Origins of Valentine’s Day – Part 2,

Why did the original Valentine’s celebrations end?  The day after Valentine’s day 2015 ended seems like a good time to find out.

Who took the orgies out of Valentine’s Day?

If you guessed the pope or religion, you are correct.  The Pope took away the fun.

Why?  Because Juno Februata and Lupercal were pagan gods.  And because the Pope had a problem with the nudity.

By the 5th century, public performance of pagan rites had been outlawed.  Pope Galesius abolished this festival of sexual license, and substituted Saint Valentine for Juno and Lupercus.  Back then young soldiers were not allowed to marry because it was believed that marriage made you a worse soldier.  Science has now proven marriage lowers testosterone levels so the Romans were probably right.  Valentine married soldiers in secret. He was beheaded on February 14 for performing those marriages.  Since the Pope and religion was big on marriage, they made Valentine a Saint and turned the Lupercalia into a celebration of him.

When you replace the goddess of hot steamy sex with a guy famous for marriage, of course your holiday loses the fun.  No more erotic games and orgies.  Lots of cards and chocolates.  No one wants to be the fattest person at the orgy, but if there are no orgies, you might as well eat chocolate.

This was not a popular decision.  A lot of Romans were pissed.  Can you blame them?

Boy, have we lost the meaning of Valentine’s Day!  Let’s declare a war, bring in the media and get the Lupercalia back.

We have been needlessly torturing people with Valentine’s Day for hundreds of years for no reason.  We are supposed to be celebrating fertility by having sex with people whose names were picked from a box.

Do you ever contemplate if life was better before modern technology?  I often think we’d be better off without computers and cell phones and even cars. The Lupercalia is just another example of how life was better in the old days.

When I was in high school, on Valentine’s Day, kids sent carnations to each other and the money went to student council.  The flowers were given out in homeroom.  The pretty popular people got lots of carnations, and the other kids felt like crap, or skipped homeroom or sent themselves flowers to avoid the humiliation of not having their name called in homeroom.  Bleeding heart that I was, I took the issue to the school board and got this cruel practice ended.  The popular people didn’t need the ego boost and the kids who didn’t get flowers didn’t need another reason to hate their life.  I won that battle..

I felt like Sally Fields in Norma Rae.  Back then I was a cheerleader who got tons of carnations so my fight wasn’t personal.  But now it is.  I’ve been in a sucky marriage.  I would stand at the card section of Hallmark stores looking for Valentine’s Day cards that said, “You’re a shmuck.  I hope you get into a car accident on Valentine’s Day.”  But, alas, I never found the perfect card.   Even though I have had lots of boyfriends, they were hardly showering me with candy and love poems.  In fact, I was dumped twice on Valentine’s Day.  It was actually the same Valentine’s Day, from 2 different guys.  That hurt.

My point is that Valentine’s Day is fraught with reasons to be miserable.

If you are in a bad marriage, it is a bad day.  According to studies, divorce filings go up right after Valentine’s Day.

If you are single, constant reminders everywhere you look about love can be depressing as hell.  So is thinking about how everyone is getting Valentine’s Day gifts but you.

Now imagine how great it would be if Valentine’s Day was all naked men, erotic games and willing women.  As long as you put your name in a box, you have a partner for sex games.  You see your partner as being chosen by the gods which has got to add spark to those relationships.  And best of all, your sex partner is yours for the whole year.  No one gets dumped.   When the year is over, you get a new name.  .

Getting the true meaning and rituals of this holiday back is something worth fighting for.

I Officially Declare My War On Valentine’s Day.

 

Why Sony and the Makers of The Interview Should go on a Date with Kim Jong Un from North Korea

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hackers, james franco, kim jong un, movies, north korea, politics, seth rogen, sony, sony executives, the interview

Simply put, because they both come up with a really bad ideas. The Interview, which was pulled from theaters but then released yesterday, has got to be one of the worst ideas for a script…ever.  I mean really, a plot based on the assassination of Kim Jong Un?  That’s the best you guys can come up with?

Not only did you piss off North Korea, but you pissed off the film community by showing us that you guys just generally don’t have any creativity left in your brains. Now I’m not saying North Korea did the right thing by hacking Sony, because that is complete bullshit.  North Korea has its own problems to deal with, mainly the fact that it is a horrible political travesty. But keep those problems on your own soil, don’t bring them to our amazing country.

So what if the guys at Sony were smoking some marijuana and coming up with a silly plot? Does that mean that we should be targeted by hackers? It looks like both sides of the fence have come up with some pretty bad ideas over the years.  They should just go on a date together and talk about these bad ideas and any other future ideas they have that are very bad, to hopefully squash them like cockroaches. If not, we will have to continue to bear witness to what is going down in history as one of the worst movies of all time. And of course a really silly hacking which seems to have harmed many people along the way.

 

Put on Your Costumes and let the Sex Games Begin

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My last boyfriend was always trying to get me to buy fish net stockings and garter belts.

I never did.  Why spend money to turn him on, when I could turn him on for free? Made no sense.  I could be wearing a mu mu, granny panties and have just eaten raw onions and he’d be ready to go.  Plus, hard is hard.  It’s not like, the fish nets were going to make it bigger.

But in the spirit of the holiday, I decided to explore sexual role play because nothing except maybe candy, says Halloween, like slutty costumes.

Since I know nothing about sexual role play, I started reading articles.  Apparently, when you look at your partner and think, where’s the remote instead of where’s the lube, the way to bring back the lust is dressing up like a fireman or mail man.  I’m not making this up.  I’m putting into my own words what I just read.   And, yes, I’m laughing.

So, I could be living a life of luxury with a really rich, old, bald, fat guy, but I keep turning down those options because I want the passion.  Who knew all that was needed to get the sizzle out of those relationships was costumes and make believe play?  For instance, I could stick a black cape on an old, bald, fat guy and pretend he was Zorro and then I’d want to jump his bones.  Of course, we’d probably need to get the mask too.

To role play correctly, you need to come up with a character that would turn your partner on.  And you need them to become a character that excites you and fits in nicely with your character.  For instance, plumber and housewife.  That was actually given as an example of favorite role playing sex characters.  Seriously?

What is the game?  How do you act that?

House wife:  “My toilet is clogged.  There’s poop all over the basement.”

Plumber:  “No problem.  I’m here to save the day.”

Then he goes in the bathroom, and pretends to unclog a drain.  He flushes the toilet to prove he has done his job.

Housewife:  “You’re so good with your hands.”

Plumber:  “I fixed that plumbing and now I want to check out your plumbing to make sure it is working.”

He lifts up her skirt.  Her plumbing is working and the sex is so great they forget they are not that attracted to each other.

I am way too jaded.  I’m sure I’m denigrating something beautiful.

Hence, it is time to try a sex role game for real.  First I need to choose a character that will arouse the guy I’m dating.

Easy choice.  I am going to dress up as a sexy guitar.  I can picture it now.

Me:  “Do I finally have your attention?  Since the only thing that excites you is guitars, look at my costume and pretend I’m a sexy guitar.  Now Play Me!”

Him not taking his eyes off the Yngwie video on Youtube :  “I have over 50 guitars and they all excite me.  What do I need you for?”

GAME OVER.

Love in a World of Fairy Tales and Fantasies

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Last night was the debut of my radio show Love Lessons.  I’m Renee Mazer and I’ve been doing radio for a while. My co-hosts are animal fanatics and our past shows focused on topics like passing laws to give pigs more room to turn around in their cages.  Great cause and I’m all for happy pigs, but I don’t think we were becoming household names.  Besides…sex sells, I write sex comedy and I have a career to launch.

Since it was our first “Love” show I thought we should start at the beginning. Specifically, how Grimm fairy tales and other seemingly innocuous bedtime stories set us up for a lifetime of messed up relationships.

I started the show by reciting a poem I wrote for Not Too Scary Vocabulary, an SAT vocab program I created.  This poem teaches the word deleterious (harmful) and goes like this:

Fairy Tales are deleterious.  Don’t laugh, I’m being serious.  A handsome prince always rescues a damsel from strife.  Little girls everywhere say,”Some day that will be my life.”  Then reality hits and they realize that the men they are dating are just regular guys.  They’re not dashing.  They have acne.  There’s not a castle to be seen.  A woman’s chances are nil of ever being queen.  So to all girls I say, put away your fairy tales at night.  Don’t get your hopes up because reality bites.

I want to be rescued!  I want a white knight to ride up on a horse and pay my mortgage or at least my Verizon bill.

I should know better.  My marriage was more like Like Little Red Riding Hood (Wolf in sheep’s clothing destroys naive girl) than Cinderella and being eaten would have probably been more fun than my divorce.  I have dated so much I can honestly declare myself a dating expert.  But with all the dating, there is still no one I want to bang who wants to pay my mortgage.

Those childhood fairy tale beliefs die-hard.  Last night I began polling friends and discovered they all believe they will fall in love one day and live happily ever after. Even the guys.  Even the ones who swear they will never get married because every one of their friends has had a marriage implode.  That includes the guy I’m currently dating.   Not sure if I should be insulted by the fact that when we were having this discussion in a romantic situation, he seemed to be referring to “some day” finding this true love.  I was like, “I’m right here you schmuck!”  But I digress.

This whole topic started bumming me out as it reminded me that I’ve yet to meet my prince charming, thinking he is going to show up is delusional and REALITY BITES.

Then I had an epiphany.  My favorite childhood bedtime story was not Sleeping Beauty.  It was Sweet, Savage Love, by Rosemary Rogers.  I don’t remember the details, but it was one of those books with guys that look like Fabio (long hair, bulging muscles) on the cover ravaging some woman and included lots and lots of steamy sex scenes.  I was quite precocious as a kid.

Once I put it all in perspective, I felt much better.  I get plenty of passion with long-haired, muscular guys.  I date heavy metal rockers.  I have fulfilled my childhood fantasies, over and over again.

Do you still fantasize about true love, white picket fences, and 2.5 kids?  Please write and let me know.  I’m fascinated by this topic and how childhood beliefs stick with us.

Love is like a Sunken Treasure – You Have to Search for it

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Love is the most powerful emotion on the face of the Earth. There are many things you can love in a lifetime. But to be in love with something, particularly someone, takes a much greater deep-rooted emotion. What if you meet that special someone, that fully completes you in every sense of the word? Well then I say you are one of the lucky ones. Because for me, being in love is something I crave more than money, more than power, more than anything I can think of.

The problem with love, is of course; holding onto it. You might fall in love with someone and then fall out of love with them over the course of time. Or maybe you lose your loved one in a horrible plane crash or they slowly die because of a terminal illness. Either way, what do you do when you are finally in love with someone and then lose that love? That’s one thing I don’t ever want to find out, but if I ever do find that one person who I love indefinitely, I guess it’s worth the risk.

People have been telling me for the better part of ten years, “You can’t force love, you just have to stop looking for it, and it will find you.”

What a bunch of bullshit.

If I stop looking for love, then how the hell is it going to find me? You think my soul mate is just going to knock on my door one day? Not even close. As a matter of fact, if I don’t look for love, then love will find someone else. I don’t care what anybody says, if you don’t look for sunken treasure, it will never be found.

My least favorite piece of advice from people is, “You have to stop being so picky, and settle down with someone, eventually you will learn to love them.” Now that’s funny, let me tell you. If not being in love with someone soon after meeting them is considered being picky, then I’m guilty as charged. I don’t want to learn to love somebody, I want to love them because that is the feeling I get when I’m around them. I am so jealous of the people out there that have found love.

How did you do it? Where did you meet them? Was it fate? Was it destiny? Maybe it was just dumb luck. Or maybe, just maybe you were meant to be in love, and some of us just aren’t meant to be in love. What a curse, what a horrible stinking curse.  My friends say that I get bored too easily with women, or that I don’t give them enough of a chance. Well that may be true, but it’s true for a reason. It’s because I’m not in love with them and I don’t feel as though I ever will be!

I love my family, my friends, my dog, my businesses, music, film, art, culture, food, and life in general.  I do know what love is, and yes I have been in love before at least twice in my life with a woman…unfortunately it didn’t work out for the long run.  I guess third time’s a charm…I’ll wait and see!

The Chemistry Questionnaire and Why it Doesn’t Work

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If you’ve ever signed up for a dating site, usually you have to answer a list of tedious questions about your personal life. More often than not, this time-consuming process makes you wonder whether or not the answers will actually help you get matched with a potential partner. Wouldn’t you rather find out whether or not your personality matches somebody else’s in person over a great conversation, over drinks or while walking in the park?

Well, that’s the real question; many dating sites prefer to have people answer a lot of questions and then use the percentages (or so they say) to give people better matches. eHarmony is notorious for a laundry list of questions, only to reject people after having answered them. OkCupid was recently scrutinized for stating that even though they ask a lot of questions, the percentages of matches was just an experiment.

I feel as though questionnaires on dating apps are a bit bogus. Just because you like a certain food, or want to travel to a certain place, or you would never do sexual things in public, doesn’t mean you won’t be a good match for someone. As the saying goes, opposites attract. If you base a relationship on questions and answers or percentages of matches, you will probably be single forever.

This is why speed dating has been so popular in the past 20 years, because you find out within five minutes if you are a good match based on what you see in front of you in person. This is exactly why I am a huge lover of all things video…because it also gives you that initial five minute decision on whether or not you will get along with someone and if you have chemistry.

If you think answering questions and reading peoples’ answers is going to be anything more than entertainment, I personally believe that you are sadly mistaken and are destined for failure in the dating scene. I think that people who are followers tend to believe these types of platforms work for them, but true believers in personality, chemistry, and love at first sight are the ones who will surpass this nonsensical data aggregation

Let your instincts and your feelings guide you to the right match, and not a bunch of meaningless answers. Would you match yourself up with someone who got the same SAT score? I think not, so why would you match yourself up with someone who answers questions the same way you do. That’s a ridiculous notion, and one that I hope disappears in the near future.

Why the Death of Robin Williams is so Heartbreaking

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acting, actor, deathd, died, film, jumanji, movies, robin williams, robin williams death, robin williams died

It’s not often an actor touches my heart the way Robin Williams did. Even though I never met him, I felt as though I knew him. His amazing variety of characters made me laugh and cry throughout my life. Even as a kid when I watched him on Mork and Mindy, I had no idea he would turn into such an amazing well-rounded actor. But as the years progressed, he continued to deliver amazing roles and characters that truly made him one of my favorite actors of all time.

When I found out he died yesterday, I immediately felt sad and humbled. And the thought of his depression potentially causing him to commit suicide was even more heartbreaking. I’ve battled depression most of my adult life, and I know how it can take a toll on you. I wish I could have just talked to him a few days ago to see what he was going through and try to help him through it. Depression makes you not want to be alive, I get it, but there are things in this world that are worth staying alive for, and the movies Robin Williams acted in were one of them.

So by taking his life, he also took away other people’s will to live in a sense. His movies were a driving force behind laughter, sadness, enlightenment, and dreams. One of his lesser-known films, Bicentennial Man, was one of my favorite movies of all time, mostly because I’m a huge Isaac Asimov fan. He portrayed an artificial intelligent robot that lives for 200 years old, and showed us how frail and weak us humans are. Well, part of me always wanted Robin Williams to live that long, to keep me laughing and fulfilled for the rest of my life.

O Captain! My Captain! (Another favorite film: Dead Poet’s Society), you inspired me to be a better person.  You helped me through some hard times when taking me through a fantasy filled adventure with Jumanji.  You showed me that dreams are what we strive for every day of our life.  In doing so, you helped make my life something special…something worthwhile in a way.  Simply put: the mundane daily routines of peoples’ lives were touched by a comedic angel.

He will sadly be missed by me and by billions of others. I truly hope he is in heaven right now doing what he does best…making everyone laugh!  Rest in peace Robin Williams, you were one-of-a-kind and always will be in my heart.

 

Profile Pictures and Message Privacy: How Far is Too Far?

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At this point, everyone has probably heard about the experiments that Facebook has run on their users. And in case you didn’t know, OkCupid has been doing it for quite some time as well. The latest blog post by Christian Rudder entitled We Experiment On Human Beings! seems to have hit people pretty hard. The real question here is: How far is too far when it comes to your profile pictures, information, answers you’ve made to questions, or messages that you send?

Apparently the answer is: As far as companies can possibly go without getting sued.

Unfortunately, when you sign up for a social network or a dating site, you are accepting their terms & conditions and privacy policy. Has anyone actually read any of these lengthy, legally verbose documents? Believe it or not, I actually have, and they aren’t pretty. In a nutshell, you are giving up all of your privacy, and are allowing companies to share your information, analyze your data and sell it even. The truth is, it seems like most people just don’t care…until it personally affects them in a negative way.

Personally I don’t agree with the way companies, whether social networks or dating sites treat people like animals, numbers, or worse. This is exactly why I started a company that does the opposite. One of the best things about living in America, is the ability to start a company using your beliefs, and treating people with respect. We don’t “play” around with our members, nor do we “experiment” with them. As a matter of fact, we would rather our members simply engage in conversations without ever analyzing the data we get. Mostly because we don’t save any information that they exchange.

In a world where our privacy is constantly being invaded by corporations, government agencies, and social networks, how can we trust any new companies? Well the short answer is: We can’t. But there is a solution (and you’re not going to like it): Just accept that privacy sharing is a part of technology and life in general. Once you accept it, and are ok with your information floating around cyberspace you will feel better about it. My suggestion is to be careful what you put out there, and use private networks, or private groups for things you don’t want made public. As a matter of fact, most of the things I share with people that I don’t want public,

I don’t post online in social networks or public forums. I keep that to private chat networks, text messages, emails, phone conversations, Skype conversations, or in person meetings.
If you are paranoid about your privacy being shelled out to companies for money, then do the same thing. I guess that’s one reason why video technology is flourishing more than anything nowadays. Videos don’t contain text or personal information. Text information and even profile photos are easy to analyze using programs, algorithms and highly intelligent engineers who can parse large amounts of data. But how do you analyze a personality or characteristics of a person on video using those same methods? Well the answer is simple: A human can do that, software is catching up, but not there entirely. That means a company would have to analyze each video one by one. This is expensive and time consuming, but also a much safer alternative for consumers.

Looks like the next wave of privacy issues will be layered on top of video technology, and I’m guessing that the companies who can figure out how to tap into those 30 frames per second are the ones who are going to be creating a whole new wealth of databases and information to sell to large corporations in the next century.

How Technology has Changed Human Interaction for the Worse

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Back in 1984 my friends and I would meet at the basketball courts to socialize, play sports, and engage in basic human interaction. If I wanted to get a hold of someone, I had to either call them on their land line, or walk to their house to knock on their door and then talk to them face to face. Even in high school, it was easier to make plans with someone at school, or at that point I could page someone my phone number and they would call me back. The level of interaction before technology took over was substantially different.

Nowadays, technology is the standard in interaction. Kids don’t really call each other, and they rarely talk to each other in person. Even when they finally meet up, their heads are buried in their smart phones, texting away, or shooting selfies to post on various social networks. It’s sad to see that the most basic of human interaction has all but disappeared. Technology, and more importantly smart phones are meant to be a tool, not a replacement for communication.

To top things off, with the advent of social networks, dating sites, and messaging platforms, people have so many choices that they rarely keep their attention focused very long. They can move from one person to the next, whether it’s a love interest, a friend, business partner, or a hobbyist. Even families are less prone to have get-togethers, because let’s face it, the conversations are pretty stale now that everyone can watch your life unfold on Facebook. When your mom asks, “So tell me what’s new?” – There’s not much in the form of a reply besides, “Well you saw what I did last weekend on Facebook didn’t you?”

People used to go out together and plan things in person, or even using email at one point. But now it’s a series of text messages, or events online, or completely faceless invites. The intimacy of personal interaction is almost gone, which is a shame considering that is the most common trait that makes us human. I hope that future generations realize that technology is meant to be used to help us stay connected, without replacing the human element. Only time will tell, but in the meantime, I will continue to call my friends or family instead of texting them, and I will plan more outings in person instead of through Facebook!

Why One Direction Being Snubbed at the VMAs is the same as Being Rejected on a Date

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Even though One Direction is a successful new band that has been touring all around the world, it seems as if the MTV VMAs didn’t give them any love this year.  They didn’t get ONE nomination.  That’s pretty sad, especially with how riveting their story is.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan (and I’m not a 14 year old girl), but I think these guys deserved at least a damn nomination.  They came together on the show X Factor as single acts, became a group, and best friends.  Then they started to form a fan base without even trying, and soon became superstars.  They weren’t the only ones that got snubbed, there are various videos (SheKnows – James Dinh) that didn’t make the cut.  The boys of One Direction have worked hard to create their music, their image, their fanbase, and ultimately respect from the music community.  So to be snubbed at the VMAs without any nominations has to feel a lot like being rejected on a date.  Remember, being snubbed at the VMAs is basically society telling you, that you are not worthy.

So this made me think to myself, if I have been also rejected on a date, was I “snubbed” by society?  It sure seems like it, and now I feel even worse about it.  I’ve worked hard to get to where I am in life, college, IT corporate, buying a home, learning a lot about the world, and creating an image of who I want to become.  I have been rejected so many times on dates that it almost seems as if the person who I have become isn’t really what society wants (or females in particular).  But then again, I have a “fan base”, of women in my life who care about me, support me, and always tell me what a great guy I am.  So I guess in a sense my situation is kind of like One Direction’s.  Snubbed by society, but loved by the people who matter.