don’t I make him dinner, fold his clothes, put up with his farting in the bed and care for his children?!?! If I didn’t love him with all of me, I’d have been loooong gone!”

How I tell you

By Glory Fink

You ask me for proof

but how can I prove my love to you?

I have no grand gestures,

 no great powers with which to awe you.

I have only the quiet,

day-to-day gestures that in every way

show you how my very breath

waits for you.

When I make chicken for dinner

what I really mean is, “I adore you.”

When I tell your Mom how much we miss her

and are making plans for her next visit

I’m whispering to you,

“I love the smell of your neck.”

When I make your doctor’s appointment

and insist you go

I’m really imploring to you,

“Please, stay here with me a little longer.”

This is all I have to prove my feelings

because simply telling you, “I love you”

can’t even begin to describe

what I feel inside me for you.

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Killer Orgasms

By Glory Fink

Sex can be a beautiful and meaningful act. For some couples sex can even help to strengthen and deepen the shared emotional bonds. But sex can also maim and kill when common sense is ignored.

The first time I realized that people could die while having consensual sex I was watching the movie Rising Sun starring Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes. The two stars are investigating the strangulation of a young woman at the party of a new Japanese business. Eventually, the two uncover the woman’s fetish for autoerotic asphyxiation, a dirty little secret some people would like to keep hidden.

The movie was thought provoking and I talked about autoerotic asphyxiation or AeA with some of my friends. I learned that some very nice girls like to hold their breath right before they orgasm to heighten the sensation. I was surprised at the creativity but I didn’t think much of it until I watched Life as a House years later. Here I am watching a Kevin Kline movie and there is Hayden Christensen masturbating while strangling himself. I guess Anakin wants to make sure we know this is a serious Kevin Kline movie.

I found myself disturbed by this scene and I mentioned it to my guy friends to see if anyone knew any guys who pretended to hang themselves while masturbating. Every guy seemed to know of a friend from his youth who did it but no one owned up to doing it. After that, I started paying attention to unexplained hanging suicides of young men especially those in their underwear who didn’t leave a note.

I did a little research and uncovered a big taboo. Hundreds of years ago, people observed that hanged criminals had erections after death. People put two and two together and got bigger orgasms. During Victorian times London even had a “Hanged Men’s Club” that aided its members through the autoerotic asphyxiation process safely.

While 250 to 1000 deaths are attributed to AeA each year in America most parents are too ashamed to admit that their son was an accidental suicide and would rather clean up the scene before calling the cops and say he killed himself on purpose rather than he was trying to heighten his masturbation. Death by autoerotic asphyxia is almost entirely a 12-25 year old male problem and usually happened when the person was alone. Since many AeA accidents are caused by heart attacks before the person even loses consciousness the only benefit to having another person around is 911 is called.

These days young males are teaching each other to play “chocking games” by filming it and posting to YouTube and other sites. Unfortunately, these hormone driven youth are without the common sense God gave them and think nothing bad will happen while getting a sexual thrill though strangling.

Speaking of a lack of common sense, a friend of mine who works in an ER told me about another kind of AeA. Auto(mobile) Erotic Asphyxia caused one night by a young woman giving a BJ to the guy while he was driving. He hit a deer, and she accidentally bite through his penis. The car then crashed down a ravine where the couple was knocked unconscious. The woman suffocated due to the penis getting lodged deep in her throat and the man died from bleeding because no one saw the crashed car until dawn. If you want to get a hummer in your Hummer, pull over or do it in the back seat. Orgasms aren’t worth dying over.

Comments and suggestions are always appreciated. Send your emails to glory@askglory.com or printz@usm.edu with “Attention: Glory” in the subject line.

About the Author:

Glory Fink is a writer, a housewife, a purveyor of euphemistically romantic materials, a photographer, a mystery wrapped in an enigma covered in cashmere. She can be found playing with Shrodinger’s cat, traipsing through the back roads of the Mississippi Delta or concocting experiments in her lab/kitchen. Glory does not suffer fools gladly but will gladly suffer endless tours at the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream factory as long as the samples keep coming. She does her best writing in her pajamas and her best sleeping out of them. Glory’s cat is suspicious, her dog obliging and her husband humored by her many antics and efforts to become in reality what she is in her imagination.

Glory can be found living it up in Hattiesburg, Mississippi in a quaint (read: 19th Century era dilapidated) house in a newly historic district but still less reputable side of town with her husband/best friend, a miniature dachshund,  and one cat who isn’t. The the outside cat came with the house; he is not a pet as much as ninja. Please feel free to email or call on Glory any time, her life could do with a few more interesting people.

Copyright © 2007, Glory Fink

For information about this work, please contact the author at the address set forth below. Permission is hereby granted to reproduce and distribute copies of this work for nonprofit educational purposes, provided that copies are distributed at or below cost, and that the author, source, and copyright notice are included on each copy. This permission is in addition to rights of reproduction granted under Sections 107, 108, and other provisions of the U.S. Copyright Act. Before making any distribution of this work, please contact Glory Fink to ascertain whether you have the current version. Permission inquiries can be made to Glory Fink at glory@askglory.com.

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Dork be Gone. Answering that age old question of why you are surrounded by Dorks when you should be with Prince or Princess Charming.

 Dork Be Gone [10:25m]: Play in Popup | Download

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Just like the MTV Unplugged Artists series, occasionally it’s nice to get more of the story behind the story.

I originally wrote this article in late October 2006 for my column, Pillow Talk in The Student Printz because I was, and still am concerned that sexual assault, molestation and rape is not given the amount of exposure it needs to reach the people who need to know…everyone. I’ve read my fair share of sexual assault awareness articles but too many of them seemed dry and detached. In writing this article, I aimed to bring the issue closer to the heart of my readers.

Instead, what happened was that thousands of issues of the Printz were removed from the stands and thrown into dumpsters. Several young women from a particular sorority were rumored to be the culprits. I think there was something about four of the young women being filmed by a security camera while committing the crime.

There were two popular theories for the theft. The most obvious, but in my opinion rather dubious theory was that the women of USM were disgusted with my most recent article (“The Boogeyman You Know”) and were ridding the campus of this scourge called Pillow Talk.

The other popular theory concerned an article about college students who were participating in a Playboy model drive. It would seem that one of the potential models was from a sorority in question and she told the reporter she was from that sorority. In reaction to the sorority in question having their reputation besmirched in print members of the local chapter systematically went about campus taking all available copies of the issue. I don’t know if the women who were identified on the tape ever said why they took all those issues of the Printz.

Perhaps I should have offered to speak at their next sorority meeting…

With love,
-Glory

The Boogeyman You Know
By Glory Fink

You may know someone who has been assaulted and not even know it.

The reason I mention this is because every two and half minutes someone in the US is sexually assaulted. Sexual assault covers a whole myriad of awful, hateful, loathsome, shocking, vile, vulgar, sexual things to someone who does not want to do anything of a sexual nature with the predator.

Two-thirds of all sexual assaults are done by someone the victim knows. Yes, friends do it, relatives do it, trusted authority figures do it, the most unlikely people we may know have been known to do it. It is not just the boogeyman hiding in the bushes. No, it may just be a neighbor you invite to dinner.

So, if someone doesn’t respect your boundaries, especially the ones that are important, then don’t expect them to respect your “No!” when you say it to them, yell it at them, and finally scream it at the top of your lungs.

There is no band-aid for this problem. Be careful, be cautious.

Did you know that about 90 percent of all rapes are not reported because the victim is too embarrassed or intimated? This means 90 percent of all sexual predators are successful because they chose their victims well. Predators not only physically violate victims; they successfully mentally intimidate them to the point of silence. Guess what, if they did it once they will do it again all because their last victim was silent.

If you or someone you know is sexually assaulted get help immediately. Here are some sources:

The USM Health Clinic is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday and until 4:30 p.m. on Friday or phone at 601-266-5390. The staff is trained to respect and dignify your medical visit. After hours, go to a late hour clinic or emergency room.

The Shafer Center for Crisis Intervention is a local service that offers excellent support and counseling to victims, their friends and family. The Shafer Center has a 24/7 crisis line you call toll free within 55 miles of Hattiesburg at 601-264-7777.

Another source is the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE. The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network operates this hotline and is currently testing a new online hotline at their website at www.rainn.org.

The best way to get back at a predator/criminal is to break the silence they cause in their victim.

Be strong, be loud, get help.

Comments, suggestions and feedback are always appreciated. Send your emails to glory@askglory.com with “Attention: Glory” in the subject line.

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This article is also available on Ask E. Jean’s FANTASTIC website under the Top Campus Columnists section.

Getting the Girl and Winning it All
By Glory Fink

Nice guys finish last.

Nice guys are losers.

No woman in her right mind wants to date a “nice guy.”

The reason these guys are losers has nothing to do with the quality of their character or intelligence. Nice guys come in last because they don’t take chances. They operate under the theory that if no chances are taken, no failures can be made.

Failure is not the worst thing that can happen to anyone. Asking someone out for coffee or a movie and getting turned down isn’t so bad. Living in your mother’s basement, playing RPGs when you are 50 years old, is.

A lot of nice guys secretly think they are unworthy of getting respect or the “cute girl.” So they go after more attainable versions of the “the psycho chick.” We’ve all met at least one psycho chick. She’s the one who brags that she set an ex’s car on fire because she saw him working at his new job at Applebee’s. Psycho chicks have even been known to break into a current/ex-flame’s house while he was on a business trip and sell all his stuff including his 1938 copy of “Action Comics” for five bucks.

Nice guys are usually smart enough to get rid of their psycho chicks but by then the self-fulfilling prophecy will have come true. He will find himself middle-aged, alone and depressed with only his mother or sister to care about him. The irony is that if a “sweet girl” at work or school takes an interest in a nice guy he will convince himself that she is only trying to have a pity-friendship. This is the fate of thousands upon thousands of “nice guys” every year.

So what’s a nice guy to do? Stop being a nice guy, of course!

First, watch a few movies such as “The 40-Year-Old Virgin (Unrated Widescreen Edition),” “The Boyfriend School” “Superbad” and take notes. Watch them more than once. Watch them a lot. (For a longer and still growing list check out my blog also called AskGlory, http://www.askglory.com.)

Then, nice guys need to take action. Some are the “dive right in” kind, while others are “toe dippers.” I wish all the divers the best of luck. Keep me updated on your adventures.

As for all the toe-dippers, make a list of all your fears and regrets. Include everything from your third grade lost love, Betty Sue (or Michael James, for that matter), to your college lab partner who was brave enough to dissect the rat when you hyperventilated. Then list some little risks you’re going to take with realistic deadlines.

Make a point every day to have a positive interaction with the kind of people you want to be around. Practice making people laugh and listen to them talk about things that matter to them.

Keep a journal of your thoughts and reflections about what went well. If something failed, note down why it didn’t work. Learn from your mistakes as well as your successes.

Go out there and take risks. Try, try, and try again. Still falling flat on your face? Find a different approach, a different setting, a different group of people but keep trying. Perseverance in the face failure is the key to success in all areas of life.

In the end, watching movies and making lists doesn’t mean a thing if you still forget the most important piece of advice I can give you.

Just do it!

Comments, suggestions and feedback are always appreciated. Send your emails to glory@askglory.com with “Attention: Glory” in the subject line.

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Bedding Your Best Friend
By Glory Fink

This article is also available on Ask E. Jean’s FANTASTIC website under the Top Campus Columnists section.

“Never have sex with anyone you’re not willing to raise a child with,” my dad told me when I was 14. I now gift this advice to you, my savvy readers.

This one bit of advice did more for me in my life than just about anything else I ever learned. Late at night I would ponder the mysteries of The Universe, especially how to have fun sexual adventures with someone good enough to raise kids with while avoiding all those awful scenes friends were having in high school I called, “How Could You Do This to Me?!” dramas.

Even in the remote areas of Mississippi where I grew up, we heard about “friends with benefits.” Was it possible to have sex without any strings? No melodramas. No heartaches. Friends with benefits sounded like a great idea if only it was true.

By the time we get to college, expressions like: “Friends with Benefits” (FWB), booty calls, and the classic one-night-stand, are well known. The idea of women and men having non-commitment sex for fun and pleasure with no strings attached is often seen on TV and movies.

Casual sex is not a modern phenomenon. It’s been going on for eons. Who wouldn’t want a good friend and a side order of sex and no hassles? No jealousy, no ownership, no obligations, no headaches.

If you’re the kind of person who forms deep, emotional attachments quickly, FWB is not going to work for you. Remember that in a commitment-free sexual relationship, the other person is free to have sex with anyone they want, whenever they want.

You are using condoms every time and getting tested ever six months, right? No? I haven’t been slaving away in front of this computer for 13 months trying to write about what you want to read just for you to enjoy the controversy without even considering my advice. What? Yeah, I thought you were just teasing. You will go to the Health Clinic ASAP, right?

You’ve given it some thought and now have someone in mind. Stumped on how to proceed? Communicate, darling! Open thy mouth and talk. Use this column or find another and ask them what they think about the FWB idea. Get a copy of Tom Wolfe’s “Hooking Up” and use what you’re reading to launch into a conversation. Then say something like, “Ever thought about doing it yourself? Think it could work for us?”

Once you get the green light, hash out the details. Will any of our mutual friends know about this? Will we hang out together, go to the movies or is this strictly a midnight booty call thing? Who is going to provide the condoms, lubes or rubber chickens? What about a threesome? Remember, anything you two don’t talk about in an open and honest way will eventually rear its head in the form of an argument or even cause the end of your friendship. Talk first, get it on later.

I’m going to warn you about a pitfall of FWB’s. When I transferred to Hattiesburg to attend USM, I didn’t know anyone and I had just extracted myself from a disastrous relationship. I was looking to make friends and thought a nice fling would perk me up. One particular person I met soon became my best friend. At the right time I popped the question, “Ever thought about having sex without any strings attached?” We talked about it for weeks while we made out.

Everything went well for a good while. Then slowly we both realized we wanted to spend eternity with each other. Last April we celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary. Next month we will celebrate meeting at a USM football game nine years ago. When you choose a great friend and add sex, it either will work well or could be a disaster and you’ll lose a good friend in the process.

Be careful, be cautious, enjoy life.

Comments and suggestions are always appreciated. Send your emails to glory@askglory.com with “Attention: Glory” in the subject line.

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