Phet Mak Som Tam

Thai food served in the USA offers a mild version of the traditional meals offered in Bangkok restaurants. Most farangs order phad thai or fried noodles at Thai restaurants and specify that they don't want it spicy or phed. I rarely have seen Thais dine on phad thai. Their palette is well accustomed to chili-dosed salads and soups with som tam or spicy papaya salad being the national favorite. While everyone eats som tam or sour pounded salad, the true devotees to the dish are women. They will drop everything to sit down for a communal meal of som tam. Each forkful is accompanied by the smacking of lips in delight of the four flavors of sour lime, hot chili, salty, savory fish sauce, and sweetness added by palm sugar. Afterwards the eater inhaled a swift intake of breath or seet to outset the burning sensation of the hot chilis. I like som tam and can handle the heat, although some farangs have died after eating too much. Over the years I've asked Thais why they like such spicy foods. The men don't have an answer, because in fact they don't like spicy food. The women say chilis helps your health by strengthening your immune systems and cardiovascular systems. "They save food for go bad." Thailand is a warm country and food spoils fast, but one night at Mam's village in Bannok I said to a gathering of females on a bamboo mat around a big bowl of som tom, "I know the real reason why som tam is phet mak." "What can you know about Thai food?" an old woman asked while pouring a beer. "One, I used to think that the reason Thai women ate som tam was so they could get drunk of beer." Her friends laughed at the wizened crone, who had name two of her children after Thai beers. "Chilis aren't from Thailand." "Everything come from Thailand?" The old crone lisped through her betel-ruined teeth. "Not everything. Chili first come from Mexico, then farang bring to Thailand four hundred years ago." The Spanish galleons were laden with silver from Potosi and chilis from Jalisco. "First Thais not eat chili, but etiquette in Thailand is that man eats first and then children and women. Thai women are tired of eating bones and decide to add chili to food. Afterward men stop eating so much." "And men drink more." The old crone crowed with a sharp laugh. "Mao mao mao." "So it's right, you tried to poison the men." "Not poison. Just not make them so hungry." The old puying filled my beer glass. "Dim." We clinked glasses and drank our beers. They passed me a plate of som tam. I had a few bites. "Phet?" Mam asked with my son on her lap. "Not at all." I lied, fighting not to drain my beer. No one in America has ever eaten Thai food. It is fucking phet mak. Using heavy spices to preserve meats and fish is common because the chilies will stave off rot. Furthermore, if the meat does go slightly off, which is sometimes a deliberate choice in Thai food, the chilies will prevent uncomfortable intestinal symptoms because they kill organisms which cause food borne illness. For this reason, many hot climates have very spicy foods to ward off food borne illness, and travelers in areas with minimal hygienic practices would be wise to eat spicy foods along with the locals. Thailand is hot and muggy, ideal conditions for growing bacteria, so Thai food is hot and spicy as a preventative. The spiciness of Thai food is an integral part of a delicious culinary tradition. If you are not familiar with spicy foods, ask restaurants to tone down the spices so that you can learn to appreciate the dishes, and gradually increase the amount of spices in your food so that you can grow to love mind-blowingly spicy foods. In addition to being a new culinary experience, it will also allow you to win chili pepper eating contests, a valuable skill in some nations.

The What Button

A Parisienne friend was at the Doors at the Paris Museum of Modern Art and discovered that someone had added new images to the men and femmes bathrooms. I played ignorant and asked, "What's the dot over the F line?" Ruth responded immediately, "Seriously? We need to talk. "Is it something mythical? "The on button for a woman." "Where's the off button?" I have certainly never found one with any woman I met over my sixty years of life. "Why would you want one?" Ruth was mystified by my query. "So I would know that a woman loves me for just me." In truth I should have answered 'a desire for peace and quiet'/ "The button is not a spot ...so I reckon you could be loved for your brain and how it has you coordinating your Self and your "Id"." I loved how women have no idea what men think, for I have no Id only an idiot button which get's turned on after six beers. I am a simple man.

Lady Words That Men Don't Know or Use

JFK was reputed to be the fastest speaker in the English language. Whereas expert typists can tap out 120 words per minute, JFK could string over 300 words in a minute.

JFK is the recognized champ, however my fast-talking mother could have whipped the Boston-bred president like a red-headed step-child, mostly because women have a larger everyday lexicon than men.

16,215 versus men's 15,669.

Feeling has to be one of them.

Men only say that word singing the song FEELINGS.

Here's a sampling of words listed by The Magazine which will never cross our lips.

Book club: A female dominated affair, perhaps because women read more fiction, or perhaps because men aren't very good at talking about it.

Accessorize: If men were ever to use this word it would only be in the context of cars.

Empowering: Men never use this word, perhaps because for the 200,000 years humans have been on the planet, men have had all the power.

Burlesque: Something involving strip-tease that can apparently involve the above.

Size zero.

Home birth.

Pilates: Men in the UK, particularly, seem to have no interest in building up their core strength.

Pomegranate: Men seem ill-equipped to understand the significance and full range of superfoods.

Absolutely beautiful: The words women often use to describe friends who are not.

Breastfeeding.

Emotional intelligence: Something that men usually do not possess, instead preferring the kind of intelligence that involves dates of battles.

What are you thinking?: The classic female condition check.

Feminism: If even veteran feminists can't agree on what this means then it's probably best avoided by men.

Airbrushing: The process by which magazine picture editors oppress women in an underhand way.

Babies.

Superwoman.

Why: As in "why do you never call?"

Now that I think of it, JFK never used any of these words, because he was a real man.

Just don't tell my wife Mam I said that.

Women Love the Red Sox

Orgasm Mai Ching

Back in 1991I had sex with a Thai woman, who writhed in passion with her bones crackling like popcorn. At the end of an hour the twenty-year old Isaan native said, "I finish many times. You #1." I tipped the Marine Disco free-lancer an extra 200 baht and was very proud of my stud accomplishment, until hearing the same line during several subsequent encounters with other Thai women set afire by the ardor of my devotion. The tips got smaller and smaller, for their praise was either the truth or a lie and I was man enough to admit that perhaps these women might have been faking their finish. Ching ching or mai ching. A 2008 survey stated that 70% of Thai women don't experience an orgasm during sex. They feel nothing, while 79% of Thai men say that they have good sex without caring about their partner's needs. Foreplay is taboo for most men and western females are in agreement with their Thai sister. Orgasm is a rare occurrence, due to their sex partners' lack of foreplay, then again women have to realize that for most of a man's sexually formative life, we are forbidden by girls to touch their breasts or any other erogenous zones, so that by the time women actually want foreplay we've been preconditioned to consider most of their erogenous zones as off-limits.

This theory comes from Nick Hornsby's HIGH FIDELITY, but I have heard many Thai women swear that they never had an orgasm with their Thai boyfriend.

"He too quick. Only care for him."

Also Thai women have a problem with feeling free, since good girls wouldn't enjoy sex.

Only dok thongs or sluts like sex.

Not so, because while you can't eat love, it sure fills the heart when two come together as one. And I know, because no one ever fakes orgasm with me. NOt even me.

Perfect Day

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A Letter from Huey Newton

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A Letter from Huey Newton to the Revolutionary Brothers and Sisters about the Women’s Liberation and Gay Liberation Movements" is considered the first pro-gay, pro-woman proclamation to come out of the black civil rights movement. During the past few years strong movements have developed among women and among homosexuals seeking their liberation. There has been some uncertainty about how to relate to these movements. Whatever your personal opinions and your insecurities about homosexuality and the various liberation movements among homosexuals and women (and I speak of the homosexuals and women as oppressed groups), we should try to unite with them in a revolutionary fashion. I say "whatever your insecurities are" because as we very well know, sometimes our first instinct is to want to hit a homosexual in the mouth, and want a woman to be quiet. We want to hit a homosexual in the mouth because we are afraid that we might be homosexual; and we want to hit the women or shut her up because we are afraid that she might castrate us, or take the nuts that we might not have to start with. We must gain security in ourselves and therefore have respect and feelings for all oppressed people. We must not use the racist attitude that the White racists use against our people because they are Black and poor. Many times the poorest White person is the most racist because he is afraid that he might lose something, or discover something that he does not have. So you're some kind of a threat to him. This kind of psychology is in operation when we view oppressed people and we are angry with them because of their particular kind of behavior, or their particular kind of deviation from the established norm. Remember, we have not established a revolutionary value system; we are only in the process of establishing it. I do not remember our ever constituting any value that said that a revolutionary must say offensive things towards homosexuals, or that a revolutionary should make sure that women do not speak out about their own particular kind of oppression. As a matter of fact, it is just the opposite: we say that we recognize the women's right to be free. We have not said much about the homosexual at all, but we must relate to the homosexual movement because it is a real thing. And I know through reading, and through my life experience and observations that homosexuals are not given freedom and liberty by anyone in the society. They might be the most oppressed people in the society. And what made them homosexual? Perhaps it's a phenomenon that I don't understand entirely. Some people say that it is the decadence of capitalism. I don't know if that is the case; I rather doubt it. But whatever the case is, we know that homosexuality is a fact that exists, and we must understand it in its purest form: that is, a person should have the freedom to use his body in whatever way he wants. That is not endorsing things in homosexuality that we wouldn't view as revolutionary. But there is nothing to say that a homosexual cannot also be a revolutionary. And maybe I'm now injecting some of my prejudice by saying that "even a homosexual can be a revolutionary." Quite the contrary, maybe a homosexual could be the most revolutionary. When we have revolutionary conferences, rallies, and demonstrations, there should be full participation of the gay liberation movement and the women's liberation movement. Some groups might be more revolutionary than others. We should not use the actions of a few to say that they are all reactionary or counterrevolutionary, because they are not. We should deal with the factions just as we deal with any other group or party that claims to be revolutionary. We should try to judge, somehow, whether they are operating in a sincere revolutionary fashion and from a really oppressed situation. (And we will grant that if they are women they are probably oppressed.) If they do things that are unrevolutionary or counterrevolutionary, then criticize that action. If we feel that the group in spirit means to be revolutionary in practice, but they make mistakes in interpretation of the revolutionary philosophy, or they do not understand the dialectics of the social forces in operation, we should criticize that and not criticize them because they are women trying to be free. And the same is true for homosexuals. We should never say a whole movement is dishonest when in fact they are trying to be honest. They are just making honest mistakes. Friends are allowed to make mistakes. The enemy is not allowed to make mistakes because his whole existence is a mistake, and we suffer from it. But the women's liberation front and gay liberation front are our friends, they are our potential allies, and we need as many allies as possible. We should be willing to discuss the insecurities that many people have about homosexuality. When I say "insecurities," I mean the fear that they are some kind of threat to our manhood. I can understand this fear. Because of the long conditioning process which builds insecurity in the American male, homosexuality might produce certain hang-ups in us. I have hang-ups myself about male homosexuality. But on the other hand, I have no hang-up about female homosexuality. And that is a phenomenon in itself. I think it is probably because male homosexuality is a threat to me and female homosexuality is not. We should be careful about using those terms that might turn our friends off. The terms "faggot" and "punk" should be deleted from our vocabulary, and especially we should not attach names normally designed for homosexuals to men who are enemies of the people, such as Nixon or Mitchell. Homosexuals are not enemies of the people. We should try to form a working coalition with the gay liberation and women's liberation groups. We must always handle social forces in the most appropriate manner. posted by Jim Fouratt, longtime revolutionary