Advice

On the religion of pro-life.

Not all pro-lifers are religious. Why do you buy into so many stereotypes? You seem so smart otherwise.

Actually, all pro-lifers are religious. They just don’t necessarily know it.

Here, I’ll show you. Make a rational argument that does not have it’s origins in religious doctrine denying women the legal right to choose whether to terminate their pregnancy of a nonviable fetus.

You can’t do it.

The pro-life argument is a religious one, plain and simple.

Being religious has nothing to do with whether you believe in god. Hell, the churches have always been full of quiet, desperate atheists.

Being religious has to do with taking up the cause of religion, and if you are pro-life, then that’s exactly what you’re doing.

You can call deny that you’re religious all day long, but if you’re a pro-lifer, the evidence speaks for itself.

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Advice

On what to say.

I’m pro choice and one of my best friends is pro life. I’m fine with people having their own opinion on things but he takes his too far. He calles me a baby killer and if I ever become pregnant I’ll just abort all my babies.

He thinks he’s being funny and I’ve expressed multiple times that he isn’t but he won’t listen.

How do I get him to stop saying things like that?

Next time he mouths off, pick whichever one of these lines that feels most appropriate:

1. “According to your retarded bible logic, every time you jerk off in the shower you’re guilty of a dead baby holocaust.”

2. “Jesus would slap you like a little bitch for teasing me about abortion.”

3. “God just told me that he made your penis a little bit smaller. I didn’t even ask him to do it. God just thinks that kind of thing is hilarious.”

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Advice

On vengeance upon thee

I have a crazy religious nut on my hands. Every day during class, I can’t sit and go through lecture without this guy asking me if I’m worried at all about not being saved by Jesus yet or if I’m ready to embrace the fires of Hell. Now, I’m a religious person of a different faith, but I believe people should be able to practice their faith without having some douche-bag stuff it down my throat every day in class. I don’t care what the fuck you believe in, just keep it off of me and I’ll keep it off of you. Nothing with this idiot works. I’ve tried switching seats, being polite, or just plain ignoring, but he absolutely INSISTS that I convert to Christianity right then and there.

Please, please oh please, I can’t take it anymore. I’ve never even said a word to him about religion to deserve this, but he insists upon making my life Hell. How the fuck do I get him off my back? Do I just plain tell him off?

My preferred solution would be for you to mind fuck this little twerp until he swallows his own tongue. Then again, if you knew how to do that, you wouldn’t be asking for my help in the first place.

As a next best option, I recommend you consider a restraining order. He is harassing you, plain and simple. You can even make the argument that he is threatening you with bodily harm each time he mentions that you’ll burn in hell.

I’m not joking about this.

Start filling out the paperwork tonight. You don’t necessarily have to file anything with the courts, because it may be enough for you just to show the prepared documents to your professor.

First thing tomorrow, tell your professor that you’re being harassed and that you’re about to file an order of protection against this person whom you consider to be mentally unstable if not potentially dangerous. Tell him that as a religious person of a different faith, you’re being persecuted and that you consider yourself the victim of an ongoing hate crime.

Let your professor know that you expect him to deal with the problem immediately, and make a formal request that he notify the school administration on your behalf that harassment is going on in his classroom.

I promise, unless you’re at some batshit bible college, the school administration will come down on this kid so hard and fast his pointy little head will spin.

On the day they kick the fucker out of class, I highly recommend you do your best Samuel L. Jackson impersonation while quoting Ezekiel 25:17.

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Best-Of Advice

On balancing the scales

Regarding your “ethical consumption” post—I agree with you, nothing will ever balance the scales. People are terrified of having to feel guilty about anything, and they’ll use whatever they can to keep on walking around blind to their negative impact on the world and on others. But are you saying that we shouldn’t try to make conscientous decisions about what we buy when we can? If I can buy the laundry detergent bottle made from recycled plastic instead of new, shouldn’t I? Not to the point where it makes me struggle finanically, or cripples me in some other way. I know it’s just a drop in the oil-tainted ocean, that all corporations see is dollar signs, and that balancing the scales is impossible, but isn’t tipping them a little bit back still worth it?

I just want to keep some hope and some sea turtles alive. Even if it’s foolish and makes you want to call me a hippie.

Balancing the scales is not impossible. All you need to do is go develop the major scientific breakthrough in the field of photovoltaics or inertial confinement fusion that finally revolutionizes our supply chain of clean renewable energy.

Somebody’s gonna do it. Might as well be you.

If all you want to do is tip the scales back just a little bit, then I suppose you could move to Malawi and start an orphanage or something. You know, devote your entire life to easing the suffering of the third world in some personal way. As you put it, it’s just a drop in the oil-tainted ocean, but hey, it’s a start.

Short of that, please stop kidding yourself. You’re not making a difference.

Feel free to buy whatever laundry detergent you like, but do not for one second let yourself believe that your decision was somehow more conscientious because the bottle was made of recycled plastic. Do you have any idea how mind-bogglingly self-centered that sounds?

I wish common sense included a sense of scale. You and your consumer identity have absolutely no moral mass whatsoever. Nothing you can buy at Walmart will ever count as an ethical unit of measure that has weight on a global scale.

Green products are a marketing strategy. All you’re doing is paying a premium for that fleeting moment of self-satisfaction you feel when you buy something labeled as environmentally conscious.

That’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with having a consumer preference, but please know that it doesn’t earn you a single inch of ethical high ground.

I know, you can make arguments for aggregated effects, but those are still just passive market forces tied to a capitalist system built on corporate self-interest. Buying a Prius doesn’t mean you’re “doing your part” to conserve oil. It merely means you get better gas mileage.

I’m not a cynic. I really do believe that you can make that drop in the ocean, but doing your part actually requires that you fucking do something. You can boycott shrimp all your life, and it’s not gonna help a single sea turtle. If you want to keep those little bastards alive, become a marine biologist and go save some fucking turtles.

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Best-Of Advice

On ethical consumption

You’ve been known to take a drug or two on occasion, and I feel like you’re someone whose behaviours are not lightly criticised by sensible persons. So perhaps you can clear this question up for me.

I wouldn’t buy ivory, eat a whale or wear conflict diamonds, so why am I ok with buying cocaine? Ought one apply the same logic of ethical consumption to drugs? Does one have to take the hard road of total abstinence to get the proverbial blood off one’s hands?

There is no washing the blood off your hands, you pretentious hippie fuck.

The simple act of paying taxes in any first world country makes you complicit in an unholy global raping of such magnitude that no amount of dolphin safe tuna or fair trade coffee could ever restore the cosmic balance.

You’re guilty of original sin just for living on the grid, so quit pretending you’re ethically superior because you get your politics off a Starbucks cup.

Besides, ivory is tacky, whale blubber tastes like shit, and diamonds are a sucker’s bet. Do you have any idea how smug you sound by acting like there’s some noble sacrifice in avoiding products that you wouldn’t have consumed in the first place?

Go ahead, boycott cocaine on ethical grounds. That’ll teach the Sinaloa Cartel a lesson. You idiot.

Ethical consumption is a marketing ploy. It should be ironically transparent, but weak-minded consumers are so desperate to assuage their hippie flavored white guilt that they’re willing to believe a holier-than-thou consumer identity actually has a positive net effect on the world’s political and environmental atrocities.

Seriously, don’t let them fool you. When they tell you that “every dollar you spend is a vote for how you want the world to be,” it’s just because they want your fucking dollar.

You’re being programmed to think that your consumer choices are the equivalent of moral acts, but they’re not. You’re just buying shit like the rest of us.

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Advice

On commitment issues.

I am 32 and my boyfriend is 28.  I am an actress and he is a professional poker player that works at Whole Foods. I am southern, he is from New England. I believe in a higher power, he is an atheist.  We couldn’t be more different, yet I find myself making plans with this man. I consider having a life with him and have committed myself to him in a way that I haven’t with any other partner in the past.  I am a giant commitment-phobe although I am not a cheater or dishonest.  I guess I have just never bought into the enterprise of marriage or babies or white fences.

So all this yimmeryammering leads me to my question for you—should I move in with this man? Is commitment a lie we feed to ourselves?  I have always been good about taking a leap of faith in my art, but what about in my life?  I fear being hurt or broken hearted, but I love this man and I want my life with him to move forward.  Does this mean marriage and a labradoodle?

Help me out, Coke Talk.  Or at the very least, make fun of me so I can laugh at my own idiocy and childish paranoia.

How interesting that you’ve chosen a Labradoodle to represent your crippling fear of a broken home. As metaphors go, it’s pretty good.

Your commitment issues and Labradoodles were both created in the late eighties, right around the time the relationship between your rough-and-tumble father (a Labrador Retriever) and your pretty but spoiled mother (a Poodle) began to crumble right before your very eyes.

You were only about ten years old at the time, but the unhealthy dynamic of their marriage forever warped your notion of what it meant to be in an intimate relationship.

Don’t worry, you’re not alone. One might say you’re part of an entirely new breed of bitches, and just like Labradoodles, there seem to be an awful lot of them at Runyon Canyon on the weekends.

Listen, it’s good that you’re in love. Enjoy it. Don’t be afraid to make long term plans with your boyfriend. You’re not your mother, and he’s not your father. Sure, you may end up with a broken heart one day, but that doesn’t mean you’re destined to repeat history.

Now, since you asked me to make fun of you, I figure the least I can do is give you a little shit for the “taking a leap of faith in my art” remark. You’re a thirty-two year old actress. I’m just sayin’, there’s a difference between a leap of faith and a suicide mission.

Oh, and let’s be clear about another thing, a professional earns a living at his craft. That is to say, your boyfriend is a professional grocer. He is an amateur poker player.

I believe the words you’re looking for are, “oh, snap!”

*drops the microphone and walks off stage*

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Advice

On being a groupie

So I know it sounds bad to say this, but my friend is a big groupie of this band. Like goes to all their shows in a reasonable distance, has plenty of their; tees, posters,etc., she even hooks up with one of them, I would call her obsesed! She convinced me to go with her to see them.

With a weird turn of events, I ended up hooking up with one of them. I dont obsess and I dont even take plesure listening to there music. The guy and I just ended up clicking and I just wanted to have some fun. But does this make me a groupie too?

Don’t worry, you’re not a groupie. You’re a stupid whore.

I’m totally kidding. You’re not a whore.

Seriously though, learn the difference between their and there. While you’re at it, pay attention to your punctuation, use your fucking spell check, and try writing sentences with both a subject and a predicate.

I know, you’re a teenage girl. You’ve got better things to do than write above a third grade level, but trust me on this, your communication skills are a vital component to your interpersonal relationships.

Learn to string a few words together. Show some respect for your language. You never know, babe. Maybe one day instead of blowing the bass player, you could be the lead singer.

(Oh, and quit being so worried about being labeled a groupie. Instead, develop excellent taste in music, be passionate about artists who deserve your attention, and fuck who you want to fuck.)

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Advice

On saying i love you

Is it better to tell someone you love them when they say it or leave them hanging until you feel it?

Come on, people. This is Integrity 101. Say what you mean, and mean what you say. If you don’t love someone, don’t let them guilt you into saying “I love you” out of some misguided sense of propriety.

You’re not leaving them hanging unless they’re expecting you to return the sentiment, and if that’s the case, then they’re not really saying, “I love you.” What they’re really doing is committing little tiny acts of emotional extortion.

Don’t degrade “I love you” by surrendering it against your will. Every time you say those three words you should feel it.

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Advice

On miracles

If there’s no God or some kind of Higher Power, how do you explain all the plain miracles that happen? People surely don’t start walking for the first time in their lives just because of sheer luck.

Yeah, and fucking magnets, how do they work?

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Advice

On sex with girls.

How do you fuck girls as opposed to guys? I’m just starting to tread in the girl territory now that I’ve realized I’m more bisexual than I thought, but there are obviously different buttons to push and different ways to push them than with guys, and apart from a couple of kisses, I have no sexual experience with girls.

I know you’ve had sex with girls and you seem experienced, so please help a girl out.

Don’t worry about the buttons. You have a vagina, and you’ve watched enough girl-on-girl porn not to be confused about how this works. The physicality of it will come naturally, so just take your time and enjoy how soft and different it is.

The most important thing you can do in this phase of your exploration is be open with your partners about your emotional expectations. It’s fine if you’re just playing around with your bisexuality, but it may be more than just experimentation for them.

You think shit gets complicated with guys? Try fucking a lesbian who considers you a legitimate relationship prospect when all you’re doing is satisfying curiosity. Trust me, you can’t even imagine the drama.

Just make sure you’re both in bed for compatible reasons, and the rest will be fun and delicious.

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