TresSugar

Dear Poll: Do You Ever Break the Tension With Laughter?

DearSugar — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:00:00 -0800

Couples fight, it just comes with the territory, but knowing when to call a truce takes a certain sense of humility. I've found that laughter helps to keep things in perspective so tell me, have you ever cracked a joke or started to giggle in order to keep the peace in your relationship?

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Do Tell: What's in your Make Up Bag?

DearSugar — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 09:00:00 -0700

Are you a cosmetic junkie? Unfortunately I don't love cosmetics as much as clothing and accessories, but some women can't tear themselves away from the make up counter. Regardless of the size of your make up bag, we all have essentials we don't leave home without. Mine are mascara and eyeliner, so ladies, do tell, what's in your everyday make up bag?

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Do Tell: What's Your Guaranteed Make Up Routine?

DearSugar — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 09:00:00 -0700

It's inevitable that couples will fight, it's just the nature of the beast, but what really matters is how you make up! Couples that fight seem to have their make up routine down pat. Perhaps they fight just so they can make up! So ladies, do tell, what does your boyfriend or husband do or say to guarantee a truce after a knock down, drag out fight?

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Reebok Promises to Make Your Boobs Jealous of Your Butt - Hilarious or Horrifying?

TresSugar — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:00:24 -0800

On its website, Reebok claims that its new line of EasyTone shoes, which are displayed against the backdrop of a naked woman, will help you make 88 percent of men speechless and 76 percent of women jealous. Hoping to drum up some hype for these kicks, Reebok has also unveiled a whole slew of commercials touting the shoes' butt-toning abilities. In this commercial, Reebok pitches the shoes by reducing a faceless woman to two talking breasts. You see, the breasts are jealous of the woman's butt, which is now getting all the attention thanks to the shoes. Do you find this ad effective or offensive?

Hillary Talks Sexism, Obama's Job Offer, and Mad Men to Vogue

TresSugar — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:00:35 -0800

Hillary Clinton finally sat down for a long-overdue Vogue interview. She offended editor Anna Wintour during the primaries by turning down the fashion mag out fear of looking "too feminine." And though she won't be on the December cover, the article is as substantial and satisfying as a cover story.

From night swimming alone to her favorite shows (Mad Men!), we see a side of Madame Secretary that all the vetting in the world would not unearth. See some of what she had to say below.

On visiting countries as a high-ranking female: "You can go to some countries and there's not a woman in the room. They don't even make the effort to give me the token woman minister. . . . And in lots of African countries the honorific for women is 'Mama.' So I had lots of people say to me, 'Mama, what about this; Mama, what about that?'"

On President Obama's job offer: "I was stunned after the election when President Obama asked me to consider this. . . . I really was very unconvinced. I did not think it was the right thing to do. I didn't want to do it. I just really had a lot of doubts, and I kept suggesting other people: Well, how about this person! How about that person! This one would be really good! But then a friend of mine called me and basically said, 'How would you have felt if you'd been elected and you'd called him and asked him to do this?' And that really made a big impression on me. How do you say no? And so . . . I said yes. And here I am."

On Mad Men: "That's how it was! That's why the women's-liberation movement was so shocking. It was like news from outer space"

See what else she had to say after the jump.

Ask an MBA Student: Is It OK For My Boyfriend to See His Ex?

TresSugar — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:00:44 -0800

Conventional Wisdom is a different kind of advice column. Your questions will be answered by people from all walks of life rather than by advice experts. This week, a guy working on his MBA tries to help out a woman nervous about her boyfriend's ex. If you have a question you'd like answered on Conventional Wisdom, you can submit it here.

Today's Question:
My boyfriend's ex-girlfriend just moved back in town and he wants to hang out with her. She's going to stop by his house this week so they can catch up. They broke up a couple of years ago, but they dated for a few years so this sort of makes me uncomfortable. Can I tell him that I don't want them to be friends? I don't know whether I should be upset or just let it go.

Signed,
Nervous

To read the MBA student's advice, read more.

Dear Nervous,

My advice is to let them hang out and catch up initially. It's natural for friends who haven't seen each other to meet up; there is nothing to worry about. I think it might be a good idea for you to be there, if your boyfriend is OK with that. If this is truly a friend situation, he shouldn't have a problem with you being there, and if the ex-girlfriend is moving back into town then she should want to get to know you. After they catch up, the novelty might go away and they might never see each other again as people change. However, if they continue to hang out and see each other a lot, you can let him know that it makes you uncomfortable. He should respect your wishes and tone it down.

Signed,
An MBA Student

Is Make up Sex a Good or Bad Idea?

DearSugar — Tue, 01 May 2007 14:45:00 -0700

Breaking up is hard to do even if you know, at the end of the day, that it was the right decision. Missing the constant affection and companionship of a loved one can take quite a bit of time to get used to. While closing off all contact is the best way to move on, it's much easier said than done, leaving some couples holding on to any lingering connection they can grab.

We have all had moments of weakness whether it be calling your ex after one too many glasses of wine or purposely running into him, whatever the scenario, hoping to spend one more night together. So how do you feel about dragging out the inevitable? Do you feel sharing an intimate night with your ex is a good idea or a bad idea? Some women feel a night of break up sex will close that chapter in her life while others are left guilt ridden and confused. What's your take?

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Hilarious or Horrifying? Trojan Can Prevent Rude Moviegoers

TresSugar — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 08:00:39 -0800

When lovers not planning on making a baby start to get busy, the last thing they want to think about is what type of person their potential child would be three decades down the road. But in this commercial, Trojan wants to remind you that you should wrap it up, lest you end up with a child who turns out to be the most obnoxious grown man ever to enter a movie theater!

Avoiding children, annoying or not, is a major reason for using protection, but this commercial sends a somewhat confusing message about contraception. If this guy weren't annoying, would it have been a good thing that his parents didn't use a condom? Do you think this is an effective message, or does it miss the mark?

Uh Oh! Counterfeit Condom Factory Discovered in China

TresSugar — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0800

Condoms might top the list of things that should never be counterfeited. Unfortunately, there may be as many as one million ineffective knock-off condoms on the market in China right now.

Four people were arrested this week at a factory allegedly producing and selling condoms that provide little to no protection against disease or pregnancy. What's worse? Authorities said they found "bare-chested" employees using vegetable oil to lubricate the condoms that they then packaged without any sterilization. Whoever came up with this fake factory sounds like they were fulfilling some sort of bizarre fantasy.

This story is scary enough to make someone outside of China paranoid. If you're freaked out, just make sure you never buy condoms labeled as "Jisson, Durex. Rough Rider, Six Sense and Love Card."

The Dark Side of Cute

TresSugar — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:00:00 -0800

Kittens in casts. Babies nudged to laugh every five seconds. Stuffed teddy bears left at killing-spree sites. We are so surrounded by the tyranny of cute that even multibillion-dollar corporations have cute names like "Google" and "Twitter," and the uncute business of insurance is represented in ads by a cute lizard with an English accent. (And yes, I too am guilty of spreading cuteness.)

What's up with the cute? Writer Jim Windolf has had enough and decided to try to get to the bottom of what he calls the "self-infantalization" of Americans. His conclusion? There's a dark, manipulative side to cute. If you want to know what it is, read more.

In Daniel Harris's book Cute, Quaint, Hungry, and Romantic, he says that there's a hidden sadism to our love of cute, citing the barrage of images of cats falling, puppies slamming into mirrors, and even babies trapped in high chairs being prodded to laugh.

"The process of conveying cuteness to the viewer disempowers its objects," he writes, "forcing them into ridiculous situations and making them appear more ignorant and vulnerable than they really are. Adorable things are often most adorable in the middle of a pratfall or a blunder." In other words, they are cute insofar as they are helpless, and we, conferrers of cute, are all-powerful.

Becoming cute, conversely, is one way of disarming opponents or critics. It's not incidental, argues Windolf, that the cult of cute in the US emerged during the Bush years, when "the American image went from that of protector to invader, from defender of human rights to aggressor on the lookout for loopholes in the Geneva Conventions." Cuteness then, according to this theory, "came about as some sort of correction, as a way for us to convince ourselves and our friends that we're not as bad as our recent national actions have made us seem." (It reminds me of smiley emoticons at the end of passive-aggressive email messages and instant messages. In this case, American cute is like a ginormous cultural smiley face emoticon tacked on the end of dubious actions telling our allies we're not all that bad.)

Windolf traces American cute back to Japan's kawaii culture, which got huge 10 years ago but actually emerged at the end of WWII after it was "humiliated and emasculated." If you're interested in political and cultural psychoanalysis, I suggest reading this long essay. But whatever you do, remember - ~~sometimes a cigar is just a cigar~~ sometimes a cute kitten isn't just a cute kitten.

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