Reality TV star goes to unreal lengths justifying spousal abuse

What in the holy fuck, yo?

'Real Housewife' Melissa Gorga's New Book Advocates Marital Rape - Jezebel

Let me just get it out of the way.. I DON'T WATCH A LOT OF TV.. specifically because I have no desire to see Kardashians, Hedonistic Housewives, or any other kind of television show that follows women around to watch them shop, be catty for the sake of cattiness, bolster the validity of the worst kind of female stereotypes, or otherwise celebrate wastefulness and selfishness. Sorry people, Rome is burning and as such, I could care less about the window treatments, catfights, or in-home mani-pedi that some polished, plucked, spritzed, painted banshee is screeching about in her excessively expensive home.

As I get older, and see more and more people struggling to just fucking FEED themselves and their children on a daily basis, I can't help but find myself vomitously disgusted by these "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" throwbacks. But I digress...

NOW, as if ovary-bearing individuals are not slogging their way through enough problems with prevalent rape-culture, street harrassment, and slut-shaming, we've got a new bible for the apologetic battered housewife.. "Love Italian Style: The Secrets of My Hot and Happy Marriage" - by Melissa Gorga

Not only does this book divulge personal details of this woman's systematic abuse and subjugation in her marriage at the hands of her husband, Joe, it goes on to profess that his temper, selfishness, and controlling behaviour are merely "manly" traits that should not only be tolerated, but cherished and lovingly acknowledged as true romance shown from a man to a woman.

In fact, he's so lovingly helicoptering this woman ALL the fucking time, that she wasn't permitted to so much as write the book HERSELF.. oh no.. there are sections written ENTIRELY BY JOE in HER book, to the point that it would appear he is interrupting and shouting over her in printed word as much as we can surmise he does in person.

Here's a real gem by the aforementioned Joe, wherein he appears to find sexual assault both hot and a husbandly duty:

"Men, I know you think your woman isn't the type who wants to be taken. But trust me, she is. Every girl wants to get her hair pulled once in a while. If your wife says "no," turn her around, and rip her clothes off. She wants to be dominated.

Women don't realize how easy men are. Just give us what we want."

DAMN, ladies! Just give them what they want and whenever they want it! Why didn't WE think of that? Probably because our ladybits make us overly emotional and illogical. Thank GOD for men like Joe and the brain-adjusting semen injections they can provide for us! However could we become the ideal dishwashing, brainless, babymaking, bedroom vamping, foundation-plastered automatons we ALL desire to be without all the dick that guys like Joe insist on giving us whenever they feel like it? ALL HAIL THE DEMANDING MAN AND HIS BLESSED SEXUAL AGGRESSION! Didn't you know that toddler-style temper tantrums and demands are COMPLETELY ACCEPTABLE out of grown men? The only difference is that when boys grow into men they are BIG and STRONG and can rip your clothes off to get the "cookies" as is the right of the husband and....

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST ON A CRACKER ARE YOU SERIOUS? REALLY?? SOMEONE ACTUALLY PUBLISHED A CONTEMPORARY BOOK MAKING MARITAL RAPE SOUND NORMAL???

Also, gals... did you know your husband is not supposed to be aware of the bodily functions you and he have in common? Melissa says that women don't shit.

Seriously.

"Girls don't poop. Me, never have. Never will. It just doesn't happen. Or, that's what Joe thinks! We've been married for nine years, and he has never once seen or smelled my business. How have I pulled this off? I don't do it when he's around or awake. In an emergency, I have my ways of pooping so he won't hear, smell, or see. It's a challenge."

Thanks a pantload, Melissa Gorga. .. er.. or not.

This might be where we've all gone wrong, girls. If you're not playing "Hide and Shit", your relationship is doomed. I gotta say, though.. if that is, indeed, "what Joe thinks", Joe is not the sharpest tool in the shed. He's a tool, sure.. just not a very sharp one.

More husbandly advice from the magnanimous Joe..

"To be on the same level, everyone has to get off the high horse. I don't care if the woman makes more money than the man, if he's a janitor and she's the president. After a fourteen-hour workday, if a man comes home and there's no dinner on the table, and his wife is on the phone, watching TV, or on the computer ignoring him, he won't feel respected."

So... leader of the free world best be home early makin' you a steak, huh? What a douchebag..

Oh, and this (from Joe):

"I don't feed babies, or change the diapers. My father never wiped my ass, and I don't wipe my babies' either."

Damn, Melissa.. how do you let him leave the house? I'm sure the bitches are lining up READY to pounce on this one! Sarcasm aside, its really this paragraph from the first chapter that kills me. Basically, a foreword that explains how she got into this mess in the first place..

"I was envious of girls with daddies to turn to. They could make a call, and their fathers would swoop in to fix their car brakes, give them a loan, or make them feel treasured and special. I missed that closeness. I found myself drawn to a certain kind of man, a father figure who made me feel protected and would tell me right from wrong. They weren’t older than me per se. It was the authoritative and instructive personality type—someone who could take charge—that attracted me. I know a lot of women wouldn’t like that. But I responded to it."

If that isn't heartbreaking enough, she later tells of Joe's "instruction" in their married life together, outlining a pattern of abuse that first assures her that there is something wrong with her that needs to be "corrected" and how validating his controlling behaviour is essential to the health of their marriage.

"His style was to make corrections and to teach me from the beginning days of our marriage exactly how he envisioned our life together. Joe always says, "You got to teach someone to walk straight on the knife. If you slip, you're going to get cut." Even if something didn't bother him that badly, he'd bring it up. He wanted to make sure that I knew, for example, if I ran out to CVS and he came home from work to an empty house, he didn't like it. He'd call me and say, "I don't care if you're out all day long. But I don't want to come home to an empty house."

... you know.. God forbid she see herself as an individual person. According to Joe, she isn't. She's a WIFE, and therefore property meant to feed, breed, clean up after, and sexually serve him.

Someone got the big balls and wanna try some "feminism is outdated/unnecessary" shit with me today?


The Feminine Context

Saga Of The Sodden Stay-At-Home Moms

This is an actual facebook conversation, saved, names and identities removed. These are women whose "job" within the structure of their family is to stay home and care for their children. I seriously doubt their husbands get to drink at THEIR jobs.

I am a stay at home mother with about a billion other irons in the fire from working online, and somehow, it never occurs to me to get trashed while my child is under my care. I posted a bit about this phenomena HERE and HERE, and every time I think I was being unreasonable, I see something else that makes my stomach turn.

I hate to think of what these women would have to say about babysitters or teachers or childcare workers who drank "socially" or to "relax" while at their jobs. So what makes it different when the drinking is done by mom at home? Why is it "cute" because they're saying "glass of wine"? What if they said "Jack& Coke" or "Jello Shots"? It's the same thing except the public idea is that jello shots are stronger, so more caution might be taken when it came to pounding em down. I sincerely doubt anyone would find it remotely classy that women who don't work and bring in an income for the family are watching their kids hammered on whiskey or vodka, but somehow when it's wine, it's suburban chic?

Are we actually lamenting the fact that no one can get away with popping Valium like its candy? While caring for children?

The Feminine Context

Wine. The lifeblood of suburbia?

Hello everyone. This topic has been annoying the holy shit out of me for quite a while now, but I had to wait til I was a bit tipsy to give it the full, context-appropriate attention it deserves.

Not too long ago, I saw an episode of the Tyra show that was about pot-smoking soccer moms. What a freaking mess. The guests included six pot smoking moms, and six moms that did nothing but but scream anti-pot slogans, over and over again at the pro-pot moms. Overall, it was somewhat entertaining. However, I couldn't see how anyone could fall on either side of the argument and feel that they were being represented well, as almost all of them acted like twats at one point or another.

On team "Legalize Weed", there was a mixed bag(gie.. lol), indeed. I'm changing names here to avoid any bullshit after I write this, but one of them, "Pam", was tall and blonde and came across like a supermodel who had retired to study quantum physics for fun. Pam had a seventeen year old daughter, and they lived in Southern California together using "smokeless marijuana" (like candies, brownies, etc) LEGALLY for medical treatment of anxiety and pain. Pam was the total package, and whatever point anyone might be trying to argue, anywhere, for any reason, she would have made an excellent representative. She was intelligent, well-spoken, hot, and not doing ANYTHING illegal. Quite frankly, looking at everyone else on the stage (other than Tyra), I couldn't help but wonder what the fuck she was doing there in the middle of them.

The other tokin' mamas ranged from a spunky young asian-american who looked like she was taking on irresponsible parenting to olympic levels ("Kimchi", just cause I feel like being a bitch), to  "Susan", the oldest with four kids who claimed to be a "professional lightweight" and that she smoked up after the kids went to bed. Susan equated smoking a little pot with having a glass of wine, and the irrepressable Kimchi threw out any credibility the group might have had by claiming that she smoked pot BEFORE playing with her kids because it made her feel like she was one of the kids. Just imagine that for a moment, will you?

Child: "Mama-san, I'm hungry..."

Kimchi:"AIIEEE *clutches purse* ME TOO, Sun-yeeon. OMG I ATE ALL YOUR CEREAL RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX. HEE HEE HEE. Oh, you look so FUNNY when you're hungry. HEE HEE HEE. Mama-san is sooooooo baked!"

Child: *calls feedthechildren.org and wonders how he can make his sandbox look like Malaysia when the cameras get here*

If it shocks you to hear that marijuana use is so prevalent that even suburban soccer moms are using it, you need to wake the fuck up. I know for fact that enough people use it that if you're going to control substances like tobacco and alcohol, it seems rather pointless to NOT include marijuana in that category. That's a whole other rant, though. The reason I'm bringing it up at all, is that I can't find a way to justify being intoxicated while in direct care of a child. I don't care what the hell you're intoxicated by, there are things you just shouldn't do. In regard to Susan, if she preferred weed to wine and didn't have a moral objection with either, then I could see why she used it to unwind when her kids were in bed... much in the way that people generally DO with a beer or glass of wine at night.

Now, looking at the other side of the stage were several other women who were flat-out against the use of marijuana in any way, with or without kids. Of course, they came at these confessed potheads like they were ready to burn them (and their contraband) at the stake. Watching them speak, I couldn't help but notice one stark, hypocritical trend that was plainly evident in the "moral majority" group.

Not a one of these women thought that downing a bottle of wine was a big deal. In fact, most of them indicated that drinking wine was definitely a part of their daily homemaking/mothering routine.

I've been observing this middle-to-upper-middle class female wine-slogging problem for a while. Facebook actually can tell you a lot of things if you post less, read more, and take note of certain words as they keep appearing on your friends list. Just taking the time tonight to click on the "older posts" link on my "most recent" FB feed, I came across no less than ten mothers I know who are more well to-do, church-going, and conservative than I am, posting such gems as:

"too much screaming. hate potty training. must drink chardonnay"

"they're not quite in bed yet, but they're heading there.. and I'm heading to the cabinet with all the pretty green bottles over the fridge"

"laundry+wine=happy"

"lets get all our kids and favorite wines together this weekend!"

"will post about (childs name removed)'s bday party l8r. having 3some with pinot AND grigio :-p"

"any of my gals want to come over and help me with a couple bottles of merlot?"

and my favorite..

"anyone know where I can take a shower in Arbor Mist?"

Here's the kicker. I'm not making any of these up. I got rid of the child's name just because I feel it would be inappropriate and that the kid can't help it if his/her mom is a wino.

Because it's Facebook, as you can probably guess, some of these women know each other. What's scary is that a lot of them DON'T. This isn't a regional fad. For whatever reason, an awful lot of women have it in their heads that they need to have booze in regular amounts in order to raise their children without flipping the fuck out. Worse still, they've got it built up in their minds that drinking WINE makes it somehow classier, as though they're all on camera as "Real Housewives" of wherever the fuck they're from, and drinking makes them some sassy, classy, rich bitches.

Man, I never fit in. Here I am with a kid of my own, and obviously some sort of problem which makes me totally OKAY being sober at home. I am such a fucking drag.