Memory: Candy Bust

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Yeah - I got unbanned from commenting on the Conservative Crackpot blog I happened to visit the other day. Uh...thanks I suppose. It may have been a tough decision after a heated debate. I don't know - I had no say whatsoever in it.

Who knows, maybe I'll end up at their site again sometime; several people from the site have left comments here. The comments have been supportive, self-mocking and slightly apologetic, explaining that the site is a place for them to vent in, and things can get a little ugly, but shucks ma'am, we're really all just decent folks the rest of the week. Boys will be boys and a group will be a group, and if you're in the group you're in the group, sharing the group's small collective mind, in the bar and in the alley, at the game and at the rally.

So, in the discussion thread I accidentally started at their place, where I after having been safely gagged and one of the guys had set the tone was called a dumbass, a moron-ette and an arrogant loon, was urged to suck turds, and was assumed to have fewer braincells than fingers, to be a troll with specious arguments, and by eDog to not be a real human being at all, just a part of some ongoing fraud conspiracy against them since I couldn't be unemployed with my looks (no need to get clammy-eyed on my account, dear readers, apparently even the rednecks think I did pretty well without trailer-trash-talk as long as I was free to defend myself) - which of the good people who snuck by and left nice comments in my blog have stood up for me in that thread, or have at least had something mitigating to say about me in front of the other boys? No one.

I'm not sure which pen names all my friendly Conservative Commentators use in their own blog, but E-Man must be Elephant Man. He actually thought that someone else was supporting me in the thread at the conservative site, and immediately wrote a reply speculating that my supposed defender was a pimple-faced fat kid who had a crush on me, and that was the only reason for the support. Remember that crushing argument from kindergarten, folks? (The poster accused of supporting me had actually tried to mock me further, and got very upset; another 'bad writing meets bad reading'-related accident.) In fact, the only non-abusive referral to me in the whole thread (except maybe for in-house liberal masochist Caspian, who thought I shouldn't be supposed to be immoral just because I was silly - and perhaps eDog, who stated that unlike others, I would get a place to sleep when I'd had my ass wooped - ) was from the site owner Darth Misha, who eventually announced my subsequent user reapproval by determining that I 'hadn't said anything worthy of a ban'.

Maybe it's because of Darth Misha, but the whole thing reminds me of an event a long time ago, in a galaxy far away... For a blog, I'm afraid this is going to be quite a long story if I should tell it somewhat right, and maybe not even very funny (but you're welcome to read it for kicks, indignation, moral insight - whatever your pleasure is). If you just want to read my closing remarks about the conservative loonies, skip ahead to the last paragraph below. If not, let's travel three and a half years back, to the time when dinosaurs ruled the Earth.

I
I was fourteen years old, and found me since a month yet again in a new school system in a new country. The language was no real problem, but in my previous school the grade I was in had been among the youngest kids - here we were among the oldest, and most of the school seemed adapted for the young'uns. First day in school, The Rules were solemnly reiterated; eating candy wasn't allowed on school premises (but I found that no one of our age seemed to care much about that), and cigarette smoking (which several of my friends had indulged in at my previous school) wasn't even mentioned.

Maybe it was because of this atmosphere, but most girls in my new class felt younger than me, and although they were very polite, they seemed to warily move away like a flock of pigeons whenever I approached. The boys, as always in that age, were very unevenly developed - we had everything from growling men to children - and while the normal group of nerds reported in after a couple of days to Help The Foreign Girl, they seemed even shyer and more relieved when their conversations with me successfully had finished than the nerds in new schools usually did, and the more mature boys were after a month still too occupied by not staring in my direction to engage in any other form of communication.

That was alright, though; I had other things to think of, and I probably didn't try very hard to make new friends. When you've been replanted a couple of times, you know that these things eventually work out somehow, and that it might even be smart to not bond too tightly too early, since you may do it with people whose expectations you won't be able to meet later anyway. So at the beginning of each recess, I carried my big book bag to the next classroom (the lock on it had broke, so if I carried it around during the break it would usually snap open by itself), left the bag outside the door, and normally went out to chat with the Cool Girls in their designated corner of the schoolyard (none of which came from my class), idly look at some other kids, or just sit in the sun.

Besides lunch, we had two longer breaks during the day. Before or after these breaks, we would have Phys Ed, shop, or music, to give us extra time to get in or out of those classes. On Wednesdays, there was music class, last class of the day, right after the late break. The music classroom was the only classroom in the school basement, at the far end of a large open hall where there just was one more door, probably leading to the boiler room. Usually a lot of the kids from my class spent the break in the hall, but it was always boys only or girls only, depending on who came first.

This Wednesday afternoon break, the boys started forming in the hall, so I just left my bag there as usual, and hiked up the long, winding stairs again. It was raining, so most girls had gathered just inside the doors to the schoolyard. Normally I had no problem spending a break there, floating between different groups and thinking I blended in without being too imposing, but this time one of the girls had something she enthusiastically showed all the others. I overheard that it had to do with that we should vote to select a lead singer from our class for the upcoming school celebrations, which apparently was a position most of the girls hoped for. While I surely would have been allowed to see whatever she had to show, and maybe even get an Explanation of it if needed, I suspected the mood would get a little awkward if I intruded. So I turned and went down the stairs again to get something to read from my bag.

In the basement hall, the boys from my class were gathered around something too, right where I had left my bag. Oh well. I proceeded towards them, assuming they would scatter when they noticed me, but I came quite close without anyone paying attention to me. Then one of the boys shifted position, so I could see what they all were staring at. It was my bag, and it had opened. Dan, one of the oldest-looking boys in my class, was just fishing something out of the bag - a half-eaten chocolate bar. I didn't quite recognize it, but thought it may very well be something which had been lying in my bag for a week or two. With utter indignation, Dan held it up and exclaimed 'Look! She's got candy!' Then he saw me, and yelled 'And she's here!'

I had seen several people from my class eating candy before, but it was a new school in a new country and I still was pretty young, so I figured I might have done something wrong after all, and hurriedly took a couple of steps towards Dan to get the chocolate back from him, stash it in my bag, and leave with it. But before I could grab the foil-clad evidence, Dan threw it to another guy. I turned toward the new chocolate-holder, who actually looked scared for a moment, but then everyone had formed a circle around me, and they all sniggered while the candy comfortably was thrown to Alex, the tallest boy in the class. Now the boys were at ease, maybe for the first time ever around me; I was in their hall, having been found in possession of candy, which they all pretended to be a big deal - together they had something on me, something everyone was allowed in on for once. The losers, the geeks, the happily grinning nerds, all had joined the circle; maybe just to watch, maybe disapproving later, but for now just enjoying how the total sum of intelligence in their group diminished by the moment, leveling everyone in confused righteousness.

I slowly turned to face Alex, anticipating the next throw, already growing weary of the game and preparing to just pick up my bag and leave. 'Hurry up and throw it!' Dan shouted impatiently, but Alex just smilingly held the chocolate bar up in the air, out of my reach. I took a step towards him and said in my most reasonable voice 'Come on now - give it to me', and some of the excitement seemed to die down. Alex appeared to think about whether to hand me the candy in a friendly manner or just drop it on the ground and walk away. At that moment, Dan reached out from behind me and grabbed my ass with probing fingers.

I whirled around in the middle of the circle of boys, and nearly tripped over my bag. Everyone started roaring with laughter, and Alex, who I had turned my back to, gave me a hard smack on the bottom. While I turned again, Alex's best friend Tom reached out and tried to goose me, but missed and pinched my hip, making me stumble over my bag again when I tried to avoid him. From the outside it must have been a cute and quite arousing sight, me spinning around in my calf-long skirt, staggering like Bambi on ice trying to keep my bum out of everyone's reach, but being there I felt flushed, angry, and somehow out of breath. I tried to hit Tom over the hand, and when someone else put his hands on my buttocks I swung blindly behind me, then all around me, and the laughter of the boys rose to a kind of battle cry as they closed in on me, and Tom and Alex each grabbed one of my arms.

II
My captors placed themselves with their backs against the wall, me propped up between them, and all the other boys in a close semi-circle around us. I wondered if I should scream, but the boys still laughed so hard I doubted that anyone would hear me, and besides I still thought I could wriggle myself out of the situation without getting all the girls from the class down here, seeing me held to the wall and deciding once and for all that I really was a weird creature who never would be one of them. Dan picked up the chocolate bar Alex had dropped and held it very close to my face while he broke off a piece and put it in his mouth. Chewing, he slowly swung the chocolate under my nose, presumably to taunt me with its scent.

I didn't care one bit about the chocolate, but there was something in the calculated meanness of his behavior that made my lower lip tremble a little. Dan continued to eat the candy bar, all the time holding what was left of it under my nose. The other boys tried to rekindle the camaraderie with shouts like 'Go on, eat it all!', 'Candy's bad for you!', and 'We're confiscating it!', but while Dan finished the last pieces, the laughter from the boys started to sound forced and hollow, and Tom's and Alex's grips seemed to loosen a little. A few of the smaller boys already started to look worried that the moment, which probably was among the happiest in their school lives, was over, and Dan sensed that he was losing momentum. He studied me carefully. 'You naughty girl' he suddenly exclaimed in a shocked voice. 'Have you got even more candy hidden?' Bewildered, I just shook my head. 'Ah, but I think you do', Dan said. 'Hold her straight!' The grips around my arms tightened again, as Dan reached out and slowly, carefully started unbuttoning my blouse.

Now I screamed, but Alex instantly let go of my arm with his right hand and rammed it over my face, knocking back my head against the wall and keeping it there with his hand pressing over my mouth. While I still was dizzy from the blow, he wrapped his left arm around mine, squeezing my right upper arm to his body. We had crossed a new borderline, and Alex was determined to see the situation through without disturbance from me. Tom on my left side wrapped his arm around mine in the same way as Alex, freeing his left hand in case it would be needed for assistance. All the boys had stopped laughing and just stared at me; it was on again, and this was the real deal. I tried to squirm away and squat down to avoid Dan's relentless hands opening one button after another, but with my upper arms locked all the way up to my armpits, I had to remain standing as I was. Instead, I tried a couple of feeble kicks, but with me against the wall, Dan standing so close to me, and my skirt restraining my leg movements, there was no power in them.

When Dan had finished unbuttoning my blouse, he opened it slowly while the other boys gasped. He looked at my bra - the soft beginner's kind - for a moment, and I thought defiantly that he couldn't get to its hooks as long as I pressed my back to the wall. Then he grabbed the lower edge of my bra and firmly pulled it up over my chest, causing my naked breasts to fall out from it. 'Wicked, wicked girl' he said softly while he stared at my young boobs. 'You have loads of candy in here!' He reached out and grabbed both my breasts, while he whispered between clenched teeth: 'Haven't you learned to share?' I tried desperately to break free from the grip I was in, but Dan mumbled: 'That's good, keep struggling, makes'em nice and big' - and I froze. He squeezed my breasts and rubbed his fingers over my nipples to make them even harder - but all of a sudden, Alex couldn't contain himself any longer. He let go of my mouth, apparently not caring anymore if I screamed or not, and started hugging my right breast with his free hand. Tom grabbed the other one with his left hand, and the next moment another three boys crowded around me to grab, clutch and pinch, each one trying to get his own little flinches and screams out of me as souvenirs. My former Helping Nerds and the other less forward boys just tore at my blouse, holding it wide open and making sure my chest was fully visible and accessible from all angles.

I looked around me, but couldn't catch anyone's eyes. The part of me above my shoulders seemed to have ceased to exist for the boys, and I noticed that Alex and Tom both looked drugged with excitement, and that the arms they used to keep me restrained were beginning to shake and twitch wildly. Looking for an opening to escape through in the wall of boys surrounding me, I made a mental note to button my blouse as much as I could as I ran up the stairs, before any of the kids at the next floor saw me. At that moment Britt and Nicole, two girls from my class, entered the hall.

The newcomers remained by the stairs. All the boys stopped in their tracks, panting heavily, and some let go of me, but several others kept their grips around my clothes and body with menacing glares at the girls, and Alex and Tom continued to hold me upright against the wall. It seemed that my hitherto invisible head suddenly had reappeared on my shoulders, and everyone waited for me to speak - but what should I say? Wasn't it obvious to everyone else what had happened and how I got where I was, even though I somehow didn't have a clue myself? Nicole looked at us all with tight, generally disapproving lips, and said 'She is about to start bawling'. Britt gave up a short, hysterical giggle, and then both girls fell quiet, content to stand where they were and watch what was going to happen next. Now I had to speak, and collected myself to do it without pleading too much or breaking down in tears, but before I could say anything, Dan stepped forward again, making the other boys in front of me withdraw a little. 'Listen, you rotten little cheater!' he yelled at me, mustering new authority. I heard Britt giggle nervously in the background. 'If you lie again, you'll get a whipping so you won't be able to sit down for a week!' He lowered his voice as he moved even closer to me, looking me straight in the eyes. 'Now tell me...' he said, as he started feeling around my waist, searching for buttons or a zipper to open my skirt, 'Did you hide even more candy in your panties?'

I looked at Nicole by the stairs, and she looked back with a slightly disgusted but otherwise neutral expression. 'Yes or no?' Dan demanded. If I answered yes he would continue to strip me, if I answered no he would continue anyway, and neither answer would poke a hole in the shield of fake virtue the predators around me were hiding behind. And having the quietly critical Nicole watching the predicament I had put myself in made matters so much worse, made it impossible to escape even within my mind... The tears exploded out of my eyes with a force that seemed to blow Alex and Tom clean away, but as soon as they had let go of me Dan put his arms around my waist and pulled me towards him. 'There, there, little baby' he said mockingly, and the opportunity to finally hide my exposed breasts inside his open jacket made me press myself close against him, with my limp arms hanging by my sides. 'There, there' he repeated while he lowered his hands, grabbed my skirt, and started to lift the back of it while he swung me around to give the other boys a good view from behind. They cheered even more than before, and several started to make high-pitched blubbering noises, imitating me. Still sobbing uncontrollably, I didn't really notice what Dan did until the back of my skirt hem was up around my waist and he jammed his fingers inside my underwear and started to yank it down while he caressed my buttocks. Suddenly I realized what he was doing, and a sharp shock of fresh panic hit me and made me stop crying - because my body had betrayed me.

You see, when adrenalin is pumped into your blood from fear or anger, your body gets prepared for Fighting or Fleeing - but it gets prepared for a third F-word activity too... I was soaking wet between my legs, and I confusedly felt that if Dan noticed, I would be busted once and for all, and would have to let him take the rest of my clothes off and be laid down on the dirty grey carpet in the hall, having lost the right to object to anything anyone wanted to do to me, while Nicole would continue her discontent observation, maybe whispering to Britt 'I knew she was that kind of girl. Horrible, isn't it?'

I closed my thighs as hard as I could to keep my secret, while Dan rhythmically pressed my crotch against his with his left hand in time with the hollers from the boys, and continued to push my panties further down my thighs by stroking my backside with the right. Someone else behind me had grabbed the hem of my skirt, and held it up to display my tightly flexed buttocks to the rest of the hall. I wanted nothing more than to get away from Dan, but I couldn't move without parting my legs just a little bit, and this would give him the opportunity to force his hand in between them, discovering that all he had done was justified after all. My racing mind wondered whether there were female martial arts classes where you could learn to kick someone with your knees kept together. Was it possible to get far enough away from him fast enough after all? But what would the others do? An unsuccessful escape attempt could fuel the group's pleasure-filled rage against me even more. I clenched my fists and took a deep breath. At that moment, the school bell rang.

III
With amazing speed, Dan got my panties up (giving me quite a wedgie), my bra down over my breasts, and the four middle buttons of my blouse done as the girls began flocking down the stairs. The room was spinning around me, but I still managed to catch Nicole's gaze; she looked at me for a moment before she turned her back on me and started to talk to the newcomers. Britt looked at me a bit longer with a puzzled expression, but then she joined Nicole. Dan remained by my side in ominous silence as the music teacher, a kind, bearded man in his thirties, came down the stairs and unlocked the classroom door. Everyone but Dan and me started to enter the classroom, maybe more hurriedly than usual, and I realized that my feet wouldn't move. I hoped they all would just leave me there; since I had lost all control of my muscles they would have to pass me again on their way out after the class, but that was alright, as long as no one looked at me or said anything. I would just stand where I was until the school was completely empty, and then maybe a little longer still... Dan touched my elbow, sending a vital shock of current through the Frankenstein's monster that was me, and I stumbled into the classroom and parked myself on the first empty chair. I began to stare at my desk, but I still noticed that Dan sat down next to me.

Somewhere far away, the lesson started. At one point I got a vague feeling that the teacher had asked me something, but I wouldn't lift my gaze, and after a while he seemed to give up. Towards the end of the class, I started to make out what he was saying, and I realized that he had began to read the names of everyone in the class in a slow, droning voice. Ah, the lead singer referendum. I continued to look down, perfectly content with whomever of the tidy, non-busted girls with nothing to fear from exposure they would choose. But when the teacher had finished reading our names, Dan loudly said 'I think Pattycake should do it.' No one had ever called me that before, but Dan made a gesture towards me to make it clear who he was referring to. 'Yeah' Tom shouted from somewhere else in the classroom, 'Everyone who wants Pattycake raise their hands!' I glanced up, and saw that four or five of the boys raised their hands immediately. After a few moments, every boy in the class had his hand in the air. I don't know who started the chant, but soon all the boys joined in, and even Britt and a few others of the girls: 'PATTYCAKE - PATTYCAKE - PATTYCAKE - PATTYCAKE'. The teacher let it go on for a while, probably thinking he would allow me my moment of glory, before he started to restore the order. So it was settled; I was Pattycake, lead singer of the class and favorite of the boys. I didn't dare to look at any of the surprised and jealous girls, but as I started to stare down at my desk again, I angrily thought 'You could have helped me. Just helped me a little.'

When a class finished, the boys usually rushed to the door, but when the bell rang to mark the end of this music class, they all remained in their seats. Some girls had began to rise from their seats, but they sat down again, confused by the unusual stillness. I slowly looked up, and noticed that everyone was staring apprehensively at me. On feeble legs, I rose and turned towards the classroom door without looking at anyone. Joyous with relief that I wouldn't try to talk to the teacher alone after the class, Dan yelled 'Open the door and make way for Pattycake!' Someone did open the door, and I walked out of the room, up the stairs, and out on the schoolyard without looking back, but as I opened the schoolyard gate to leave, I could hear the boys from my class behind me, singing in nice, embarrassed, friendly voices 'Bye bye Pattycake, see you tomorrow Pattycake, take care Pattycake...'

IV
When I arrived to school next morning, I was greeted by smiles and kind shouts for the first time ever. It was all from the boys, of course. They came up to me on top of the stairs to the school entrance, leaving the girls of our class in the schoolyard below, and tried to start a friendly conversation about our new math assignment. Everyone had the benign expression of a proud owner; they knew what I had, I would always have it, and it would always somehow be theirs. I didn't say much, but the boys kept talking, each establishing his relation with me in a few benevolent, condescending remarks. Then I heard Dan's voice behind me, making me jump a little.

'Listen Pattycake' he said, 'I have a question.' Before he could continue, I twirled around, rammed my hand in between his legs, got a perfect grip around his balls, and squeezed as hard as I could. Female readers, if you ever find yourself in my situation, give it all you've got - they're much sturdier than the guys themselves think. Dan screamed straight out and tried to punch me, but it just became a flap of the arm before he started to sink to his knees, while I squatted down with him, maintaining my grip. Finally I let go, stood up again, and slowly, quietly, but fully audibly for everyone in my class said 'If you ever call me that again, I'll tear them right off.' Dan remained down, and I had an urge to storm away from there - an urge I never had again after that day, and hopefully never will. Instead, I calmly asked 'Now what was your question?' Dan just made a sound as if he was crying, and I turned around to face the other boys. They were all awestruck, mouths open and eyes full of admiration. I looked at the girls below the stairs, and noticed that a few of them actually were grooming themselves a little for me, touching their hair and wetting their lips in a manner normally reserved for boys, but that they all had friendly smiles. Beside me, Dan started to move a little, but before he could get up Alex placed himself between us on the stairs, suddenly looking very shy, and meekly asked 'Would you like to do the assignment with us?' 'Nah', I said, 'I'll do it with a few of the other girls.'

V
For this to be a Proper Story, it should probably contain some kind of closure between me and Dan; at least a humble apology from him, maybe the two of us becoming an item to turn this into a spicy romance story, or me taking some kind of sexual revenge on him to turn it into something more kinky. Truth is, none of that happened; I honestly don't remember much more of him at all. Whatever you might read in Proper Stories, there are no real standards for measuring popularity in schools, and the 'most popular' and 'least popular' kids are never officially named - but thinking back, I don't think Dan was very popular that year. I was though, among both girls and boys, in a way I could fully enjoy.

The solo singing went great, too. Having sensed that there was something strange with how I was appointed for the job, the music teacher reaffirmed my election in music class the following week. 'And lead singer from this class for the school celebration...' he said hesitantly, 'it is Patricia, isn't it?' 'Actually' I said with a grin, and leaned back a little in my chair, 'it's Trixie.'

* * *
So, my friendly Conservative Commentators, nice of you to drop by my blog and leave your funny comments as individuals. This time you came off as amazingly spineless and pathetic individuals, but you are welcome to improve - you have your whole lives for that - and call again as individuals. But a group is a group, and if you're in a group, you're in a group. Fuck off, scumbags - I know your kind.

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Diary: Sent To the Corner

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I enjoy attention, support, and compliments as much as the next girl (more, some would say), but there still is a kind of group where I never seem to fit in, even if I try: The Mutual Admiration Societies. This is partly because I'm a bit of a tease; when I'm in a naughty mood, I enjoy infuriating men I meet to the point where their confused fantasies about what they want to do to me seem to fill the room like fog (and in the interest of public health and my own education, I sometimes let them do what they desire) - but there is another, deeper reason too: Total agreement makes me nervous. If we all view the world the same way, we must be missing some other, maybe wonderful, way of seeing things.

This doesn't mean I care for empty contradictions; if you don't have a new, meaningful counterpoint you might as well save your breath until you do. I'm just potentially interested in new perspectives and erratic behavior in any kind of situation. If a kid in a tantrum starts throwing soup cans around in the supermarket I'm inclined to join him for a while before comforting him, to share the experience. To just become part of the frowning majority standing around him makes me feel more small, stupid, and dead than I like to feel. I guess that although I'm a tease, I have very little potential for becoming a bully.

Because of this, I love blog commenting and debating, and I thank everyone taking the time to comment on my stuff, whether you agree with it or not (but especially if you don't and can formulate why), from the bottom of my heart. Any new view on a topic is invigorating, even if it just serves to convince you even more of your former beliefs. Unless you're temporarily in some kind of disciplinary role-playing (and I do my fair share of that), the sentence 'I don't want to discuss it' sounds to me like 'I don't want to live'.

With these rosy cheeks and ambitions, I have managed to get my comments banned from blogs twice in the last 24 hours, and I still don't do that much commenting. Since I believe in communication, I feel terrible that some people get so disturbed by my words that they rather close their ears than hear them, and I am contemplating a proper punishment for myself. (Feel free to leave suggestions in your comments.) At the same time, I can't help but wonder how it happened.

The first case was Martha O'Connor. Apparently, she recently published a book. Always interested in new lit, I read the excerpts. The first one is about Rennie screwing a guy while thinking about her literary agent and her youth, the second is about Cherry talking to her mom, and the third one is about Amy thinking of her friends. Now, I wouldn't try to convince any of you that it was bad, and I urge anyone interested to get a first-hand look, hope you'll love it and get a new, rewarding experience - but to me, the short excerpts (from which it would be totally unfair to judge the whole book) were pretentious descriptions of very small worlds, very far from my own.

Still, that's no skin off my nose; writing a book is a tough and sensitive task which seldom hurts anyone else, and Martha would have gotten nothing but attagirls from me, but her blog was so packed with raving reviews from leading magazines and self-praise I figured she didn't need it. I was about to move on, when I glanced over her latest post at the time, announcing a big big KEE-RAZY contest. In the contest, you could win a signed copy from the collectible first edition of Martha's book if you presented the best article of 250 words or less explaining why high school sucked.

This struck a bit of a bad (well, as bad as they get) note in me. I didn't attend as much of high school as I wish I had back then, partly because of my own emotions and partly because of circumstances beyond my control. After having written a book about her own high school experiences, Martha now wanted people to confirm them and join her lifeless frowning majority, instead of offering their own experiences. Being the girly-girl I am, I vented my frustration with a little joke; I wrote a short comment to the post explaining that I hadn't attended enough high school to enter her contest, but if I instead explained in 250 words or less why her book sucked, was it possible to win a new high school education?

I passed by Martha's blog again a few hours later, checking if she had replied to my little pleasantry. My comment was deleted. This made me feel terrible - I could never imagine that anyone at the height of such success could be offended by my harmless gag. I immediately wrote another comment, apologizing if she had taken my first comment the wrong way, and explaining 'It was just a little joke. Or maybe a little perspective.' By coincidence, I was returned to the blog a third time later that night, so I opened the comments for Martha's KEE-RAZY contest post, and found that my second comment also was deleted. Furthermore, a message at the top of the comment box laconically stated 'Banned by webmaster. Your comments will not be added.'

The second case was when I happened to stumble upon yet another of these raving-lunatic-conservative blogs, for which the need seems to be endless. This one looked mildly amusing, though; every regular poster seemed to have chosen an SF/fantasy nickname, one of them posed dressed as Darth Vader, and so on. So I hung around and read the latest post, describing how some college professor allegedly had said that religious people were 'moral retards'. As a devout Christian, the poster was very upset by this accusation, and expressed his desire to beat the professor 'within an inch or four of his life'. Obviously, I didn't take the post very seriously, and tried to add to the gaiety by posting a comment expressing that beating up the professor definitely would be the moral thing to do.

Then I moved on, but I noticed by accident a while later that my blog started to receive a lot of traffic from the lunatic site. I returned to the site to investigate, and found furious comments about me from a group of posters, all patting each other's backs in perfect agreement. (To be fair: There was the odd dissident too, taking some of the heat stored for me.) Since at least one of the posters had taken the trouble to track back to my blog to find something derogatory to post about me (wouldn't be too hard to find, now would it?), I felt compelled to mildly caution them in a lighthearted way about the dangers of lacking humor and not taking people seriously because of their age, sex, lifestyle or other attributes. This made my still dead serious attackers even more enraged, and I started to feel bad about the whole thing. It was never my intention to start a battle of wits against unarmed men, so I started to mellow things down and bow out - but before I could wrap it up, I was banned. Some found the slanted exchange entertaining; it should still be available here, but if you're a mild and sweet nature like myself you might want to skip this one - there is a lot of cussing and name-calling going on from the wasp nest I accidentally stepped in.

So to all past, present, and future outraged bloggers: Please forgive me for speaking out of turn. Maintaining a noteworthy blog is hard work, and I wouldn't want to make it a bad experience for anyone. If you decide to send me to the corner of your blogs to stand and ponder what a bad girl I am instead of talking to me, you have every right to. Can I please just ask one question before I go: If you are such fragile souls, craving nothing but constant reassurance, I certainly won't judge you - but why do you allow comments from stray cats like me in the first place? Why not start a club, where you all can speak in unison? Or maybe you have already, and just use your blogs for new membership applications? If so: Sorry I didn't fit in. In that kind of clubs, I rarely do.

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Topic: Does God Watch When I Masturbate?

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When I signed up for the FriendFinder network (which you all are welcome to join) I entered all kinds of information about myself, including selecting my religion from a drop-down list. I selected 'Atheist' without hesitation, since I simply don't believe there is a God in any reasonably religious sense of the word. This wasn't a hard choice; I am clear over my present feelings and thoughts on the matter. (In fact I thought much longer about what my true height and weight really are.) If other people think differently, or I change my own beliefs at a later point, that's perfectly alright too; although some unpleasant personality traits like intolerance, over-complacency and repressiveness can appear in religious form with certain people, I pretty much believe these traits would have appeared with these people regardless of religion – just as I believe that most of the genuinely good qualities some people maintain in themselves within a religious context would have been there without religion too.

So when I got a message via this network from a man in his early fifties who said that he would like to hear my opinion about a statement that perhaps could rock my world, religion was the farthest thing from my mind. But it was a tall order with high stakes, which I love, so of course I asked to hear the statement. This is what he wrote back:

"Did you ever wonder why there are all these constants in mathematical and physical formulas - and why the constants have the value they do - why can't they be changed? And what would happen it they did change?

Well in the fall of 1973 the worlds most eminent scientists met in Krakow, Poland to commemorate Copenicus - One of te speakers was Brandon Carter - and his presentation of the anthropic principle in cosmology made waves in the decades to come.

Brandon Carter, a cosmologist from Cambridge University, was curious about the constants too and he examined them during the Big Bang creation of the world - today a generally accepted and established theory by science -

The anthropic principle says that all the seemingly arbitrary and unrelated constants in physics have one strange thing in common - these are precisely the values you need if you want to have a universe capable of producing life - in essence the anthropic principle comes down to the observation that all the myriads of laws of physics were fine-tuned from the very beginning of the universe for the creation of man - that the universe we inhabit -appeared to be expressly designed for the emergence of human beings!!!

an example: The nuclear weak force is 28th power of 10 times the strength of gravity. Had the weak force been slightly weaker all the hydrogen of the universe would have turned into helium making the existence of water impossible

and another: a stronger nuclear strong force would have prevented the formation of protons - yielding a universe without atoms. increasing this force by 5% would have resulted in a universe without stars.

and the list goes on and on - a comprehensive compilation of the coincidences can be found in the book "Universes" by John Leslie.

Somebody formulated the results of this research as you might have heard it. The likelyhod of human beings appearing in this universe by pure coincidence is a lot less than the likelyhood of a tornado sweeping through a car junkyard and assembling a perfect Cadillac Seville year XXXX out of the junk -"

(The message continues with some brief remarks regarding parallel universes, wormholes, and chaos theory, but let's just say that at least one of us must be very confused on the subjects – I didn't really understand those parts.)

As you might see, I got a little disappointed by the message writer’s world-rocking abilities at first. But he spent more time and thought on his message than most people writing me do, and he seems driven by motives I basically sympathize with, so I’ll try to share my feelings on the subject with him and the rest of you.

First off: Of course it is amazing that we are here - you, I, and the rest of the human race - and the probability of it seems very low. That a universe with solid matter would form at all from the Big Bang was by no means obvious – but time as we perceive it only exists in our little universe bubble, and there may have been many, many other Big Bangs producing different results 'before' ours, and there may be even more yet to come.

If Earth had revolved more than 5 percent nearer or 15 percent farther from the sun than it does, human life wouldn't have been possible. (But several other forms of Earth life would still do OK, and yet others would probably emerge.) If Earth hadn't possessed a molten interior with swirling magma, it wouldn't have the kind of atmosphere we need or the magnetic fields protecting us from cosmic radiation, and if Earth's surface had been flat instead of made up from continent plates floating around on the magma, Earth would have been evenly covered with water to a depth of 4 kilometers (13 000 ft.). If a lot of amazing coincidences hadn't taken place, from the Mars-sized object slamming into Earth 4.5 billion years ago causing our moon to form from the debris (which provides the gravitational stability facilitating long and successful development of advanced life on this planet) to the KT meteor 245 million years ago (which, while starting the events causing the extinction of 95 percent of all animal species known from the time, put a stop to the dinosaur reign over Earth), things would have been very different.

But then again, the world is full of amazing coincidences; yesterday I was talked into a five-card poker game, and got the opening hand two of diamonds, five of clubs, eight of hearts, nine of hearts, and four of spades. The probability of getting this hand is one in two million five hundred and ninety-eight thousand nine hundred and sixty. It is also a completely useless hand, but its likelihood is still as small as the likelihood of getting an Imperial Straight Flush. (I folded gracefully, but a Turkish girl went 'all in' with an almost as crappy hand, and when she had lost her bet we all abandoned the game to carefully debate which – if any – items of clothes and jewelry she should be allowed to keep wearing after such a loss.) So all we can say about development of life on Earth is really that if these amazing things hadn't been true, something else, equally amazing, would have been.

What I don't quite see, however bigheaded you may become, is how the coincidence-shaped universe in which we happen to be able to live can be regarded as a universe "expressly designed for the emergence of human beings". We're a passing fad I'm afraid, slowly losing both the sun and the moon, and conditions don't seem to have been that favorable for us to begin with. (The species living in the 94.5 percent of Earth's habitable volume that we can't survive in might have made much smarter choices in the long run, and no matter which inventions we produce, we will never gain the survival skills of lichen. The insects which may succeed us as the dominant species of Earth will probably have much better proofs of how all of Earth's evolution led up to their reign than we have.)

Apparently, all or almost all of us are direct descendants from a group of a couple of hundred people who left Africa about twenty-five thousand years ago. If they would have had an accident along the way, no dice. As someone wrote in Science a few years ago: "There’s more [genetic] diversity in one social group of fifty-five chimps than in the entire human population."

Let's say that again: You are more closely related to every single human being - Caucasian, African-American, Eskimo, or Chinese – on this planet than two chimps from the same social group are to each other, and it is truly amazing that any of us are here at all.

If we prance around regarding the Earth as our inherited, eternal possession, we will naturally start abusing it and fighting over it straight away, but if we see our common existence as the passing piece of dumb luck it really is, we'll probably be more inclined to cling together and make each other's lives as easy as possible.

So why would anyone against their better judgment want to claim this 'anthropic principle' about intentions behind the scientific laws? As far as I can see, it's just the Church's love of Science, basically unanswered in the Western world since Scholastic Philosophy broke down into something resembling a junk heap about four hundred years ago, marking the end of what we slightly unfairly call 'The Dark Ages'. Since then, a certain group of religious people have constantly tried to find new 'scientific' signs of God's existence, all basically equivalent to "There must be an intelligent creator of the world since human beings had ears sticking out from their heads for thousands of years before they started wearing glasses."

To me, the quest seems a bit contra-productive, since religion is about believing and science about doubting, but if someone wants to make a scientific claim about God's existence, they should probably start by considering Karl Popper's rule: Anyone making a scientific claim should be prepared to state the circumstances under which she would abandon that claim.

So if you have a 'scientific' belief in God, you must be able to state which scientific findings would make you stop believe in God.

Again, I am naturally not trying to argue against religion – I would just like to stop some abuse of science. Western people used to want a strong God, striking people down and so, then they wanted an omnipotent God, the kind of which Homer Simpson asks Ned Flanders 'Can Jesus heat a microwave burrito so much he can't eat it?', and since that doesn't really work they now want a listening, observing God, who at least can provide an intention behind all of our confused existence, and that's fine by me.

Will He watch us tonight? If anyone gets a kick from that, I don't see the harm, but if He would start to get old-school judgmental and talk about His clever intentions, I would have to caution Him that He is on a very slippery slope.

Read on:

Game: Dress Me Up

I haven’t updated this blog lately – sorry about that, but I have received so much personal mail about my previous entries that I just haven’t had the time. Everyone I haven’t answered yet: Please forgive me, I have saved your mail and hope to find the time to reply later.

Some of the messages have been friendly, some less friendly. I will tell you about the less friendly another time, and concentrate on the friendly ones for now. A lot of them contain similar questions, about what I like to do and what I like to wear, and sometimes about what the senders would like to do with me. Since I can’t reply to each nice question and meet each nice sender individually, I am pleased to invite you all to a virtual version of my wardrobe, where I can show you some of my clothes and tell you what I do in them. Would you like to see me in my business suit, my summer shorts, or maybe my old girl scout uniform? Or would you like to combine outfits for me yourselves, by clicking and dragging items from my wardrobe onto me or off me? Be my guests, have fun, and let me know if you discover a really spectacular combination of some of my old rags! (Requires iframe support.)

Click here if you liked me, to increase my status among the Dirty Cartoon Girls...

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