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90210 vs. Melrose Place: Which Was More Scandalous?

BuzzSugar — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:30:12 -0800

This week's CW drama block may have its share of cool guest stars like N.E.R.D. and Samantha Ronson, but, on the whole, it's a total mess. On the one hand, you've got the unstable girls of 90210 having emotional breakdowns at the drop of a hat; on the other, the Melrose Place residents are busy sneaking around to cover up their crimes. Personally, I was a bit annoyed by all the over-the-topness - especially you, Annie. Oh, and you, Ivy. But hey, at least it gives us a few surprising moments.

Ready to dissect each show and decide which packed more punch? (Warning: major spoilers!) Take a peek at my arguments and then weigh in with your own when you read more.

90210 point: Sasha is officially a nut job. First she tells Dixon that she's pregnant, but when Debbie gets wind of it, she questions Sasha even further to catch her in her baby lies. But the best part? When Debbie says the line, "It starts with you're not pregnant, and it ends with stay away from my son." Oh, snap! Congrats Debbie, you just went up a notch on the list of cool TV moms. Sasha backs off, telling Dixon she had a "miscarriage."
Melrose Place counterpoint: Did David kill Sydney? They sure try to make it seem that way. David tells Ella that he was blackout drunk that night after finding out that Syd was sleeping with his father - and then he has a flashback where he wakes up with blood all over himself and a knife in his hand. I gasped a little over the big reveal, but I'm not entirely convinced that David wasn't set up by someone else.

90210 point: Annie is getting in way over her head with Jasper, and unfortunately, she seems much too insecure to dig herself out. When Navid hears that Jasper is a dealer, he tells Annie and she confronts Jasper about it. Jasper wigs out, making Annie cry and beg forgiveness. Later, we see Jasper selling drugs to someone, so we know the rumors are true. For more on his buyer, keep reading.
Melrose Place counterpoint: Jonah makes out with Kendra, the hot movie producer, literally within the first five minutes of the episode. (That didn't take long.) He stops things from going further, but when he comes clean to Riley, he gets on her case again for her kiss with Auggie. She apologizes profusely, but the damage has already been done. By the end of the episode, I was thinking, Wait, did they actually just break up?! I don't think so, but if you stuck around for next week's promo, things do not look good for the engaged couple.

90210 point: Jen is back, throwing around her prima donna wicked attitude. She walks in on Ryan during his date with the bartender from the previous episode and goes into attack mode with the verbal jabs. ("You look older closer up.") Ryan is actually turned on by her jealousy, and the two become exclusive. But what I can't understand is why, after he knows that she lies, does he actually trust her story about Liam coming on to her? He totally buys it!
Melrose Place counterpoint: Auggie finally gives his a-hole boss Marcello a piece of his mind, er, fists. Marcello passes off one of Auggie's recipes as his own, and then he makes a few lewd comments about Riley - and you know how Auggie feels about Riley. He starts swinging, knocking Marcello out. Back at the apartment later, Violet shows up, and in a moment of what I can only blame on Auggie's emotional distress, the two finally knock boots. I'm guessing this means we'll be seeing Violet's worst kind of crazy very soon (right before she and Auggie say sayonara).

90210 point: Adrianna is inching closer to her previous life of drug use. It starts when she plays a song asking for Navid's forgiveness. (So cheesy!) He turns her down, so she continues sulking in bed, sobbing. Silver and Naomi want her to go to a meeting so she can stay clean, and with due concern - at the end of the episode, we see her buying from none other than Jasper.
Melrose Place counterpoint: Ella's squeaky-clean client, Jessie, is hospitalized with major cocaine in his system, so she begs Lauren to write a fake report citing an allergy as the cause of his stay. Lauren refuses. (Anyone else confused about why Lauren continues to take the high road, despite her side prostitution gig?) Ella then discovers a wad of cash in Lauren's room and realizes her Pretty Woman secret. Of course Lauren denies the accusations, but no matter - Ella decides to let her star take the fall anyway and promises to never question Lauren again.

90210 had way more melodramatic outbursts, but those ladies were so crazy that it kind of turned me off. (You girls give women a bad name. Even Violet seemed normal this week compared to you.) So I'm giving this week to Melrose by default: I was genuinely shocked at David's bloody flashback and the fact that Jonah has suddenly broken out of his perfect-fiance persona. I expect scandal from someone like Auggie or Ella, but from Jonah? Come on!

Do you disagree? Were you actually loving all of the melodrama on 90210?

Don't forget that you can also keep the conversation going over in the 90210 Superfans group in the Buzz Community. Check it out!

Photos courtesy of The CW

UK Report Calls Date-Rape Drug a Myth

TresSugar — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:00:00 -0700

Well this is depressing. A UK Daily Mail article titled Date-Rape Drug? No Dear, You Just Had Too Much to Drink claims that date-rape drugs are mostly an urban myth. The paper quotes academic research, recently published in the British Journal of Criminology, to argue that women are "willing to 'hide behind' the idea that a stranger poured poison in their drink - rather than face up to the fact that they had simply been binge drinking."

The original report claims that women often confuse binge-drinking induced blackouts and dizziness with drink-spiking, and researchers worry that this could cause women to be less careful about more common factors that put them at risk for rape - like heavy drinking. Unfortunately, this attitude suggests that because women are responsible for their binge drinking, they're also responsible for any assault they might endure. (What about the rapist?)

In addition, the authors say that "despite popular beliefs, police have found no evidence rape victims are commonly drugged with substances such as rohypnol." It seems like quite a leap to say that women getting drugged and then raped is an urban myth just because it might not be as common as a drunk woman getting raped.

It's troubling that some experts and the media cannot find a way to remind people about the dangers associated with binge drinking without discrediting women who have been victims of sexual abuse.

30 Percent Increase in Women Getting DUIs

TresSugar — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 09:00:00 -0700

Although men still outnumber women in drunk driving arrests by four to one, a report by the FBI for the National Highway Traffic Safety Commission shows that in the decade ending 2007, there has been a 30 percent increase in women getting arrested for driving while intoxicated.

Are women under more pressure for being the sole breadwinner in a he-cession? Are television shows encouraging them to drink more? Does motherhood drive them to drink? Maybe we'll see more PSAs about women and drinking, especially after the horrific accident recently in which a woman who was found later to have been drunk, drove her minivan the wrong way down a freeway, crashing into an SUV and killing eight people.

Laura Dean-Moody, president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving and a widow because a drunk driver killed her husband in 1991, thinks there should be stricter enforcement of drunk driving laws. More than 2 million drivers who have multiple DUI convictions will be on the road this upcoming Labor Day weekend. Moody doesn't think they should be able to keep their licenses: "These are people who have proven not once, not twice but three times that they are not worthy of the public's trust when it comes to operating a vehicle."

Should people with multiple DUI convictions lose their driver's licenses? Why do you think there's an increase in women and DUIs?

More Evidence That Healthy Living Combats Breast Cancer

FitSugar — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:30:04 -0700

Add this to your list of reasons to live healthily: more research is showing that exercising, maintaining a healthy weight, and avoiding excessive alcohol can help prevent breast cancer. According to data released today from the World Cancer Research Fund charity, at least four out of 10 breast cancer cases in the UK could be prevented by healthy lifestyle changes.

The conclusions are based on data culled from 950 research papers around the world. The study found that breastfeeding is also a major factor in reducing one's risk of breast cancer. Here's more from the study:

The charity recommends that both men and women aim to be as lean as possible without becoming underweight. A healthy body mass index (BMI) is between 18 and 25. . . . The charity also recommends at least 30 minutes of exercise a day and, if alcohol is drunk at all, it be limited to two drinks a day for a man and one for a woman.

If you're looking for ways to prevent breast cancer, it's hard to argue with exercise. Physical activity reduces body fat, thereby lowering cancer-promoting hormones such as estrogen. Researchers have also found that women with a higher body mass index have a higher likelihood of developing breast cancer.

Do you count cancer-prevention among your reasons to exercise?

Slow Sex Movement Guru: Women and the Power of Sexuality

TresSugar — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 07:00:00 -0700

"There’s a way that we actually have men take all the responsibility for sexuality, and then we get upset that they’re holding it."

This is the second in a four-part series of interviews I had with Nicole Daedone, who is emerging as the leader of the slow-sex movement and who founded the OneTaste urban retreat center in San Francisco. OneTaste invites men and women to learn about mindful sexuality by participating in workshops, yoga, and (for residents only) controversial "OMing" sessions in which men stroke women to orgasm during daily morning sessions. To read the second part of the interview with Nicole, read more.

TrèsSugar: What is the primary reason women come to OneTaste?
Nicole Daedone: I think it's to connect with power - not what we’ve made power into, something that you lord over people - but to connect with that personal sense of power. I think that’s one of the biggest challenges for women in our age: we don’t have access to our own power, and we don’t have access to our power because the raw source of it is our sexuality and most women have never been trained how to hold that much power in our bodies. So there’s a way that we actually have men take all the responsibility for sexuality, and then we get upset that they’re holding it. Or they have this sort of power within them, and then we get upset that we don’t have that kind of power.

TS: I don't know if you've read Ariel Levy's book Female Chauvinist Pigs, but she talks about how a lot of young women feel that having power in sexuality means attracting men, but it's not about owning it or their own pleasure. And then they wonder why they don’t have good sex.
ND: Well, I think that’s what power in its nascent stages looks like and I think that one of the reasons that we haven’t come to hold our power is that it's embarrassing. I remember when my orgasm was just starting to get turned on and I went from kind of, I was basically attractive, but I went to like “Wow!” I got really power drunk; power drunk doesn’t feel good. And I had to actually feel that something deeper was available.

TS: Do you think women are afraid of that power when they they feel it?
ND: It’s terrifying. As a woman, there isn’t a lot of information about how to do it well. In terms of how to be sexual, there’s no map for it so I’m really having to feel my way around in the dark and make mistakes and that’s scary. By the same token, I think that one of the things that’s happening in this time is that we’re sensing something deeper in ourselves that’s saying we have to listen to our bodies, we have to listen to these sexual impulses and if we have to respond to them, we have to learn how to do it well and do it in a really healthy way.

6 Bathroom Stall Scribbles Worth Repeating

TresSugar — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 07:00:00 -0700

Inspired by the wealth of random bathroom graffiti on Flickr, I invited you all to share some of the best writing on the stall you've spotted. Some are clever, some are just plain random, but they all made me laugh out loud. Here are six of my faves.

My co-worker was in an airport stall when she saw the words "Toy Story 2 was okay." Just randomly written on the wall! - Spiderlove
On a stall in the women's restroom . . . "Oh crap, I thought this was the men's room!" - Hottpink
At Gold Dust Saloon in Union Square SF there was randomly, "Two Tall Black Girls Were Here," No exclamation point or anything, i thought that was pretty funny - PirateKitty
"Hahaha I f*cked ur dad!" "Go home mom you're drunk." - Proletariat

Click here to see my absolute favorite two.

Tell Mommy: Did You See Babies Everywhere?

babysugar — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 04:00:00 -0700

They say that once you get baby fever you can't help but see chubby little faces and pregnant women everywhere. It's a sweet thing, but can be bittersweet for couples trying hard to conceive. Particularly those who take longer to get pregnant or cannot. I'm rereading Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife and was struck by a heart-wrenching passage that captures that longing.

So I was simply not thinking about a lot of important stuff because I was completely drunk with the notion of a baby: a baby that looked sort of like Henry, black hair and those intense eye and maybe very pale like me and smelled like milk and talcum powder and skin...I suddenly saw babies everywhere...My body wanted a baby. I felt empty and wanted to be full. I wanted someone to love who would stay: stay and be there, always.

Have you experienced that passionate and romantic pull toward the notion of having a child and seen their shiny lil faces everywhere?

Wasted Women Frowned Upon More Than Messed Up Men

TresSugar — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:00:00 -0700

Breastfeeding moms looking to avoid jail time might want to switch their kids to bottles if they're hitting the bottle themselves. A mother in North Dakota was arrested recently for breastfeeding while intoxicated. Police said that they could have arrested the drunk mother for endangering her child even if she wasn't breastfeeding, but is it really fair to arrest a mom for being drunk? Perhaps there's something more going on here.

A visibly drunk woman seems to violate deep-seated expectations of how a "lady" should be well-behaved, fragile, or conventionally maternal. For example, the insatiable fascination with misbehaving starlets and their clubbing antics isn't extended to their male counterparts.

Do you think you judge drunk women more harshly than men who overindulge in alcohol?

Source: Flickr User nyki_m

10 Reasons It's Wonderful to Be a Woman

TresSugar — Thu, 07 May 2009 09:00:00 -0700

I was going to call this "10 Reasons Why It's Awesome to Be a Women," in homage to the Yahoo Answers post yesterday, but I knew if I did, both you and a copy editor would think it was a typo. Anyhoo, here are my 10 favorite reasons from Dave's Daily (a man drew this up!) that it's wonderful to be a woman. (And since it seems necessary - yes, this is a joke.)

Women aren't covered with hair like shag carpeting.
If a woman inexplicably disappears for two weeks, one of her friends will notice.
A woman can fully assess a person just by looking at their shoes.
Women can be groupies. Male groupies are stalkers.
A woman can get a whole new lease on life just by changing her lipstick.

Want to see my other faves? Then read more.

Women never lust after a cartoon character or the central figure in a computer game.
Women can admit to others when they've made a mistake.
Women know who their children are without having a DNA test.
Women have total control over their eyebrows.
Women can get drunk quicker and cheaper than men.

Source

PSA Asks: Would You Do This Sober?

TresSugar — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 07:00:00 -0700

UK public service announcements sure like to use their shock value as an educational tactic. First we were treated to the teen pregnancy prevention ad that had us watching a screaming schoolgirl give birth on a playground filled with students, and now we have a new one discouraging binge drinking by exposing a sober nation to the disgusting antics of their drunken selves.

In the ad, a bloke demonstrates vomiting, fighting, urinating in public, going home with strangers, and yelling insults at women. Watching him do this in the middle of the day, stone-cold sober, makes drunken behavior seem even more intolerable. The British government wants viewers to think the same and eventually realize that they shouldn't get so drunk that they do things they wouldn't otherwise. Let's just hope the viewers aren't at home boozing, since they'd probably find it funny or think it's some sort of check-list of things to do next time they're out.

To find out more about the UK's binge drinking problem, and how alcohol consumption differs between the sexes, read more.

One in four Brits drinks enough to put his or her health at risk. While sloshed ladies seem to get a lot of attention in the UK press, men make up two-thirds of the people admitted to the hospital for an alcohol related problem. The rate is similar across the pond, where American men are twice as likely as American women to binge drink.

Do you think ads like the one above can make people think twice about excessive alcohol consumption and its consequences?