"Extremely pale people tend to have visible veins. No foundation is going to be able to cover a bruise effectively while allowing those blue-tinged lines to show through..."

"... which leaves the pasty among us kind of screwed unless we’re going to go get serious special effects makeup training. Try having your husband bite the nape of your neck in or just on your hairline.... Ask your doctor about arnica. It’s an herb that can be applied topically, and some circus people, BDSM aficionados, and sex workers swear by it for speeding up the healing of bruises...."

Advice from Slate's sex columnist, How to Do It, responding to a question that begins "I love being bitten. I especially love being bitten at the joint between my shoulder and neck during sex."

As an extremely pale person, I was interested in the makeup advice. I think she's saying that the EPP needs to use foundation that's translucent enough to let your little veins show through, that the purple is part of your natural-looking skin tone — sort of like pointillism....



As for the bruises... well, that's what's in Slate today. I wonder how hard they had to try to make sure nobody thought they were giving advice to women who are actually abused and wanting to hide it.

By the way, what is "the joint between my shoulder and neck"? This is a rough "neck bone connected to the shoulder bone" sort of anatomy. There is no "joint" between the shoulder and neck. The shoulder joint is at the arm.

I haven't thought about the song "Dem Bones" in a long time:

The lyrics are inspired by Ezekiel 37:1-14, where the prophet Ezekiel visits the "Valley of Dry Bones" and prophesies that they will one day be resurrected at God's command, picturing the realization of the New Jerusalem.

That reminds me of a book passage I've been meaning to show you. This is from Karl Ove Knausgaard's "My Struggle." He's looking at people in an airport and he's thinking about the scene on Judgment Day:

All these bones and skulls that had been buried for the thousands of years that man had lived on earth would gather themselves up with a rattle, and stand grinning into the sun, and God, the almighty, the all-powerful, would... judge them from his heavenly throne. ... [F]rom all the fields and valleys, all the beaches and plains, all the seas and lakes, the dead would rise.... Also those walking around here, with their roller suitcases and tax-free bags, their wallets and bank cards, their perfumed armpits and their dark glasses, their dyed hair and their walking frames, would be awakened, impossible to discern any difference between them and those who died in the Middle Ages or in the Stone Age, they were the dead, and the dead are the dead, and the dead would be judged on the Last Day.