Rotting in Bed and Trusting Men

In 2024, there is no better way to reach women’s liberation than rotting in bed. 

Hey girls, gays, thems, and theys–I’ve got something to say! Imagine if I wrote this whole blog in rhyme. I’m not doing that, but it would be impressive no? 

But guys, hey–what happened to feminism? No judgment, I’m just wondering, as a Zillenial*, 

*Zilennial - (n.) A member of  Gen Z who still wears ankle boots, and has a distant memory of dial-up internet, but doesn’t whine about how “she saw 9/11 happen on TV, and then 2008 happened and we had no jobs!” blah blah blah–SHUT UP THE PLANET IS DYING! :) 

You see because I was in high school when Sophie Amoruso’s book Girl Boss became a failed Netflix series. I was raised by a single mother, an accomplished career woman, who somehow balanced raising three children while penning novels. I dreamt not of love or happiness but of financial success, pantsuits, a blunt bob, and Rosie the Riveter Red lipstick! Come to think of it, I didn’t dream of corporate labor, I just liked the outfits. 

But I was raised on my mother’s 1990s intersectional third-wave feminism–you don’t have to shave your legs if you don’t want to, you don’t take your husband’s last name, and you’re expected to have a job, and money of your own. I’ve taken those values with me into my early twenties, fuelled by feminism tote bags, trans inclusionary coffee mugs, and Greta Gerwig. 

Now, I did grow up in the south, so do I approach every new female friendship with a southern belle passive aggression and my-hair-is-bigger-than-yours sense of competition? Yes! While I #lovewomen, ultimately the misogyny is deeply ingrained and it will take years of therapy with a woman named Judith, with hairy pits and coffee breath to heal my wounds. (I’m being so brave and vulnerable)

I mean I hustle hard! I know what it means to girl boss too close to the sun. And I’m worried–because I am on TikTok. I know, crazy (!) a pop-culture connoisseur commenting on a TikyToky trend. And lately, ladies the trends are worrisome :) 

Here, is my evidence: 

Man vs. Orange Peel 

POV: You Have a Wife

Strong, Independent Women

I’m Just a Girl

Now, don’t get me wrong. I have a boyfriend! I force him to watch Real Housewives of Salt Lake City (can you guys believe the S4 finale?!,) he brings me water while I’m cozy in bed, and all too often shelves his own emotions so that I can have an over-dramatic outburst. 

“Your grandpa died? Ok, that’s sad, but this morning, I forgot an umbrella, and then the wind kept blowing my hair into my face, and then I saw a dead rat and now I’m really sad, and also I haven’t eaten anything or had any water today.” 

Listen, I too would j’adore if I had a “Pookie” sugar daddy for a boyfriend, who was obsessed with buying me luxuries and tending to my every need. I think living life as a stay-at-home girlfriend, subsisting off of only Athletic Green juices and Pilates classes, would feel like a 24/7 vaginal orgasm. Lovely :) 

BUT–and I may be the first person to ever say this, so get ready to have your brain explode–MEN KIND OF SUCK. 

Like, they are unreliable, untrustworthy, useless fuckalls who don’t know how to wipe their own asses, let alone wipe a glob of ketchup up from the counter. Men fall in love in their 20s, or god forbid, their thirties (I just puked in my mouth, sry) and become fathers, not fully understanding the responsibilities being a husband and father entails, and then when their wife doesn’t botox her forehead wrinkles into submission or doesn’t “bounce back,” after having a baby (ohmygod I really did puke that time) they swap her out for a newer, blonder model and leave Wife 1.0 in the dust with a baby strapped to her teet, and student debt her then-husband had promised he’d pay off for her with his 401(K). 

Like–y’all are humble-bragging about your boyfriend keeping track of your cycle… “oh he does that to know when to order me food, or get out the heating pad.” NO! He’s doing it to know when you’re ovulating, he’s gonna BABY TRAP YOU. Get out of there girl and get your MFA! You are TOO GOOD at oil panting to get knocked up! 

I just TELL my boyfriend when I’m on my period. Which is every day, all of the time. I never have to put out and I get all the Oreos I want. I’ve WON life! Sure he doesn’t have any money (he’s a poet,) BUT being the breadwinner is sexy ladies. And as much as I love to Bed Rot™ as the next girl, how will we buy our Drunk Elephat Retinoids or Sandy Liang Baggu without our own funds? We can’t jump from Daddy’s Gold AMEX to our boyfriends’ Platinum AMEX! 

Unless…no–wait…the darkness…it’s creeping in….My bed is calling out for me. The hazy depression of a mid-afternoon nap, luring me in…Aritiza’s Afterpay option begging me for use…

Could I? Could I simply marry my boyfriend…and get a pre-nup? Quickly, someone smart tell me can the following clause be included in a prenup: 

JET’s BOYFRIEND, will hereby pay for everything the silly girl desires because she is so cute and small. Cute and small girls should not be required to participate in capitalism. As long as Ms. Jameson– or should we say, Miss Jameson, maintains her cute and small* air she shall not be required to do anything. ILY. 

*Cute and Small in a legal sense, pertains to our client’s quality of self, not size, shape, or appearance. She will be adorable and also sexy 5Eva. 

I could sleep in late, snuggled into my Millenial Grey Brooklinen sheets (and before you ask, yes free tote with purchase,) I’d get my nails done weekly, pedicure bi-weekly, (I don’t waste money away…yet) I’d dress in LuLu and Alo exclusively, switching to designer labels only for our 8:00 pm reservations at Balthazar. Ooh! Or, we could order takeout for every meal, but not from DoorDash, DoorDash is for the proletariat, it’s more glamorous to order from UberEats, or even…Caviar. 

I could dabble in, as inspired by Stanley-Crazed-Mormon women, fairy water, ingesting unquantifiable amounts of Red40, slipping cherry-aid packets into every pour of my pussy-pink chrome Stanley. 

I’d spend my days constructing half-baked defenses for Taylor Swift’s carbon emissions, (would you hold her accountable for her carbon footprint if she were a man?) 

I’d voyeur TikTok and Instagram, never daring to post a natural photo of my face, fearful Sephora Ten-Year-Olds would comment, “How old u? Millennial?” Hahaha, I’d KILL MYSELF. 

Stop–I don’t mean to “not like other girls,” the current culture. But are we aware, as a culture, that BedRot is probably just…clinical depression? And that our reliance on men is probably a burnout response to the effort we’ve had to shoulder our whole lives, trying to defend our existence as women? 

Stay with me here. 

I was better in high school. I was loud. I was political, well-read, and unafraid to challenge men. I could make a pubescent boy’s just-dropped-balls rescind back to their boyhood scrotum with a single evil eye. I wasn’t interested in appeasing men because I didn’t want to fuck them. 

I was called “intimidating,” before I became a woman. I marched down high school hallways with a pair of high heels and an air of superiority. And I was superior. I, and most women, are superior to the men in our lives. I am smarter and work harder than the men in my life. 

I fight against my body and time, and a world that hates women, and queer people, and people of color, and any other “other,” and I still publish a blog on time. (Well sometimes.) I get to work early. I text back my friends, (two days late, but still!) I confirm my doctor’s appointments and pay all my bills early. I slog through this little life, and I dream for something better than being a wife or a mother. 

(not that being a mother or wife isn’t worthy, or a valuable job, oh my god I love women and if you’re offended, I hope you’ll accept my apologies–but no worries if not, and also I love you! I’m a girl’s girl after the girlie’s hearts!) 

I can make life, and I’ve chosen to make my own life matter instead. 

Florence Welch says it best: 

“I am no mother, I am no bride, I am king. I am king.” 

Not a pilates princess, or a passenger seat darling, I am a king. 

Yes, the king of this medial wage, tired to the bone, early-20s cluster fuck! 

Why rot in bed when life is waiting for me just outside my four walls? 

I want to be the poet, not just the muse. 

I will never trust a man to handle my money or take care of me completely. I have watched too many women before me, smart women, accomplished women, be overshadowed by lesser, insecure men.

This all said, my boyfriend asked me to open a joint savings account this week, and like my mother, and her mother before her, I will keep my own private savings account–my money and time never polluted by any man’s sticky hands and wandering eyes. 

God–long blog. I need a nap. Hey Lennon, if you’re reading this, could you bring me some water? Also–would you peel an orange for me?

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