From Octogalore:
So I get more interested in the feminist take-away, for a couple of reasons. First, it’s less covered. There are the self-serving Repub views on it, but very few leftists making the nuanced point that you can disagree with her choice and related views and not support them BUT simultaneously support her right to be discussed in the ways a similarly situated man would be discussed.
From Sara:
But what bothers me even more about this whole thread is that it seems to defy the purpose of the site. Now, there’s nothing in the language of the space to suggest that it was ever meant to be free from criticism. But it’s a confessional, of sorts, the kind of place you go to admit thoughts and feelings for which you have no other outlet. That kind of catharsis is hampered if, the second you let fly those bottled emotions, you’re immediately invalidated and dismissed, and innunduated with the asinine opinions of people who think they know you, your motivations, your life based on two or three sentences you scribbled off in an effort to just get rid of them, to get them out of your system.
The more I think about it, the more I think that this is the kind of site that isn’t built for dissenting commentary. The “me too”s were a good idea - we can feel less alone by hearing that someone, somewhere, is in the same metaphorical boat. Comments were even a decent idea, to the extent that people could reach out to one another and offer advice and comfort, or maybe to even just share stories and miseries. Moms had someplace to finally be able to say “You know, infants are really boring” without having to endure chastisement and ostracization from just about everyone, to admit that they wish their husbands thanked them more often for the care work they perform - to have a forum where their complaints were actually heard and not contested.
Because sometimes we need that more than anything - not to have something fixed, or examined, but just to have it heard and understood. I know that, for me, that’s a huge part of any emotional work I do, especially regarding conflict. I can’t move on and do any kind of processing or rebuilding until I feel like I’ve been heard, until I feel like someone’s listened to what my issue is/was.
Both from Laura Kipnis, via Aspasia:
“[F]or the sake of the children” is rather a selective enterprise, holding sway far more frequently when it comes to guilty matters like divorce than when it comes to pocketbook issues like education spending.
and
Sentimentality about children’s welfare comes and goes apparently: highest when there’s the chance to moralize about adult behavior, lowest when it comes to resource allocation.
From Monica at the $pread Blog:
Again, what other profession would we do this with? “I was going to help with the open heart surgery for my article, but…at the last minute I threw up and ran out of the room.” “I was going to sit on the 10th floor’s ceiling beams with the construction workers so I could bond with them over lunch, but my fear of heights was just too great, so I just stayed on the second floor, crying and shaking in my hard hat.”
A-freakin’-men.
Ren gave me kudos for engaging on this thread; and frankly, I surprised myself by having the stomach for it.
Quote of the morning goes to Ren, commenting about this particular installation of hand-wringing. (It was hard not to quote her entire post!)
MAYBE for people with kinks or rougher preferences feminist sex includes being aware enough of what they like to ASK for it, do it, enjoy it, explore it WITH other CONSENTING ADULTS! Wow! There’s a fucking thought…
I’ll tell you what, I think the woman who has the spine to tell her partner “I want you to pin me down, choke me, fuck the hell out of me and call me names” is a hell of a lot more empowered sexually than the vanilla woman who lays there and thinks of England rather than telling her partner amid sex what she really wants…no matter what that is. The woman who says “tonight, you’re going to fuck me like an animal, and tomorrow, I’m gonna fuck you like an animal” is light years ahead of the woman too ashamed or afraid to say that. The woman who tells her partner she wants to tie them up, do them with a strap on, and smack them around is better off that the woman who takes what she is given because she is ashamed to mention she’d like to do that.
And I sure as fuck want everyone to examine why they think they can tell other adult consenting people how to fuck or that they are doing it wrong and why they feel they can shame them for it.
I’ll have more to say about this later, when I get a free moment.
From Octogalore, in response to an idiotic “men’s rights” commenter (wait, that was redundant)…
[S]ubstituting a gender rights moniker for feminism would suggest that men’s rights are currently under attack in the same way. That’s why it’s ridiculous.
Racial, poverty, immigration movements all believe in “justice for all” but you don’t hear anyone advocating subbing something like “income rights” or “color rights” and for good fucking reason.
I’m sorry that men feel left out of the appellation (really, shedding tears as we speak) but it should be fairly obvious that focusing on the areas by far most vulnerable is the only way to get things done.
YES.
From Kerry Howley, senior editor at Reason magazine:
Everyone seems to assume that legalizing sex work will reinforce all sorts of ugly cultural phenomena women struggle against all the time. Writes one commenter at Feministing, “I’m politically liberal, openly feminist, and opposed to sex work precisely” because of “patriarchy” and “heterosexuality issues.”
I find this incoherent precisely because I share all the poster’s intuitions about problematic cultural norms. Of course sexism restricts autonomy in all sorts of ways that deserve consideration when discussing the prevalence of prostitution or the choice to enter sex work. Of course it’s deplorable that sexually adventurous young women are constantly told they are “degrading themselves” by seeking out various experiences, that every bit of enjoyment eats away at some secret store of purity. This whole tradition-the idea that women need be preserved in glass so as not to “ruin” themselves, lest they diminish their sexual value by “giving it away”-restricts the lived autonomy of women in ways I can’t even begin to articulate. None of the slut-shaming makes sense unless you assume women live to give themselves to men in their purest possible form.
If you find all of these cultural pathologies unfortunate, what is the public policy you should prefer? It seems to me that it is not the policy that deems it a crime against the American people to open your legs. Anti-prostitution laws add a layer of legal sanction to all of our worst intuitions about the treatment of sexually independent women; they strengthen and validate the idea that women who bed men with any frequency are sick, marginal, pariahs.
Every once in awhile I do go out and actually spend time with normal people…so I can remember why I do it so fucking rarely.
It’s because you suck and I hate you.
Ha!
On a totally unrelated note, happy Super Tuesday and Mardi Gras, whichever one’s your poison.
Back to work for me, now. See some of y’alll tonight at Amsterdam… yes, I’m coming out to the primary-watching-party, mainly to socialize rather than actually watch the primary returns. Coincidentally enough, I always have mixed feelings about going to these kinds of events, because I know there will be a lot of “normal people” there; but I’m going tonight because I know several friends will be there. And I will even brave it without Rusty… he’s sick. :(
I already posted a quote of the day, so this one will have to be for tomorrow (let’s just pretend I do these on a regular basis). Susan Mernit has written a seriously kick-ass BlogHer post, and really I should just say this is the post of the day instead of the quote of the day, because it’s hard to choose an excerpt.
I was going to write a post, at my friend Viviane’s urging, about women sex bloggers who are persecuted and their blogs shut down because their frankness offends members of their extended real world community, but I think the real issue we need to talk about is the high price women are made to pay, again and again, both for being sexual and for speaking their mind.
It’s not about the blogs, you see, it’s about the right for complete self expression. In other words, it’s about being silenced.
In my view, as much as we have strong women coming forth to share their experiences and beliefs, the culture at large is still making those who don’t fit the standard models—whether because of their sexual practices or their social mores—pay a price, and this is particularly true for women.
This kinda coincides with my latest Download Squad post (note the warning label is still intact, with irony apparently lost), but Susan is more eloquent. Read the whole thing. Oh, and she mentions Dacia and Paris Hilton one right after the other. Ha!
(But Susan, one question… Dave Winer is your friend? Really? Glad you guys get along, but geez, personally I cannot be friends with guys who say shit like, “Women are always accusing men of being sexist!” Cue tiny violin, take 5,676,372.)
From Wendy McElroy, via Ren:
Degrading is a subjective term. I find commercials in which women become orgasmic over soapsuds to be tremendously degrading. The bottom line is that every woman has the right to define what is degrading and liberating for herself.
The assumed degradation is often linked to the “objectification” of women: that is, porn converts them into sexual objects. What does this mean? If taken literally, it means nothing because objects don’t have sexuality; only beings do. But to say that porn portrays women as “sexual beings” makes for poor rhetoric. Usually, the term sex objects means showing women as body parts, reducing them to physical objects. What is wrong with this? Women are as much their bodies as they are their minds or souls. No one gets upset if you present women as “brains” or as spiritual beings. If I concentrated on a woman’s sense of humor to the exclusion of her other characteristics, is this degrading? Why is it degrading to focus on her sexuality?
<hint type=”passive-aggressive”> McElroy’s book XXX: A Woman’s Right to Pornography has been on my Amazon wish list for a while now. </hint>
This one comes from Jenny, via IM, regarding a real-life concern troll right here in my office:
you COULD do damn near anything you wanted to
but this is not 1820 and we live in a service economy
I literally LOLed. :)
Generally, I’m not real big on New Year’s resolutions (although Rusty and I do have a joint resolution [har] this year to recycle more, and in fact I’m about to go to Target to buy some recycling container thingies), but Figleaf has a resolution I can definitely get behind:
Oh yeah, and *especially* for those of us who are heterosexual, as long as we’re exploring, let’s explore some new ways to be healthy, happy, and horny-together human beings without dragging quite so many misery-inducing stereotypes into bed with us.
About a week or so ago I saw that new Burger King commercial where they stop selling the Whopper and all the customers freak out. Naturally, the part at the end about “Burger Queen” set off my Über-Feminazi Victim Hysteria, and I thought about blogging or at least Twittering about it, but then never did. But Roy (whose blog always makes me think of the time Sassywho said, “Someone give me a penis so I don’t sound like a feminazi”) did, and therefore he is the source of today’s Quote of the Day.
“If Burger King doesn’t have the Whopper, they might as well call themselves Burger Queen.”
I mean… what does that even really mean? Burger Queen? Like, what, if Dairy Queen started serving a shitty burger covered in Thousand Island dressing they’d become Dairy King, but since they don’t, they’re just a Queen? It’s obviously meant as an insult, but I just don’t understand what the insult is supposed to imply- Whoppers are manly and if you don’t have them you’re a girl?
I guess it’s convenient that I think Burger King is shite anyway.
From zuzu at Feministe, via Ren:
If we can’t speak about our own lives and our own choices with honesty, without having to worry that someone will freak the fuck out about how harmful our lives are to other women, how are we to move forward? How are we to, at the end of the day, live our lives the way we want to? To separate out what we really want from what we’re being pressured to do — whether that pressure comes from the patriarchy or from people who are excessively concerned with what message the patriarchy takes away from our choices?
Also, in the comments on Ren’s post, zuzu notes:
It hit me that the people who will argue that wearing lipstick or getting a boob job “hurts” other women wouldn’t accept that argument from the people who argue that same-sex marriage hurts their own marriages.
She shoots, she scores.
From Susie Bright:
I know that the TV-crowd is supposed to think that women’s sexuality has been revolutionized by rabbit-vibe-buying characters on Sex in the City, but I find that to be light propaganda, an amusement. If as many women used a vibrator, as the number who’ve only laughed at a vibrator punchline, we’d be living in a very different female world.
Be sure to listen to her podcast interview with Laura Kipnis, author of The Female Thing: Dirt, Sex, Envy, Vulnerability.
Pseudo-homelessness status: day 10 with no AC. Staying at Grayson’s next door neighbors’ house. They are out of town all week and very graciously have allowed two complete strangers to stay at their house. We will be gifting them with booze.
From A White Bear:
One of the reasons I try to keep a strict policy here of asking commenters to lurk before they comment is that viewing my writing through the lenses of stereotypes doesn’t reveal anything very intelligent either about me or the commenter, and it makes me sad. How quickly people are willing to judge women, to associate them with one unpleasant group or another! Feminists and misogynists alike do this because we’re all subject to media that places everyone into “relatable” roles.
Why should I need to explain that I’m not this or that all the time? Do I feel this need for no reason? Is it too much to ask that people invest some time in one another?
On a related note, sometimes I think, “Maybe one day I’ll get off my ass and write a comment policy. Probably right about the same time I update my bio, finally.” But then I think, well, why should I bother writing out some lengthy comment policy, when really, it should be obvious? I mean is it really that big of a stretch to expect adults to adhere to “don’t be an asshole” and “my house, my rules”? If it is, then that’s a pretty low bar we’ve set.
Ha! Kevin at Slant Truth always manages to be smart and funny, while wielding an incisive no-BS wit that puts most to shame. I love what he says about his comment policy:
[T]he quickest way to get me thinking it’s time to ban you is when you start wagging on about free speech. Or as I said over at Ilyka’s, when someone (who am I kidding, it’s always some dude), starts yapping about how they “just want to have a discussion,” it usually means they want to be able to say stupid shit wherever and whenever they want. It’s a blog for chrissakes. The whole point is discussion. People aren’t getting pissed because you want to have a discussion. People are pissed because you’re being an asshole.
“PodCamp Atlanta changed my life.” - Julie Squires
Without a doubt, that’s going in the promotional materials for 2008!
Also, Tim Moenk said something about web 2.0 stuff being a “lifestyle choice.” It was both funny and insightful, but I can’t remember the exact quote, so I can’t post it. Oh, and also, there was conversation about the difference between willingly putting information about yourself out there, vs. the government or whoever else taking such information against your will (and without your knowledge). Why aren’t more people talking about this rather obvious distinction?
Haven’t gotten around to fixing my CSS on the permalink page yet. Remember: patience is a virtue, dear readers.
Quote of the day, from Teresa Nielsen Hayden of Making Light, a blog known for having some of the most civil conversations on the web.
Anonymous nastiness is easy to write, and will always find an appreciative audience. I don’t care. It’s not a manifestation of the free and open discourse of the internet; it’s a thing that destroys that discourse. To be specific, it’s the same old trashmouthed bullying we all know from junior high and high school. Putting it on the net doesn’t cause it to develop any novel complexities or interesting emergent behaviors. It’s just the same old sh*t.
If you have a weblog or live journal, or you administer a website that has comment threads, stand up for yourself and your readers. The jerks are never going to like you, or praise you, or admit that you’re doing the right thing. And if you’re waiting for someone to give you permission to suppress and thereafter ignore malfeasants, you have it right now. If you want, I’ll make up a certificate. Go forth and civilize.
Positive quotes of the day are so much better than my previously-ballyhooed category “Bullshit Phrase of the Day.”
Look at what U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed said:
Perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection.
Right the fuck on. Maybe this country can turn itself around after all!
Via Sexerati.
From Trin, whose blog I recently discovered:
I don’t have the time or the energy any more to hang around people who are going to tell me my spirituality and my desire flow from dross. It’s not healthy for me and it’s a fucking waste of time.
Hell fucking yes.
Given that I’ve been in kind of a state of blogger doldrums for the past few days, I’ll just leave it at that.
Via Chris Petrilli:
[A] vast majority of the enterprisey solutions are driven by either people with a golden hammer, or with little-to-no business skills. This isn’t uncommon, unfortunately, as the normal corporate “ladder” has no room for technical skills, and so you get people moving up to the decision-making layer who by definition have had to give up their technical chops. This is unfortunate, because it means that you have people making far-reaching decisions that often have no idea what they’re talking about.
Real-world example: “What can we do with AJAX next??”
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