So I am flying to London, minding my own business, and I look down at the cover of the airline's magazine. Big mistake. Here's the copy: "THE PERFECT WINE COMPANION. She's beautiful, curvy and stylish (but it's not what you think.)"

Oh yes, it's exactly what I think. It's sexism. I can tell, as can any astute reader, that this article is not really going to be about "babes." They didn't need to include the coy warning. But they might have in fact let us all know that what they were doing was a misogynist manuever conflating human women with metal objects. In this case, it turns out to be corkscrews. Yes, corkscrews. How can you gender something so seemingly neutral? And if you were to, for some reason, it ought to be male, since corkscrews penetrate-- you know what I mean.

But since the culture is dominated by men and functions to create and support male privilege, then any object that serves needs to be associated with the dominated class, in this case women. Hence the need to feminize corkscrews. Here's the scenario: you are a human and therefore male; you are privileged and therefore buying expensive wines; you are white but ok I can't really make that argument based on the evidence here; and you are all-powerful, therefore in a position to own said wine, corkscrews, and, yes, woman. And it's all naturalized and justified by cover headlines precisely like this one.

So what exactly is MY relationship to wine, privilege, ownership, pleasure? Well, as long as I enjoy being used, there's no problem.