Why I love the blogosphere: Razor blades, biting, and blow jobs

Agrumer on razor blade proliferation:

Someone at The Economist with a bit of extra time on his hands was looking at the recent proliferation of many-bladed razors, and noticed that the time gap between blade increments seems to be shrinking: 70 years before someone added the second blade, a couple of decades to the third, only two or three years between the four-bladed Schick Quattro and the five-bladed Gillette Fusion. Might there be a Moore’s Law for razors blades? Hence the chart over there.

Now, that power-law curve predicts 14-bladed razors by the year 2100, but that’s not the interesting curve. The interesting curve is the hyperbolic one, for two reasons: One, it matches the real-world data. And two, it goes to infinity in 2015. And how are you going to get an asymptotically-accelerating number of blades onto a razor? Why, you’d need godlike super-technology to do that.

Via Protagoras.

The Ethical Werewolf puts in a good word for biting.

R Mildred launches a major frontal assault in the blow job wars roiling the feminist blogosphere.

Comments

[John]

Blow job wars!? When will the madness end!? As a veteran of the Cola Wars I can tell you that it's just not worth it.

Seriously, I think that way, way, WAY too much effort is being expended on this topic. If a woman or man of sound mind truly wants to suck dick, entirely of her or his own volition, then let her or him do so. Geez, how hard was that? You know all this blowjob talk is going to get Christopher Hitchens excited again, enough for him to write another article singing the praises of the cocksucking art being performed under veiled threats. Do feminists really want THAT to happen? Does ANYONE want that to happen?

Let it go, ladies; not just for your sake, but for the sake of a grateful nation.

[Swopa]

Kudos to Agrumer for noting that as so often happens, The Onion foresaw this development two years ago (with a keen insight into the mentality of corporate executives).

[John]

Oh, and I must admit I love my 5-blade Gillette Fusion. Best. Shave. Ever.

[Dan]

:) @ "frontal assault".

[Ben Merc]

I still just do two baby...That's enough for me.

[Linnaeus]

I think I'll stick with my Mach 3 Turbo for the time being. I'm paying enough for replacement cartridges and I suspect the improved shave from the Quattro or the Fusion won't justify paying even more.

[Alon Levy]

Interestingly, Mildred's experience seems to go against the current of the blogospheric sex wars. Usually what happens is that het radfems impose their own twisted views of sexuality on lesbian sex-pos feminists. Belledame had a post a while ago about how all non-sex-pos radfems on the blogosphere were straight except Twisty, who she called an incredibly tame lesbian. Mind you, usually the wars are about porn and BDSM rather than blowjobs, which might skew things somewhat, but the general rule is still that lesbian radfem bloggers tend to be far more sex-positive than straight radfem bloggers.

[bob mcmanus]

"...except Twisty, who she called an incredibly tame lesbian."

OMG, and I just added Twisty to my bloglines seeking conciousness expansion and an alternate viewpoint to all the patriarchy-dominated female bloggers I had been hoping to learn from. She is also a Texan.

But I fear one step into Twisty's blogroll will lead to mysterious fatal "Press Enter" zaps. There are some things men are not supposed to know, places we dare not go.

[jhupp]

I'm less interested in the number of blades than I am in the notion of a razor that vibrates. It is a remarkable and highly temporary anesthetic. Nothing has ever done quite so much to save the male face much pain five days a week. God bless the Mach3 Power, which will have my loyalty until something else truly revolutionary comes along.

[Alon Levy]

OMG, and I just added Twisty to my bloglines seeking conciousness expansion and an alternate viewpoint to all the patriarchy-dominated female bloggers I had been hoping to learn from. She is also a Texan.

Well, what do you mean by "patriarchy-dominated female bloggers"?

[bob mcmanus]

"Well, what do you mean by "patriarchy-dominated female bloggers"?"

To be ironic and funny. Here be dragons, indeed.

[Cyan]

I'm sure the razor blade curve will have to saturate eventually, probably around the time the blades cause a spacetime singularity.

[Alon Levy]

No, Bob, I mean which bloggers you're talking about. Belledame, Bitch | Lab, and Antiprincess consider Twisty and Biting Beaver to be patriarchy-dominated, and vice versa.

[bob mcmanus]

"No, Bob, I mean which bloggers you're talking about."

And it really was a joke with no specific applicability. I am in no position to attach names to such a description, doubt that I ever will be, and will zealously preserve my position as a neutral observer in that particular fight.

Although at least a third of the bloggers I read regularly are women, I only recognize one of your names.

[Alon Levy]

Oh, it's okay. All of these except Twisty are small-timers.

I recognize all of them but that's mostly because I got sucked into one annex of the porn wars.

[John]

God bless the Mach3 Power, which will have my loyalty until something else truly revolutionary comes along.

jhupp:

Maybe you didn't realize that the Fusion also has a powered vibrating version. I have used the Mach 3 Turbo, and I agree it is very good. But the powered Fusion is better. It's just as comfortable, and it gets even closer. You have no reason to trust me, so all I can suggest is to cough up the $12 or $15 it costs and try it. I can't remember exactly how much it cost, but it came with two blades and the battery.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

Um... there's really a "Biting Beaver?"

The razor talk reminds me of the Saturday Night Live faux-mercial for Gillette's new three-bladed razor: "Because--You'll Believe Anything."

It amazed me, and continues to boggle my mind, that they had the colossal balls, or tits as the case may be, to go ahead and release a three-bladed razor even after SNL anticipated it in a spoof.

[Alon Levy]

Yeah. It's basically a blog for radfems who think Twisty's too moderate.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

Nice. Because Vagina Dentata always reminded me of -- well, of the dentist, and of what horribly unflattering names the doctors give our body parts, when cute, dangerous terms like "pussy" are available -- but it always reminded me of Cibo Matto, sort of a "wishy-washy" sound, just in the sound of the name, you understand. Biting Beaver is much better. Such a cheery alliteration. Come on along!

[Alon Levy]

Honestly, I didn't even get the reference. I prefer not to muse in length about puns in blog names, especially when the blogs they advertise seem like a sexist parody of feminism more than like sincere feminism.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

I wouldn't be surprised if you're right (I still haven't read that blog), considering that that reference is pretty, uh, loaded, whether in an "owning our epithets" or "using an epithet" kind of way.

[Warren Terra]

As I recall hearing about all this, what happened was that one of the companies managed to get a patent on the concept of a three-bladed razor, thereby necessitating that the competitor's reply (which would inevitably come soon) would be a four-bladed razor, setting us on this apparent hyperbolic curve.

If true, this means that the apparent rapid jump to four- and five-bladed razors is anomolous and the result of regulation, and curves fit to this data point will be misleading. Therefore, we may hope for a return to a more natural - and sedate - pace of razor development, perhaps giving us another hundred years before the 14-bladed razor changes all our lives as only it can.

Alternately, if the rapture does arrive in the form of giant exploding razors, it will clearly be the fault of governmental regulation, hereby fulfilling a major bugaboo of those who fervently anticipate the rapture's arrival.

[DAS]

except Twisty, who she called an incredibly tame lesbian

What makes a lesbian tame vs. wild?

Would the lesbian who was so desparate for chewing gum (I was the only one around likely to have chewing gum and I was then chewing my last piece) she was willing to (and did) open mouth kiss me (a guy: with a beard ... so I reckon I cannot add anything about razar-blade count increases except to say that when I was shaving, the only way I could get a decent shave was to go to the barber and get a real shave, i.e. with the straight blade, the lather ... you know, the works!) to get it be considered very tame or very wild? ;)

BTW -- what would the underlying model of razor-blade-count proliferation be for a hyperbolic vs. a power-law curve, or are these curves so far purely emperical results?

[Alon Levy]

What makes a lesbian tame vs. wild?

To my limited understanding, the lesbian sex-pos feminists attack Twisty for being almost asexual and for cultivating a spinster aunt image (presumably as opposed to a more flamboyant one). You really should talk to Belledame about it rather than to me.

[none]

Up next, The Shaving war:
By shaving their pubes, are women buying into the Patriarchy?