Lynx have the answer to world peace...it's Lynx.

You've got to love the guys over at Lynx, they're real triers aren't they?
Despite it almost becoming a cliché to make the smell of Lynx/smell of desperation joke, Lynx HQ are still persisting with the 'Lynx will get you laid' story arch. Why fix it if it ain't broke, eh Lynx? Except it is broke. Really fucking broke.

Lynx's latest offering is Lynx Peace. I don't know what it smells of, I'm assuming that it smells the same as EVERY OTHER LYNX FRAGRANCE EVER RELEASED. EVER. I've never thought of Lynx as a particularly 'peaceful' scent; something about the way my head screams “ABORT. ABORT.” whenever I get a whiff of it on a packed tube carriage, or the way the scent makes me eyes squeak when I'm rubbing the tears from them.
The Lynx ads have always irked me, to say the least, but I think they've really outdone themselves with their 'Make Love. Not War' campaign.

The ad starts with a shot of a child's doll, which for all intents and purposes might as well be an actual child if we're talking about war, being squashed by a tank. It's fucking eye pops out, for gods sakes. Meanwhile, somewhere in Asia, a communist army has a assembled and are addressing their dictator, who has most likely killed a few mill in his time. In a helicopter, somewhere else, a soldier is looking clammy and anxious, most likely terrified about being IN A WAR. Then there's another foreign bad guy; he's getting ready to push The Button.
Lastly, we see a young woman, all red-lipped up, carrying her shopping home; I'm guessing a tasty war-time dinner of beef toes and a potato that has those root things growing out of it. She comes face to face with a tank, but rather than running, she looks at it all sexy and smouldery.
The music is building, something is about to happen. Of course, we all know what's about to happen because we all realised that it was a Lynx ad as soon as we saw the rep-lipped beauty and her “I smell man. I want to sex man” expression.
A soldier sticks his head out of the top of the tank and alas, she knows him. She's climbed up to the top of the tank, rather deftly in red court shoes (I have a hard enough time negotiating a steep driveway at times. Or a curb.), and she's on his face before you can say “He was about to obliterate your entire town.”
We then see the helicopter guy, and he's landed straight into the mouth of a Korean (indicated by the hat) beauty, so he's not doing any killing either.
Dictator guy? Don't worry, he wasn't up to anything sinister, he'd just arranged for his army to hold up coloured cards in order to create a huge portrait of him and his lady, because yeah, romance.
And phew, the foreign baddy wasn't going to hit go on the end of the world, he was actually just setting off some fireworks as a little treat for his significant other.
We're then fed the tag line “Make love. Not war.” Apparently, Lynx have tried to legitimise the whole thing by teaming up with Peace One Day, which should be good; I like peace, but it just seems a little half-arsed.

Couple. Of. Things.
I don't know much about war, thankfully, but I do know that usually women don't fair too well in times of unrest. We've all read harrowing stories about soldiers running rampant through towns and villages doing whatever the hell they like, usually with women and I feel like telling guys to drop their gun and grab the nearest woman in order to keep their hands busy is a little too in-keeping with the whole 'rape and pillage' thing.
And no, I'm not saying that Lynx are encouraging men to rape women. Of course they're not, but I think the assumption that sex is a peaceful act is quite dangerous.
Also, Lynx guys, have you ever heard of timing? You can make flippant statements about peace when the world is kind of peaceful, but suggesting that a weird Zorro-shaped spray of Lynx and the inevitable quick bang that follows will just calm everything down at a time when lots of people around the world are trying to hold their lives together whilst their homes descend into chaos is a little...gross.

According to the Lynx blog (yeah, that's a thing), the world is a better place when people “focus their attention on love and attraction.”
Maybs.
I was under the impression that the world would be a better place if we focused on securing equality for all people and stuff, but maybe we should try it the Lynx way?
So, guys- shag, don't shoot.

“I beat depression and was able to go outside again, brush my hair, be funny and re-establish an extensive skin care routine.”

I don't read magazines.
Except for Stylist, because it's, you know free. And quite good.

Around two years ago I was probably blowing thirty quid a month on perfume-scented pages of bullshit, but I discovered blogs and online mags and found a load of content that was funnier, more relevant and more inspiring that anything that I'd ever read in Glamour (I'd been, worryingly, reading it since I was about 15, so I think it had had more than enough time to prove itself).
The only time, in the last year, that I've relapsed in my magazine abstinence was when I was depressed. It feels quite weird typing that. Weird and embarrassing; I'll probably have to walk around pretending to scratch my forehead for the next six weeks. People kept buying me magazines because that's what you do when people are ill, and I kept reading them because anything that distracted me from my own thoughts seemed like a good idea. They didn't help, of course, and just made me feel uglier and more ashamed that I hadn't been outside for three days.

I'm currently living with my mum and sister, so occasionally a girly mag does find its way into the house. I like to think that it wanders in, like the little milk carton from Blur's Coffee and TV video, rather than accept that someone has actually bought it. When I do find one, sometimes I nudge it along the floor with my foot until it's underneath the sofa or the rug, but at other times, when I'm feeling particularly passive aggressive, I decide to flick through it- just to 'check in'.
I found myself doing this on Thursday evening, half searching for the one article that I was desperate to see nine months ago; an article about me, because at the time I was completely unable to separate myself from depression. I was depression and depression was me. I wanted to know that depression was something that attractive, shiny-haired, successful ladies got and wasn't just something that I'd let happen to myself because I'm rubbish.
So, I flicked through, but, after being told all of the exciting things that I can do with an ice cube (what if I have sensitive teeth, Cosmo, what then? HUH?), I came to no avail. None of them gave me The D.

I don't know why, women's magazines are supposed to be all ballsy now, aren't they? They will happily give us unrealistic advice on how to negotiate a pay rise or incredibly detailed, yet ultimately unhelpful, instructions for how to find the G Spot, but a meaningful, uncomfortable exploration into mental illness?
Nope.
I have noticed though, that post-natal depression seems to make it through the net. This is good, don't get me wrong. I think that this is because it can be quite neatly explained; it's the baby's fault. Your hormones went nuts, from the baby, and that's why you're depressed. Done. Plain, old, original depression can be a bit more tricky. Sometimes it isn't triggered by an unexpected redundancy, or the end of a marriage; sometimes you just wake up one day and feel indifferent, or disappointed, about the fact that you did.

Obviously, women's magazines should do more mental health pieces. One in five of us will have to deal with some sort of depression in our lives; so that right there is the reason why they should. I'm more curious as to why they're not featuring them, like, now.

Maybe it's because, when it comes to mental health, you really can't make any sweeping generalisations. Sweeping generalisations like all women are looking to climb the career ladder, or that we're all after dewy skin. Although, I find that duvets often crop up in most depression stories, so maybe that would be a good place to start?
No one's story is the same, and whilst I'm sure that it would be helpful for people who are suffering with depression to read about an experience that mirrors their own, that says all of the things that get stuck in your throat when someone says “So, how are you doing now?”, I don't think it's a necessity. At times, just seeing the word, all be it in an obnoxious pink typeface, would help, acting as a reminder that it's an actual thing, and isn't just you.

The fact that mental health can't really be generalised means that creating neat little 'Top Ten Tips For Dealing With Depression' would be a real bitch. Girl mags really like stuff like that; Top 69 Sex Positions (ooh-er, I see what you did there...), Top Five Cleansers, Top 10 Things It's Ok To Say (thanks for the sign off, guys).
Mental illness isn't really a 'top ten' kinda thing, it's more of a 'Just Give Me One Little Thing That Will Make Today Slightly Better Than Yesterday' kinda thing. Catchy.

And finally, more often than not, there's no 'big wow' headline when it comes to mental illness. The 'I Beat ____ And Found The Man/Job Of My Dreams' formula is a little redundant. I'm sure that some people do have 'big wow' stories, I hope so, but unfortunately for some there's no real finality to mental illness. It's not the chicken pox; you don't get it once and then go on to enjoy a life of immunity.
Mental illness also changes your perspective of what constitutes a 'big wow'. Finding your ideal man or your dream job seem completely remote, whereas doing 'normal' stuff again, like going to Wagamamas or laughing, is just the best.

What would my 'big wow' headline have been?
It's up there.

Dare To Ba-PISS OFF

And the award for the Most Annoying Phrase of the week goes to… “Dare to bare”.
To be honest, I’ve had this bolt in the chamber for a while now, but Wednesday’s belligerent bare-faced extravaganza tipped me over the edge and made me pull the trigger remorselessly.
Often used as the go-to phrase by women’s magazines and The DM whenever a female celebrity shows any skin that isn’t her wrists, elbows or forehead, “dare to bare” is a fun way (IT RHYMES) to instruct us readers to remove a layer. Sometimes it’s a layer of clothing, sometimes it’s a layer of makeup and sometimes it’s a layer of hair; never knowing what it’ll be next is part of the fun.

“Dare to bare” has irked me a while now, and I’ve built up quite a lot of resentment, but let’s just try to go through this in a systematic fashion, shall we?

Has anyone ever extended the challenge to men?
No. No they haven’t. In fact, when men want to raise money for a cancer charity, they’re actually encouraged to cover their face with more hair, rather than rip it out at the root at fortnightly intervals.
When flicking through GQ and stumbling upon an interesting piece on shorts, are men told to “dare to bare [their] legs”? No. No they’re not.  They’re just encouraged to wear the damn shorts if they want to get laid.

I think the ‘dare’ element possibly comes from the fact that choosing to bare yourself at the wrong moment can lead to all sorts of strife. If I “dare to bare” my legs when out in a club then I’m asking for that neon-print-Topman-tee-wearing arsehole to put his hand up my dress as I attempt to get near the bar; that would be the WRONG time to bare.
But, if magazine editorials are to be believed (and really, what is there to suggest that they aren’t?), then when I’m strolling along a St Barths beach, or heading for a light lunch with my gal-pals; that’s RIGHT time to bare.
Don’t get it wrong ladies.

I’m confused. What am I supposed to be baring again?
Is it my perfect pins ready for the summer sunshine? Is it my tarted-up tootsies ready for flip-flop weather? Is it my toned torso ready to rock this season’s crop-top trend? Is it my face to allow my natural beauty to show through? Is it my jaded, withered and rapidly cooling soul?
Apparently, it’s all of the above.

At this rate, I’ll be doing my morning commute wearing nothing but re-useable coffee cup, an open copy of the Metro and a grimace.


And what an image to end on.

Bare faces...

So. We all know what this is going to be about, don’t we? Faces. Bare, naked faces. Women’s faces, everywhere.

For the benefit of those of you who have proper jobs that don’t allow a sneaky social media check or for those who actually do something meaningful on their commute home, like read a book or talk to those around you to find out about their lives, today saw Facebook become a literal book of faces as a shit-tonne of women uploaded a #nomakeupselfie or a #barefacedselfie, or whatever the hastily created Hashtag was, in a bid to raise awareness, and in some cases money, for Cancer Research.
Of course, as with any flurry of social media activity, there was a bit of a backlash and the selfie snappers became the butt of the repetitive, un-imaginative joke.

My attitude to the whole thing can be summed up in two carefully chosen, and I think you’ll agree, powerful words.

Allow it.

Seriously, just allow it yeah?

  I am quite a cynical person and am quite intolerant of the quirky personal habits that weave together in order to create the rich tapestry of life (applications to date me can be sent to @BuckinghamAlice), so that’s why, when it comes to charity, I generally try to assume that people are doing it with good intentions.
In fact, scrap that. I don’t care whether people are trying to do it with good intentions; if some charity gets done, then that’s fine with me. I’m on board.
  So that’s why I’m struggling to take any swipes at those who’ve uploaded a picture of their makeup-less face today; they’re trying to do something nice and good and can anyone really be annoyed about that? It’s like watching someone put their 3p change into the collection boxes at McDonalds and thinking “Dick.”
  I don’t care whether the person has rolled straight out of bed, complete with eye-goop, or whether they’ve spent three hours contouring in cheekbones. Awareness of the cause is not dependent on how little makeup the person is wearing. “I’ve just seen a picture of Sharon with no makeup on, I feel very aware of Cancer Research. Ooh, a picure of Jane…is she wearing mascara? I am now less aware of Cancer Research.”

Regardless of who did donate and didn’t donate, who is wearing makeup and who isn’t wearing makeup, the whole thing got everybody talking; so in that sense, it really did raise awareness.
Constant awareness.
Incessant awareness.
And this is the problem. Ish. Long gone are the days when one person in your town would sit in a bath full of beans and you’d find out in the paper the next day just how long they sat there for. To be honest, I’m not sure I was even born in ‘those days’, but I know that things like that happened, I’ve seen it in books.
Social media means that you can see the person getting into the bath of beans and receive constant updates to let you know that they’re still sitting there. In the beans. Still. For hours. All day. Constantly.
We only found the pink, hopeful faces of distant relatives and acquaintances so irritating today because social media collects them all together for us and interrupts our mindless scrolling with them.
If social media had a day off, and women had decided to go into work wearing no makeup two things would happen-
1) People would constantly tell them that they “look tired”.
2) No one would care. They could say that they were doing it to raise awareness for Cancer Research, but no one would know about it and no one would care.

So, if there’s one thing that we’ve learned today, it’s that the best way to raise awareness of something is to annoy the shit out of everyone.

Daddy Issues.

This week I had two different men tell me that they feel paternal towards me. Granted, I've had much worse said to me by men in any given week, but their comments did set me off into a week-long brood, during which I've displayed all of the characteristics that I normally manage to repress quite well; neediness, loneliness, all of those super attractive and alluring ones.
It made me wonder whether I give something off; a father-less hormone or a half-orphan scent that only men can pick up on? I mean, I'm not wandering around introducing potential boyfriends to male passers-by (and yes, I am aware that there are currently no potential boyfriends, thank you), nor am I going up to men that I don't know any asking to borrow twenty quid for 'lunch'. I think that, in general, I look and act like a normal person. What would make two men, that I don't really know, feel paternal towards me?

I haven't seen or heard my dad for eight years. It feels like forever, when in actual fact, it's nothing compared to how much time there is left to go in my life. In eight years I've completely forgotten his phone number, the last thing he said to me, how old he would have been, what brand of cigarettes he smoked and I can only remember his voice when I imagine him saying “I've just put the heating on.” I'm completely terrified of what I'll forget over the next eight years.
So, even though the one line that you're constantly offered as condolence when someone dies is “It'll get easier in time”, it really just gets a bit worse, because the more time that passes is just more time since you last saw the person.
As I get older, and more adult 'life stuff' comes up; graduation, house renting, serious relationships, contracts, ends of serious relationships, council tax, buying fridges, weddings, driving, gardening, I find myself increasingly wanting the one thing that, as a self-proclaimed (as if there is any other type?) feminist, I'm not supposed to admit to wanting.
Sometimes, I really want a man around to look after me.

On Friday night I was followed and accosted by some normal-looking, Next-wearing arsehole. Despite my common sense screaming at me, I walked around the back-streets of Birmingham in a blind panic looking for a man to help me. I eventually remembered how to get home and sat brooding for the entire train journey. The only thing that I felt would comfort me was for a big strong man to pat me on the head and tell me that he would sort out the bad guy, and I was very disappointed in myself; even Disney have their heroines slaying dragons now.

A couple of years ago I told someone my dirty little secret, that I occasionally wanted a man to be around and look after me, and was told “Well, that's not a very feminist thing to say.”
It probably isn't.
Without getting all 00's R'n'B, I know that I don't need a man to look after me. I'm happy with my own financially insolvent state, I'll watch a film on my own, I can kind of change a plug and I secretly enjoy putting cheaply-made flat pack furniture together, so I'm pretty sure Beyonce will be writing a song about me any day now.
But I don't have some kind of feminist Britta Filter to run all of my thoughts and feelings through. In fact, the only process I use to check my feminist credentials in moments of doubt is this one-
“Do you think that women are equal to men and should be treated as such?”
-Yes
“Any exceptions?”
-Nope

I feel like losing my dad has, eight years on, left me with a lot of feminist guilt.

I'm not looking for a dad and boyfriend to be rolled into one icky package, but seeing as my life is not a Film4 production and I probably won't meet a Bill Nighy-esque character on a morning train who will begin to see me as the daughter that he'd never had whilst helping to heal the pain left behind by my father's premature death, I will probably continue to make inappropriate dating choices.
However, seeing as this blog post post will have plummeted the likelihood of me ever having a date again so low that Paddy Power are building their next promotional campaign around me, I'll probably have to figure out another way to work out my Daddy Issues. Quick whip-round for therapy?

Neknomiate- The Gift That Keeps On Vomming.

I have just watched a woman stand in a supermarket, wearing nothing but her underwear and a zany hat. No, I'm not watching every episode of Miranda ever made, but in an effort to do a little research for what I am about to write I decided to watch a few Neknominate videos. I've avoided the chicken heads and raw rabbit liver in favour of more reserved challenges; your raw eggs, your giggling timidly sipping a can of Strongbow whilst modelling La Senza's finest next to the discounted asparagus, etc.

I probably don't have to explain the concept of Neknominate, but just in case you've been hooked into a Netflix series for the last fortnight and have consequently sacrificed hygiene, personal relationships and current affairs, then Neknominate is essentially a drunk game of Chinese Whispers, with the whispers being those hot, wet, breathy whispers that only drunk people can produce. As is always the case with Chinese Whispers, the end result is very much far removed from the original message; what started as simply downing a pint of beer or seeing off a couple of shots has evolved into teenagers drinking tumblers of fluorescent car cleaner.

The reason that I don't need to properly explain Neknominate is because the media have already done it for me. A lot. I'm not saying that the press should have headed to The Winchester and waited for all of this to blow over, but why the mindless hysteria?
Tragically, five young British men have died since Neknominate hit our Newsfeeds and of course this should be reported on and offered as a sobering reminder of the dangers of excessive alcohol consumption, however I can't help but think that Neknominate has certain sections of the media rubbing its hands together with glee.

For a start, social media stories are cheap and easy. There's a reason that social media stories never really leave the pages of our paper, or are constantly wheeled out by topical 'magazine' shows whenever there's a slow news day; it's because they're quick to knock up. They very rarely require an expert's opinion, and even if they do they're denied one. No one has to be flown out to a strip of desert that was once a town, risking their life to produce a glitchy, out-of-sync news report . Journalists can sit quite comfortably, wedged onto their sofa whilst scrolling through months and months worth of tweets in order to find out everything that they need to know to write a sensationalist, misinformed social media piece.
A social media story is a quick tick on the whiteboard; “Right, that's some news done. Is it still raining? Great! More news!”

However, as much as a social media story is an easy lay for the media, there are other motivations behind the excessive, doppleganger-y reporting of Neknominate. You see, I think that the media kind of hate social networking sites. They're in constant competition for our attention, and more often than not it's social media that comes out on top. If a news story breaks, it'll often break on Twitter before newsrooms pick it up. During the 2011 London Riots it was Twitter that people turned to for information, with newspapers and news bulletins breathlessly playing catch up. Newspapers and broadcasters are aware of this; they're sitting in the corner, jealously eyeing their younger sibling as it performs for an engrossed audience.
So, naturally, the media will slag off social media at any chance it gets; it's kind of like the ex-girlfriend talking about the new girlfriend to her friends. Sometimes social media is a lawless state in which anyone can say anything to anyone, always with dire consequences, and at other times it's single-handedly turning Britain's teenagers into mute, illiterate, claw-handed “twits” (New Drinking Game: take a shot every time you read an article which smugly refers to people who tweet as twits). Social media is constantly portrayed as The Baddy, with the ever-noble, never knowingly underhand British press casting themselves as The Goodies.

I also feel like the media's decision to devote a, in my opinion, disproportionate amount of time to the reporting of Neknominate related stories is a preemptive reaction to the disapproving eyes of other European countries.
You know when you do something really embarrassing and for months afterwards, whenever The Incident comes up into conversation, you have to jump in and tell the story yourself so that it's told the way that you want it to be? I think that the press is doing exactly that; it's essentially standing up and shouting “Yes, Europe, we know that this is stupid. Look how stupid these young people are! And these! Of course, WE don't approve of this, look how much we don't approve of this!” whilst holding up pages and pages of articles.


The thing is, Neknomations have sort of stopped now, haven't they? I can't remember the last time that I ignored one on my Newsfeed. Yes, the original videos went viral, as did the more extreme challenges, but for the last week it's really been the media that has thrust a challenge into the faces, and glasses, of bored teenagers. Whether it's the tragic deaths that have been linked to the drinking game, the simple passage of time, or both, it seems that Neknominate is starting to burn itself out.
The media have already done the job that they've been lobbying social media big-wigs to do; once a 'youth craze' has featured as a discussion topic on the daily First Wives Club that is Loose Women, you know that it's dead in the murky drown, raw egg, Tabasco sauce infused water.

Reasons Why I'm A Slag...

On Monday 10^th February, I was called a slag.
It certainly wasn't the first time I've been called a slag, and it certainly won't be the last. It was pretty much a non-event; I crossed the road at a zebra crossing, assuming that the driver of an oncoming car would stop. He obviously wasn't really into the whole 'rules' thing, and ended up having to heavily apply the brakes. As I did a little half-jog half-walk to get to the pavement, he shouted “Stupid slag” from his window and drove off.
Although on the outside my expression appeared blank, on the inside I was enraged; so enraged that I had to take off my scarf and unbutton my coat as I stomped through Wordsley, before I angrily sweated myself into a dehydrated stupor.
Between fantasising about running after the car, catching up with him and 1)delivering a short but powerful speech on how damaging the term slag is to women and converting him into a FeMANist and 2)beating him to death with my purse (anyone else's purse get really heavy? Like, REALLY heavy?), I started giving some thought as to why I find the word slag so hideous.

Since November 2013 I've kept a note on my phone, recording all the times that I've been called a slag; I've been planning a post like this for quite a while. Let's take a little trip down memory lane, shall we?
- I bumped into a man.
- I didn't get onto an escalator quickly enough.
- I walked past a builder at Aston University.
- I told a guy to “Piss off” when he called me a “sexy bitch”.
- I gave a guy a dirty look when he shouted “FIT” into my face.
- A man bumped into me.
- I walked past a man at Birmingham New Street Station.
- I said “Fuck you” to a man who, whilst enjoying an e-cigarette outside of a bar, told me that he'd love to fuck me in the arse. I realise that my response was probably not the best, considering.
- I moved to a different train carriage after a group of men old enough to be my father surrounded me and tried to put their arms around me.
- I walked past a man in the street.
- I hit a man on the arm with my handbag when getting off a bus.
- I told a guy to “Piss off” when he leaned into me and made a weird humming noise.

Before I continue, I'm going to say something that shouldn't need saying, but I know that at least one person will think it; this isn't a humble brag. When men say things like this to me, I don't think it means that I'm attractive and I don't find it complimentary. All girls know the difference between the feeling that you get when you've caught someone checking you out, and the stomach-churning, skin-crawling, lump-in-throat-inducing feeling that you get when a stranger leans into you when you walk past them, or a group of men leer at you and begin to follow you.

We all know where the term 'slag' comes from. Didn't we all watch that mind numbing video about iron ore smelting in Year 9 science class, whilst stifling giggles every time the narrator said 'slag'? We were all giggling because we knew the real meaning of the word slag; at that age it was any girl that had let some inexperienced, ink-stained hands get beneath her bra, but you get the picture.

I don't want to sound like the start of a bad Powerpoint presentation, but Cambridge Dictionaries Online defines slag as “a woman who people disapprove of because she has had a lot of sexual partners.”
Ok, nothing new here; a slag is a woman who’s sexual behaviour is not approved of. I don't agree with the sentiment and I definitely don't give a toss about anyone's sexual behaviour, but that's the definition that we all know and love (or see as an example of a seemingly-inescapable, suffocating patriarchy, or whatever).
So why are women called slags when they voice an opinion that someone (The Slag Caller, as we shall affectionately title them) doesn't agree with? Or they tread on The Slag Caller's toe in a club? Or they try to get the faces of inspirational women printed onto our currency?
Personally, I think it's because to be seen as too sexually available (although, be careful that you're not too sexually UNavailable ladies, because that's bad too, apparently) is still thought to be one of the worst things a woman can be. You're waste material. Being too sexually available is associated with all sorts of things; bad parenting, lack of education, poor hygiene, even gluttony.
I might sound like I'm quoting Christina Aguilera (and Lil' Kim), but there really is no male equivalent. You can call a guy a dick, but you can call a woman a dick. Any time a man is referred to as a slag, it's always prefixed with the word man; I.e man-slag, man-slut, man-whore etc. This is because those words are all inherently female, and that's the problem.

So let me be clear, I'm not angry because the driver called me a slag without knowing whether I have in fact had a lot of sexual partners or not. Maybe I have had a lot, what's a lot? I have definitely done some things that someone, somewhere would deem “a bit slaggy”. I think it's pretty shitty to be called a slag whether you've slept with 2 or 200 people.
I'm angry because 'slag' seems to be the go-to insult when you want to make a woman feel small. There are much worse things that I could be called, things that would make me cry and question who I am as a person, but nothing makes me feel as angry, frustrated, invisible, silent and unfortunately sweaty as being called a slag.

I'm now taking my 'Time's I've Been Called A Slag' list to Twitter. Every time I'm called a slag, or a slut, or I remember an incident with a misty-eyed fondness, I'm going to post it using the hashtag #ReasonsIHaveBeenCalledASlag
Please, join me.
And then hopefully everyone will realise how fucking stupid it is.

PS
Guys, don't call girls slags.
Girls, don't call girls slags.