White Whine: One Of My Favorite Tumblelogs
… Most of the Time
White Whine will be achingly funny for several days so I’ll relax and enjoy it. Then, when I let my guard down, it will try to make a joke out of an absolutely legitimate problem that I have to handle myself, unless I can hire someone to do it for me.
I mean, what’s funny about real problems? “High property taxes for people who live in big houses” - does that sound like a punch line? No, it does not.
But the rest of the time, White Whine is pretty darn funny.
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Lord of Leisure has alerted me to a web site which promotes prayer, scripture, fundamentalist Christianity, healthful living practices, politically conservative principles, mainstream cultural values, and the Quiet Decadent Indulgence 3, a $106 vibrator, featuring “10 speeds of shaft rotation, 3 clitoral vibration patterns with 10 speeds each, 5 functions of vibration and escalation, glow in the dark buttons, and black satin storage bag,” along with a (heavenly) host of similar sexual accouterments.
The Quiet Decadent Indulgence 3
With Scripture Appearing On Same Page
Yea, verily, it doth appear that Lord of Leisure, by forwarding the link to The Joy of Christian Sex Toys, a NPR story about Book22.com, a self-touted “sin-free” sex toy business that “caters to the Christian community with books, toys and occasional advice,” has contributed the basis of the definitive Heck of a Guy Post-Valentine’s Day Sunday Post.
Book22.com’s Competitive Advantage: Its Retail Strategist
This excerpt from the NPR story outlines Book22.com’s origin and its unique inventory selection methodology:
Wilson [Joy Wilson, the founder and owner of Book22.com] says that after the birth of her first child, she had trouble rekindling her desire for intimacy. She and her husband went looking for marital aids, and found that Internet searches for products as tame as massage oil led to sites with pornographic images. “I was really surprised that it was that bad,” she says.
She and her husband talked it over and decided that there must be a way for conservative people to add a spark to their romantic lives. She says their site steers clear of certain types of sexual activity that they believe are unholy. And they carefully consider which new products to add.
“We pray about things before we add them to our site,” she says. “We live our lives very openly in front of Jesus, so we just kind of pray for direction about which way he would have us go, and I have to be honest with you — he’s really surprised us. … Almost our whole entire ’special order’ page has come about from that.”
First of all, does anyone else feel as though using Jesus as a consultant seems a tad unfair?
Regardless, I do admit to being curious about the wording of those prayers. As a result of attending three church services a week throughout my childhood and adolescence, I’ve been subjected to prayers thanking God for rain, sunshine, all manner of food, the fellowship of saints, crops (including lawn grass), and, on one memorable occasion, “the mystery of cooking divinity” (which I later discovered, to my disappointment, was a 7th grader’s jumbled version of “the mystery of the holy trinity). I’ve listened to prayers beseeching God for the healing of every imaginable injury, disease, and marital rift, victory in a variety of athletic events (usually coded as something along the lines of “Help us to play our best to thy honor and glory”), and success in a wide spectrum of businesses but especially farming. And, I’ve endured prayers ostensibly directed to God that sounded suspiciously like admonishments to the congregation (e.g., “Help each of us to recognize that all we have is but the gift of your gracious bounty and to contribute accordingly to help make the building fund goal”).
Despite this background, I am experiencing a severe case of cognitive dissonance when I consider the most effective and respectful format for asking Jesus his opinion on which nipple rings to stock (Purple Hearts made the cut) or the propriety of carrying sexually provocative games (Jesus apparently OK’d Strip Chocolate Game and 52 Weeks of Naughty Nights.
Other elusive details are also intriguing. Is pricing (e.g., quantity discounts) part of the prayer-consultation protocol or is this strictly a matter of the quality of the item?
One can deduce certain divine judgments from the store’s stock.
Based, for example, on the availability of several genital-associated edible items, including but not limited to O’MY Flavored Lubricant, Head Candy, and (edible) Happy Penis Cream 4oz., Jesus is down with going down.
On the other hand, given that the only bondage equipment offered is the rather insubstantial Sexy Velcro Kit, which features a “Soft Fuzzy Red Blind Fold,” “Red Pleasure Feather,” “Red Fuzzy Velcro Wrist Ties with Tethers,” and “Red Fuzzy Velcro Ankle Ties with Tethers,” I’m guessing our Lord and Savior is not endorsing any Domination and Submission games that extend beyond the symbolic (well, except that wives submitting to husbands thing, of course).
A Missed Opportunity
Despite receiving divine help, Book22.com isn’t infallible. Consider this marketing faux pas.
Verses from Song of Solomon (see Footnote #3) appear on every page, but as far as I can determine through arduous research, each page displays the same verse(s). I suggest the purveyors are missing a marketing opportunity by not associating certain products with specific passages of scripture.
The Scented Massage Oil could be paired with “For fragrance are thy perfumes good. Perfume emptied out — thy name, Therefore have virgins loved thee!” (Song of Solomon 1:3 - Young’s Literal Translation). And, is there a lusty Christian who hasn’t been laid recently who wouldn’t be willing to purchase and try out the Coochy Shave Creme ($11.99 for 8 oz), purported to be “perfect for intimate shaving,” if its advertising slogan were an admiration of a body likened to “… a smooth plate of ivory covered with sapphires” (Song of Solomon 5:14 - Bible in Basic English)?
The Cost of Salvation
There is, I was taught, a price to being Christian. With the discovery of Book22.com, calculating that cost in dollars and cents is now possible.
Using the afore discussed Quiet Decadent Indulgence 3 as an example, I searched for secular web sites offering the identical item and compared prices.
As noted in the introduction, Book22.com offers this electromechanical marvel for $106 (shipping and batteries not included). A routine search turned up several web sites selling the vibrator. The site thus found with the lowest price for this merchandise was Excaliber Sex Toys which offered the Decadent Indulgence 3 for $51.92 (shipping and batteries not included).
In this case, the Christianity Markup computes to just over 100%.
That’s not to say the price necessarily makes this a bad deal. If the Christian version of the Decadent Indulgence 3 comes with, say, a Get Out Of Hell Free card, then a 100% markup is a bargain. I’m just not clear on all the details.
Footnotes
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Cohen On Tour: Wrong Cohen, Wrong Tour
But At Least It’s Not The Same Photo Every Other Story Used
The Problem: Leonard Cohen 2008 Tour - Tour Cohen 2008 Leonard - Cohen Tour Leonard 2008 - 2008 Leonard Tour Cohen - Tour Cohen Leonard 2008 - …
Three issues impact the online and print stories about the 2008 Leonard Cohen Tour:
- The only recently available information about the 2008 Leonard Cohen Tour is limited to this announcement posted at leonardcohenforum.com:
The following advance notice is posted with Leonard’s permission.
Leonard Cohen will be touring with his band in Canada and US in May and in Europe in the summer. More details will be announced in February
- Only a finite number of combinations and permutations exist to present that core data.
- The journalistic imperative of professional writers, critics, and reporters as well as blog-empowered amateur hacks of the DrHGuy variety is to produce unique, original stories
The simultaneous existence of these three factors offers the spectator not only a light amusement but also an opportunity to assess the personality of the publication based on its selection of photos and nonessential facts in the attempt to create a very special post about the tour. From my casual and unofficial count, these extraneous elements occur most frequently in these posts:
- Leonard’s Cohen’s age: 73
- Time since last tour: 15 years
- Reference to the tour announcement appearing at leonardcohenforum.com, with or without a caveat (e.g., “if the posting is legit”)
- Speculation that tour is motivated by financial losses secondary to the theft of Cohen’s funds by his former manager
- Mention of Cohen’s impending induction into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Also interesting are the attempts to choose a unique graphic (a photo of young Leonard Cohen, a photo of old Leonard Cohen, an album cover, a video, etc) that accompany most stories, a quandary I have cleverly avoided in this entry by inserting “Cohen On Tour” pictures of other Cohens on other tours.
Again, Wrong Cohen, Wrong Tour
But It Is A Different Look
The Posts
I’ve placed the graphics and links to more than 30 of these posts at GoodCleanWholesome Fun
Footnotes
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Cyber-Bookmarkettes are Internet sites and phenomena that are self-explanatory and thus require little elaboration, that are interesting enough to observe but lack, at least at this point, utility or significance of the sort to justify more than minimal annotation, or that are so ambiguous or confusing as to defy elucidation.
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Do Not Attempt These Photos At Home - These Are Taken By Trained Professionals
Great Olan Mills Photos
Lord of Leisure is due credit for sending Heck of Guy the link to this collection of photos and captions which features, in the felicitous description offered at the site, “Total frickin’ awesomeness from Olan Mills, Sears and other fine portrait studios.” Indeed.
For anyone who had a photo taken at one of the low cost, high traffic flow portraiture studios in the 70s, this web page is laugh out loud fun served with a soupçon of nostalgic anguish.
These pictures and captions are available at
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Don’t Picture This
Strictly No Photography
This appealing site consists of photos taken where photos are prohibited - such as museums, art galleries, hospitals, and the Kolkata Metro:
Get your kix from these forbidden pix at
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Luciferous Logolepsy
The explanatory subtitle of this site is a handy litmus test. If ones response to a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words” is “Thanks for the warning” (and especially if it’s “Dude, thanks for the warning”), this may not be the preferred cyber-destination for that individual.
On the other hand, if ones response is “Got to get me some of that,” welcome to paradise.
Luciferous Logolepsy also has its practical applications. DrHGuy, for example, has recently grown concerned about the accelerating rate at which “Schadenfreude” (pleasure in another person’s misfortune) is pervading the argot of the hoi polloi. One can imagine his delight on discovering, at Luciferous Logolepsy, “epicaricacy,” a near synonym that is, as advertised, obscure still.
These 9,000 obscure words and their definitions can be found at
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They’re Selling What?
The Impulsive Buy
What is it? The Impulsive Buy specializes in reviews of products (primarily food products with a smattering of sundries not intended for consumption) that are typically new to the market and always at least a tad weird.
Why read it? Because Heck of a Guy readers who routinely plow through, for example, a dense dissertation on broomcorn, an extended exposition on the Fender Rhodes Stage 88 Electric Piano as an introduction to a post about Anjani, or an exhaustive examination of a study on hand washing as medical compliance need, on occasion, to decompress by perusing reviews of products such as
The Tooth Tunes Hilary Duff Toothbrush
The Pong A Long 7′ Beer Pong Table
Goldfish Flavor Blasted Blazin’ Buffalo Wings
And, of course, Jalapeño SPAM
These reviews can be found at
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Footnotes
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