Mother Monster at her Monster Ball

I just wanted to dedicate a post to the most iconic and most talked about woman in music today, whose picture currently covers most of my bedroom wall space. Lady Gaga, Mother Monster, Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (her real name) are a few of the titles this revolutionary performer is known by.

After a world famous first album ‘The Fame’ and a sellout Monster Ball Tour, Gaga has just released her highly anticipated second album ‘Born This Way’. Before its release Gaga made four tracks available to download to tease her fans. She headlined Radio 1s Live Weekend and HBO’s recording of her Monster Ball tour Live in Madison Square Garden has been repeated all over Sky Telvision over the last few weeks.

I have just been watching the recording, from her black and white backstage documentary sections to the bright lights of the stage. Gaga is a born performer. This show is the last of five in her home town and you can see it means the world to her. While in makeup she cannot hold back the tears, as after hearing the screams of the sold out arena she still, deep down feels like a loser and wants to be a winner for all her fans.

Gaga sends out two main messages with the Monster Ball: 1 – It will be a night to party hard and 2 – It will be a place where everyone; irrelevant of race, colour, gender, sexual or fashion preference, will be accepted.

The show is a mix of Gaga’s fantastic costume changes, weird set changes, imaginative props and instruments and amazing live musicians. We can all see that Gaga is a phenomenal front woman with her Andy Warhol yellow hair and bare bum cheeks. She has dared to be different with her thoroughly entertaining, theatrical show, with freakish costumes and wild backing dancers. In addition to all this glitter and epic chaos, there are moments to hear her fanatically raw, powerful pop voice, and watch a superbly talented songwriter sit at her piano, and do what she does best.

When Gaga constantly address’s her fans as ‘Monsters’, we see that she lives and breathes for the music and for them. She is very loud and very crude but screaming with pride that she beat all the negativity and came out on top. Her anecdotes of always dreaming of headling Madison Square Garden are heartfelt and powerful. She wants to instill her new found confidence into her fans and inspire them to be great.
In her minimal clothes and bare skin she has made it. She is one of a kind and was born that way.

Go Mother Monster!
PUT YOUR PAWS UP!

Voulez-vous coucher avec mois, ce soir?

Don't worry the above question is only proposed in order to make a point!

Whatever your immediate thoughts, remember them but now take the sentence and translate it into English. It turns from slightly sexy and alluring to provocatively immoral and shockingly forward. Why does this simple change of language incur such a different emotional response? Is it because we pretend we do not understand it? Or maybe just because we associate a french accent with impeccable style and effortless charm we just like to enjoy the way it sounds. I am trying to highlight the notion that certain attributes and ideas are perceived by humans as 'sexy'. Therefore sometimes the direct meaning is taken over by our subsconscious emotional understanding of it.

Take for example music, certain melodies and rhythms can be sexy themselves. Those with musical ability are often thought of as sexy. Whether it is a lead guitarist of a rock band a pop singer or the leading soprano in an opera. There is something about musical talent that is desired, appreciated, admired and therefore craved. This is all also echoed in the idea of power. This invisible force a human can take hold of is quite mesmerising when used correctly. Both mentally and physically, power can be very sexy. Angie Dickinson believes in this theory, 'No question - the more powerful men are, the more sexy they are.'

Intellectual expertise is another of these aspects, those who have a way with words and can articulate a perfect sentence as if it were poetry. People that can caress you with charm, whisper wit into your ear and cover your body in kisses of charisma. Many physical elements aside from the obvious biological ones have also become sexy by definition. Women with red lips, men wearing sunglasses, the smell of the pheromones in aftershave or perfume, a raised eyebrow followed by that indescribable glint in the eye that sends tingles down your spine. Some people manage to tick all these boxes, and I think there is a Greek proverb somewhere that says that these people were blessed twice!

The main qualities we find sexy are the those that are forbidden, secret, dangerous or controversial. We all know that smoking is insanely bad for our health and in the main, unattractive. However, many films show smoking in an sultry snapshot that captivates us beyond belief. Even the most simple idea of darkness. The way a full moon glows on a clear night, or how candlelight flickers in the wind creates a magical feeling of the mystical or the unknown and that is also sexy.

It is all once again subjective and completely down to the individual. What one person find sexy another may not. However, we do all enjoy discovering the certain universal traits that set off the sexy signal in our brains. The connection between most attributes that ooze sex appeal is confidence. This confidence is not necessarily known or created it's an innate, individual self-assurance that is transported through various means, and offers an glimpse of what our soul may look like at it's most attractive, with a bit of glamour thrown in. This can usually simply be achieved with a smile.

Many people including myself, claim that they find it very hard to be sexy. That is probably because they are trying! There are many people in the world who can effortlessly be sexy and get paid thousands of pounds to do so, but it is definitely considered an art form. Christian Bale observes that, 'trying too hard to be sexy is the worst thing in the world a woman can do' Well, looks like it will always be a tough act to perform correctly.

If in doubt, get some red lipstick or a leather jacket, add a cigarette and practice swishing your hair around a bit and you may just about pass the test!

To flirt or not to flirt, how to is the question...

How do you flirt successfully? This is a problem I have realised we all have come across at one point or another in our lives and it has been a focus of mine recently.

I would love to sit here and come up with a complete full-proof list of flirting guidelines for both sexes. However, I feel I am completely inexperienced in this area. It seems that no recipe of flirting success can be guaranteed. I mean there are a few generalisations and tips as a rule of thumb. For example, men cannot take hints or subtlety in any capacity and need our feelings spelled out for them! What if this means scaring them away? It is simply just a minefield and no amount of analysing ever seems to find a sure resolution.

We have the old fashioned customs detailing of how the guy should always make the first move. However, I have always been a firm believer that there is no reason why a girl can't do the same. It's films like He's just not that into you that depict single women as needy and desperate disasters who spend their time pining after missed opportunities, exes and men way out of their league. The complete message of that film is that no girl should ever take a chance on a guy or show him any interest at all, as the men hold the complete power and if they don't make a move then they are just not that into you! Sorry but I completely disagree with this belief. Which is probably why most of my friends after seeing the film, said that the main character (an annoying, womanising, desperate girl) was modelled on me! Great.

I guess the reason there are no rules for this, is that attraction, connection and love are all measured completely differently from person to person. To steal a quote from another great Rom Com, Win a date with Tad Hamilton, 'Everyone has their Tad Hamilton', For anyone who hasn't seen the film, Tad is like Brad Pitt! Meaning that everyone has a person they crave and fancy so much that they are like a famous pinup to them and for everyone that person is different. I often find myself looking at a slightly mismatched couple and quite judgmentally wondering how they have come to be together. Then logic sets in and I realise, that they simply just love each other.

Maybe it is the circles I travel in but I seem to find that men are often hypocritical when it comes to what they want from women. It is said in magazines galore that men like a strong woman, they like someone who can look after herself, they like curves and confidence. However the women I always seem to see men after, are apathetic, wimpy females, who believe it is attractive to seem completely helpless and unintelligent. Maybe men turn to these women because they are an easy target and are therefore willing to pander to their requests, who knows?

Also how do we measure the words 'fancy' or 'flirt'? Some people would say they fancy someone they just like the look of in a bar, but others would say they cannot fancy someone they don't actually know. Fancy is defined as an 'amorous love' which doesn't indicate any relevance to outward appearances. Still it is strange how we can simply be drawn to someone just from the way they look. Nowadays especially for the younger generation I'd say sexual attraction plays a huge part in the initial making a move process. When it comes to flirting there are so many different techniques, the whole thing gets quite confusing! For starters some people are natural flirters and incorporate a cheeky, flattering, tactile, humour into their personality with everyone they meet, this can often be very puzzling to the opposite sex. Others however are very reserved and would be able to successfully hide their feelings for another, for a vast amount of time without anyone catching on.

What I find hard is trying to figure out if the object of your desire would even be remotely interested in you at all! This is so difficult without making an obvious move and then being given an obvious yes/no answer back. I guess like everything flirting takes patience, something most of us do not have. In our busy, hectic lives everything moves so fast and we expect love and attraction to begin and continue rapidly in this ongoing motion. It also depends on the person you are. Some people can move on from their potential points of interest quite quickly, whereas others only invest time in the people they believe to be their soul mate, these objects of unrequited love then become attached to someone else, and are so labelled,'the one that got away'. (This is also the name of a great Pink song from her fourth album I'm not Dead)

One point that always comes up is to not look for love or relationships, as they will find you. Again I sometimes disagree with this point, much like the disagreement over whether luck is a random ray of sunshine shone down from a higher being, or simply the result of a man's own actions. I think love can be written in the stars, or put down to fate, the gods, the planets, or anything believed to have a gravitational pull, scientifically or metaphorically on human beings on earth. However, I also believe we can make our own luck by putting our feelings on the line when it matters, and stepping into the firing line knowing we may get burnt. Otherwise how do we learn if what we are feeling is real? At this point it comes down to strength of character, endurance, and our ability to bounce back from rejection that allows us to decide if this path is right for us.

All I will say is that only we can know what what we really want from a situation and how much we feel we are in control of it, even if this means facing an emotion we feel we cannot. I turn to the words of a great but rather unknown musician to sum up my point, Belinda Gillett - The Girl who disappeared, 'Don't throw your life away in fear'.