TresSugar

Dear Poll: Are You the Bad Girl or the Good Girl?

DearSugar — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:00:00 -0700

In so many movies and TV shows (and male fantasies!), there is often a struggle between the girl next door who's smart and innocent and the bad girl who's brave, sexy, and independent. (Think: Lauren Conrad and Kristin Cavallari from Laguna Beach, respectively.) Though I don't see these characters actually battle it out in the real world, I do think there's a little truth to these conventional identities, and some women fit better into one category than the other.

While being the good girl is appealing, truth be told, I think I might be more of the bad girl at heart. It's a total generalization, but are you more of the opinionated bad girl or the thoughtful good girl?

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Dear Poll: Can Bad Girls Reform?

DearSugar — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 09:00:00 -0700

I think it is safe to say that we all have a bit of a wild streak in us, but if we choose to act upon it, luckily our crazy tirades aren't splashed across every tabloid in town. As we have seen in Hollywood, some rebels take their bad behavior to an extreme while others have been known to turn their lives around, so do you think bad girls can reform?

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Were You Ever Attracted to Bad Boys?

TresSugar — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:00:15 -0800

With her rocker eyeliner, all-black wardrobe, and perfected eye roll, Gossip Girl's Jenny Humphrey isn't exactly fitting in with the prissy kids at her prep school. It's obvious that she needs a bad boy by her side, and on last night's episode that's just what she gets.

Jenny meets up with a Belgian diplomat's son, who happens to be drug pusher. She seems turned on or at least intrigued by his rebellious side and ends up helping him with some sales. Luckily, original bad boy Chuck Bass (they know his name even in Europe) is there to save Jenny from the dangers of drugs. But now that she's had a taste of the fast life, I suspect she'll be back for more, especially since she already has the wardrobe.

Although Jenny's appearance in the episode is otherwise pointless, it did remind us that sometimes we can be attracted to bad boys - even if it's completely stupid. Have you ever had a thing for troublemakers?

For more Gossip Girl coverage, check out FabSugar, BellaSugar, BuzzSugar, and CelebStyle.)

Photos courtesy of The CW

Berlusconi's Mistress Tells Us More Than We Need to Know

TresSugar — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:30:23 -0800

Italians really take their sex scandals to the next level. Today, Patrizia D'Addario, former call girl mistress to Italy's "I'm no saint" prime minister, adds a "lesbian dimension" to her tale of sex, power, and retaliation.

Patrizia has a book coming out and excerpts reveal that she has been the target of threats, robbery, and violence after going public about her affair with Silvio Berlusconi. But that's not stopping her. Describing a party held at Berlusconi's home, Patrizia shares the prime minister's preference for white silk pajamas and women who like other women. To see an excerpt, read more.

Patrizia writes:

"Other girls arrived, including a pair of lesbians, and a few other escorts. . . My first thought was that I'd found myself in a harem. He was on the couch and all of us, 20 girls in all, were at his disposition."

While the presence of lesbians probably seems relatively inconsequential, it might upset Italian citizens who were otherwise willing to dismiss heterosexual escapades. And as the Guardian reports, Berlusconi can say good-bye to a recent break from bad press: "The publication of D'Addario's book will divert public attention back to the affair after a period in which the focus had been on another sex scandal involving the former center-left governor of the region around Rome. Piero Marrazzo resigned after being filmed taking drugs and having sex with a transsexual." Mama mia.

How Do I Handle This Strip Club Situation?

Tres Community — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:00:15 -0800

This post comes from Group Therapy in our TrèsSugar Community. Feel free to add your advice in the comments!

First of all my husband and I have been married for half of a year now. He's in the Navy and just got deployed, but right before the deployment he was sent to Hawaii for one day. I dropped him off at the airport and it was so hard for me to let him go. He called from Hawaii and we talked for five minutes then he said he had to go and he would call back.

As I was checking our bank account to check on the bills I noticed he had paid to go in to some type of club. While crying my eyes out because of how much I already missed him and knowing he wasn't coming home any time soon, I waited for him to call back. When he finally did I got him to tell me the truth and it turned out to be a strip club. This was his first time going into a strip club. The problem is that I feel so offended and disrespected. I know I'm not unattractive, and I'm very open minded in our sex life. So to me it seems as if I'm not enough for him, and that he didn't care about how I feel about strip clubs. The fact that he was lusting over those girls makes me so angry and upset.

To see the rest, .

When we talked I was so mad and disappointed and couldn't stop crying. But after a while I realized that I've been told not to say anything negative or upsetting to him since he was going on deployment to a very stressful environment. I won't be able to talk to him at all while he's gone, I can only send emails but I can't confront him there either. So I had to pretend that I got over it and that I was OK, so he wouldn't feel bad and guilty. But in reality I feel so disgusted and can't take the thought of him wanting someone else. I'm alone and don't have any family here, this is our first deployment and I'm still trying to handle it. He made things so much worse for me, now I'm not just worried about his safety, but also at the thought of when he goes to a port he's going to cheat on me. I'm just hurt and feel resentment towards him, but for as long as he's out I have to pretend I'm fine and support him through the emails. I know some people might think I'm over reacting, but to me this is just like cheating.

There's lots of great stuff going on in our community - join it, check it out, share your posts or advice in the great groups and maybe we'll feature it here on TrèsSugar!

Pucker Up Boys!

GiggleSugar — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 06:00:00 -0700

Holy humiliation, Batman! In this prank (which should disprove the cliché that women are the kinder sex!) Girls Behaving Badly's Chelsea Handler teams up with Brooke Burke to see just how far a guy will go to please a smokin' hot celebrity. It should come as no surprise that he'll go far alright, even if it involves red lipstick and publicly making out with an inanimate object. Ouch.

Women Worry That Obama Is Throwing Them Under the Bus

TresSugar — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:42:32 -0800

Back in January, feminist magazine Ms. hailed Barack Obama as a super feminist. But the president's recent tepid response to protecting abortion rights might mean that the love affair with Obama is about to end for many women. Over at the Daily Beast, women's rights activist Amy Siskind argues that the Stupak amendment, which treats women's rights as a political bargaining chip that can be traded for healthcare reform, is just one more example of how Obama couldn't care less about women . . . except when he's trying to win their votes of course. She writes:

He appointed fewer women into his cabinet than President Bill Clinton. He surrounded himself with czars, more than 90 percent of whom are male. He appointed Larry Summers, of "girls are inferior in math and science" fame, to a key economic post. He played basketball, golfed and fished with men and men only. He had beers with Skip Gates, but ignored it when Rihanna was almost strangled to death. And so on.

Of course it's not all bad. Ms. released a report chronicling the giant strides Obama made for women during his first 100 days in office. These actions included: signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, instituting a new ambassador-at-large for global women's issues, establishing the White House Council on Women and Girls, and overturning the "global gag rule" in order to re-fund global family planning organizations.

Has the Obama administration let you down when it comes to women's rights?

Infamous Reform School For Girls Closes Its Doors

TresSugar — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:00:00 -0700

The idea of a reform school for girls seems to come straight out of a B-movie from the '50s, complete with stock characters like the naïve innocent, the hardened mean girl with a heart of gold who ends up plotting a way for them both to escape, and an evil warden who gets in their way. It's hard to believe that such a place could still exist.

Until August of this year, the notorious Beloit reform school for girls in Beloit, KS did exist, and the school, founded in the 1890s, only recently shut down because the state could no longer afford to house the remaining 21 girls to the tune of $200,000 a year.

Although the school's founders had good intentions, Beloit's dark history includes the severe mistreatment of girls, many of who were running away from physically and sexually abusive homes. In effect, the abused were shipped off to be further abused. How bad did it get? In the '30s, a superintendent who was influenced by Nazi eugenics practices had 62 of her charges involuntarily sterilized. To read more about the history of Beloit and how it evolved, read more

Beloit was founded and in part funded by the suffragist and pro-Prohibition group The Women's Christian Temperance Union in the 1890s. Sometimes, the girls there were practically "indentured" by farm families in this rural town in order to earn the food they ate. (This was all before the state took over.)

At the time, according to Russell Jennings, commissioner of the Kansas Juvenile Justice Authority, girls "were really viewed in our society much more as property." They didn't even have to run away to be deemed "incorrigible" or "wayward." They only had to be, as he put it, "a pain in the neck."

In a file from a girl housed (incarcerated?) at Beloit in the '30s, her offenses were that she "associated with Mexican men" and "became intoxicated at dances." Another woman was sent to the reform school for "being immoral (with father)."

A federal law passed in the mid-1970s ended the practice of sending girls to reform school when their offenses, if they'd been committed by adults, would not be considered crimes. But their incarceration continued in Kansas until 1983. Now, troubled teenage girls are sent to community centers where they can get the help that they need.

In spite of its history, for some who stayed there, Beloit was a haven from abuse at home. "I will always believe that because of Beloit and the staff, I am where I am today," said a 50-year-old who is happily married with three children and counsels survivors of sexual abuse. "They saved the lives of unwanted children."

Source

7 Things I Learned About Girl Power From Watching "Whip It"

TresSugar — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:00:00 -0700

It's rare to see empowering chick flicks (even that genre name is a little annoying), but Whip It, starring Ellen Page, Drew Barrymore, Kristen Wiig, and the terrifyingly awesome Juliette Lewis, was fun and inspirational.

The film is about teenager Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page), who would rather skate on a roller derby team than don an evening gown and compete in beauty pageants as her mother wants her to. The following is what I learned about that outmoded term "girl power" from watching it:

1. Your mom may not realize she's keeping you down with the same things that kept her down. Communicate with her - it may help you both.

2. Being true to yourself may not just make you happier, it may make everyone around you happier. A lot of unnecessary tension ensues in Bliss's life because she hides her true self from her family.

3. Boys can be fun, but they aren't everything. Wait for the right one (if that's your thing), and in the meantime, find yourself. To find out what else I learned, read more.

4. It's OK to be competitive with other women if you aren't hurting or undermining anyone. Competition between women abounds in both of Bliss's worlds, the pageant world and the roller derby world, some good and some bad. It may not be as culturally acceptable for women to be competitive with each other, but a healthy dose of it keeps you in top form.

5. It's important to find an activity that not only challenges you but brings out your signature strengths. Bliss is certainly challenged by beauty pageantry - but not in a good way. Roller derby brings out her best traits.

6. Friends really can be the family you wish your family was. (Although you should give your family a chance!)

7. Taking risks in your life can pay off. It would have been just as hard for Bliss to continue with the pageant world, but by going out of her comfort zone and reaching for something that scares and excites her, she comes out on top.

Do, Dump, or Marry? Ed Westwick

TresSugar — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 01:00:00 -0700

Ed Westwick's character on Gossip Girl went from being a bad guy to the smart, troubled guy who's actually sensitive. Basically, the kind of bad boy too many women fall for!

I wish he used his real British accent on the show - guys are always 10 times more attractive with an accent. With or without an accent - what do you think of him?