Monday, January 29, 2007

새로운 노인 세계! Brave old world~

한국의 고령화, 저출산 문제는 가면 갈수록 그 심각성이 강화되고 있다. 한국의 합계 출산율 은 점점 감소하여 2005년 1.08으로 세계 최저 수준을 나타나고 있고, 이와 증가되는 기대 수명에 따라 노동 가능 인구가 부양해야 할 노년의 비율을 나타내는 노년부양비 가 2005년에 13.2이다. 통계청은 2019년부터 한국의 인구가 감소하기 시작하여, 총 인구 중 65세 이상인 자들의 비중이 2031년에 25%가 넘고 2050년에는38.2%를 나타낼 것이라고 예상하고 있다. 이는 다시 말하자면 약 23년후 인구 4명중 한명은 65세 이상일 것이며, 2050년에는 인구의 5명중의 2명가량 65세 이상이라는 뜻이다.
다시 말하자면, 내가 65세가 될즘에는, 만약 출산율과 기대 여명의 큰 변화가 없다면 나와 나의 나이또래의 환갑넘은 사람들은 물론 전체 인구의 과반수를 넘지는 못하겠지만 실제 어른이라고 일컬을수 있는 25세 이상의 사람들의 거의 과반수가 될 것이라는 것이다.
이 사회는 지금 우리가 생각하는 사회랑 비슷할 수가 없다. 즉, 이 시대에는 65세 이상의 사람들은 더이상 "노인"이라는 소리를 듣지 못할 것이고, 그야말로 65가 "중년층"이 될 것이다. (실제 나이가 중간 정도이니).. 물론 이때 예상되는 평균 연령은 여성의 경우 55세, 중위 연령은 58세이다. 아마 이 사회는 55세가 클럽을 드나들 것이고, 소비 문화의 중심에 서있을 것이며, 일은 아마 75세까지 하지 않을까 싶다.- 이는 당연하다, 왜냐면 연금 재원이 그렇지 않고는 베겨낼수가 없기 때문이다.

아..멋진 세계일것 같지 않는가?
더이상 늙는것을 두려워 말자!

Friday, January 26, 2007

Your Dating Age Range

So, many people wonder, what is your age limit, to date that is...
Is he too old? too young? but when is it okay old and when is it TOO old?

Here is a simple way of calculating your age range, and proven to be quite useful and accurate.

your age / 2 + 7 = the youngest age you can date.

(ex) your age=30 (not that I am, just that its a simple number to calculate mind you!) than 30 / 2 + 7 = 22... so if you're 30 you can't date anyone younger than 22.

What is your upper limit?

That person's age / 2 + 7 = your age ==> (your age - 7) * 2 = your upper age limit

(ex) sticking to our 30 example, (30- 7) * 2 = 46

so if you're 30 you can date someone between 22 and 46.
Easy ain't it?
Notice how your range will proportionally become larger as you grow older.
[range = 3/2*(yourage) - 21]
There are also good things in life as you grow older...

Ofcourse at the end of the day, if you love that person, and if the sex is good, go for it no matter what anyone saids about anything.

Post-script: Seriously guys... I mean this formula is for people over 16 which I think should be the age you can start dating.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Women's sexuality

One of the unsolvable eternal question, can women have sex like men do?
Forgetting the male side of the argument, on the women's side there are two major lines of thinking.
One is that they can't.. borrowing words of Dawn Eden writer of The Thrill of the Chaste
"... it doesn't work. We're not built like that. Women are built for bonding. We are vessels and we seek to be filled..."
More detailed, women are made differently, that women are more emotional than their male counterparts, and we get involved with our mates after sexual intimacy. Trying to make one less connected with your sex partner is fighting your natural instincts. It is not natural...

The other side is that well, maybe one can...
Germaine Greer writer of The Female Eunuch
"Women have somehow been separated from their libido, from their faculty of desire, from their sexuality. They've become suspicious about it. Like beasts, for example, who are castrated in farming in order to serve their master's ulterior motives — to be fattened or made docile — women have been cut off from their capacity for action. It's a process that sacrifices vigor for delicacy and succulence, and one that's got to be changed." (March 22, 1971; The New York Times)

Although I do not believe that what Greer was maintaining for was male sexuality to be imported to females. It is more that there needs to be a revolution of the female sexuality, to embrace it as what it is without being shameful or shy. She did argue for the end of celibacy and monogamy and published a book called "the beautiful boy" which was made "to advance women's reclamation of their capacity for and right to visual pleasure". such as men glorify the teenage female body, let women enjoy the teenage male body...

The arguments on the two sides will be everlasting.
However, one comment made by Zoe Williams "... sex can be an act of equality, entered into with equal enthusiasm by people who enjoy it equally."

Whatever it is, I think one must find a place where one feels comfortable, without thinking what others have said or what you think others will think. It is a true place of intimacy where one should be at the most ease... and utter enjoyment.
One should try out things, both sides, and see which is most comfortable... just as trying out new styles. I don't believe there is just one type of female sexuality (I also don't believe there is one male sexuality as well but not going into that), it can be placed in a whole wide spectrum and although you can be socialized to be one way, try it out and see what happens. And always, always never forget to have fun!

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Popularity and bad taste

Anything popular is dismissed as being populist - which is sneering shorthand for being of the lowest possible taste
Paul Dacre
Wednesday January 24, 2007
The Guardian

"The BBC's cultural Marxism will trigger an American-style backlash"

I must say, although I do not agree with anything this guy said in the article, this one line kinda gets to me.
Are we snobs? We as in the ones with good tastes or more so "unique tastes" in art/music/movies etc.
Are we condescending towards others who feed off of the music/art that is just given to them?

Sunday, January 21, 2007

And all that ass! on British Telly

Self-help for everything
One of the things that characterise British telly scene is the massive amounts of shows that are geared towards the audience as self-help shows. This includes how to clean your house (“How clean is your house?”), how to loose weight and eat healthy (“You are what you eat”), how to discipline your children (“Supper nanny”), how to dress properly (“What not to wear”) all the way to how to be better in bed (“Sex Inspectors").

Having Trouble in Bed? Get help from the “Sex Inspectors”

The show Sex Inspectors is a show which helps couples – married or cohabitating- to enhance their libidos and have better sex with each other. There are two Sex inspectors who will first evaluate your current sexual patterns, and then tell you what is wrong and give you tips on how you can overcome the problems.
The problems range from “she can’t orgasm though penetration sex”, “she wants too much too frequent and he doesn’t” all the way through “bad results with wild sex experiments” and “she got to fat to do other positions and I am bored”.

How to evaluate your sex life
How the sex inspectors evaluate your sex life, is first through interviews, held separately for each couple. To ask them what they feel, what they lack and what they think the problem is. Of course, it is hard to be completely open because you’re in front of the national telly, which your mum, dad, friends can all see, and you’re talking to someone you don’t know. So, as the solution to this problem they also record you and your partner having sex. No, no shading or filters used, but you see its okay for its for treatment! No, no its not porn with normal people in it. Yes, sometimes, cuz some people like to have sex in the dark they use good infra-red cameras- which I must add have developed quite a lot these days – see the Paris Hilton video if you don’t believe me.

Help! I can't come!
Afterwards, the inspectors watch the videos of their clients having sex quite intensively and then evaluate what is wrong, of course along with the British public. It’s all clinical, such as, “As you can see from this movement, he is not penetrating her slowly enough” or “Look at him, he just walks in with an erection asking for sex!”, or “If you can see she apparently did not really come”.

Tips on how not to use your tip
So what kind of advice do you get?
Each week they give you a wide range of tips to enhance your sex drive, sex life in various ways, which is actually available on the web.
These range from teasing each other, using sex toys or role games, to taping and watching your spouse masturbate in the shower, which are all very non perverted safe and normal things which all couples must do!
Other than this, they also “correct” the way you have done your normal sex. Such as tips to how to properly do a cunnilingus. “ The man must relax the tongue and use the whole flat of the tongue rather than tensing it and just using the tip... The man can also try spelling out the alphabet with his tongue on her clitoris.” Get it men? No tips but alphabets! Yeah, yeah also women get advice as well, don’t worry it’s a gender neutral show! Such as using your finger to stimulate your partner’s anus, “very gently place a lubricated finger in your partner's anus and wait whilst the muscle round it relaxes. Then gently stimulate the G spot with a beckoning motion”. Beckoning eh? I am sure once you do this they will start beckoning more...

Happy sex in happy relationships
Like most shows that deal with self help issues, just before the credits roll up they show the happy couple talking about how the sex inspectors helped their life greatly, and how they were thinking of divorce just before the show, but now am re-living their second honeymoon and want to stay together for the rest of their lives (having lots and lots of sex). Yes, indeed good sex can go a long way.

Just an excuse to play porn?
You ask yourself, especially when you’re not used to this bluntness of British telly, is this really a show that helps people, or is this just a really lame excuse to play porn or sex on national television without getting censored? You be the judge, but whichever the case, I am sure some lives are actually being saved here as well. Although must say that there are shows, such as “Ban this filth”( http://www.banthisfilth.com/ - a parody of shows which ban explicit things on telly and society, which is run by three grannies- real grannies!- but is just an excuse to show all!), which definitely is a show that is just a lame excuse to show more ass and tits – and penises and vaginas- on telly.

Sunday, January 07, 2007

Choices

I've always managed to procrastinate sufficiently until choices are made at the last moment. Through these experiences I've also realized that it is the hardest and most strainful when you haven't decided on what to do, and its okay or at least better once the decision is made, and best if you don't look back on it. Large proportion of stress comes from the thought, what if you make the wrong decision, and trying (hard) to make the right one.
However, as someone put it once, "good decision makers are not necessarily the ones that make the right decisions but the ones that make the decisions".

--- after pondering whether I should start working today or sleep or read a novel for 8 hours and then ending up doing neither or nothing niks.

Luck and fate

"The man who said 'I'd rather be lucky than good’ saw deeply into life. People are afraid to face how great a part of life is dependent on luck. It's scary to think so much is out of one's control. There are moments in a match when the ball hits the top of the net and for a split second it can either go forward or fall back. With a little luck, it goes forward and you win…or maybe it doesn’t, and you lose.”
- Chris Wilton, Match Point.

How much of life is dependent on luck and how much of it is really what we reap from our hard work or decisions?
I've written before how the more I live life, how much more I feel we do not have control over things which we think or have thought we have/had.
We like to think we have (at least some) control over what happens to us in our lives, its surprising to see how little we have. We can always take precautions prepare and work hard etc.. but at the end of the day, we can't really control what is to happen.

We like to think that we control what happens so that our hard work is not for nothing and also to ease the uncertainty of the future, for the biggest reason for fear is not knowing.

Of course I am not saying that we have no control over anything so we should just wait for faith to do its job and put no effort into anything.

The right answer probably is "you do your best and must let fate do the rest"... if you are lucky you will succeed, if not you will fail, but just don't beat yourself over it, cuz there was more involved than your own will. no, I am not saying its god(of God)'s will. That is just an easy way of explaining luck and fate, not to say that its completely implausible for god to exist.

But again, sometimes, it does feel like maybe that doing one's best isn't really going to help as well... that what is meant to be is meant to be and which ever precautions or preparations you make won't make a darn difference what so ever.