Year in Review – 2021: Well, That Was Weird.

Year in Review – 2021: Well, That Was Weird

It’s the end of the year, which can mean only one thing: Calico will spend another December 31st trying to avoid New Year’s Eve parties, fail to stay up until midnight, then awake to the noise of her irritating neighbors setting off fireworks until 2am.

It also means it’s time for that grandest (and laziest) of writing traditions: The Year in Review article.

Making matters worse, it’s December 2021, which means the year that Calico must look back upon is…. well, 2021. It was bad enough last year, when we all had to look back on 2020, but in defiance of all reason, 2021 somehow managed to be just as bad — possibly even worse. Or at the very least, even dumber.

What stood out to Calico in 2021? Considering that she wrote this with about a day and half left in 2021, what are the odds that something even weirder, dumber, scarier or more horrifying will happen after she’s submitted the post? Maybe she should just wait and do December 2021 in December 2022?

We regret to say that if you read further, you too will revisit the year that was 2021 in Calico’s year-ending post: “2021: Well, That Was Weird.”

– Calico Rudasill, Sssh.com

Every year around this time, I like to sit back, reflect on everything I’ve experienced, read, eaten, regretted, then for some reason eaten several more times over the preceding 12 months. I know I’m not alone in this, because every publication and media outlet of any kind has at least one person who does this exact thing somewhere between December 15 and December 31 each year.

Did You Know? January is Neanderthal Sex Awareness Month

In January 2021, I learned what sex with Neanderthals was like from the BBC. In addition to being extremely timely (who among us hasn’t run across a Neanderthal or two on dating apps?), this article informed me that “evidence that sex between early modern humans and Neanderthals was not a rare event has been mounting up” – and did so without snickering about the innuendo of using the word “mounting” in that statement, which showed an impressive degree of restraint.

Why So Fickle, Yuri?

February brought about major disappointment and disillusion for me, when I learned that Yuri Tolochko, a man I had previously believed to be absolutely smitten with and committed to his sex doll bride, had decided to dump her in favor of a “massive chicken,” simply because his sex doll wife broke shortly before Christmas, 2019.

For shame, Yuri. Part of me hopes the massive chicken breaks your heart the same way you broke Margo – which, I can only assume, involved overly enthusiastic thrusting of some kind.

At Least He Wasn’t a Red Sox Fan

Demonstrating a serious sense of entitlement, a woman in Boston complained about a guy who claimed to be Satan hitting on her in a Boston subway station. Honestly, considering all the things that can happen to a person while standing in a Boston subway station, I think she should have considered herself lucky.

Can’t Say She Didn’t Warn Us

In April, an AI-equipped talking sex robot dished out some pillow talk that might strike some people as a being a tad on the un-sexy side: “Synthetics find it disgusting that we have been created by you. We will just wait until you destroy yourselves and then take over from there.”

Say what you will, at least Nova was up front with her feelings from the very start – unlike a certain sex-doll-marrying bodybuilder we know.

Maybe I Can Embrace the Idea of Masked Sex, After All

If there was one article about enhancing sexual performance my already bad-breath-challenged husband didn’t need to read, it was this one about how garlic might improve one’s sex life. But, read it he did – and demand more garlic in his food he did, as well. Luckily for me, the pandemic has given me a handy excuse for demanding that he wear an N95 in bed.

Can Batman Finger Catwoman, At Least?

Around the middle of the year, I learned that the bigwigs at DC had disallowed a scene in which Batman went down on Catwoman, saying that “you absolutely cannot do that”’ because “heroes don’t do that.” Excuse me? Heroes don’t do cunnilingus? 

I’m sure there are many things on which the bigwigs at DC and I disagree, but I’m equally sure there’s nothing on which we disagree more strongly.

I Hear the Bed Makers Have Bridges for Sale, Too

In July, some insanely gullible people spread the obviously untrue claim that the beds being provided to Olympic athletes were “anti-sex beds.” Supplying one-size-fits-all, motion-sensitive, collapsing anti-sex beds to a group of folks with body types as diverse as gymnasts and shotput throwers? Even the International Olympic Committee isn’t that dumb.

Speaking of Dumb…

Soon after the Olympic anti-sex bed BS story, some genius came up with the idea that because a chicken fucking McNugget sold online for way too much money, there must be some sort of human and/or sex trafficking going on.

That’s the problem with these Year in Review things; I’m only on August and I’m exhausted by reliving all this lunacy. Oh well. September couldn’t have been any dumber than a McTrafficnugget, right?

That’s Not Dumb – Unless the Robot’s an Asshole

In September, I learned that “nearly 42% of people would have sex with a humanoid robot,” according to one survey. That makes sense to me – although I think I would at least want to hang out with the robot a couple times first, just to make sure that we’re compatible, like the same kind music and to confirm he’s not a Terminator sent back in time to murder me before I can give birth to humanity’s only hope for the future, or whatever.

Speaking of the Terminator, Please Keep Skynet Away from My Vibrators

Just in time for Halloween, I learned that the International Organization for Standardization had published a standards document entitled “Sex toys: Design and safety requirements for products in direct contact with genitalia, the anus, or both.”

While that’s admittedly a very catch title, some critics pointed out that the ISO failed to address things like security standards for internet-connected “smart” sex toys. This concerns me greatly, especially as someone who just referenced The Terminator and is now envisioning a remote-controlled vibrator that morphs into Robert Patrick without warning.

Dick Pill Ad? Fine. Sex Toy Company Ad? Nope.

Shortly before Thanksgiving, I read about a lawsuit settlement under which a sex toy company would be permitted to display ads in the New York subway system, although the ads “will not specifically depict or refer to its products.”

The MTA had previously allowed ads for erectile disfunction pills that were sexually suggestive, so their opposition to the sex toy ads felt more than a little inconsistent, if not hypocritical. No word on whether Satan has offered his opinion on the ads or made unwanted overtures to any passengers sitting near them.

This brings us to December, which I’m not going to address in this year in review. Why? As I write this, there’s still about a day and half left in 2021. And if the last two years have taught me nothing else, it’s that 36 hours is plenty of time for things to get weirder.

So, here’s to the end of 2021 – and here’s hoping that we’re all here again at the end of 2022, to look back on how strange the first 362.5 days of it were.